Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

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

Please make your request in the appropriate section: Request a new arbitration case Request clarification of an existing case Request an amendment to an existing case This includes requests to lift sanctions previously imposed Request enforcement of a remedy in an existing case Arbitrator motions Arbitrator-initiated motions, not specific to a current open request

Requests for arbitration

Dalmatia

Initiated by Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! at 01:36, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Whenaxis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Zenanarh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• Silvio1973 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• DIREKTOR (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• Grifter72 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• Elen of the Roads (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights)
• DarkFalls (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Whenaxis
• Zenanarh
• Silvio1973
• DIREKTOR
• Grifter72
• Elen of the Roads
• DarkFalls

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Talk page discussions on Zadar
• Third opinion and mediation on Zadar and Luciano Laurana
• Talk page discussions on Luciano Laurana
• Talk page discussions on Schiavone
• Discussion on WikiProject Croatia
• ANI discussion #1
• ANI discussion #2
• 3RR report
• There was a RfC/U that has since been deleted because it wasn't certified within the time period: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Silvio1973 and Zenanarh

Statement by Whenaxis

There is a continuing dispute between various editors on WikiProject Croatia-related articles such as Zadar, Luciano Laurana, and Schiavone.

I was first brought to the attention of the dispute when I answered a request for a third opinion on Zadar where there was a dispute between Silvio1973 and Zenanarh. I tried resolving the content issues through a mediation on the talk page, which now appears to be unsuccessful as these problems continue to occur. It's mixed in with conduct related issues, as you can see from the above dispute resolution steps that have been tried at ANI (for incivility problems), 3RR (for edit warring) and a try at RfC/U.

The administrators involved, Elen of the Roads and DarkFalls, were there mainly to help resolve the issue at hand. Grifter72 and DIREKTOR have commented on various of the above dispute resolution pages as of recent so as a courtesy I have added them to the parties list. Also, just as a side note, DIREKTOR has brought up concerns that the IP addresses that have been commenting may be Zenanarh, perhaps we can have a look into having a Checkuser investigate that matter.

To break the back of the dispute, arbitration is the most appropriate avenue as you can see previous dispute resolution avenues have been exhausted or are not feasible because of the lack of willing to compromise.

It should also be noted that there was a previous arbitration case in 2007 regarding similar or the same topics: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia. Instead of filing for an amendment, I felt that filing for a new case would be much more appropriate since the previous case is likely out of date and no longer relevant to the current disputants.

Response to AGK

There have been request for comments previously with no avail: here for Zadar, here again for Zadar, here for Luciano Laurana and here for Schiavone. I have mentioned these efforts in the previous section "Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried". I apologize if I was not specific enough when describing "Talk page discussions". The RfCs from a few years ago still outline the same proposals that are being brought back to the table. Regards, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 01:50, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to DarkFalls

I have not asked for a Checkuser to investigate this matter because it was just a hunch by DIREKTOR that the IP addresses are following the same patterns as Zenanarh. I added it here just as a note so that it would be a notification as a common courtesy to allow Zenanarh to explain himself. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 02:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to Courcelles

For conduct issues, thus far, the current dispute resolution process is not able to resolve this issue as the involved editors would stop disputing immediately around the time reported causing the responding administrators to overlook the problem and pass it off as 'resolved' (see the ANI reports and 3RR reports in the 'Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried' section above), then the involved editors would continue disruptive editing and point of view pushing after a period of time has passed. As I may have mentioned earlier, the content dispute will likely never be resolved because of political and advocacy reasons also because the disputing editors won't listen to consensus nor will they be able to compromise as shown by the involved editors' persistency. Uncivil and personal attacks and edit warring is probably taking a toll on the involved editors. I think arbitration is likely going to be more significant and meaningful for the involved editors as it will bring closure to the dispute and they will be allowed to provide evidence to protect themselves (if necessary), whereas, discretionary sanctions will lead to hard blocks and the likelihood to return to Wikipedia and retaliate. As an experienced editor yourself, I'm sure that you are familiar with this occurrence. Regards, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 15:38, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

In addition, the Digwuren case relates to the Estonian-Russian ethnic conflict and the Macedonia 2 case relates to the Macedonian-Greek ethnic conflict. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 00:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to Elen of the Roads

I added you and DarkFalls so that you can provide a compound statement on the behaviour that you observed during your minimal interaction with the involved users. DarkFalls, Elen of the Roads, arbitrators or clerks, feel free to remove Elen of the Roads and DarkFalls from the involved parties list if it so warrants. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 21:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to Jclemens

Arbitration is intended to serve the project and I strongly believe that the conduct of the involved parties need to be reviewed and this dispute resolved to provide long term stability of the project which the Arbitration Committee can provide. I brought this dispute here to resolve the issue at hand once and for all. I agree that the Arbitration Committee should be the last and final resort, however, previous tries at dispute resolution have failed: RfCs, RfC/U, mediation/third opinions and ANIs. Reflecting upon previous cases such as the Macedonia 2, Digwuren and the previous Dalmatia case (which is outdated), editors have come to the Arbitration Committee to resolve disputes in what appear to be overlapping areas, however, without being specific to a certain area, editors will likely not pay attention to those cases. This case could be resolved by motion if you still disagree that a full case is needed. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 00:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to arbitrators

Noticing that Zenanarh hasn't been contributing for roughly two months now and appears to be sockpuppeting through anonymous IP addresses, as noted by Elen of the Roads below, it is likely that formal mediation (since it requires all editors to participate) will not be successful. I think that the conduct issue and evidence is fairly straightforward and can be resolved in summary proceedings. In due course, unfortuantely, this will end up at arbitration again or it will never be resolved, if the Arbitration Committee does decide to decline this case. I understand that arbitration is a very serious step in the dispute resolution process and it took a lot of thought to be placed into this before requesting for arbitration and I truly believe that the Arbitration Committee can provide longterm stability of this project and the affected articles. Regards, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 21:31, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd also like to note before the last Dalmatia case, formal mediation was requested but was rejected because not all parties agreed to mediation, in the end, the dispute landed at arbitration. I'm afraid this will happen similarly with this dispute. Regards, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 22:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Director

To me this is a very strange dispute. I am a Croat myself, and from Dalmatia, but for the life of me I can't see what's wrong with the edit proposed by Italian user Silvio 1973. Its just a few sentences, most thoroughly sourced. The main source is a primary source, to be sure, but the proposed addition simply does not interpret it in any way. I approached Zenanarh regarding this and he just snapped at me, leading to an inevitable ANI report. And its such a small edit too. Frankly I don't think anyone should have this much trouble entering well sourced information into a Wikipedia article.

I cannot speak for any future proposals on the part of Silvio1973, and he has at times felt it necessary to speak out rather harshly against Croats as a nation, suggesting "some may need serious medical specialist help" [1], but this specific proposed edit that is (hopefully) currently in the article has my support. In fact I can't imagine what policy-relevant argument there could be against it. -- Director (talk) 01:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

@DarkFalls: If I may, the reason is that, upon my having voiced the accusation, the IPs have stopped editing altogether. I for one do not wish to see Zenanarh indeffed (if that is indeed him!) over a few misguided posts. -- Director (talk) 10:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by DarkFalls

I do not know why Elen and I have been included as involved parties in this dispute, given our minimal involvement. Given the nature of this dispute is on the use of sources, specifically the omission/inclusion of Croatian and Italian sources to reference the nationality of specific historical people in the Dalmatia region - I do believe a content RfC would be more productive than arbitration. But there has been ongoing hostility and some incivility between the different editors (both Croatian and Italian) over the nationality of the people in the Dalmatia region (and the use of sources to support this); the failure of the dispute resolution process (and the earlier Dalmatia case) in resolving these issues may merit some attention. I refer to my comments in the (deleted) RfC for a more detailed explanation of this particular dispute between Zenanarh and Silvio, [2] (if necessary, I consent to having the page undeleted / my deleted comment posted). —Dark 01:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

In reference to "Also, just as a side note, DIREKTOR has brought up concerns that the IP addresses that have been commenting may be Zenanarh, perhaps we can have a look into having a Checkuser investigate that matter" - if there is any evidence of this, why has a checkuser investigation not been done prior to the filing of arbitration? —Dark 01:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Silvio1973

The issue about the articles in question is purely of content. The issue is that in the past parties rappresenting the most extreme opinions on this part of the Croatian/Italian history have confronted themselves. To solve the issue permanently more involvement is necessary from other users. Nevertheless I understand the difficulty of getting other parties involved due to complex nature of the issue and the fact the multiple sources often in conflicts exist. This is the current situation.

• Zadar : there is currently a process of mediation on some issues that looks to be promising, but this is going trough multiple personal attacks.
• Luciano Laurana : unknown editor is pushing a POV (Luciano Laurana Croatian architect). After careful analysis of the available sources iit is clear that this architect cannot be claimed neither Italian or Croatian because none of the parties involved in the discussion cannot bring a valid source other than Italian or Croatian stating that he is of any of the two nationality. I have moved away from this edit war. Still the issue exists.
• Schiavone : The article is in discussion. There is will to push the concept that the nickname/surname Schiavone indicate an ethnic origin (ie Slavik) and not a mere geographical origin (from Dalmatia).

A side note
When I wrote that "some may need serious medical specialist help" [3], I was not referring to Croatian users but to some contributors to the article Croatia. Everyone is welcome to check. Also please check to the diff in question and perhaps my opinion could be shared. The sarcasm in the diff in question was of extreme violence and I genuinely hope that the author will not do again something similar. --Silvio1973 (talk) 05:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

@Elen of the Roads. With the all due respect, I am not anti-Croatian. I am against the use of Wikipedia as a vector of any nationalism. In this istance this is the case of the nationalism of some Croatian users. The overwhelming majority of Croatian users are moderate people. If you want, I can give you a dozen of examples of evident nationalism in Croatian articles (both in en:wiki and hr:wiki). Please be ensured that I do not like the extremism of some Italian users (possibly I like it even less). However, I welcome this arbitration and think that there is large room to find a compromise and to give finally to the articles about Dalmatia the stability they deserve.

--Silvio1973 (talk) 16:57, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Elen of the Roads

Please note, I have no opinion on whatever the content dispute is, and have never taken part in it. I deleted the RFC/U as it had not been certified after several days - I don't consider this makes me "involved" as it is a routine admin action. I would appreciate the filing party explaining a bit further why they consider me involved in this dispute.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Elen of the Roads (talk • contribs)

In response to the request by Whenaxis, my experience has been that Zenanarh is extremely anti-Italian, also rude and not too inclined to co-operate with any process designed to assist in reaching consensus; and Silvio1973 is anti-Croatian, but more polite about it, and more co-operative with mediation. Someone tried to start an RfC/U on the pair of them, which isn't really the right way to go about it, and which was never certified. There are a number of options available - I suspect an RFC/U on Zenanarh might be profitable (or might lead to a topic ban), and everyone needs to focus less on what nationality the other person is. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

As a final note, any source that says that anyone born in Zadar in 1420 was either Croatian or Italian cannot possibly be reliable, as Zadar was under the control of the Repùblica Vèneta at the time, and Venice was not part of Italy until 1805, when Boneparte jammed it in . This is a sourcing problem that is not being in any way assisted by nationalist POV pushing on the part of modern Italians and Croats. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the IP editors at Zadar, two are Italian. I believe the others are Zenanarh. Zenanarh has edited logged out on a number of occasions, although mostly one off instances consistent with the Mediawiki interface having logged him out. There is one instance where he has edited anonymously for a day or so. He should consider himself warned not to do this again. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I also think that any claim of Croatian or Italian nationality should be absolutely banned for people that lived at that time. I tried to remove the reference to the nationality of Luciano Laurana but some user is insisting claiming him being Croatian. I have moved away from this in order not be involved in an edit war but this is an issue that need to be addressed.

--Silvio1973 (talk) 17:04, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by ASCIIn2Bme

I noticed during an ANI thread in which DIREKTOR and another user (not named as a party here) were given an WP:IBAN that yet another RfC/U attempt exists at User:Nuujinn/direktor rfcu. I don't know if that is indicative of a long-term problem or not, but keeping draft RfC/Us in user-space is probably counterproductive in the long term. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 21:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/4/0/1)

• Awaiting statements by the other parties. However, I see no reason why this should not be handled (in the first instance) by a request for comments. Until now, aside from the small group of disputants, the only uninvolved input has been by the mediator and a couple of administrators; it seems premature to me to jump directly to arbitration, at least at this stage. AGK [•] 01:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for the follow up; you're correct that I didn't realise those talk page threads were RFCs. I'll post my own final view on the request once more statements are in. AGK [•] 01:55, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• Awaiting statements, but noting that the Committee will not decide issues of content, such as whether a source is valid. (I think everyone involved is experienced enough to know this, but sometimes it bears saying again). What are the conduct issues here (if any) that make another case more effective than an AE filing under either Macedonia 2 or Digwuren to investigate whether discretionary sanctions are merited for individual users? Courcelles 06:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• Decline and defer towards a certified RFCU and AE filings if anyone's conduct is particularly egregious in the future. There's just nothing here I see within the Committee's jurisdiction that justifies the months-long process of a case, against selected and pointed AE filings if the misconduct becomes particularly bad. Courcelles 17:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: Both cases I referenced above allowed sanctions on geographic basises that include Croatia. (Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Courcelles 21:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• Decline without reference to any other facts of the case, if there is a failure to certify an RFC/U, the next step is not arbitration, but rather a certified RFC/U. Jclemens (talk) 00:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
• Decline in the hope this dispute can be resolved without arbitration, which is often a lengthy and contentious process. This doesn't imply your dispute is unimportant, merely that arbitration isn't the best way to resolve it. Suggest having a look at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution - there are several kinds of dispute resolution that could be useful. For the content side of the dispute, given the complexity of the issues, I would suggest the next stage is formal mediation. For the user conduct dispute, I would suggest a Request for Comment on user conduct. PhilKnight (talk) 15:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
• Decline per three preceding. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:34, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

American Conservatory of Music

Initiated by Ewater58 (talk) at 03:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Ewater58 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Orlady (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Ewater58 confirmed the arbitration of request with Orlady and based on the respond, Orlady is aware of the request.

Arbitration Requested

Orlady, you are requested to refrain your edition to the American Conservatory of Music page until the Arbitration process is completed. (Ewater58 (talk) 04:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC))ArbReq/G

Your recent editing history at American Conservatory of Music shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. Orlady (talk) 04:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Diff. 2 The truth is that The American Conservatory of Music exists - whether it is legally in Belize Central America, Hammond, Indiana and illegally in Illinois State of USA is not for Orlady or me to judge. I believe my edition is fair, unbiased and open.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

The dispute is that Orlady has been consistently deleting my edition without verifying action, twice within 1 hour - an egoistic action. As Orlady is positioned as the Administrator, I see that Orlady has abused her authority and there is no other way to resolve this civilly but to go to Arbitration.

• Link 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ewater58
• Link 2

Statement by Ewater58

I have been warned by an Orlady threatened to block my edition. However, I see no reason of her action as the Conservatory has been operating in both Chicago and Belize campus. I would be grateful if you can look into this. (Ewater58 (talk) 03:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC))

The key of arbitration is that Orlady insisted The American Conservatory of Music is closed, but it is not the truth.

The American Conservatory of Music (http://www.americanconservatory.edu/) stated in their web site that they currently operates at two campus: Belize Campus Santa Elena (501) 824-2382 16 Maxi Street Santa Elena, Belize Central America

Chicago Campus (219) 931-6000 252 Wildwood Road Hammond, Indiana 46324

Their recent activities in Chicago were reported in the Chinese of Chicago webpage: http://www.chineseofchicago.com/Content.aspx?nid=2772. The Wikipedia or its administrators is not the judge whether the Conservatory should be religious based or BHE based. The Conservatory exists today, this is the truth. (Ewater58 (talk) 05:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC))

The action by Orlady in deleting other editors input twice without taking verification action within 1 hour is an abuse of authority and this is why I take this to Arbitration level.

Statement by Orlady

This matter is nowhere near being a case for arbitration. User Ewater58, who self-identified on my talk page as an agent of American Conservatory of Music of Hammond, Indiana, is the most recent in a multi-year succession of single-purpose accounts, all committed to righting a great wrong, who have been asserting that the entity in Hammond, Indiana, operating as a branch of an ecclesiastical entity in Belize, is in fact the successor to the institution that formerly operated in Chicago. No third-party support for this assertion has ever been supplied. The fact that I placed two warnings on the user's talk page is nowhere near a basis for requesting arbitration. --Orlady (talk) 04:23, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

• I placed this in the correct formatting (original) and directed them to finish filling out the paperwork. I have refrained from listing this in the current arbitration requests until this happens. If this does not happen in 24 hours, I will speedy close this. --Guerillero | My Talk 04:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/0/0)

• Decline as unsuited for arbitration at this time. A look through the history was enough to convince me that the statement by Orlady is factual and correctly grounded in policy. Ewater58, if this were not a request for this Committee to review this material, I would have at least considered blocking you for edit warring during m review of the matter; you have to discuss matters, rather than just reverting and seeing if it sticks. Finally, this Committee does not decide questions of content only of conduct. Courcelles 05:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Requests for clarification

Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abortion

Initiated by v/r - TP at 18:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

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

• TParis (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights) (initiator)
• Haymaker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) Haymaker notified

Statement by TParis

On Feb 24, 2012 (Yesterday), I blocked User:Haymaker for violating the topic ban in relation to this case. The specific edits are [4] and [5]. The user has since appealed the block with the rational that "I commented in the continuation of an arbitration committee discussion". I am convinced that this user did not intend to violate the topic ban, but would appreciate clarification on whether the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Abortion_article_titles is or is not a continuation of the Arbcom discussion per remedy 5.1 of the Arbcom case and whether or not this violates the topic ban.--v/r - TP 18:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and unblocked. I was on the verge of doing so before opening this and the comments below and by AGK and PhilKnight have convinced me that it was the right thing to do. I'd still appreciate clarification on the above question for Haymaker's sake.--v/r - TP 03:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Whenaxis

I have since removed the notification for the following users that I notified that have been topic banned:Michael C Price and Haymaker. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. I think that the user should be unblocked because it was mainly my actions that led to this user being blocked, especially because the user thought it was an addition to the arbitration discussion. Regards, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 21:53, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Steven Zhang

I think that in this situation, it's quite possible that Haymaker wouldn't have made comment if they hadn't been invited to the discussion. This does appear to be a bit of an oversight on the part of Whenaxis, but it still technically was a violation of Haymaker's topic ban. I think time served would be appropriate in this situation. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 22:19, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Haymaker was topic-banned from the Abortion articles, and related pages, because he has "edited disruptively in topics related to abortion". Although I see he was given an automated invite on his talk page to participate in the discussion, such an invite should never have been made (and tangentially, is a source of concern to me). The invite cannot reasonably be interpreted by the appellant to mean his topic-ban does not apply, and he ought to have known that. In my view, you would be justified to use your discretion to unblock if Haymaker recognises that his topic-ban may not be ignored even if he is invited to a discussion. However, the block was sound, because topic-bans also apply to the community discussion established by R5.1 (and, if anything, must especially apply to that discussion). AGK [•] 19:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
• The topic ban does apply, however the mistake by Haymaker was entirely understandable. Given that Haymaker in his unblock request has apologized, I think the most appropriate course of action would be to unblock him. PhilKnight (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Clarification requested on ARBPIA 1RR restriction

The restriction is worded thusly: "Clear vandalism, or edits by anonymous IP editors, may be reverted without penalty." I've just unblocked a user who was blocked for violating these sanctions. Their argument was that they received a big fat notice on their talk page that contained this wording from the decision, and that they therefore believed they could revert IP users without penalty. I assumed the notice was misrepresenting the decision, but that is in fact exactly what it says. I'm a bit confused by this, it seems to suggest that any and all IP edits on articles covered by this sanction can be treated as vandalism. Am I missing something here? Beeblebrox (talk) 20:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

If this is the intention, that any edit by an IP to any of these articles can be reverted on sight and they are not subject to the 1RR restriction, shouldn't we just semi-protect the whole lot of them? Beeblebrox (talk) 22:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• I happened to have Beeblebrox's talk page on my watch list. I think the intended meaning of "without penalty" was "not subject to this (1RR) restriction". The wording should probably be changed to avoid misunderstanding and/or wikilawyering in the future. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
• Could we broaden this to 1RRs generally? If I'm talking out of my arse here (wrt the WP:TROUBLES arbitration case), I'd appreciate being told so (and why). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
• I think some better wording is in order, for example: "Reversions of clear vandalism, or reversions of edits by anonymous IP editors, are not subject to the 1R Restriction. "--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by EdJohnston

It seems harmless to make the change in wording recommended by Sphilbrick, but I don't think it is necessary. The {{ARBPIA}} template already reads like this:

"Certain edits may be reverted without penalty. These include edits made by anonymous IP editors, and edits which are clearly vandalism."

I find it hard to tell the difference between that and Sphilbrick's version:

"Reversions of clear vandalism, or reversions of edits by anonymous IP editors, are not subject to the 1R Restriction."

It goes without saying that IP edits should only be reverted for a good reason and that the WP:EW policy still applies. For background, the exemption that allows reverting IP edits seems to come from a proposal by T. Canens in November 2010, which got included in the result of the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Arbitration Enforcement/Israel-Palestine articles. From there it made its way into the wording of the {{ARBPIA}} template, and then got added as a community supplement to the WP:ARBPIA decision. The sentence in WP:ARBPIA was tweaked by PhilKnight in January 2011 to agree with the language in the {{ARBPIA}} template. 1RR rules which exempt IP edits are not common, and it is logical that they might create some confusion. The special 1RR rules that exempt IP edits still appear to serve a purpose in the most contentious areas. EdJohnston (talk) 17:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it should go without saying that "IP edits should only be reverted for a good reason" but I think the issue arose because someone read "Certain edits may be reverted without penalty. These include edits made by anonymous IP editors..." and thought it meant, literally, that IP edits could be reverted without penalty, instead of "Certain edits may be reverted without [incurring a 1RR] penalty. These include edits made by anonymous IP editors..."

My proposed edit makes explicit, what was implicitly true, but missed.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I also support the point made by AGK; the proposed edit is not a change to the restriction, but a wording change to make clear the original intention, which is unchanged.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:31, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

Moved from WP:ACN as this is the right venue. Courcelles 20:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• In my opinion, the way the remedy is worded, the 1RR does not apply to reverting IP's, but usual rules on edit warring and 3RR do. Courcelles 20:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I"m not saying this is right, I'm still thinking on that one, just expressing that how I read the current remedy.(And I'd hope and expect people are not using this language to revert IP edits without good reason.) Courcelles 22:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
• Agree with Courcelles, reverting IPs is still subject to 3RR, and for that matter our usual rules on edit warring. I'm ok with the change suggested by Sphilbrick, which could, as HJMitchell suggests, be extended to The Troubles as well. PhilKnight (talk) 01:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
• Agree with Sphilbrick's proposed copyedit. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
• I interpret the current wording to have the same meaning as that of Sphilbrick's proposed change. However, I can see why there can be a different interpretation of the current wording, and to resolve the discrepancy I propose we copy-edit the sanction wording as recommended (unless there are objections in the next few days). If there is a pending enforcement request that relates to this sanction, I recommend it be placed on hold, but in any event it must be dismissed: an ex post facto application of the sanction would be unfair. AGK [•] 15:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

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Requests for amendment

Request to amend prior case: Discretionary sanctions in cases named after individual editors

Initiated by T. Canens (talk) at 11:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Case affected 

Digwuren arbitration case (t) (ev/ t) (w/ t) (p/ t)

Martinphi-ScienceApologist arbitration case (t) (ev/ t) (w/ t) (p/ t)

Abd-William M. Connolley arbitration case (t) (ev/ t) (w/ t) (p/ t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. The "Standard discretionary sanctions" section, variously named and numbered.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights) (initiator)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

N/A: the suggested amendment is cosmetic.

Amendment 1

Statement by Timotheus Canens

This request is prompted by a recent AE request, in which the practice of naming the applicable discretionary sanctions provision after an editor caused confusion on an editor who is not very familiar with the AE process. The three listed cases are the only cases named after individual editor(s) with a discretionary sanctions provision, according to WP:AC/DS; all other cases are named after the relevant topic area instead.

I recommend that the Committee make a cosmetic amendment that allows these discretionary provisions to be easily referenced using an arbitration case named after the subject area instead of individual editor(s). Not only is the latter approach rather counterintuitive and potentially confusing (if someone unfamiliar with AE wants to look up the discretionary sanctions provision for Eastern Europe, WP:DIGWUREN is not really the most obvious place to look), but it is also rather unfair to the editors at issue to have their usernames perpetuated in literally years of AE requests that usually have nothing to do with them. Digwuren (talk · contribs), for example, has not edited since June 2009, yet his username has been, and will be, by necessity, brought up in all AE discussions related to Eastern Europe simply because, by happenstance, the discretionary sanctions in this topic area was passed in a case named after him. As Newyorkbrad observed in a somewhat analogous situation, such a situation is "neither dignified nor fair". T. Canens (talk) 11:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Eraserhead1

Seems like an excellent idea Tim.

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

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Request to amend prior case: Race and intelligence

Initiated by Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) at 21:31, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Case affected 

Race and intelligence arbitration case (t) (ev/ t) (w/ t) (p/ t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Mathsci topic-banned by mutual consent

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Ferahgo the Assassin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• Captain Occam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

[6] [7]

Amendment 1

• That Mathsci is banned from interacting with or mentioning me and Captain Occam anywhere on Wikipedia.

Statement by Ferahgo the Assassin

Despite my having had no interaction with him in many months, Mathsci (talk · contribs) is continuing to bring me up on Wikipedia in inappropriate situations after being asked multiple times by arbitrators to stop. Arbcom has requested that Mathsci drop this issue at least four times:

• [8] February, Roger Davies asked him to leave it to uninvolved editors to bring it up if someone's editing in R&I is a problem.
• [9] April, Risker told him clearly to disengage.
• [10] [11] September, Roger Davies and Cool Hand Luke both told him to disengage. From my understanding, the only reason he wasn't given an interaction ban is because the arbitrators were confident he would follow their advice. [12]
• [13] And finally, two weeks ago he was formally warned by Jclemens to stop bringing up off-wiki evidence against other editors.

But Mathsci has been continuing to do this exact thing the entire time, and in fact it seems like the quantity of examples is steadily increasing. Keep in mind these are only diffs from after the amendment thread in September when he was told by two arbitrators to stop. There are many diffs of this kind of behavior from before September, but those were addressed in the previous amendment thread.

• [14] October: Mathsci inserts himself into a discussion that has nothing to do with him in order to bring me up (including the irrelevant details of my relationship).
• [15] November: Mathsci brings this up again (along with the R&I case) in another discussion that has nothing to do with him in order to attack arbitrator Jclemens.
• [16] [17] [18] November & December: Mathsci attempts to prove Boothello (talk · contribs) is a sock of David.Kane (talk · contribs), based on off-wiki research about where David.Kane lives, another example of Mathsci conducting off-wiki sleuthing about editors connected to R&I.
• [19] December: Mathsci inserts himself into another discussion that doesn't involve him in order to push for sanctions against Occam.
• [20] December: Mathsci again bringing up Occam out of the blue.
• [21] [22] [23] January, the most recent occurrence: This time it was to threaten an editor for what looks like a very brief involvement in editing the human intelligence template. Here Mathsci is making real-life, off-wiki claims about me in an attempt to threaten TrevelyanL85A2 (talk · contribs) as well as me with sanctions, including threatening us "all" with a community ban. (???)

This recent example is the exact thing that Jclemens told Mathsci to stop doing, and here he's done it around two weeks after being told that. Over the past few months, Mathsci has continued to demonstrate an increasing fixation on R&I, myself, Occam, and off-wiki research about editors connected to R&I. I have attempted to make an agreement with Mathsci to stop doing this: that he leaves me alone entirely (and completely stops mentioning me and Occam on Wikipedia), and I'll return the favor. In his last comment on TrevelyanL85A2's talk, he has rejected that request. Unfortunately, I think at this point the only long-term solution here is an official sanction administered by Arbcom that prohibits Mathsci from mentioning me anywhere on Wikipedia. It can be mutual or one-sided at Arbcom's discretion. Although Occam is currently blocked, I think it's important for the interaction ban to cover both of us. Mathsci tends to bring us up both in the same context, and I don't want to leave room for gaming by requesting an interaction ban only for myself.

As an aside, I should point out that last time this happened, Coren suggested the issue go to RFC. However, my current topic ban (as per share policy with Occam's IP) prohibits me from starting an RFC about anything connected to R&I. Additionally, the best outcome from an RFC would be that the community requests Mathsci to drop this issue. If Mathsci won't heed Arbcom's advice multiple times, I don't see what it would accomplish for the community to tell him the same thing.

I think it is important that this issue is finally put to bed. He has been told by Arbcom to drop this four times. I don't think a fifth request would accomplish anything at this point if it is not accompanied by an interaction ban. In September, Cool Hand Luke decided against the requested interaction ban because he was confident Mathsci would follow his instructions to drop the issue. Mathsci has not done so. This seems relevant to the vested contributors issue: Mathsci has made a lot of useful contributions to the encyclopedia, but that should not justify repeated second chances to follow Arbcom's advice every time he ignores it.

Additionally I think that history has shown that this kind of behavior, if left unchecked, can drive experienced contributors away from Wikipedia or provoke them into acting in unacceptable ways. I really don't want this to progress that far in my case: I enjoy contributing my artwork and knowledge to Wikipedia, and Mathsci's behavior regarding me makes me very uncomfortable. Because of the harm behavior like this can do to the project in the long term, I think it's important for Arbcom to stop it before it progresses that far.

New examples

• While this thread is open, Mathsci is currently removing comments by another editor from my user talk. [24] [25] He suspects them of being a sock, but either way I've asked him multiple times to stay off my talk page, and Mathsci should know this is inappropriate. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 15:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC) New example from today: [26] -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
• Mathsci is now attempting to get me blocked at AE while this thread is open. [27] -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Response to arbitrators

Admins at AE have disallowed Occam and myself from participating in RfCs related to the R&I topic area, and also advised us against participating in AE threads related to it. [28] Additionally, when Occam brought this up with Jclemens, he suggested that this issue be raised as an amendment. [29] [30] Even if Arbcom decides that AE or RfC is the best place for this request, I have found that the community is generally not hospitable to my posting anywhere about issues related to R&I. The responses I've received from other involved editors in this thread, and Mathsci's current attempt to get me blocked at AE, are good examples of how the community tends to react to these things. A decision that this issue should be handled by the community instead of Arbcom would only prolong the current conflict, without providing a chance of a resolution. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 16:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Update 1/22

Risker's comment makes me a little more hopeful that this thread might finally be receiving some attention from Arbcom. There's one other new issue that I'm hoping Arbcom will resolve: whether editors should be allowed to bring up off-wiki personal information about others in public, rather than sending it privately to Arbcom. Based on my understanding of policy and my discussions on this with Jclemens, I don't think doing this is ok. But in this thread Edjohnston (the admin who usually handles R&I related AE reports) was unconvinced that off-wiki personal information can't be handled in public at AE, and that if Arbcom disagrees they should take some formal action in this amendment thread.

Mathsci's posting of personal information about other editors, and other editors' repeating of it, has been going on for a long time. This almost always involves the same group of editors. For example in my evidence in the original R&I case almost 2 years ago, I mentioned that Mathsci was publicly posting what he'd discovered off-wiki about the details of my relationship with Captain Occam, and that after he posted this it began being repeated by Hipocrite and Aprock. No action has ever been taken against any of the editors who do this, so it's continued unabated since then. Here are a few other examples from the past few months:

• [31] Mathsci's speculation about user:Miradre's off-wiki identity
• [32] This edit summary is oversighted now, but I think Arbcom can see it
• [33] This comment was in response to Miradre's request that Mathsci respect his privacy. The comment wasn't itself an invasion of privacy, but I think Mathsci's response to that request is a good indicator of his attitude.

I don't think it's acceptable that this is continuing to go on without any action, and that at least one admin (Edjohnston) is unconvinced it's a problem at all. In addition to the requested interaction ban, I would appreciate it if Arbcom could clarify that off-wiki information like this can only be sent to Arbcom privately, and also do something about admins' general unwillingness to do anything when it's posted in public. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

@Professor marginalia: You're the only one defending Mathsci here who I think deserves a response. But first I'd like to say something about the people commenting here: this is the exact same group of people who were opposing me and Captain Occam around the time of the original R&I case in 2010. You, Mathsci, Hipocrite, Aprock, Beyond my Ken, Slrubenstein and Enric Naval all belong to this original core group of editors. Arbitrators can verify this with the list of involved parties on the original case page, and these two AN/I threads [34] [35] from April and June 2010. Every person against me here was involved in at least two of these three places (except for Volunteer Marek who got involved more recently). It's been over a year since I interacted with the rest of you, and I find it amazing that you're still showing up to oppose me after all this time.

R&I articles have a problem with sockpuppetry from Mikemikev, everyone knows that. But that doesn't excuse how the rest of you are acting. It's reached the point where every new editor who doesn't immediately ally himself with this core group is assumed to be a sock or meatpuppet, whether there's any evidence for it or not (besides them being new). Yfever is the most recent example. The amount of bad faith that's being assumed about him by you and Hipocrite in this discussion is appalling. Especially since the only evidence I've seen that he's a sock is that he found an old version of that article in Ephery's userspace, even though he could've just found it when FT2 linked to it here. Vecrumba, DGG, and Xxanthippe have all mentioned recently how toxic the editing environment has become because of this atmosphere.

I've looked at some earlier arbitration cases that involved similar issues, and this situation is quite like 2010's climate change case. The conflict that led to that case involved a well-known sockmaster (Scibaby) and an atmosphere of hostility and paranoia where every new user whose viewpoints were vaguely similar to scibaby was assumed to be sock or meat. In that case Arbcom was clear on how they feel about this attitude, and they t-banned several of the editors responsible for it. Some of the principles from that case are very applicable here, especially this and this. But our situation here might be worse, because in the climate change case nobody was conducting off-wiki research and posting their conclusions in public.

It doesn't matter whether you think Mathsci or you have a good reason for doing it. The simple fact is that this is against policy, and Mathsci has been warned by Arbcom to stop it multiple times, most recently just a month ago. As Jclemens said here, nobody should have to answer questions about off-wiki information in public, because outing policy demands that other editors not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information. Yet you and the other members of your group still continue to confront me and TrevelyanL85A2 about this information on-wiki, knowing full well that we shouldn't answer. For you to say there's nothing wrong with doing this doesn't just contradict policy, it contradicts what Arbcom has said about this many times in the past year. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 19:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Response of Mathsci

Initial response

More detailed response

Continued disruption by proxy

Further response prior to posting of motion

• Toolserver: [77]

After August 2010, apart from Orson Scott Card and its talk page, I see no srticles Ferahgo the Assassin and I edit in common. (I do edit quite a lot of articles and have created quite a few.) At one point I told Ferahgo the Assasin of an online source for a Danish manuscript with bird illustrations. Otherwise I think our edits have intersected hardly at all. (It could be that the toolserver software is not working properly and I have missed a whole series of edits. Can PhilKnight or Jclemens please check that for me?) The meatpuppetry is a matter of record and that information was passed on by Shell Kinney to all members of arbcom. The motion below might conceivably send out a general message that if you are topic banned, you should do all your editing through geographically dispersed cyberfriends, even if they might be identifiable. Having them act as a tag team is also fine. Using the same logic, it would seem best now to ignore WP:SHARE and allow Ferahgo to edit freely with her friends; that way Captain Occam can give her a helping hand if she needs it and Ferahgo's enjoyment of wikipedia will not be upset.

Although the proposed motion implies that I have previously interacted with Ferahgo the Assassin on wikipedia many times this does not seem to be the case. Although I cannot check this with the toolserver, I have probably only mentioned her name once or twice outside an arbitration page or arbitrator's talk page. Arbcom were informed in May 2011 about the off-wiki attack/joke page. If anything the harassment has been indirectly from Ferahgo the Assassin. This report was made on User talk:Risker.[78] In that case I reponded by email to Risker and wrote this on her talk page.[79] Apart from comments on arbcom enforcement/amendment pages in response to Captain Occam's multiple postings, now being continued by Ferahgo, I do not believe that I have mentioned her name except in this diff on User talk:TrevelyanL85A2.[80] Although no arbitrator has stated this explicitly on-wiki, Roger Davies in private in September 2011 expressed his concern that the identification of TrevelyanL85A2 might involve off-wiki investigations ("sleuthing") which could be characterized as wikihounding/stalking. However, in the case of TrevelyanL85A2, as others have noted on this page and as arbitrators have known for a long time through Shell Kinney, no sleuthing is involved in establishing that Ferahgo and TrevelyanL85A2 are connected in real life. As Shell Kinney disclosed on-wiki, she had herself contacted Captain Occam directly by email to ask him to clarify matters in December 2010. Perhaps an arbitrator should now similarly seek private clarification from Ferahgo the Assassin, irrespective of me and the proposal I make below. Most recently Ferahgo the Assassin has lobbyied three arbitrators to ensure that the motion below applies to Captain Occam.[81][82][83] She has received a warning from Roger Davies about this. The inescapable conclusion is that the request, like her lobbying, was continuing proxy editing for a site-banned user. She has no previous history of lobbying in this way, whereas Captain Occam does. Some sense of proportion has been lost here. (My last 500 content edits, which go back to 28 January 2012 [84]; Ferahgo's, which go back to 16 March 2011 [85]; my last 100 edits to talk pages, no lobbying, mostly problems created by ipsocks and socks of Echigo mole [86]; Ferahgo's.[87])

As on a previous occasion I am ready to offer by mutual consent that I will make no further edits at all to wikipedia in the future on any page at all. (I have given separate private explanations to two arbitrators.) That would solve all these problems in a very neat and tidy way. That could happen right away and avoid any delays caused by late voting. Regarding articles left incomplete, I nominate Jclemens to finish Oscillator semigroup and Grunsky matrix, AGK to complete Fatimid art and Edmund de Unger (I can send him the 2 source books by mail) and PhilKnight Orgelbüchlein (I've already added the 46 midi files). Mathsci (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Concerning the last item, real life has intervened in the last two hours or so. At St-Jean-de-Malte, I have been playing BWV 622  play and the sinfonias BWV 21/i and BWV 106/i. Now I have been asked to perform one of them in real life for the solemn purpose for which they are normally used. These things happen (:Mathsci (talk) 13:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Hipocrite

In the interests of transparency, do you know TrevelyanL85A2 outside of Wikipedia? Hipocrite (talk) 00:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Having done just the most rudimentary amount of googling, it is quite clear that Ferahgo the Assassin and TrevelyanL85A2 have a substantial off-wiki relationship, and that off-wiki relationship is in no way related to race and intelligence.

I don't ask my friends to show up at Wikipedia articles/processes to support me. Captain Occam should learn to do the same. I suggest that TrevelyanL85A2 be subject to the same topic ban that his friends are subject to. Hipocrite (talk) 15:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

FtA has now stated that some of what I've said is false. I've made two claims - 1. "it is quite clear that Ferahgo the Assassin and TrevelyanL85A2 have a substantial off-wiki relationship." 2. "that off-wiki relationship is in no way related to race and intelligence."

Which claim is false, exactly? Hipocrite (talk) 16:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

I didn't pay attention to the Abortion case so I don't know anything about that. But what is the relevance of these two statements of FtA's?:

• November & December: Mathsci attempts to prove Boothello (talk · contribs) is a sock of David.Kane (talk · contribs), based on off-wiki research about where David.Kane lives, another example of Mathsci conducting off-wiki sleuthing about editors connected to R&I.

What does this have to do with Cpt. Occam specifically? It seems like just a complaint that Mathsci is "interfering" with SPAs who push a POV on Race and Intelligence article that was previously supported by Cpt. Occam and FtA. And this is a topic area that has a long history of disruptive SPA and/or sock puppeting. BTW, Boothello WAS topic banned from R&I recently for a mixture of "probable sock puppet of David Kane per duck" and "even if not, being a disruptive tendentious SPA".

• : This time it was to threaten an editor for what looks like a very brief involvement in editing the human intelligence template. Here Mathsci is making real-life, off-wiki claims about me in an attempt to threaten TrevelyanL85A2 (talk · contribs)

Again, what does this have to do with Cpt. Occam and FtA aside from the fact that FtA appears to be annoyed that her off-wiki friends' connections to her and the Captain - i.e. meatpuppets - are pointed out by Mathsci? There'd be no need for any kind of sleuthing if FtA and CO didn't keep recruiting off-wiki buddies in order to what looks like, an intentional circumvention of their topic bans. This wouldn't be that problematic, except that it's FtA who brought this amendment up and cited this for support. Having meat puppets is one thing, requesting that somebody be sanctioned "cuz they pickin' on my meat puppets" is another.

VolunteerMarek 01:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

@FtA this is the exact same group of people who were opposing me and Captain Occam around the time of the original R&I case in 2010. - no, I'm new and I'm also opposing this amendment and/or the meat puppetry edits on R&I.VolunteerMarek 20:38, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

@Boothello - Boothello you are currently topic banned from R&I topics for being a disruptive SPA and a probable sock puppet of a user (David Kane) who got topic banned during the original R&I case. This RFA is not, or at least WAS NOT, in any way related to yourself, hence it is not relevant discussion result process. Hence you are very clearly in violation of your topic ban, especially since you're using the opportunity to make a statement as a soapbox for stuff on R&I topics. *If* I was as bad as you say I'd have already reported you to AE, as you well deserve. I haven't but I still'd appreciate it if you removed your comment, or someone did it for you.VolunteerMarek 16:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment on motion by Volunteer Marek

I got to echo aprock's statement on this, though let me add a bit more incredulity. Seriously, this particular amendment is an *easy* one. And it took you almost two months to come up with something totally counter-productive. Basically what the motion is doing, is giving FtA and Captain Occam, not to mention all the sock puppets, meat puppets, and other disruptive accounts that have been plaguing the topic area for so long, a green light to recruit even more meat puppets, to further harass Mathsci on deviantart or other websites, and to step up the whole POV pushing campaign.

Sorry, but I wanted it noted that as a result of this motion I'm having some very serious concerns over the basic competency of some members of the committee. At the very least put in some language in there about all the sock puppets and meat puppets, including those recruited by FtA and CO - that's the problem here, not the fact that Mathsci found them.VolunteerMarek 19:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me add that it is painfully obvious that the numerous statements made by editors familiar with the subject have been completely ignored in the drafting of this motion. These include statements by Mathsci himself, by myself, by Hipocrite, by Aprock, Beyond My Ken, Enric Naval, Professor marginalia and Slrubenstein. Is there any point what so ever in non-arbitrators bothering to comment on ArbCom pages? Even by (low) past standards I've never seen the opinion of so many respected editors so completely ignored.VolunteerMarek 20:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by aprock

Over the last two years, at least four confirmed off-wiki associates of Captain Occam have joined the project to edit in support of him in the topic area covered by WP:ARBR&I. Given this long history of WP:MEAT it seems counterproductive to restrict discussing him, or his associates, when trying to determine the nature of present disruptions. aprock (talk) 18:36, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I would urge the committee to take this issue seriously -- not the request for amendment, which is frivolous in that it seeks to amend something which does not exist -- but the issue of Captain Occam and his continuing disruption of Wikipedia through proxies, notably FtA. CO's site ban should be extended to any editor who acts as his meatpuppet. Without such an action, the ban becomes a farce, allowing CO virtual access to the site at will. The project will not suffer from the loss of these editors, who contribute little. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:34, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting that Vercrumba talks about Mathsci going into "attack mode" when it was Ferahgo the Assasin who raised this issue. Can ArbCom do nothing to shut down Captain Occam's proxies? Do you intend to allow him to continue to make fools of you, circumventing your rulings by utilizing his girlfriend and other proxies? For pete's sake, he's spitting in your face and laughing at you. Show some cojones, please shut down this disruptive editor for good. Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:11, 13 January 2012 (UTC) (Part struck as needlessly incendiary and disrespectful. My apologies. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:00, 14 January 2012 (UTC))

Could I suggest that a clerk please remove the comment below by The Wozbongulator, who has been indef blocked as a sock. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

In a recent addendum to her statement, FtA complains about seeing the "exact same group" of editors speaking in opposition to her, and named Professor Marginalia, Mathsci, Hipocrite, Aprock, myself, and Enric Naval. The crux here, however, is that these editors came here on their own, as independent actors, with no on- or off-wiki coordination, while the relevant charge, which negates FtA's request for amendment, is that FtA and others are acting as meatpuppets for the banned Captain Occam, and therefore should be subject to the same editing restrictions as CO is. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Vecrumba

I regret to observe that Mathsci thrives on going into attack mode. When I first became interested in R&I on-Wiki, Mathsci set upon me in no uncertain terms and brought up completely unrelated events in a blatant character assassination attempt. I can go back to provide diffs, this was quite a while ago, but the acrimony exhibited toward me at that time disposes me to believe Mathsci has serious ownership and self-superiority issues that no administrative action will ever solve. When an editor sets upon another, that is not frivolous, and whatever one thinks apart from the attack is immaterial to the attack itself (e.g., the object of the attack is a criminal and deserve what they get). If you ever want WP be a kinder gentler place, start with the attackers not their victims. Whether or not you approve of the victim is not material to the complaint here. If you think it is material, you're part of the self-righteous poison permeating WP. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 01:50, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Xxanthippe

I have to endorse generally the concerns of User:Vecrumba about the toxic editing environment in this area. My own views on the R&I issue are here.[88] Surprisingly they have never been criticized. I live in hope. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval

So, we keep having more meatpuppets canvassed to the R&I area. Probably brought by Captain Occam or by people in his environment. And Mathsci keeps removing them. Understandably, Captain Occam is pissed. And Mikemikev keeps trying to insert racist content via socks. And Mathsci keeps removing those socks. I don't see how this is supposed to result in a topic ban for Mathsci. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Professor marginalia

The only reason I have for commenting in this is my mounting frustration with proxy disruptions in the involved articles. And the disruption is considerable — two of the articles especially, Race and intelligence and Race (classification of humans), are in awful shape. While povpushing puppetry isn't completely to blame for this, the exertion necessary to investigating them and their suspect edits (to keep the situation from getting worse) is so all-consuming editors are essentially too burned out to do much more or too intimidated to commit an opinion (given the likelihood there's a banned puppet or other bad character behind it all) so there's not much progress, imo. The R/I arbitration came about due to disruptive editing practices that included canvassing and tag teaming, misuse of sources and original research, forum shopping and incivility. Those of us editing these articles out in the open are judged by our edits now and our edits prior arbitration. But if those editors who were sanctioned are granted a handicap, ie rewarded, when they continue their crusade through proxies, then what's the point? Why are any of us to pay any time or mind to the process or results of arbitration?

I have no opinion whether or not an interaction ban is warranted between Mathsci and Ferahgo for conflicts beyond those involving the R/I articles. But forcryingoutloud....this was triggered by Mathsci's firmly worded cautioning of TrevelyanL85A2 who after a hiatus in the aftermath of earlier proxy editing accusations had returned to an R/I dispute. Then Trevelyan traipses over to Ferahgo's talk page to solicit her input, then she battles Mathsci on Trevelyan's page, and what follows between them since is a bunch of yada yada about who accuses who of what, in which venue it belongs, both of them shooting a few ineffectual arrows against the other about stuff outside the R/I issue.

Trevelyan was a recruit to this mess from off-wiki, along with several other proxies. It's a DUH! for anybody with a base measure of common sense who is following this goofy trainwreck, and google, to double-check themselves, just to verify, to make sure their DUH meter isn't on the fritz. (If this needs revisiting, I will provide diffs) Any "personal information" that's been repeated about Ferahgo, Trevelyan and Captain Occam now in accusations against Mathsci result from Trevelyan's re-entry to the R/I involved articles, and the both of them (Trevelyan and Ferahgo) wikilawying a way to sanction Mathsci for incivility.

I agree Mathsci's tone in remarks in disputes like this can sometimes seem provocative, but they have resulted in far less disruption in these articles than the obsequiousness adopted by topic banned Captain Occam and his proxies. Mathsci's been an unqualified benefit when it comes to identifying proxies. It seems to me that if Captain Occam-who is topic banned-and his recruits (1st generation, 2nd generation et al)-would move on and quit trying to game these articles, then wikipedia wins. By the same token, it seems to me that if Mathsci is sanctioned such that he cannot lend help with the proxy problem, then wikipedia loses. Professor marginalia (talk) 05:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

@Ferahgo-I suggest you refocus all your complaints about our behaviors in R/I to concentrate instead on whatever's bothering you about us that may be occurring outside the R/I involved articles. You're topic banned from R/I. Professor marginalia (talk) 20:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

@Boothello-So we have two topic banned users now who've been following Yfever. It feels like reliving Groundhog Day, again. And again. An AE action was initiated against you on Dec 13, fairly or not involving Ephery, [89], Yfever soon follows to R/I [90], and first links to then recreates the POVforked and AFD'd article Ephery userfied? [91] Professor marginalia (talk) 00:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Boothello

I don't care who gets banned from interacting with who, but there is no mistaking the editing environment in this area is abysmal. And I think the amount of cabalism on the topic is obvious to anyone who edits the articles and doesn't throw in with the dominant group. I had no idea that most of the people taking Mathsci's side here have been working as a group since the original R&I case. Marek joined them more recently, maybe a year ago. Any time a member of this group is in a dispute about R&I anywhere, its guaranteed several of the others will show up for support, even if the dispute is caused by one of them being disruptive.  

One recent example of how this goes is hipocrite's disruption. In these edits [92] [93] [94] he removed several paragraphs with the dishonest edit sum "not a reliable source." The content he removed was cited to peer reviewed journals Psychology, Public Policy and Law and The Open Psychology Journal as well as books from publishers Praeger, Methuen Publishing, Pergamon Press and W. W. Norton & Company. These are obviously RS, and Hipocrite's claim that they weren't was just a flimsy justification to remove content he disagreed with. I opposed him on this - as I had before on similar things, and during these edits he took his dispute with me to AE. [95] And in that, Mathsci, Volunteer Marek, Professor Marginalia and Aprock showed up to support Hipocrite and advocate a topic ban for me. This happened amazingly fast: Mathsci showed up at AE to support Hipocrite less than an hour after the thread was posted, even before I'd seen the thread myself. [96] So I got topic banned, and Hipocrite wasn't even warned.

It's been mentioned that AE threads on R&I are usually handled by EdJohnston, and one other admin who handles them sometimes is WGFinley. But the bigger problem is that both of these admins just react to majority opinion instead of looking carefully at diffs. A recent example is the report on Yfever at AE, which contained zero diffs, just a link to Yfever's contributions. Finley said at first this wasn't actionable, but then he went ahead and warned Yfever that although he wasn't being sanctioned, "if you continue tendentious editing as listed in the report, you could be." What does he mean, "as listed in the report"? The only "evidence" in the report was Yfever's contributions and some vitriol from members of the cabal. But this is all it takes at AE to convince an admin that someone's editing is tendentious!  

Cabalism + the nature of admins who handle R&I requests at AE = any members of the "group" can act with impunity. All they have to do to ensure AE threads will go in their favor is support one another and make uninvolved editors feel unwelcome, so there will be no one to disagree with them. Recall that Mathsci, Hipocrite and Marek have all been sanctioned in the past for the same behavior they're now displaying here. Mathsci was sanctioned for his incivility and battleground attitude in the original R&I case, Hipocrite was sanctioned for battlefield conduct in the Climate Change case, and Volunteer Marek (aka Radeskz) has been blocked by Sandstein for making public accusations of bad faith that rely on off-wiki evidence (which as Sandstein noted can only be sent to arbitrators). But what I can gather from the current situation is that recidivism in this topic area doesn't matter, because it's far more important to care about off-wiki evidence on someone who made one single edit to the human intelligence template. Is that what passes for logic in this topic now? 

I really, really hope that the arbitrators examine this situation carefully. Because it isn't just one or two editors that cause the problem here, the big picture issue is with the nature of the entire editing environment. That isn't to say that the behavior of certain individuals shouldn't be dealt with, of course.Boothello (talk) 23:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• @Marek R&I topic bans apparently don't extend to arbitration pages. As far as I can see, nobody objected to Mathsci commenting on requests for amendment or clarification before his topic ban was lifted. [97] [98] I can also see from one of Feragho's diffs that Jclemens has said topic bans don't prevent commenting here in general. [99] That applies to me as much as to everyone else.

• To other commenters: this request began about Feragho and Mathsci, but then the thread turned toward the nature of the editing environment. Xxanthippe mentions it, Professor Marginalia commented on how Mathsci's behavior is justified because of disruption from socks, and Beyond my Ken said there's no coordination causing the same group of editors to show up supporting one another again and again in R&I disputes. These things are really painting a picture of the topic are that's far from complete, and the arbs deserve to have the complete picture. There are editors such as Xxanthippe who say they avoid the topic area because they can't stand the editing environment, [100] there are other editors like Yfever who are treated with the worst WP:BITE I've ever seen, and anyone who thinks there are no problems besides socks is just sticking their head in the sand.Boothello (talk) 22:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Slrubenstein

I have little to add to the statements by Aprock and Marginalia. Matchsci has added considerable encyclopedic content to articles relating to race and intelligence, in ways that fully comply with our core policies of NPOV, NOR and V. Captain Occam, Ferahgo the Assassin and others have generally edit-warred to push one particular POV. It is unsurprising that they and others (e.g. Xanthippe) try to paint Mathsci as pushing a POV but this is not a clash between two POVs, it is a clsh between a collection of people pushing one POV versus Matchsci and other editors who seek to give due weight to the different significant scientific points of view with appropriate context.

This conflict has certainly involved sockpuppets and meatpuppets and has already gone through arbitration. The most one can say about Mathsci is that she is zealous in ensuring that prior ArbCom decisions be enforced rigorously. If she has ever been excessive, well, this calls for clarification by ArbCom. But so far no one has provided any examples of her doing anything beyond attempting to ensure that ArbCom decisions are enforced stringently.

The proposed ammendment is the most disingenuous thing I have ever seen. Ferrahgo is upset that MathSci is vigelant in enforcing ArbCom decisions. If Ferrahgo ever thinks that MathSci is overzealous or wrong, she should deal with it the wikiway, through discussion. Beyond this, it is just ludicrous to topic-ban one of the best editors we have in the sense that this editor has spent considerable time researching the scholarship on race and intelligence and adding neutral and encyclopdic content. Mathsci is not the only editor ho has added much important content, but if we were to remove the content she has added it would significantly degrade the quality of a number of articles. This is not the editor who should be topic-banned. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:35, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

@Ferahgo the Assassin — so you have now added me to your list of co-conspirators against you. So what? I am sure that the members of ArbCom are familiar with a pattern that is pervasive at Wikipedia. Our articles fall into roughly three groups. First, articles on hot topics, like Justin Bieber and Barack Obama which may or may not be contentious, but which attract such a large number of editors all of whom have access to reliable sources, that sifferent points of view cancel one another out, or editors are able to work out compromises, and we end up with fairly detailed articles that actually comply with NPOV. Second, articles on obscure and uncontroversial topics like Emile Durkheim that, sadly for an encyclopedia, attract a very small number of editors. If we are luckly one or two of them actually know more than what one might have learned in an undergraduate sociology course or cribbed from other encyclopedias. The result is a highly stable, but also pretty superficial, article.

And then there is the third kind of article, like Race & Intelligence. As with Emile Durkheim, this is a topic that relatively few Wikipedians have expertise on or even have access to the most reliable sources, namely, recent books and peer-reviewed journal articles by psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists, and who have enough contact with active researchers to be able to assess what weight to give different views and to understand the contexts that produce different views. Unlike Emile Durkheim, however, this article also attracts people with very strong points of view and who are fanatical about ensuring that their point of view be given the greatest weight. That is because this is one of those articles that is on a topic that is both of real interest to academics, and is also of interest to the general public because it touches on issues of importance to the general electorate (e.g. school funding, affirmative action). It is not at all surprising that the result is two groups of editors who regularly clash.

Ferahgo the Assassin, Xanthippe and others wish to paint this as a clash between two points of view. Or they will claim that they represent "the truth" and the co-conspirators who oppose them are pushing come communist point of view. Perhaps you may think I am doing the same - presenting MathSci and Professor Marginalia as representing the truth and Ferahgo the Assassin and others as POV-pushers. Maybe when it comes to this third group of articles, it is inevitable that editors on either side of a conflict will present themselves as relying on the most reliable sources and their opponents as POV-pushers. The point of this comments i not to classify Ferahgo the Assassin or MathSci as one or the other. I am just pointing out that Race and Intelligence falls under the third category of articles, and such articles are always plagued by such conflicts. These are precisely the kinds of articles that led us to create ArbCom in the first place. Unlike the second class of articles they constantly attract controversy, and unlike the first class of articles, the wikiness of this project, in which a mass of editors cancel out each editor's limitations or weaknesses, the third class of articles are centers of intractable conflicts. These conflicts are almost always between two groups of editors, and it does not matter (in my view) whether the members of a group are all friends, or simply happen to have comparable educational backgrounds and access to academic sources.

ArbCom has to arbitrate the case based on the actual edits and consider whether those edits express a good-faith effort to comply with core policies, or do not. This is the only issue. My own view is that MathSci conduct towards other editors does not reflect personal malice but rather a desire to ensure that past ArbCom decisions be enforced strictly, and her edits to articles reflects her attempt to represent accurately the most reliable sources, and to put academic debates in their proper context. Am I right or am I wrong? It is for ArbCom to decide, but they should not decide this based on my own history of edits, they should decide it based on MathSci's history of edits (and, if approprioate, Ferahgo the Assassin's history of edits). Slrubenstein | Talk 15:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment on Motion by Aprock

I'm confused as to what problem this motion is supposed to solve. Could one of the nominators explain how such a broad interaction ban helps the project instead of hurting it. From the best I can tell the pros and cons look something like:

• pro: Ferahgo is no longer bothered by Mathsci's investigations into issues of meat puppetry and off wiki harassment by her and others.
• con: Ferahgo and her clique of off-wiki associates can now recruit disruptive editors more freely.

Given the degree to which this topic area is besieged by disruptive editors (12+1 new editors warned since case close 10 months ago), an implicit invitation for more disruptive editors seems counterproductive. aprock (talk) 18:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Further discussion

Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• Should this section be archived? NW (Talk) 02:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Under the provisions of the final decision (as amended), could this matter not be referred as normal to the Arbitration Enforcement process? It seems to me that the interaction ban, if warranted, could be made as a discretionary sanction. Such a method of proceeding seems to me far preferable to any direct action by this Committee, which by its nature would probably be protracted and unpleasant. AGK [•] 22:01, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
• Mathsci, I'm not sure your responses here are consistent with WP:SHARE. Would you mind re-responding to the concerns only with respect to Ferahgo? We're not here to re-hear Occam's case, I trust both parties understand. Jclemens (talk) 15:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• I'll be interested to see what others more experienced in this case have to say, though my initial feeling is that concerns about harassment might be better dealt with via RfC. The community can deal with harassment and potential outing matters, blocking if appropriate. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
• I'm recusing on this one as I recused on the original case and also am the administrator who most recently blocked Captain Occam. Risker (talk) 16:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• Sincere apologies for the delay in responding. This has been discussed on the arb mailing list, and based on that discussion, I think an interaction ban between Ferahgo and Mathsci is a viable solution to at least part of this problem. PhilKnight (talk) 15:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• To push things forward, do you want to propose a motion to that effect? AGK [•] 22:44, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• Posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions#Interaction ban between Ferahgo the Assassin and Mathsci. PhilKnight (talk) 18:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• Moved to the subsection right below, per Roger Davies' request. NW (Talk) 19:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Motion: Interaction ban between Ferahgo the Assassin and Mathsci

Ferahgo the Assassin (talk · contribs) and Mathsci (talk · contribs) are banned from interacting with, or, directly or indirectly, commenting on each other on any page in Wikipedia, and editing any article to the effect of undoing or manifestly altering a contribution by the other party except on Arbitration Enforcement and Arbitration Committee Request/case pages where either (or both) are an involved party, Requests for Comment/User where either or both are a party, or similar pages where their comments are requested. Should either account violate their bans, they may be blocked for up to one week. After the fifth such violation, the maximum block length shall be increased to one month. The ban is indefinite, but for not less than 6 months - after which either party may request review or both may agree to request the lifting or suspension of the ban.

Support

1. PhilKnight (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
2. Jclemens (talk) 18:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

Abstain

Recuse

Comments

• Commenting for the moment, although likely to oppose - this is much wider than two editors, and an interaction ban will not even begin to address the main issues of two entrenched camps, and the estimated likelihood that Feragho is a meatpuppet and everyone else is socks. If the committee and others believe that Feragho edits in accordance with Occam's instructions, then ban her. If they believe she does not, then continually alleging it is a personal attack and should result in a sanction for the editor(s) persistently making that allegation. Simply interaction-banning Feragho and one of the editors who says it isn't going to get us much further. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
• The wording also needs amending - the net effect of using one long sentence instead of three short ones is to create a wikilawyer's paradise. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Requests for enforcement

Click here to add a new request

Nagorno-Karabakh

I'm not going to file a request against one particular person, because we have a situation where disruption is caused by more than one user. I would like to draw the attention of the community to what is going on in the article Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a very troubled article that was a subject to a number of arbitration cases. For quite a while now it is an arena of endless edit wars, which are waged by a number of recently created or brand new user accounts, which try to push a version, originally created by the banned user Xebulon, who has been disrupting Wikepedia for years. What is going on there was described in much detail by the admin Golbez, who has been watching this article for many years: [147] I will not repeat here what Golbez has already said, please check his account of the events. The CU showed no connection between the accounts engaged there, yet it is quite obvious that something is going there, and that actions of all those accounts are coordinated. The most recent example, the account of User:23x2, who never edited Nagorno-Karabakh, pops up out of nowhere to rv: [148] And it is nothing unusual, this happens in this article all the time. The edits of the banned user are restored by users who have been inactive for a long time, or who have never edited this article before. I listed a number of edit warring accounts at my own SPI request that I by coincidence filed at the same time as Golbez did: [149] All those accounts look pretty much the same, act the same, and edit the same. I have a strong impression that they are all operated by the same person, who somehow manages to evade the CU. But even if we assume that it is not one person, but different ones, it is still quite obvious that their actions are well coordinated, and they keep on bringing in new accounts to edit war. I think this article should be placed under some sort of community control, and no edits that have no consensus should be allowed. Also, the activity of accounts that previously never edited this article should be restricted. I would even recommend that only well established accounts with at least 1 year of active contributions to Wikipedia, including outside of AA conflict, should be allowed to edit such contentious articles as Nagorno-Karabakh. I was advised to raise this issue here, which is what I do now. Grandmaster 23:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I endorse this because these articles need help and I'm tired of trying to hold them together alone. I would love for some form of enforced edit restriction on these articles. --Golbez (talk) 01:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

One possibility is some form of sanctions similar to that employed by Sandstein on Mass killings under communist regimes, but I'm not sure how practical it is. T. Canens (talk) 08:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

That is actually quite a good solution for the problem. I would support something similar to what was done at Mass killings under communist regimes. Grandmaster 10:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Opening a structured thread below, with the standard AE format adapted to this situation. Further discussions should be had there. T. Canens (talk) 10:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Nagorno-Karabakh article

Request concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

Relevant article

Nagorno-Karabakh (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBAA2#Standard discretionary sanctions

Notes

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xebulon/Archive#08 February 2012 has a fuller description of the issue, courtesy of Golbez (talk · contribs). See also #Nagorno-Karabakh, above. Opening a formal report to allow for fuller discussion as to potential sanctions to address this situation. T. Canens (talk) 10:48, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Notification

[150]

Discussion concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

I have two objections against this idea, and one proposal.

1. The text of standard discretionary sanctions says
   (i) that the subjects of discretionary sanctions are some particular users, not articles;
   (ii) that the sanctions are applied after the user has been properly warned.
   In connection to that, the very idea to impose editing restrictions on some article as whole is not in accordance with the discretionary sanctions concept, because
   (i) that means that all users (not only those who edit war in this area) appear to be sanctioned, and
   (ii) the Sandstein's sanctions had been applied without proper warning. For example, if we look at the Mass killings under Communist regimes and at the WP:DIGWUREN, we see that I had never been formally warned (I have never been mentioned on the WP:DIGWUREN page). Nevertheless, my editorial privileges (as well as the privileges of overwhelming majority of the Wikipedians) appear to be restricted. That restriction of my editing privileges is almost tantamount to topic ban and I do not understand why have I been placed under such topic ban. Similarly, although I have no interest in the Karabakh area, however, I cannot rule out a possibility that I may decide to edit some Karabakh related area in future. In connection to that, I do not understand why should my editing privileges to be restricted in advance, despite the fact that I committed no violations of WP policy.
2. Whereas the Sandstein's sanctions made the admin's life dramatically easier, the result is by no means satisfactory. The article appeared to be frozen in quite biased state, and tremendous work is needed to fix a situation. If we look even at the very first opening sentence, we will see that it starts with the data taken from The Black Book of Communism, arguably the most influential, and the most controversial book about the subject. Do we add credibility to Wikipedia by using such sources without reservations? My attempts to move this statement to the article's body and to supplement it with necessary commentaries had been successfully blocked by the users who, by contrast to myself had been already sanctioned per WP:DIGWUREN, and the only reasons they appeared to be able to do that was masterful usage of formal nuances of the Sandstein's sanctions. As a result, I (as well as other reasonable editors) decided to postpone our work on this article, because the efforts needed to implement even small improvements are not commensurate with the results obtained. As a result, we have the article, which appeared to be frozen in totally unsatisfactory states. This fact does not bother the admins, because there is no edit wars any more, but the fact that some article gives a totally biased picture (and that this situation cannot be fixed) is extremely dangerous for Wikipedia. Yes, there is no visible conflict, however, the most harmonious place in the world is a graveyard.

By writing that, I do not imply that no sanctions are needed. However, these sanctions should be in accordance with the discretionary sanctions' spirit, i.e. they should be directed against the users who had already committed some violations in this area, and who had alrfeady been properly warned. In the case of WP:DIGWUREN, we already have a list of such users, so it would be quite natural to restrict only those users (more precisely, those who had been warned during last 2-3 years). For other users no restrictions should exist (although, probably, article's semi-protection to exclude IP vandalism would be useful). For Karabakh articles, I suggest to create a similar page (if no such page exists yet): starting from some date, every user committing 3RR or similar violation is added to this list, so s/he cannot make any edit to this article until the change s/he propose is supported by consensus as described by Sandstein. I fully realise that that may initially create some problem for the admins, however, that will allow us to develop Karabakh related articles, which is much more important.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
PS. In addition to the MKuCR, we have other articles that were placed under restrictions (such as Communist terrorism, which is under 1RR). This is also not in accordance with the discretionary sanctions spirit: nowhere on that page can you find a statement that the admins are authorised to place unspecified number of users under edit restrictions without proper warning. I think by applying these sanctions the admins exceeded their authority. In my opinion, such a restriction may exist only for some concrete users, and should be implemented in a form of the list which is being permanently modofied by adding those who abuse their editing privileges, and by excluding those who committed no violations during, e.g. last 2-3 years.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I see you point, and understand your concerns. But the problem in this article is caused not by the established editors. Those are known very well, and more or less behave. The problem here are new and recently created accounts with very limited history of contributions, which pop up one after another just to rv or vote. Some are quacking very loudly, but nothing is done. For instance, I mentioned in the CU request the account of Spankarts (talk · contribs), which was created only to vote for deletion of an article. Do we need a CU for such accounts? As for sanctions, those affecting only the established users are not effective, because such measures benefit only those who use socks to evade restrictions. For instance, the sanctions imposed on Caucasian Albania clearly did not work. The edit warring there was waged by User:Vandorenfm and User:Gorzaim, both of whom eventually turned out to be socks of the banned User:Xebulon (btw, the edit warring on Nagorno-Karabakh was started by the same 2 accounts). At that time Sandstein imposed a sanction that read: All editors with Armenia/Azerbaijan-related sanctions are banned from editing this article and its talk page. For the purposes of this ban, these editors are all who have at any time been the subject of remedies, blocks or other sanctions logged on the case pages WP:ARBAA or WP:ARBAA2, irrespective of whether or not these sanctions are still in force or whether they were imposed by the Arbitration Committee or by administrators. But since all long time editors in AA area were at some point under some sort of sanctions, this pretty much opened the doors for sock and meatpuppetry, since new accounts were not under any prior sanctions. The result is that the article reflects the views of the sockmaster, who was free to make any edits he wished, and established editors could not remove even unreferenced OR claims. This is why the article about Caucasian Albania is in such a poor condition now. The sock account even managed to place an established user on a 1 year topic ban: [151] Note the complaint of the sock: The immediate concern is his editing of the article on Caucasian Albania, where User:Twilight Chill continues waging an edit war against 5 (five) other unrelated editors (Aram-van, Gorzaim, Vandorenfm, MarshallBagramyan, Xebulon). 4 of 5 accounts that he mentioned turned out later to be socks (User:Aram-van, User:Gorzaim, User:Vandorenfm, and User:Xebulon). Nice, isn't it? I have a reason to believe that the sockmaster is happily editing under a new account now, and having a good laugh at arbitration enforcement. Something similar is now going on in Nagorno-Karabakh. I don't know whether they use socks or not, but clearly a lot of SPAs are being engaged. Therefore I think the solution implemented by Sandstein on Mass killings under communist regimes is much better. At least something should be done to prevent mass edit warring with the use of new accounts. Otherwise this is not going to work. Grandmaster 18:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

No. You simply don't understand what those sanctions mean. Such sanctions may work well only if they are directed against a limited set of users who, despite being warned, continue their disruptive activity. It is ridiculous to effectively block WP community from editing of some particular articles simply because a limited amount of users appear to be unable to collaborate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

But I'm not proposing to block the whole wikicommunity. I believe well established users should be allowed to edit freely any article. However the activity of new and recently created users should be limited on contentious articles. I agree with the proposal that the user should have at least 500 edits, preferably outside of AA area, to be allowed to edit an article like Nagorno-Karabakh. Otherwise you will get a bunch of SPAs which turn up only to rv or vote. Grandmaster 21:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

@ T. Canens. Thank you for providing a link to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 discussion. Unfortunately, I overlooked this discussion and was not able to present my arguments timely. Let me point out, however, that Kirill's idea that "(a) that the editnotice on the article constitutes a sufficient warning as required by ¶2" is not fully correct: ¶2 implies that a warning is issued to the editor, who "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia". In other words, the full sequence of the events that lead to discretionary sanctions is:

1. Some editor working in the area of conflict "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia";
2. A warning has been issued for him (obviously, this warning is supposed to contain a reference to some wrongdoing)
3. If violation continues, sanctions are imposed.

However, in a case of article wide sanctions the edit notice is being issued to everyone and in advance, so the user appears to be sanctioned simply by virtue of his interest to this topic. That is a blatant violation of our WP:AGF principle. Moreover, whereas one can speculate if 1RR itself or block for its violation is the actual sanctions, the article's full protection is already a sanction, which has been applied to whole WP community. I have a feeling that the idea of a possibility of article wide sanction should be re-considered as intrinsically flawed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Winterbliss

This report filed by User:Grandmaster represents yet another spasm of endless bad-faith, baseless complaints pushed over, over, and over again by a tightly-knit team of Azerbaijani users who target unrelated accounts in a coordinated fashion with the purpose of limiting editing activity on specific pages. They falsely accuse unwanted editors in sockpuppetry and try to discredit their productive work by making false statements about their editing practices. Now these efforts are getting really desperate and disruptive because Grandmaster’s earlier pranks to discredit his opponents and filibuster consensus-building on talk Nagorno-Karabakh pages are failing. But regardless of Grandmaster's filibustering and manipulating (e.g. WP:WL) discussion and consensus building on Nagorno-Karabakh talk pages proceeds as planned and according to Golbez's earlier recommendations (despite his declared exit from the scene). Various issues and parts of the texts are discussed one by one, and neutral, third-party and high-quality sources are used to support write-ups. This may not be am super-ideal process but most people involved seem to try hard to comply with the earlier guidelines set by Golbez. All participants were CU-checked and are unrelated. Golbez asked to "re-own" earlier texts and one of the participants (Zimmarod I beleive) did that promptly, explaining rationale of every good-faith addition that was deleted → [152].

Grandmaster’s report is based on lies, and he came to AE forum with unclean hands. One is that User:Xebulon “has been disrupting Wikepedia for years.” Xebulon’s account was created 10.24.10 and closed on 7.7.11, and no connections between him and earlier accounts were established.

Grandmaster filed and SPI request [153] accusing as many as 9 (!) editors of being sockpupptes but not only his effort went bust but his SPI was categorized as disruptive when CU showed lack of any relation among the editors by User:Tnxman307. Furthermore, per User:Tnxman307’s comment [154] “As far as I can tell, the same group of users accuse the same opposing group of being sockpuppets. Nothing has ever come of this. Frankly, I think it's disruptive and pointless and am inclined to decline these on sight.”

It has been known that Grandmaster was coordinating editing of a large group of Azerbaijani user in Russian wiki from here information on meta-wiki and here [155] by being the head of 26 Baku Commissars. There is also evidence that Grandmaster uses off-wiki coordination on the pages of English wiki as well: take a look at this curious exchange - [156], [157], which are requests of off-wiki communication between Grandmaster and User:Mursel.

In the recent past such reports, mainly AE and SPI requests, were routinely filed by Grandmaster’s friend User:Tuscumbia, who got recently topic banned for one year on the charge of WP:BATTLEGROUND and racist comments about ethnic origin of academic references [158]. Just a few examples of Tuscumbia's fishing trips: [159], [160], [161], [162], [163]. That is how Tuscumbia’s practice of harassing SPIs was described by an independent Lothar von Richthofen:

• "Checkuser is not for fishing. If you can present actual evidence other then "they make edits that I don't like and it makes me mad so I want to harass them with SPIs on the offhand chance that they will turn up to be the same people, then maybe a new Checkuser might be in order. Otherwise, your invocation of phantom sockpuppeteers is borderline disruptive.→ [164]

User:Grandmaster who was so far editing on an on-and-off basis with rather long periods of absence from WP suddenly hit the Nagorno Karabakh talk pages one day after Tuscumbia’s removal from AA area, picking up right where Tuscumbia left off [165]. Grandmaster’s and Tuscumbia’s behavior is identical: conspiratorial accusations in sockpuppetry, repeating the same points over and over again, a method of filibustering a consensus used most recently by User:Tuscumbia in talks on Murovdag. User:Grandmaster acts as User:Tuscumbia’s placeholder, if not as his loudly quacking meatpuppet who came to man the post of his banned comrade as soon as Tuscumbia got into trouble.

It is high time to restrict Grandmaster’s disruptive conduct by limiting his access to editing AA-related topics.

"(despite his declared exit from the scene)." I just want to point out that my recovering sanity allows me to take a disconnected view at the topic, rather than avoiding it altogether. So my declared exit was from caring and being involved; I can still observe and perhaps even discuss. --Golbez (talk) 01:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Zimmarod's point of view

User:Paul Siebert said it well above [166]. Sanctioning simply by virtue of someone's interest in a topic, or because of loose suspicions that there are some users who are proven not to be sockpuppets in multiple SPIs but can theoretically be found socks or meats in an unspecified time in the future is a blatant violation of the WP:AGF principle. This is in fact total absurdity. Imagine a court issuing a verdict clearing the accused of charges; but then the complainant pops up and suggests to incarcerate or execute the formerly accused right away simply because of his lingering suspicions or because in the future the accused can be found guilty of something else. It is like I may suggest to run a CU on Golbez or T. Canens accusing them in being Grandmaster's socks, and when it turns out that they are not socks, I will propose to get rid of their administrative powers on WP:DUCK charges simply because I am not happy with the results of SPIs and want to get rid of Golbez or T. Canens anyway. We on the Nagorno-Karabakh article try to be as constructive as possible and work toward a consensual input of edits after discussion. I now own the old edits, not some Xebulon. Many are tempted to restore the old edits at once but we decided not to do that and be selective and work incrementally, discarding non-consensual parts as we go. What is the problem? Ah, I know. All this runs counter to the strategy of User:Grandmaster who is unhappy. Instead of him writing long passages on this topic he could be more succinct, and say honestly: "I want to own the article Nagorno-Karabakh by excluding everyone from editing. I tried to play the old game of accusing a bunch of users in being socks, and that did not work out. Now I want them all excluded on absurd excuses simply because I exhausted my arsenal of disruptive tricks, and my meat-pals like User:Tuscumbia cannot help me since they are (again) banned for racism and wp:battleground." Zimmarod (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

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

• The Sandstein sanction (the one used on Mass killings under Communist regimes) is a rather drastic remedy, so I'd like to hear from other uninvolved admins before taking any action on that front.

  Also, the status quo is rather...unsatisfactory, and I have a feeling that this thread will take a while to conclude. I'll be interested in hearing suggestions as to any temporary sanctions on the article while this thread is pending. T. Canens (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what a sanction like that will achieve, because if an article is already in poor shape (and it usually is when it is a BATTLEGROUND topic), then all it's going to do is empower POV pushers to prevent improvement to the page. That certainly seems to be the case with the Mass killings article mentioned - after more than a year under this sanction, I don't think that article could be described as either neutral or well written. In fact, I'd say there's probably a good case for vacating that sanction at this point.

As regulars at this page will probably be aware, I did start work on an alternative "lightweight" AE-type process about a year ago, although other commitments have prevented me moving forward with it. I still think it would be worth a tryout, but it needs a rewrite and I haven't been able to find the time yet.

I'm not sure what else might be done in the meantime to improve articles in contentious topic areas, but one possible option would be to require anyone who wants to edit such pages to have, say, 500 mainspace edits outside the topic area before editing within it, as well as at least half their ongoing contribution outside it. A restriction like that might at least put a break on sockpuppetry, and hopefully encourage erstwhile POV pushers to make positive contributions elsewhere on the project. That is one option.

Another might be to give one or more respected admins draconian powers over particularly troublesome articles, allowing them to make decisions about what content is or is not permissible. An option like that would of course run the risk of the article coming to reflect the particular bias of the admins in question, but an article controlled by a couple of responsible administrators should still end up better than one in the control of POV pushers and their socks. There would still be some problems to resolve however, such as how to choose the admins in the first place, and what method of appealing their decisions might be put in place. Regardless, whatever method might be chosen, I think there must surely be a widespread recognition by now that current methods of dispute resolution are not doing the job and that new approaches must be tried. Gatoclass (talk) 14:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Having now read through the Xebulon sockpuppetry thread linked above, I think Grandmaster's suggestion of permitting admins to simply block any account per the duck test, as Moreschi did on previous occasions, might be the simplest solution for the current problems with this article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you on that last suggestion; that's de facto what happens in some places already (Chinese-Taiwan issues, for instance), so formalizing it might not be a bad idea. I have enough faith in our admin corps to know it when they see it. The other ideas are certainly worth discussing, but I think that would require broader community input. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

That's true. Sandstein's sanction pretty much froze that article because nobody can get consensus on anything, and that is pretty unsatisfactory. DUCK blocks don't need AE authority though; they have always been allowed. We could hand out a bunch of sock/meatpuppetry blocks (which is which doesn't matter since we treat them identically). However, SPI didn't see enough evidence for a block and that does concern me. Another possibility is to put this group of editors under a collective revert restriction. T. Canens (talk) 19:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• On the technicality issue, article-level discretionary sanctions are permitted under Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Request for clarification: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2. The edit notice serves as the requisite warning; the block for failure to obey the article-level sanction is the actual discretionary sanction. T. Canens (talk) 18:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)