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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 clarification

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)
    • I also agree with the proposed copyedit. Courcelles 19:10, 27 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)
• I was recused on the underlying case so have no vote here, but agree that as a matter of general principle and as part of our goal of standardizing remedies to the extent possible, the remedy here should be copyedited, and/or updated to reflect current practice. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
• I also agree with Sphilbrick's proposed tweak. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

---

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)

@Kirill:

• For Martinphi-ScienceApologist, my suggestion is to move the entire discretionary sanctions apparatus to the existing Pseudoscience arbitration case (t) (ev/ t) (w/ t) (p/ t). The discretionary sanctions in this area were added by motion simultaneously to both the Pseudoscience case and the M-SA case, so the log is already split across two cases. When the Committee standardized discretionary sanctions, the new phrasing was added only to the M-SA case.
• For Digwuren, the problem is that we already have the Eastern European disputes arbitration case (t) (ev/ t) (w/ t) (p/ t) which post-dates this case. Maybe simply "Eastern Europe"?
• For Abd-WMC, perhaps "Cold fusion 2"? T. Canens (talk) 17:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: WP:ARBRB doesn't have any remedy targeting non-parties to the case, which is why I didn't include it in the list. T. Canens (talk) 08:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Eraserhead1

Seems like an excellent idea Tim.

Statement by EdJohnston

I support Tim's proposal to rename these cases. Replacing 'Digwuren' with 'Eastern Europe' sounds good. The acronym WP:ARBEE is available even though WP:EE is in use. Another option is WP:EECASE. We should not worry too much about confusing the proposed name, 'Eastern Europe', with Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern European disputes, since that case is less well known and there have been no enforcement actions since 2009. Tim did not mention Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Russavia-Biophys, also known as WP:ARBRB. If you want to include ARBRB in the reform, then how about 'Former Soviet Union' as a new name. EdJohnston (talk) 07:29, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Russavia

I would also like for WP:ARBRB to be renamed to something that does not include my username. I see no reason why I should also be required to put up with an Arb case being named (partly) after me, when the issues of the case were deeper than that -- as suggested by Ed above. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 10:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

This has been suggested before, IIRC, had some support but because it wasn't seen as urgent at the time no one got around to carrying through. This is a good time to implement it then. I think Tim articulates the reasons for why this is a good idea quite well, so I don't have much to add on that.

All of Timotheus C's and EdJohnston's specific renaming suggestion are good.VolunteerMarek 16:41, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Vecrumba

This is both long overdue and welcome.

• I would suggest ARB-EE for Eastern European disputes OUTSIDE the Soviet legacy--DIGWUREN is the appropriate basis: the later EE arbitration case actually resulted in some level of amnesty and moving forward; all the sanctions are in the Digwuren case (the one-sided naming has always been a problem as well).
• I also suggest/second ARB-FSU (Former Soviet Union) for Soviet legacy cases (historic portrayal) as well as current geopolitics, i.e., Russia related to South Ossetia, Transnistria, et al. as well as the wider conflict between official Russia and the Eastern European countries over the Soviet legacy.

To some of the other comments, I don't see that EEML poses any confusion issue. This does leave us with what I see as one issue remaining regarding the above and all that has been stated so far:

• "EE" is not really the appropriate rename for DIGWUREN, as I believe the sanctions have exhibited considerable scope creep outside the original Baltic purview. It might be more appropriate to consider a name completely outside the EE realm, a bit wordy but ARB-GEOPOLITICS might be what we are really after.

I would like to see a more active approach to renaming cases as soon as their enforcement bounds move beyond the scope of the original case and editors involved. There is no useful purpose to stigmatizing editors on any side of an issue manifesting strong disagreements amongst editors. I trust that actions here will set a positive precedent. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:22, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

Seems the previous case that is named Eastern European Disputes was renamed for similar reasons as it was also previously named after a specific editor. However, it appears the Digwuren case has been the only one cited with regards to sanctions in the topic area. Not sure what the appropriate action would be there but several of the same editors are mentioned in those two cases and they involve the same topic area. As far as potential short names I think WP:EEUR or WP:EASTEUR would be good ones as they are regularly-used abbreviations and sufficiently distinct from the existing short names such as EEML.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

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).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I see no problems with a cosmetic amendment of this sort in principle. Timotheus, please identify suitable new names for the three cases you mention, and we will proceed from there. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 16:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with Kirill. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
• I also support this proposal. (In the case of Digwuren, we need to be careful not to confuse the new case name with the similar but separate Eastern European mailing list.) AGK [•] 22:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
• As one who spent nine months trying to figure out what DIGWUREN was an acronym for, I fully support more sensible names - Eastern Europe disputes (perhaps abbreviated to WP:EED)) would be so much more intelligible. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
• If we're going to do this, can we come up with something for Diguren that doesn't include the phrase "Eastern Europenan"? With EED and EEML already out there, another case title like that is just going to be confusing. Actually, I've always thought that Digquren and Macedonia having discretionary sanctions was overkill, and could be consolidated, since the area covered by Macedonia's sanctions is just s subset of Eastern Europe. Might be worth considering while we're here... Courcelles 14:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

---

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

[1] [2]

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:

• [3] 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.
• [4] April, Risker told him clearly to disengage.
• [5] [6] 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. [7]
• [8] 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.

• [9] 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).
• [10] 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.
• [11] [12] [13] 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.
• [14] December: Mathsci inserts himself into another discussion that doesn't involve him in order to push for sanctions against Occam.
• [15] December: Mathsci again bringing up Occam out of the blue.
• [16] [17] [18] 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. [19] [20] 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: [21] -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. [22] -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. [23] Additionally, when Occam brought this up with Jclemens, he suggested that this issue be raised as an amendment. [24] [25] 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:

• [26] Mathsci's speculation about user:Miradre's off-wiki identity
• [27] This edit summary is oversighted now, but I think Arbcom can see it
• [28] 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 [29] [30] 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)

Comments on WP:SHARE

My understanding of WP:SHARE was that it works a lot like WP:COI. Editors with a conflict of interest need to be careful to avoid the appearance of advocacy, and editors who share an IP address with someone else also need to be careful they don't appear to be working together to push a POV or circumvent policies like 3RR (hence the policy that closely-related accounts observe 3RR as though they were a single user). But, I think, WP:COI and WP:SHARE aren't sanctionable offenses by themselves. The Timidguy ban appeal case stated that attempting to prove someone has a COI isn't a justification for harassment or outing, and that should apply here as well.

I think this situation is similar to Timidguy's in general. Everyone knew that Timidguy had a COI, but there was very little evidence of disruption from him besides the COI itself. In my case the connection between my account and Occam's is well-known, but I have avoided the misbehavior that's led to him being blocked and sanctioned. I've never at any point been a single-purpose account, and the only time I've ever been blocked was once in November 2010 for accidentally violating my topic ban on an article I didn't realize that it covered. Occam, by contrast, has been blocked multiple times for edit warring and battleground attitude. If Arbcom could look beyond both of our efforts to deal with Mathsci's harassment, they would also see that there's been very little overlap between the articles that Occam and I edit. Our accounts might be indistinguishable technically, but behavior should count for more than technical evidence.

The purpose of blocks and sanctions is to prevent harm to the project, but my involvement in Wikipedia aside from this request is devoted entirely to making constructive edits to paleontology and evolution articles. I don't think banning me from Wikipedia on the basis of a technical connection would be consistent with the purpose bans are meant to serve, just as it wouldn't be okay to ban someone only because they have a COI. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 18:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to NY Brad

I tried to explain this in my initial statement, but here's a more concise summary:

1. Mathsci has a long history of battleground behavior against me, especially conducting off-wiki research about me and posting his conclusions in public, even though he knows that off-wiki evidence can only be sent to Arbcom in private. Many examples of this before and during this thread are available. I don't like being treated this way, but there is nothing I can do to make it stop. It continues even when I leave him alone for months, and when I've suggested that we both agree to leave each other alone (on January 7th) he refused.

2. Arbcom has asked Mathsci to drop this issue at least three times, most recently in September. The only reason he wasn't given an interaction ban then was because Cool Hand Luke was confident a warning would be enough to change his behavior. In addition to that, he was formally warned by Jclemens in December that he would be sanctioned if he continued to post off-wiki information about other editors in public. None of these warnings have been enough to stop this behavior. Therefore, a formal interaction ban is the only feasible way I can see to stop this problem in a long-term sense. When an editor refuses to stop a certain behavior after being warned by Arbcom to stop multiple times, normally that means Arbcom will formally restrict them from continuing it. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

New case?

I agree with Elen of the Roads' suggestion that Arbcom review everyone's editing privately rather than opening a new case. Already in this thread nobody has been enforcing the rule that off-wiki evidence needs to be sent to Arbcom privately instead of being posted in public. Mathsci and a few others have been publicly posting off-wiki information about me in this thread for almost two months, and opening a new case would likely keep that going. I think if Arbcom reviews everyone's editing privately (including looking for socks), they should have enough information to make a decision. Arbcom should consider whether the additional information they could get by opening a full case is worth the additional drama, and spread of non-public information, that it would inevitably cause. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Response of Mathsci

Initial response

More detailed response

Continued disruption by proxy

Further response prior to posting of motion

• Toolserver: [72]

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.[73] In that case I reponded by email to Risker and wrote this on her talk page.[74] 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.[75] 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.[76][77][78] 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 [79]; Ferahgo's, which go back to 16 March 2011 [80]; my last 100 edits to talk pages, no lobbying, mostly problems created by ipsocks and socks of Echigo mole [81]; Ferahgo's.[82])

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)

• Could Ferahgo the Assassin please answer Newyorkbrad's question in a short sentence or two? Ferahgo and Occam are not involved in a New Religious Movement or even a cult: why even try to frame things in those terms? What COI? Ferahgo has requested an amendment that concerns me alone. She is asking—or more accurately lobbying aggressively—for an interaction ban where there has been no interaction to speak of. I have at no stage suggested that Ferahgo the Assassin be blocked or banned, yet she has repeatedly claimed this. At the moment, she and her site-banned boyfriend have taken one diff (a warning) as a pretext for disrupting wikipedia for two months. Is there any more to see than that? Mathsci (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Note that Miradre, commenting below with their new account Acadēmica Orientālis (talk · contribs), was topic banned under discretionary sanctions for 3 months with a one month block for violating the ban. At an earlier stage, just before taking a wikibreak, Miradre was on the verge of receiving a community ban. Whether or not Miradre has modified their problematic editing in this area is up to other editors to decide.[83][84][85] Mathsci (talk) 02:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
• Vecrumba's recent comments seem to apply to some imaginary user that he has dreamed up, since, as he must be well aware, there has been no interaction between us outside the actual arbcom case WP:ARBR&I.[86] He has provided no diffs to justify his unsubstantiated personal attack. In these circumstances I would imagine his hyperbolic rant—the only way to describe what he has produced here—will be ignored by arbitrators. (Note: Vecrumba's edits are almost exclusively concerned with articles on Eastern Europe, where there is a lot of friction and where I have never edited. It is possible that Vecrumba has mistaken me for someone else with a similar username. Please could he double check?) Note also.[87] Mathsci (talk) 21:50, 29 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)

Response to Phil

Well, the straight forward thing is to simply reject the proposed amendment. The purpose of the amendment is to tie Mathsci's hands and so make it easier for CO and FtA to meat puppet around their topic bans. All you have to say in response is "NO".

Of course, if you really wanted to go after the issue in the topic area, then you'd have to consider how best to deal with all the meat puppets that keep popping up with clockwork precision. That would be harder and involve more work. And yes I think/agree it would be outside the scope of this amendment.VolunteerMarek 19:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to Elen

Elen, I might be getting confused here, but I believe that FtA is already topic banned from the area exactly because of her proxying for Captain Occam and the meat-puppeting thing. Basically what happened is that after Captain Occam got topic banned he got FtA to meat puppet for him. Then Mathsci pointed out that these two are linked in RL and so the ArbCom extended Captain Occam's topic ban to FtA.

At that point the two of them began recruiting their OTHER friends to meat puppet (Trevelyen and others). At the same time they engaged in some sour grapes type mockery and harassment of Mathsci on the Deviantart website and other places. Honestly, this was pretty stupid of them because it made it easy to track down the new meat puppets they had recruited. So Mathsci pointed it out.

Then - the point we're at now - CO and FtA got pissed that their not-so-smart meat puppets were obvious and that their obviousness was pointed out by Mathsci. Hence, she/they filed this amendment to prevent Mathsci or anyone else from interfering with the meat puppeting.

It's an obvious attempt to game the topic bans, which is exactly why above I said that the decision on this amendment should be "simple". It's a meat puppet of a topic banned editor, who was banned herself for her meat puppeting, bitching about the fact that further attempts to circumvent the topic ban by recruiting even more meat puppets are being interfered with by Mathsci. I mean, seriously, the whole request for the amendment screams "WP:GAME!!!!!!"

It was filed in bad faith, it's ridiculous on its merits, and simply rejecting the amendment oughta be the least that the committee does in this case. Instead we have some members of the committee actually taking it seriously. *Slap my head*.

Let me repeat this: Feragho the Assasin is ALREADY topic banned from this area [88] because she was ALREADY found to be meat puppeting for Captain Occcam. The question as to whether or not she is being instructed by him in her edits has already been settled - the two were acting in concert. The question is about FURTHER/NEW meat/sock puppets.

If you do really want to do something about this, then yes, a site ban for both or either one of them should be considered. Honestly, anyone who files an amendment along the lines of "user X is interfering with my ongoing disruption of the Wikipedia, and my attempts to circumvent sanctions which have been placed on me, please make him stop!" deserves some kind of sanction. I mean, the dishonesty itself oughta warrant something.VolunteerMarek 00:48, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Response to Roger Davis

Yes, you got it, except for the fact that FtA is ALREADY topic banned because of her meat puppeting. Yes, CO and FtA's edits are more or less indistinguishable. That's why CO's topic ban was extended to FtA. All that is given. The issue now is that they got some of their OTHER friends to keep on meat puppetin'. And they're mad that Mathsci pointed it out.

It seems like you're suggesting that FtA be topic banned because she's a meat puppet of Captain Occam. Of course. But that has ALREADY been done. Have I mentioned that this whole amendment is ridiculous?VolunteerMarek 00:57, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

One thing which COULD be done to improve the atmosphere in the topic area would be to put a short-list of core articles (R&I, History of R&I, couple others - for example, books by Rushton and Lynn) on permanent semi-protection. The amount of blatant sock puppeting by banned users on these pages reaches obnoxious levels - the problem is that there's numerous potential culprits, so even as you know that *someone* is being naughty, you can't always pin point which one of them is doing it.

This wouldn't prevent the sock puppeting nor the meat puppeting completely - the IP sock puppets could go to the trouble of creating accounts and managing a given number of edits - but it would raise the (marginal) costs of engaging in such activity and so at least lower it somewhat. At the same time, it would be a fairly straight forward and sensible solution (of the "don't make perfect the enemy of the good" kind) which would not necessitate all the time costs of a full blown AC case.VolunteerMarek 21:50, 2 March 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)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I am very concerned that the motion presented to the Committee totally misconstrues the import of this situation. An interaction ban would certainly provide FtA with the muzzle on Mathsci she was looking for, but it does so with very negative consequences for the project, because it removes from the scene one of the primary deterrents to the ongoing meatpuppetry of CO, which is, in point of fact, the problem which needs to be solved. The fact that this unwarranted Request for Amendment sat here for so long with little attention given to it while the Committee was dealing with a number of very complex and time-consuming arbitrations leads me to believe that perhaps there is now something of a rush to clear the decks and get pending matters out of the way, and that this has lead to a fundamental misreading of what's important here. I strongly suggest that the Committee dig a little bit deeper into this, because it's not a run-of-the-mill dispute between two editors which can be solved with an interaction ban, it's actually a ongoing slow-motion attack on the principles under which we operate -- in particular, NPOV -- by a group of concerted civil POV-pushers. That is, in my estimation, an extremely serious problem which needs to be addressed, and I am distressed that the motion presented to the Committee does not address it, instead approaching the case in a very superficial way. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

@Elen - There is no "personal attack" in characterizing FtA as a meatpuppet of CO, since the Committee has already determined her status by extending CO's topic ban to her. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:42, 29 February 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)

To some of the other comments, in my dealings with Mathsci, my issue has not been his content but his incessantly combative attitude including scurrilous personal attacks based on a presumption that anyone disagreeing to any degree is an enemy to be vanquished, not to mention seeing conspiracies at every turn. No amount of positive content justifies the rest of us putting up with that sort of crap. If we want to attract new, enthusiastic, collegial editors to WP, then Mathsci's attitude has to go. If he can't divorce himself from his attitude, well, then... VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:30, 29 February 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.[89] 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)

@PhilKnight, you are supposed to encourage admins to issue sanctions against meatpuppets, the people who keep recruiting them, and the people who keep disrupting wikipedia to advocate their POV, even if they are civil POV-pushers.

You have to encourage admins to ban POV-pushing disruptive editors even if they are being perfectly civil. Good editors burn out when admins take no actions against civil POV pushers. It shouldn't have taken so many AE requests to get Occam+Ferahgo banned, and it shouldn't take so much effort to ban further disruptive editors that push the same POV in the same disruptive way.

And then thank Mathsci for keeping an eye on socks, and thank Professor Marginalia and others for continuing to improve the articles despite all the disruption. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:03, 1 March 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, [90], Yfever soon follows to R/I [91], and first links to then recreates the POVforked and AFD'd article Ephery userfied? [92] Professor marginalia (talk) 00:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

New comment

I'm more than a little concerned that the main problem is being obscured and potentially made worse here. The core of the problem is that disruptions continue to flow in and from the R/I articles via Captain Occams' proxies long after his topic ban. In many cases, these disruptions seem orchestrated to achieve some strategic advantage like some World of Warcraft raid (eg, Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/WeijiBaikeBianji wherein the request was filed by one of the new puppets, and more than half the 11 endorsing or certifying it were currently topic banned or their puppets!) How many times and in how many ways has he/they tried to wikilawyer a protective shield for the proxying? It feels like that's what's going on again this time. Clearly TrevelyanL85A2 is a recruit whose first edits in this area were coordinated tag teaming between Captain Occam, Ferahgo and another clearly recruited puppet, probably two. Every time a puppet is caught, a new set game moves play out criticizing the person trying to fix it. Captain Occam's also played the innocent, the victim, when the evidence was handled privately[93][94] And furnished bull stories like [95] to sell it. Short of requiring that Captain Occam must give his personal permission first, before one is allowed to object to any of his proxies, these games will unfold the next time too. And if given the opening to play an interaction ban here into a tactical advantage implying TrevelyanL85A2, and others new and old, are free now to go on proxying in R/I, he/they will take it, believe me. So any remedy provided now should, at the very least, and as directly and firmly as possible, nail the door shut to more gaming with proxies as transparently obvious as this one. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:59, 27 February 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 [96] [97] [98] 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. [99] 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. [100] 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. [101] [102] I can also see from one of Feragho's diffs that Jclemens has said topic bans don't prevent commenting here in general. [103] 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, [104] 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)

response to PhilKnight: The broad thrust of Ferahgo's amendment is to restrict enforcement by involved editors. A number of arbitrator diffs she supplies illustrate unconventional views on enforcement. While the diffs are by individual arbitrators (not arbcom), they show a creeping sentiment in arbcom that enforcement by involved editors is a part of the problem, not part of the solution. The difficulties with this sentiment are threefold:

• How is an editor going to understand the disruption if they are uninvolved? Do we assume there are talk page lurkers who are prepared to dive into controversial topic enforcement without ever having participated?
• If such a lurker does surface, after that first enforcement action they are no longer uninvolved, and thus further enforcement actions initiated by them is become problematic.
• In the end, if enforcement is a problem, then how can there be any solution?

The implications here are sufficiently broad, and the nuances are sufficiently complex, that it seems difficult to solve this in the context of only WP:ARBR&I. I suggest either the status quo of involved enforcement be maintained, or a new case be created to address this complexity. aprock (talk) 21:21, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Acadēmica Orientālis/Miradre

I am not sure what Ferahgo the Assassin aims to achieve with this amendment? Ultimately a lifting of the topic ban? If so, then this is most likely pointless. The there-are-no-genetic-differences editor group has complete control of the topic area and will most likely continue to have this. In principle all editors presenting other views have been removed. In many cases the offenses seem rather mild but where the moralistic fallacy and emotional revulsion cause disproportionate and unequal responses. This is of course a mirror of the larger poisonous atmosphere in this area where even a Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of DNA like James D. Watson can be fired for saying the not politically correct thing in this area. When this can happen to such a prominent person then a lesser one of course has no chance. So if the aim is to ultimately add more views to the area under the topic ban, then my advise is to just avoid this area. If on the other hand the purpose is to stop general harassment by Mathsci I can certainly sympathize. I have myself experience of how Mathsci can become fixated by someone he seems to dislike and of how he earlier started following me around Wikipedia to oppose me on articles and topics not related to race and intelligence, started creating complaints on many different noticeboards, and started attempting many outings. (Disclaimer: I of course respect the talk page consensus and Wikipedia policies on all race and intelligence articles and in fact I have no intention to now or in the future edit the core articles in this area except making some occasional talk page comments. My editing is now and will in the future be in other areas.) Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 02:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Maunus

While there would be an obvious benefit for Ferahgo personally if Mathsci was to be prohibited from monitoring her actions or seeking sanctions against her when he deems there might be a case for that, I do not think that the benefit for the community is as obvious. The fact is that the topic matter that mostly preoccupies in the past has attracted attention from Ferahgo and Occam has been a frequent scene of foul play of various sort, and that Mathsci has been particularly adept in unveiling it - though admittedly sometimes using methods that are perhaps questionable. If Mathsci is not keeping an eye on this matter then who will be? And how will we avoid that the minefield that is R&I be overrun by puppets of various kinds? I think the benefit to the encyclopedia of having Mathsci free to investigate and comment on perceived foul play is a greater good than Ferahgo's peace of mind in this case. I think that the problems should be adressed by someone should be watching Mathsci and telling him when he is crossing the boundaries of acceptable conduct. The problem of abusive watchers is not solved by firing the watcher, but by having the public eye watching them.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:22, 28 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)

• Could the editors who have indicated the proposed motion isn't a good idea, indicate what should be done instead? A full arbitration case, a Request for Comments, or something else? PhilKnight (talk) 15:10, 27 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

PhilKnight (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC) Thanks to Volunteer Marek and Aprock for their replies. Striking my vote as it would appear the issues are too complex to be handled by a motion. Or in other words, I'm beginning to think a full case is necessary. PhilKnight (talk) 16:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Jclemens (talk) 18:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC) Striking. Jclemens (talk) 08:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Not the best way forward here. I'd support opening a new case to look into the topic area. Courcelles 21:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Abstain

Recuse

Comments by arbitrators

• 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)

• Elen, what do you think is needed here? Should we open a full case? PhilKnight (talk) 15:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• The problem is that one group of editors believes that Feragho types what Occam tells her, and that most of the other editors are socks. That's what needs addressing. If it requires a full case, then it requires a case, but I would have thought that reviewing the Wikipedia space contributions of Occam and Ferahgo (Arbcom can review things for themselves we have recently established - they don't need a bunch of editors presenting conflicting denouncements) plus a thorough SPI and review of previous SPIs (to see how serious the hosiery problem really is) would be a better place to start.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:17, 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)

• If you think you can improve the motion by a copyedit - even if you're not going to support it - then, I suggest you go ahead. PhilKnight (talk) 15:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• If I think it's likely to garner any support, I will. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Before I vote, I'd like to inquire what is the basis for the proposer's conclusion that Mathsci should be restricted. Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• I share that concern. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Setting the issues around the interaction ban itself aside for a moment, the concern here surely must be that, in Wikipedia space, the contributions of Ferahgo the Assassin and Captain Occam appear to be indistinguishable. For example, Ferahgo is even apparently advocating (proxying?) for Captain Occam about the scope of the interaction ban. It is not the point of WP:SHARE to let indistinguishable accounts continue to edit because they insist different hands are on the keyboard.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Requests for enforcement

Click here to add a new request

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

[105]

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: [106] 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)

@ T. Canens. Re you "we have never required evidence of "repeated or serious" misconduct before a warning may be issued." Well, my # 1 was probably too strict. However, you have to agree that some misconduct is supposed to take place before the warning is issued. The discretionary sanction text says

"Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning..."

In other words, according to this text a warning is issued to the editor, whose behaviour seems problematic. A typical example of such warning contains a reference to some concrete example of misconduct by the user in question. Alternativelly, the warning may be issued as a result of the AE request [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AVolunteer_Marek&action=historysubmit&diff=428783293&oldid=428236720 ], however, I am not familiar with the case when some good faith user appears to be arbitrarily warned for no reasons. Nowhere in the sanction's text can you find allowance of a blanket warning to everyone who just happened to express interest to Eastern Europe, Karabakh or Palestina-Israel. Therefore, the edit notice is just information, not a formal warning.

Moreover, you forgot one more important fact. Per WP:DIGWUREN, the Mass killings under Communist regimes article is fully protected, so the editorial privileges of all users appeared to be revoked before they got a chance to commit any violation. That means that sanctions have been applied even before the user got a change to read the "warning" (which, as I have demonstrated, is not a warning at all). Do you see any logic here? --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

PS Re you "in fact, the provision does not require any misconduct before a warning". If that is the case, then that such warning simply becomes a new rule that all Wikipedians are supposed to observe, i.e. a new policy. Does that mean that we have different policies for different fields within the same Wikiproject? And if this is a local policy, then why only admins/arbitrators are allowed to participate in its creation? As far as I know, admins and ordinary users have equal rights to write and modify policy...--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I would like to ask admins to have a look at the most recent SPI request by an uninvolved user on one of the accounts engaged in Nagorno-Karabakh article: [107] While there's no technical evidence to prove sockpuppetry, behavioral evidence provided by The Devil's Advocate is pretty alarming. There are user accounts that only act as revert machines. What are we supposed to do with those? The fact that 3 unrelated editors, including an admin, filed SPI requests mentioning the same accounts I believe demonstrates that there are reasons for concern. Grandmaster 16:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a reason for concern and that is Grandmaster/Tuscumbia/TheDevil'sAvocate own disruptive sock-machine that continues churning foul-faith SPI reports which are now disregarded and closed without much ado [108]. See my full comments. Dehr (talk) 20:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That's quite an interesting accusation. If you check, The Devil's Advocate is registered in 2007 and has about 4000 edits, and almost none of them in AA area. I never knew this user before I encountered his name on Xebulon's SPI request. If you still believe that we are each other's socks, you are more than welcome to file an SPI request.Grandmaster 21:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a clear problem with User:Grandmaster. He invents policies but does not want such policies be applied to him. One can argue that The Devils Adv is part of your sock-farm but you conspired to hide him so well that SPIs would not help. So, let's then disregard SPIs and ban you both on charges, as Dehr suggested, for WP:TROLL, WP:AGF and WP:BATTLEGROUND. Winterbliss (talk) 05:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Nice. So I've been hiding him for 5 years, but we've never edited the same article, and our paths only crossed now? Compare that to all those accounts that popped up since September 2011, after the previous bunch of Xebulon socks were banned, and who all edit the same articles, and some appear only to rv or vote. I would like to ask admins here a question. Are there any reasons to consider the accounts of Oliveriki (talk · contribs) or Spankarts (talk · contribs) to be good faith accounts? I think the latter account is the most blatant one, other than deredlinking his user page, it only made 3 edits, all of which are votes for deletion of contentious articles at AFDs. If it is not an SPA, then what is it? Grandmaster 10:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Both of them seem rather blatant to me. Oliveriki's only significant contributions have just been to get involved in edit wars to support Xebulon or his socks. The January 24th revert restoring a 28k Xebulon sock edit that had been reverted months before was pretty damn disruptive.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:25, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the comment by WGFinley, but I want to ask a question. Is it Ok to create SPAs just to rv or vote? Should the votes by such accounts count, and the rvs in highly contentious articles amidst heated disputes not considered disruptive? Everyone can ask his friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc create accounts to promote a certain position. How can disruption by SPAs be stopped? Shouldn't the activity of new accounts be restricted on contentious articles? As for SPIs, admins are involved in filing them as much as everyone else is, see for instance this: [109], the very first SPI was filed by the advice of the admins. And later SPIs were filed by unrelated users, some of whom do not even edit AA articles, and a wikipedia admin. That shows that there are serious reasons for concern that make all these people file the SPI requests. When one sees new accounts that pop up one after another to rv contentious articles or take part in AFDs, it makes him think that it is not just a mere coincidence. And also, filing SPIs is pretty useless nowadays. There are so many mass puppeteers (Paligun, Xebulon, Hetoum I, Ararat arev to name just a few), that figuring out who's who is almost impossible. But something needs to be done to stop disruption. Grandmaster 17:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I find certain statements by Winterbliss to be a rude violation of WP:AGF. For instance, a generalizing statement like "Azerbaijanis are not interested to develop the article Nagorno-Karabakh because academic sources are not on their side" are unacceptable. He implies that a user cannot be a good contributor to an article because of his ethnicity. And secondly, there's no consensus at talk for the edits of the banned user, who was using a number of socks to have the article his way. Please note that the edits by Bars77, Vandorenfm, and Gorzaim were made after their master (Xebulon) was banned, so the sock accounts were editing in defiance of the ban, which justifies the revert. Not a single established editor supported the edits of the banned user. Those supporting are all recently created accounts. Vandorenfm and Gorzaim were banned as socks on 15 and 18 September 2011, and here are user creation logs of all accounts currently supporting the edits of the banned user at talk of NK article:

October 1, 2011 Dehr (talk | contribs) created a user account
November 11, 2011 Sprutt (talk | contribs) created a user account
November 16, 2011 Zimmarod (talk | contribs) created a user account
November 19, 2011 Winterbliss (talk | contribs) created a user account
January 9, 2012 Nocturnal781 (talk | contribs) created a user account

I find it highly unusual (to say the least) that all those editors created accounts and flocked to a certain page to support edits of a certain editor, who happened to evade his ban using multiple sock accounts. Grandmaster 22:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

First, it is clear from the context that I never meant to generalize about ethnic Azerbaijanis but meant instead users who declared themselves to be from Azerbaijan on their talk pages and who participate(d) in tendentious editing in the AA2 area. I should have been more clear on that though. Secondly, Grandmaster's position that above mentioned accounts are socks has been argued out WP:Ad nauseam by repeating the same points over and over again, a method of filibustering a consensus on talk pages and applying psychological pressure on administrators in this talk. That is a rude violation of WP:AGF. You have been warned and are way over your head on that already. You created this discussion in bad faith and it should be closed immediately. Furthermore, I believe that some previous accounts were blocked as sockpuppets under similar pressure/brainwashing as per WP:SOAP. This tactic might have numbed the judgement of admins so that they developed prejudicial position visavis the victims of bad-faith SPIs filed by you, User:Tuscumbia and other users banned in RusWiki as meat-machine. User:Gorzaim and Vandorenfm might have been targets of such pressure tactics and could have been blocked unfairly. You placed a sock tag on User:Gorzaim in violation of the fact that User:Gorzaim was NOT a confirmed sock of User:Xebulon. Please be aware of WP:TROLL, WP:AGF, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:SOAP and WP:NPA as per [110] where it is said: a personal attack are accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Grandmaster should also understand that he is engaged in a campaign to drive away productive contributors as per [111], a disruptive tactic described in Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. Winterbliss (talk) 04:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

First off, I did not accuse the above accounts of sockery, I just drew attention to their user creation logs, which strangely coincide with the period following the ban of 2 sock accounts, Gorzaim and Vandorenfm. And I find your arguments in defense of the socks of the banned user to be unconvincing. You repeatedly said that Gorzaim and Vandorenfm became innocent victims of misjudgment and prejudice by the admins. But if one looks at the SPI requests that resulted in their ban, the CU showed that Vandorenfm was the same as Bars77: [112], and Bars77 was a CU confirmed sock of Xebulon: [113] Can you see any prejudice here? As for Gorzaim, the result of CU on him was " Likely. He edits from different ISPs, but they geolocate to the same general area. There are many overlaps with user agents as well. J.delanoy." [114] Please note that sockpuppetry is established not just on the basis of a perfect IP match. Eventually, it is up to the admins to decide on the basis of technical and behavioral evidence if an account is a sock. In this case we had 2 users with the same geolocation making identical edits to the same pages. Their IPs might have not been absolutely identical, but the behavioral evidence showed that this could have been home/work situation, so the evidence available to the admins allowed them to rule that Gorzaim was also a sock. And wikilawyering is pointless, you said that I "created this discussion in bad faith and it should be closed immediately", but I started this AE request because I was advised to do so by the admin who handled the SPI requests. This is yet another violation of WP:AGF on your part. Grandmaster 09:24, 5 March 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 → [115].

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 [116] 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 [117] “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 [118] 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 - [119], [120], 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 [121]. Just a few examples of Tuscumbia's fishing trips: [122], [123], [124], [125], [126]. 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.→ [127]

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 [128]. 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 [129]. 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)

Comment by George Spurlin

Reading the above comments I see intense wiki lawyering and users attacking each other. Let me take a different approach and talk about myself. I have been a wikipedian for about 9 months, and this subject area happens to be one of my interests, and if I was limited to participate, most likely I would've found a better place to spend my time. Lets not forget that this is the Free encyclopedia that anyone can edit! --George Spurlin (talk) 20:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate

My assessment of this situation is that SPI has proven inadequate at dealing with some of the obvious sockpuppetry going on. Vandorenfm and Gorzaim were two accounts that got subjected to three separate checks before it finally came to light that they were socks of Xebulon once new accounts popped up to compare them with. This suggests these sockmasters have proven very capable at evading detection from checkusers. I am not sure how many of these editors are socks, but there is definitely something shady going on with some of them. Not sure if doing anything about this one page will address that issue.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems that User:Gorzaim's account was NOT found to be a sock of Vandorenfm or Xebulon based on SPIs. It was closed simply because of an arbitrary decision of the administrator HelloAnnyong [130]. I am inclined to believe that since those 3 accounts which were showing as unrelated in so many previous SPIs are truly unrelated and were closed as a result of a mistake or a technical glitch. Dehr (talk) 21:41, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This is alarming but also reveling: same tactics, same phrases. User:Grandmaster and The Devil's Advocate QUACK painfully similar. Both were defending the banned User:Tuscumbia who was editwarring in Nagorno's article [[131] and [132]. Both filed similar SPI useless and disruptive reports on the oft-cited user Xebulon. They are coordinating their SPI operations [133]. Dehr (talk) 21:12, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Nothing revealing about that. I saw the case and was planning to comment even before Grandmaster commented at my talk page. The first SPI was filed because an AE case was closed on the basis that accusations of sockpuppetry be taken there and several of the admins commenting at the AE case felt strongly that there was something to the accusations of sockpuppetry against users such as Winterbliss and George Spurlin.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed The Devil's Advocate, please be aware of WP:TROLL, WP:AGF (as per Dehr) and also WP:BATTLEGROUND.

On the Sandstein restriction, one thing I think makes sense is having a 1RR per week limit on the article.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Dehr

This issue has now clearly transformed into a WP:TROLL and WP:AGF concern, when a coordinating cluster of editors attack and harass the other group on highly suspicious pretenses (e.g. the conspiratorial but baseless "SPIs do not show anything but SOMETHING is going on"). The loudly QUACKING User:Grandmaster and The Devil's Advocate shoot one foul-faith SPI after next attempting to disrupt the development of the Nagorno and related articles. One of these SPIs was filed today by The Devil's Advocate. I am calling on the administrative operatives to stop these attacks and deal with the disrupting account User:Grandmaster. Dehr (talk) 21:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment about User:Golbez and WP:CIVILITY

User Golbez has acted as a self-appointed watchman of the article for some time and there are people who believe that his participation had been generally helpful. But as of late he has been outright disregarding WP:CIVILITY which casts serious doubt on merits of his endorsement of this AE request. Some examples of incivil conduct by Golbez:

• See edit summary: “you know what, fuck it, i yield. i don't have time for this petty bullshit, not until arbcom can give us the power to summarily ban every last nationalist on wikipedia.” [134]
• “Sir or madam, you have made my fucking night.” [135]
• “This idiotic revanchism, this useless irredentism, means nothing to me” [136]
• “A pox upon both your houses.” [137] - written in a pamphlet by Golbez which is not too bad in fact, but it shows that he was determined not to develop any subject-matter expertise and wrongfully praised that attitude as impartiality.

It would be helpful if Golbez could act as an arbiter distinguishing filibustering from honest disagreements on talk pages but he failed to be such an arbiter. Instead he chose profanities and sided with disruptive users. So far he supported felonious User:Tuscumbia and User:Brandmeister (each are/were recently topic banned of one year for disruptive conduct), and was freezing the Nagorno-Karabakh article on the versions supported by these two users. He praised User:Tuscumbia as someone who “follows the rules” on the very day (!) when Tuscumbia got banned after exhausting himself in multiple WP:BATTLEGROUNDs [138]. Here Golbez teams up with Grandmaster, supporting his disruptive idea [139]. Just too many inconvenient facts. I would also like to bring you comment by User:Meowy who well characterized Golbez as a careless and failing administrator [140]:

• Regarding the comments by Golbez (who, if my memory is right, I consider to be one of the better-informed administrators and generally OK in his aims and actions): "Shall I start issuing blocks based solely on the duck test?" Is this a warning or is it meant to be ironic? "Since they were found to be unrelated, I am left with few civil options." ....erm .... since they were found to be unrelated you really have no business making further discussion about them in relation to sockpuppetry, and to continue otherwise is an example of bad faith.

Winterbliss (talk) 04:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hold on - since you are pushing my name into this - I did not characterise Golbez as "a careless and failing administrator", I was saying that I was disappointed that he was failing in this instance by refusing to just accept the finding that proved the accounts he thought were related were not related. Meowy 21:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• It is probably worth mentioning that the above mentioned Meowy (talk · contribs) is just back from a 1 year block for sockpuppetry. [141] So his comment at SPI request page is not surprising. Meowy is also indefinitely banned from commenting at WP:AE on AA related matters, [142] so I don't know whether it is Ok to repost his comments here. Grandmaster 10:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  My above comment, made to clarify a misrepresentation of my views, will be the only post I intend make here. If Winterbliss's misinterpretation of what I had written elsewhere were to be removed along with the quote, then my comment about it can also be removed. However, it is just you who say this is an AA2-related thread. The comments from all the unconnected editors indicate that it is NOT that because the powers you wish to see simply do not exist under AA2, and that to make them exist would mean making a fundamental change to the way Wikipedia editing works. So it is actually a policy change that would affect all of Wikipedia. Meowy 22:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I am amused that my attack on irredentism and revanchism is somehow incivil. Or that thanking you for giving me a good larf is somehow bad.

So, I'm not sure what the point of this subsection is, seeing how I'm pretty much out of the Caucasian clusterfuck at the moment - are you suggesting there be sanctions placed upon me, or are you just filling space? If the former, there's an actual place to go to do that; if the latter, you've at least made me grin. I seriously thought this was going to be about all the time I've characterized the editors of those articles as children, so this really could have been done better. I give it a C-. Also, I've been here a skosh longer than you, so I actually know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I think the fundamental problem here is, for some reason I thought the provisions of AA2 had expired or at least had been tempered; if I knew I could throw any of you kids on a 1 revert restriction, my sanity might still be with us. Is this still the case, anyone who is familiar with the situation? Then again, looking at the list of bans and blocks placed because of AA2, and still no long-term change... clearly it would seem that AA2 has failed.

Meowy, I accepted the finding that the accounts weren't related... that doesn't change the fact that at the very least, Oliveriki should be blocked for disruption - reverting back to a four-month-old version with a blatant lie for an edit summary on an AA-related article should be an instablock. My failure was not in executing it, but actually trying to get people to discuss before going all revert happy.

I guess I've burnt bridges on my way out, so I probably won't be able to go back in with the same cachet I had before (You know, the cachet that got me accused of being both Armenian and Azeri? Those were the days. You don't know how hilarious it is that you accuse me of being pro-Azeri. Oh, newbies, what would life be like without their naivete?), but ... eh. It's Wikipedia's loss, not mine. If I really was THE only person holding those articles together, then that appears to be a structural problem that the whole project needs to figure out how to fix. Someone else can pick up the pieces; I have maps to make and governors to list. --Golbez (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Gatoclass

Hello Gatoclass. Thank you for taking the time to take another look at the issue again. However, I regret to notice that you at times misreport on the facts and have taken an approach that is not well balanced.

• First, User:Tuscumbia was recently blocked from AA2 for one full year and not for six months (as Gatoclass misreports). Take a look one more time: [143]. This misreport shows that Gatoclass failed to invest enough time and effort to inspect the entire situation honestly. I do not want to assume at this moment that he intentionally tries to protect users banned for WP:BATTLEGROUND.

• Second, in the bigger order of things, it does not really matter if texts in WP articles are developed by socks, fox, schmocks or frogs. The only thing that matters is the quality of the text itself i.e. if it complies with the WP standards for neutrality and accuracy. I don’t and no one really should care if there were xebulons, babelons or schmebulons writing the text. If it is good, it should be in the article. You are right, however, that since someone was banned (in good or bad faith), it makes re-inputting good quality texts a bit tricky, procedurally speaking, and certain rules should be observed. And some (big or small) parts of the previous writeup can be thrown away. The users were warned about this by Golbez, and they are complying by discussing these issues before they change the article. Please familiarize yourself with the part “Proposed Rewrite” [144]. Per Golbez’s recommendation, User:Zimmarod took a look at the parts of the article deleted last year, looked at sources and assessed the quality of the deleted paragraphs in the section “Restored part of the text discussion by Zimmarod” [145]. Ideas how to develop the article should be discussed on talk pages but there should be a policy punishing repeating the same points over and over again per WP:IDHT and filibustering honest discussions per WP:FILIBUSTER.

• One favorite method of users like User:Grandmaster to disrupt editorial process is to repeating the same points over and over again alleging that consensus is not reached (although it is reached). Please understand that it is WP:TE, specifically subsection “Disputing the reliability of apparently good sources” [146], “Repeating the same argument without convincing people” [147] and above everything “deleting the cited additions of others” [148].

• I talked about this before but let me repeat this again: Azerbaijanis Many Azerbaijani WP users are not interested to develop the article Nagorno-Karabakh because academic sources are not on their side. To familiarize yourself with this argument please take a look how User:Tuscumbia was trying to filibuster and stonewall against academic references on talk pages in Murovdag [149]. They try to ban their Armenian opponents as socks so that edits they made would forever be silenced or suppressed. In other words, they try to ban people in order to suppress ideas that these people express. Imagine a situation that there is a WP dispute in the article about the Moon. One group of editors believes the Moon is a pancake hanging in the air, the other thinks it is a natural satellite of the Earth. The group saying it is a celestial object was found to be a sock who gets banned. Does this mean his the notion that the Moon is a natural satellite of the Earth shall be forever removed from and suppressed in the article? Nonsense, right? That is exactly what the Azerbaijani editors want to happen and that is why they harass their opponents with SPIs – they believe this creates pressure on administrators who would eventually get tired and would concede in arbitrarily declaring the opposite group as socks, regardless of actual evidence. This is not an excuse to be biased against them all but is something to keep in mind.

• Your allegations about accusing Zimmarod in WP:SOAP and WP:NPA are unconvincing. There were no personal attacks and no propaganda or advertisements. And what about bad-faith SPIs that were criticized by several administrators??? Gatoclass ignores this entirely. Comparing users from Azerbaijan, which is a nationalist dictatorship indeed, with China or the USSR makes sense. In all three cases, we deal with people who are likely to be brainwashed by state propaganda, and have a lack of understanding of how open-source collaborative projects like Wikipedia should work in terms of WP:NPOV.

• One last point about User:Vandorenfm and User:Gorzaim who were accused and banned for supposedly being socks of User:Xebulon. I really did not want to go into that but the more I hear about them the more I am convinced that they these two were banned under pressure and with no or little evidence of sockpuppetry, especially User:Gorzaim, who as someone (Dehr?) mentioned previously, was banned by User:HelloAnnyong without any technical evidence of sockpuppetry. And banning User:Vandorenfm could be a mistake made under the psychological pressure of relentless bad-faith SPIs, which blurred the vision and numbed the senses of the administrators. Winterbliss (talk) 22:07, 3 March 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)

I must say I have some misgivings about the notion of DUCK blocks, as a possible side effect is the alienation of new, good faith users. A revert restriction that favoured established users would be another alternative. I would like to take a closer look at the article before commenting further however. Gatoclass (talk) 07:36, 28 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)

• @Paul Siebert: we have never required evidence of "repeated or serious" misconduct before a warning may be issued; in fact, the provision does not require any misconduct before a warning. DSN allows for sanctions on an editor who "despite being warned...repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process". Repeated or serious misconduct is required for sanctions, not for a warning. T. Canens (talk) 17:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• I too have concerns about the "Sandstein Option" having the desired effect for the article. The way these folks scrap regarding Nagorno-Karabakh is remarkable though, I've had to admin disputes over an abandoned mosque and the name of a mountain range of all things. The national tensions in this area of the world are profound and, like other areas, those folks want to bring their battles here. I have great concerns about the misuse of SPI as well. Yes, a lot of people sock in this area and there's probably off-wiki canvassing in this area but we can't use that as justification for immediately assuming an editor is from that without proof. I am also having growing concerns about the "SPI Patrol" that is, those who regularly submit largely unfounded SPI requests. Therefore, what I would suggest, is a more stringent approach to single purpose accounts. Simply put, they are politely warned they are editing in a conflict area as an SPA and as such they can find themselves subject to sanction quite readily if they're engaging in TE or causing disruption. This eliminates a lot of the guesswork in socking and just brings them to account for their behavior. There's nothing wrong with being an SPA, it just opens you up to scrutiny in conflict areas. --WGFinley (talk) 15:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Having found the time to do a little more research on the history of the article and the users concerned, it seems the following has occurred:

Between about June and August 2011, the article was gradually taken from about 60k to 95k bytes by several users since banned for sockpuppetry, including Bars77, Vandorenfm, and Gorzaim. After these accounts were banned, Ehud Lesar reverted the article back to the 60k version in September, per WP:BAN.[150] Lesar then found himself in an edit war with several other users, most of whom also turned out to be socks. The article then remained relatively stable on the 60k version for about five months, until January 24, when Oliveriki, a user with only a handful of edits, reverted back to the 95k version with the misleading edit summary "rest references".[151] This triggered a renewed edit war over the two versions, with the participants this time including Tuscumbia (currently serving a six-month one year ban for another issue) Zimmerod, Brandmeister and Winterbliss.

My initial conclusions are, firstly, that Oliveriki renewed an old edit war and did so with a highly misleading edit summary,[152]] also failing to explain his reasons for restoring about 30k of content on the talk page. The fact that this user has only a handful of edits is also a concern. Secondly, Zimmarod restored the contested 95k version three times,[153][154][155] the last time justifying his restoration per WP:BAN due to Tuscumbia's ban,[156] ignoring the fact that the content he was restoring was itself originally added by sitebanned users. Zimmarod has also made disparaging remarks on the article talk page about his opponents, in breach of WP:SOAPBOX AND WP:NPA: "Azerbaijani editors always discard anything that runs against the spirit and letter of official state propaganda of their bizarre oil dictatorship headed by the uncrowned KGB monarch Aliyev. Azerbaijani futile fight against Western academia is like the objections of of the state-brainwashed Chinese or Soviets against Western accusations of human rights abuse"[157] and "I think five editors spend a month in empty talk with a stubborn POV-pusher."[158] As a consequence, I think both editors should as a minimum be formally warned of AE sanctions.

With regard to the edit warring, most of the reverts on both sides have been made on the grounds of WP:BAN, presumably from the clause which states that Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. I do not see however, where the policy states that edits made by a user before his ban can be reverted on sight. Regardless, the policy also states that Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and they have independent reasons for making them. From this, I conclude that if an edit originally made by a since banned user is restored by another user in good standing, then that edit should be discussed as a legitimate edit and not simply re-reverted per the first WP:BAN clause.

Finally, with regard to the contested content itself, I agree with Golbez,[159] who suggested that it is not appropriate in such a contested article to add so much content in a single edit without discussion, and that the additions need to be discussed section by section by the parties concerned so that outstanding issues can be properly addressed. Gatoclass (talk) 08:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm concerned that Winterbliss has seized upon a minor error in my conclusions above to cast aspersions on my honesty and integrity.[160] Since his comments were directed at me personally, I think it best to leave it to other admins to decide whether or not such comments are acceptable in the light of the evidence presented in their support. Gatoclass (talk) 08:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Rejedef

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

Request concerning Rejedef

User who is submitting this request for enforcement 

Mathsci (talk) 06:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested 

Rejedef (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:Eastern Europe, indefinite topic ban from all articles and their talk pages related to Eastern Europe, broadly construed

Problems with editing 

These have been discussed recently at WP:ANI in this thread. Recent edits:[161][162] Talk page contributions from November 2011: [163][164][165], etc.

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

Warning of a report being made here has already been discussed at WP:ANI in the thread mentioned above, where Rejedef has participated.[166] He had also been warned in the threads on Talk:Europe (linked above) that editing of this kind could result in a report here

Additional comments by editor filing complaint 

Rejedef has for some time now been editing uncontentious articles on wikipedia, like Europe, trying to remove references to Eastern Europe. He has stated that his belief is that "Eastern European" is used as an ethnic slur. That apparently has been the basis for his disruptive edits. Further examples are given in the WP:ANI thread listed above. In the diff above from that thread, Rejedef writes: "My nickname will be illegally (in EU's law) processed by Wikipedia, apparently." He also suggests that "Western European" is a racial slur. (Very little of this seems to make any sense at all.)

Rejedef gives further evidence below of his disruptive stance. He shows no understanding of the problems this is causing on multiple articles. Administrators should read the ANI thread for the comments of Jayjg, Jayron32 and Qwyrxian. Mathsci (talk) 02:21, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested 

[167]

Discussion concerning Rejedef

I find all of it incomprehensible and very biased. I am severely disadvantaged because I have no contacts on Wikipedia, and only this form of support (other user's support) is apparently accepted. Why don't you delete my account, as I wanted? --Rejedef (talk) 03:37, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Rejedef

I have nothing to say but direct to resources that will speak for me best, although there is a number of them. A travel over Europe is also compulsory to be able to write about it anything.

Number 1. Milan Kundera's essay: 'The tragedy of Central Europe': is.cuni.cz/studium/predmety/index.php?do=down&did=18219

Number 2. Christopher Lord, Central Europe: Core or Periphery? http://www.ce-review.org/00/36/books36_nilsson.html

Number 3. Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, book

Number 4. Michal Buchowski, The Specter of Orientalism in Europe: From Exotic Brother to Stigmatized Brother: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/anthropological_quarterly/v079/79.3buchowski.html

Number 5. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8507.html

Number 6. Scholarship http://amu.edu.pl/en/year-at-amu/a-year-at-amu/amu-pie/offer/amu-pie-offer-20102011-winter-semester/european-orientalism

Does any of you have any paper to say that we should still use the term 'Eastern' and 'Western Europe' and if you have one, did the same author changed his opinion over time, like Timothy Garton Ash, or admitted actually no expertise on 'orientalism' (or European semi-orientalism), being under fire from the critics like Edward Said? --Rejedef (talk) 02:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Problems with editing All changes were justified.

National geographic is popularising (lat.populus-mass, people) science. It is meant to be simplistic and negligent. There is a lot of problem with it, not only including Reading National Geographic, Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins but also@ http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138051#.T1Qrl_GDj8c http://www.countercurrents.org/lieberman120507.htm http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/taxlr41&div=22&id=&page= It admits it has a viewpoint: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/18/g912/readingnews.html shall I find more resources? Also, the atlas was published in 1999 when the geopolitics of Europe was just 10 years after the start of communism fall? If the book was published in 1999, then the date would have been at least 1 year old. We must always look at the newest resources. Imagine that few countries emerged in Europe since 1999, namely Montenegro and Kosovo, which is quite controversial to date. In addition Yugoslavia ceased to exist. Why don't you look at Collins Atlas of the World published in 2011? --Rejedef (talk) 03:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint 'Eastern European' is a subtle racial slur, this is why it should be removed, unless it is accurate. The more acceptable is geographical 'eastern European'; still, it relates to predominantly European Russia (as the centre of Europe is located in Lithuania or Estonia). 'Eastern Europe' is a synonym for nasty adjectives. Similarily, yet less commonly, Western European is also relegating but it is not perceived as a slur that often, as a synonym of 'shallow', 'stupid' or 'immoral'. It is illegal in EU law to not to have the opportunity to be forgotten, including just deleting your account. My edits have been NOT disruptive at all. I find the critics totally incomprehensible. --Rejedef (talk) 03:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Rejedef

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

• @Rejedef, AE can't judge matters of content—that's for the relevant talk pages. We can only look at matters of editor conduct, so your best bet would be to defend yourself against the claims Mathsci makes and/or showing us how your presence in the topic area (from which he is requesting you be banned) is beneficial. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
• This seems to be a user with a fixed idea that he is going to continue to promote by edit warring, even if he never persuades a single person to support him. The discretionary sanctions under WP:DIGWUREN were explained to Rejedef in this post to Talk:Europe in November, 2011, which he must have read since he responded just below that comment. Rejedef's response above (in the Statement by Rejedef) gives us no reason for optimism about his future contributions, and gives no hint he is open to discussion. I would suggest an indefinite ban of Rejedef from the topic of Eastern Europe. Of necessity, such a ban would include reference to the topic of Eastern Europe or the countries that make it up in more general articles such as Europe or Central Europe. EdJohnston (talk) 03:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)