Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement: Difference between revisions

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See also: Logged AE sanctions

Important information

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Please use this page only to:

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

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

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

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

Appeals and administrator modifications of contentious topics restrictions

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

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

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

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

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

A rough consensus of administrators at AE or editors at AN may specify a period of up to one year during which no appeals (other than an appeal to ARCA) may be submitted.

Changing or revoking a contentious topic restriction

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

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

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

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

Any administrator who revokes or changes a contentious topic restriction out of process (i.e. without the above conditions being met) may, at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped.

Standard of review
On community review

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

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

On Arbitration Committee review

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

the action was inconsistent with the contentious topics procedure or applicable policy (i.e. the action was out of process),
the action represents an unreasonable exercise of administrative enforcement discretion, or
compelling circumstances warrant the full Committee's action.

^ The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.
^ This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.

Appeals and administrator modifications of non-contentious topics sanctions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications and appeals state:

Appeals by sanctioned editors

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

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

Modifications by administrators

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

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

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

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

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

Important notes:

For a request to succeed, either

(i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or

(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA

is required. If consensus at AE or AN is unclear, the status quo prevails.

While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.
These provisions apply only to contentious topic restrictions placed by administrators and to blocks placed by administrators to enforce arbitration case decisions. They do not apply to sanctions directly authorized by the committee, and enacted either by arbitrators or by arbitration clerks, or to special functionary blocks of whatever nature.
All actions designated as arbitration enforcement actions, including those alleged to be out of process or against existing policy, must first be appealed following arbitration enforcement procedures to establish if such enforcement is inappropriate before the action may be reversed or formally discussed at another venue.

Information for administrators processing requests

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

A couple of reminders:

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

Closing a thread:

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

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

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TrevelyanL85A2

No action taken. This close is without prejudice to Mathsci's right to seek relief directly from the Arbitration Committee. T. Canens (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning TrevelyanL85A2

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Mathsci (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: TrevelyanL85A2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBR&I. The only appropriate remedy here appears to be an indefinite site-ban. That could happen here or could be enforced, even without a motion, by any member of arbcom.

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

Not applicable. This user is banned in absolutely crystal clear terms from making arbcom requests of the kind he has is attempting to make, particularly even the slightest thing which mentions my name. He has no idea what he's doing and his "activities" have no place whatsover on wikipedia.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

TrevelyanL85A2 is topic-banned from starting any kind of arbcom case involving me. He is doing so now on behalf of his friends, two site-banned users Captain Occam and Ferahgo-the-Assassin. This editor is hot off a one month AE block and has now apparently set his sights on creating maximal disruption on wikipedia. From statements on the arbitration committee talk page, he has been chatting with his DeviantArt friends (two of whom are arbcom site-banned users, both highly disruptive and neither of them particularly honest). TrevelyanL85A2 seems to be out to make mischief on their behalf. TrevelyanL85A2 has shown no interest whatsover in being involved in even the tiniest weeniest way in building a high quality encyclopedia to promote human knowledge, which is the main purpose of wikipedia. He should be site-banned from wikipedia. (That should apply equally well to any editors that arbcom have deemed to be associated with him and who choose to support his frivolous request there.) An administrator unconnected with arbcom should simply block the account indefinitely without allowing this to proceed further. Mathsci (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TrevelaynL85A2 cannot mention me anywhere on wikipedia. What is it that he doesn't understand about that? Mathsci (talk) 20:37, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How far does TrevelyanL85A2 think he can go? [1] He and his DeviantArt friends are making a mockery of wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 21:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As MastCell can confirm, I did not communicate with him about TrevelyanL85A2 in this context, and I have stated this explicitly on wikipedia. If TrevelyanL85A2 wishes to continue presenting his own very particular take on this on wikipedia, that is his own responsibility. If he does not retract his claims and make a public apology, why should he be allowed to continue editing here? As far as I am concerned, this is clearly a disrutption-only account at the beck and call of two highly disruptive site-banned editors. The proof of that is not the gratuitous attack on me but on MastCell. Mathsci (talk) 21:56, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TrevelyanL85A2 has made the following set of edits on User talk:The Devil's Advocate.[2][3][4] In the second diff he has encouraged others to start an RfC/U on me. He is presumably aware that such a suggestion is yet another serious violation of his extended topic ban. Given the recent information provided on-wiki about off-wiki contacts amongst the DeviantArt group, there seems to be little doubt that TrevelyanL85A2 has been in contact with the two site-banned editors, Occam and Ferahgo, and is now continuing their own campaign as a proxy. Indeed, as Courcelles has pointed out on another arbcom page,[5] that seems to be all he is doing at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 21:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TDA appears to be trolling here. Mathsci (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If TDA disagrees with the results of the WP:ARBR&I review, he had the opportunity in May to express his objections. He did not do so. If he now feels that there should be an amendment or clarification of that review, this is not the correct venue. TDA will probably receive a an official logged warning if they continue making unhelpful remarks here. A sock troll of Echigo mole set up an abusive RfAr which was instantly removed by Courcelles and the sock CU-blocked. The trolling notifications were removed from all the user talk pages. Describing that as disruption is singularly unhelpful and clueless. Mathsci (talk) 06:59, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of this page is to enforce arbcom sanctions, not to question the validity of those sanctions. The response of wikipedians to the edits of Keystone Crow are not remotely relevant here (or anywhere on wikipedia). He was blocked by a checkuser as an obvious disruptive troll sock of a community banned wikistalker. Mathsci (talk) 09:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update The RfAr of TrevelyanL85A2 has now been declined as numerically impossible.[6] Shortly after that posting of Roger Davies, TrevelyanL85A2 asserted that he was withdrawing the request.[7] In that diff, he still does not seem to be heeding the warnings that have been given to him and/or his friend SightWatcher. They apply equally well to both. As MastCell has carefully explained,[8] his failed RfAr relied on an extremely bad faith assumption which was demonstrably false. It involved casting aspersions on both MastCell and me; he repeatedly made those claims during his unsuccessful appeal and continued to do so after his one month block ended with this RfAr. The name "Mathsci" appeared multiple times throughout the request, despite TrevelyanL85A2's claim that it primarily concerned MastCell. (There is an unsurprising similarity with the aspersions cast by Occam back in December 2010 concerning Roger Davies and me.)

Following his unblock, TrevelyanL85A2 has given every appearance of continuing the dispute/campaign of Occam and Ferahgo as a proxy. SightWatcher has disclosed on-wiki that the DeviantArt group has been conferring off-wiki during TrevelyanL85A2's block. TrevelyanL85A2's most recent diffs still show that he has not yet relinquished the idea of encouraging wikipedia processes that will affect me and my editing directly and adversely. That is completely at odds with his extended topic ban and the advice and warnings he has received from multiple editors, administrators and arbitrators. In the last diff, instead of heeding those warnings, he has preferred to listen to The Devil's Advocate, who has stated several times now that the arbcom sanctions were not appropriate. The Devil's Advocate has no authority to misguide TrevelyanL85A2 in this way. In the diff above, TrevelyanL85A2 writes about "mixed messages" when everybody except The Devil's Advocate is telling him exactly the same thing. Mathsci (talk) 10:27, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MBisanz, EdJohnston and others commented on the problematic posts of SightWatcher (easy enough to find) and both gave warnings to him. One of the posts was even redacted by AGK. Presumably TrevelyanL85A2 read all those posts since they related directly to him. Despite that, he apparently took no notice of them. Mathsci (talk) 18:47, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Silver seren This editor has already received a logged warning under WP:ARBR&I. [9] Otherwise what he has written below seems unrelated in any way to wikipedia policy. If Echigo mole, a serial long term wikistalker, serial puppetmaster and community banned user, adds trolling and disruptive content anywhere on wikipedia it can be removed immediately per WP:DENY. Johnuniq has already described the incident involving the abusive RfAr made by the sock troll Keystone Crow, all of whose trolling notifications were removed by me.

TrevelyanL85A2 has been warned by arbitrators about his recent edits following the arbcom review. They include (a) giving the appearance of editing on behalf of site-banned users to continue their disputes (e.g. the meritless RfAr) (b) relying on the disruption of sock trolls of Echigo mole to "get at me" and (c) "getting at me" by repeatedly casting false aspersions concerning MastCell and me. TrevelyanL85A2 is under a clearly worded topic ban. He is not allowed to mention me or seek litigation against me on wikipedia in the ways that he has now done repeatedly. He was blocked in June for one month for mentioning me in connection with the removal of edits of Echigo mole elsewhere on wikipedia. Over a month ago he unsuccessfullly appealed that block here at AE. Is there a particular reason that Silver seren is coming here one month late to produce WP:LAME arguments concerning that appeal? Mathsci (talk) 05:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The last time Collect started using the words "battleground behaviour" on this page, he got a logged warning at WP:ARBR&I. The same thing might very well happen to The Devil's Advocate. He should also probably bear in mind that the purpose of this page is for reports about those sanctioned under WP:ARBR&I (there are three topic banned editors) or those who have contravened the editing restrictions on articles or their talk pages covered by WP:ARBR&I. I do not fall into either of those categories, so taking cheap pot shots at me is undoubtedly counter-productive. Mathsci (talk) 15:57, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Salvio giuliano has made the extraordinary statement that "my hands are not clean" without any justification. I don't believe in fact that he can justify that extraordinary claim in any reasonable way.

In this case, when an RfAr was opened in bad faith (based on innuendos about secret subterfuge involving MastCell and me and the trolling edits of my own creepy wikistalker), that must surely have rung alarm bells with all administrators, including Salvio giuliano. Several warnings were issued by arbitrators and administrators to SightWatcher that applied equally well to TrevelyanL85A2. Despite that advice, as soon as he was unblocked TrevelyanL85A2, presumably guided by Occam and Ferahgo, went out of his way at the first possible opportunity to propose a bizarre and meritless RfAr. Contrary to his explicit and unambiguous topic ban, my username appeared in a significant number of lines in TrevelyanL85A2's request. No matter how he represents himself, this is a repetition of the conduct patterns that were described in my evidence for the arbcom review and subsequently appeared in the final decision. TrevelyanL85A2 did not accidentally slip up: he deliberately misconstrued the advice he was privately offered by arbitrators and attempted, as Occam and Ferahgo have done in the past, to exploit loop-holes in topic bans to continue a long term campaign of harassment. The RfAr was turned down very rapidly. During TrevelyanL85A2's AE block, SightWatcher repeated exactly the same innuendos and showed some eagerness to start an RfAr similar to that of TrevelyanL85A2. Neither SightWatcher nor TrevelyanL85A2 are permitted to start or encourage proceedings on wikipedia which centre round me. The RfAr, with my username omnipresent, was exactly such a process. Perhaps it might be useful for Salvio guiliano to reread the advice and warnings offered to both SightWatcher and TrevelyanL85A2 before making further comments with gratuitous insults. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 00:51, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Salvio giuliano I am not upset by TrevelyanL85A2 or SightWatcher mentioning my name. These users are simply not allowed to mention my name because that is the explicit nature of their arbcom sanctions. That is why TrevelyanL85A2 was reported here. That does not seem to be particularly hard to understand.

In December 2010 Captain Occam disrupted wikipedia on several project pages by making the suggestion that Roger Davies and I had been involved in cronyism. Now both users, both "best friends" of Ferhago, have made similar suggestions concerning MastCell and me. They are known to be in contact by instant messenger, etc. That this conduct repeats itself with such predictability is just tiresome disruption. As Shell Kinney wrote privately to me in 2011, this DeviantArt crowd showed their true colours a long time ago. They are not entitled to get endless second, third, fourth or fifth chances when an administrator comes along who has not acquainted himself with the well-documented history. By now there is an established long term record of proxy-editing/gaming the system. That was their conscious choice. They have also chosen to spend disproportionate amounts of their time in project space trying to "write me out of the equation", as Roger Davies puts it. When false accusations (in this case innunedos about MastCell and me) are presented on wikipedia, all I can do is respond. I am surprised that Salvio giuliano has chosen to take the side of the user making those accusations, which were not accepted by arbitrators nor during the appeal at WP:AE, where the innuendos were first made. Otherwise on wikipedia I am steadily trying to improve the quality of articles on modern and classical analysis. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 14:54, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as WP:ARBR&I is concerned, the only purposes of this page are (a) problematic edits to articles and their talk page in the subject area broadly construed and (b) editors under topic bans and extended topic bans. Neither applies to me, but TrevelyanL85A2 has been discussing both me and SightWatcher. He is not allowed to do either. The misuse of this page by The Devil's Advocate over the last week merits a formal logged warning at WP:ARBR&I together with instructions not to intervene here again when editors related to the DeviantArt group are being discussed. Mathsci (talk) 07:58, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Here is the diff for the record. [10]

Discussion concerning TrevelyanL85A2

Statement by TrevelyanL85A2

I'm following the advice I was given by ArbCom as well as I know how to do. I was told at AE to request arbitration on the mailing list, and when I did so, I was told by ArbCom to make a public arbitration request after my block expired. I'm simply following the instructions I was given by ArbCom. They knew what knew what my request was about when they told me to make it in public, and I don't believe they would have told me to do this if they meant to disallow it.

Re to Courcelles: I don't think my request is commenting on Mathsci's conduct. I'm not criticising Mathsci's behaviour, I'm only referring to him in order to criticise MastCell's behaviour. My understanding was that there's a difference between "referring to editor X" and "commenting on editor X's conduct", and this is why it wasn't a contradiction for ArbCom to tell me I should make my request in public even though I couldn't comment on Mathsci's conduct. Did I misunderstand that?--TrevelyanL85A2 (talk) 21:28, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re to MBisanz: Before I withdraw my request, I would like to clarify with ArbCom (via e-mail) what they wanted me to do when they advised me to make the request in public. I thought I was following their instructions, but I must have misunderstood them. Please give me time to discuss it with them and understand their instructions to me before I withdraw it.--TrevelyanL85A2 (talk) 01:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re to EdJohnston: I was told by Jclemens here that I'm allowed to restore Echigo Mole's comments in my user talk, and other editors like Collect and Nyttend have also been allowed to do this. I'm defending my own ability to restore his comments, not his socking itself. I'm also defending my right to allow people to post on my talk page without others editing parts out of it without my consent. However, why would I be prohibited from talking about Echigo Mole? As far as I know he's never edited R&I articles.--TrevelyanL85A2 (talk) 05:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

From my reading, Trev is allowed to comment when his conduct is raised as an issue and to engage in dispute resolution. The arbitration request to me seems evident of the editor's lack of experience with the practice, but points to obvious issues with the restrictions. Mathsci has repeatedly edited Trev's user talk page against Trev's explicit request that he cease. His request for arbitration deals directly with that issue of Mathsci's conduct towards him and, as such, would seem completely valid under the wording of the topic ban. I think an arbitration request was the wrong way to go, but the restriction was terribly worded and seems too much like a one-way interaction ban with a vaguely-defined group of users, which is destined to fail.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:59, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Math, I am simply concerned at what appears to be a poorly-worded and poorly-considered restriction on an editor and your frequent use of it to push for this editor to get site-banned, something you were flat-out demanding before the restriction was enacted. While I have only a little knowledge of this dispute and the situation in the R&I topic area, it is not difficult to figure out that there would be considerably less drama if you would just stop provoking Trev. Edit-warring with him on his talk page over those comments even after his repeated requests that you stop, something you only did with Trev, is obviously going to create friction and you clearly have not made any effort to defuse the resulting tension. Rather, you have only heightened it by repeatedly demanding a site-ban over his complaints about your actions on his talk page. For heaven's sake man, Trev is topic-banned. Should he edit the R&I topic area repeatedly despite the ban, you will get the site-ban you desire anyway and should he stay away from the topic area and you then why the hell does it matter if he keeps editing articles about video games and Indian warships? Demanding a site-ban every single time he utters your name reeks of a vendetta, especially when you are making a point of maneuvering yourself into disputes with him in the first place.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I assure you Math, had I known such a bizarre restriction was being imposed I would have objected. The disruption does not come from removing the comments the first time, but from how you responded to Trev restoring them. When he asked you not to continue editing his talk page, you should have stopped. Instead you repeated the act several more times. Did you expect Trev to just be quiet about your conduct as you repeatedly jumped into his userspace to do something there he expressly asked you to stop doing? Obviously, Trev's RFAR is prompted by all that since it is what led to Mast blocking him and removing his talk page privileges so I fail to see how it is not relevant that you are the one who started all that and are now demanding he be site-banned for mentioning your unavoidable connection with the situation.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 09:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The response is relevant if your response in particular is provoking the actions you are using to push for a site-ban. If you are actively picking a fight with Trev because you want him site-banned, I don't see why an admin should indulge your demand that he be site-banned for responding to your provocations.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, MBisanz, if that is the case then the restriction is even less clear than I thought. The wording is as follows:

TrevelyanL85A2 is indefinitely banned from editing and/or discussing the topic of Race and Intelligence on any page of Wikipedia, including user talk pages, or from participating in any discussion concerning the conduct of editors who have worked in the topic. This editor may however within reason participate in dispute resolution and noticeboard discussions if their own conduct has been mentioned.

The wording technically restricts him from participating in said discussions if his conduct is not mentioned. No explicit prohibition on commenting about any specific editor is mentioned. My understanding of bans is that the exemption for dispute resolution and noticeboard discussion does free them up to comment about editors and subjects they are otherwise restricted from mentioning so long as it is relevant. In other words, the comments at the Arb case request are normal as part of an attempt at resolving a conduct dispute over administrative actions taken against Trev by an admin regarding Mathsci. Should Math be in private communication with Mast and the two of them have a close friendly relationship, it does raise questions about his use of admin tools against editors such as Trev in support of Math, including where he has used them at Math's apparent behest. Were Trev to say, "MastCell deleted the pages at the request of another user" and did not provide the diff that would show it was Math or make any mention of who that user was, then there would be immediate demands that he name the user in question and provide evidence to establish the relevance.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your example points to the problem. If someone is defacing your property by proxy you should not be restricted from noting this fact. That is the problem with one-way interaction bans. Suggesting that Mathsci can repeatedly engage Trev in a disruptive manner with Trev having no ability to complain about this behavior leads to obvious problems. It only creates a recipe for further disruption to the project, not the opposite. We can't really know what would have happened had Mathsci let the comment from a sock on Trev's page slide, or if he had been consistent with his behavior towards other editors by not edit-warring with Trev over the issue, but that is not what happened. All I can say is that Trev was not editing Wikipedia at all for months before this happened, and after Math edit wars with Trev over the user talk comments this stuff happens. Cause and effect.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:19, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cailil, as I have been trying to point out repeatedly, this is not a matter of Trev following the topic area and inserting himself into this situation for no apparent reason. The timeline leading up to the recent incidents goes like this:

17:41, 6 January 2012 Trev is formally notified of the discretionary sanctions. Trev makes no further R&I-related edits in articlespace after this talk-page discussion.
21:31, 8 January 2012 Ferahgo requested an amendment to ARBR&I and mentions Trev. At no point does Trev appear to be notified that the case has been initiated and makes no comments on the request.
22:35, 17 January 2012 EdJohnston leaves a comment notifying Trev of an AE discussion. He does not comment there either and Ed notes that he was not proposing sanctions because had stopped editing the topic area. Furthermore he suggests Trev refrain from getting involved in the topic area further.
23:39, 5 May 2012 The first notification Trev receives about the amendment case that ultimately leads to the ban we are discussing, but again he appears to make no comment and the case is closed about a week later with the topic ban issued.
06:07, 26 May 2012 Trev is notified of an amendment to the case. All of that constitutes the background. By this point no edits had been made by Trev to the topic area in close to five months.
10:58, 27 May 2012 An IP sock, apparently of Echigo, commented at Trev's topic page the day after the review was amended. This sets off the period of edit-warring. Up to that point all indications are that Trev was staying out of anything involving the topic area, including an apparent lack of interest in commenting in his own defense. However, the situation in his userspace forces the matter.

Did he have any need to "track" the topic area or the editors in question to find out the information listed on the case request? No. Anyone taking a cursory glance at Mathsci's contributions surrounding his edit-warring over the banned editor's comments would become immediately familiar with all the shenanigans Trev noted.

So, I fail to see the legitimacy of your accusation that Trev was somehow not constructively staying out of the topic area. Trev was not editing Wikipedia at all until that nonsense started happening on his user page and that's gotten all this started, which I sincerely doubt was his intent. It's like if a bunch of guys show up at your house and pee on your rug. All you want is to replace your rug cause it really tied the room together and, next thing you know, you're getting involved in faked kidnappings and everyone's trying to kill you when you really just wanted to get your rug back so you can go back to bowling in peace.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:16, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sight has not said anywhere on-wiki that the DeviantArt group was discussing this situation. Sight only specifically mentions discussing the issue with Trev and that Trev was e-mailing other people about his desire for arbitration after a week of not getting a response from ArbCom. By "mixed messages" he is talking about the suggestions that he raise these issues publicly to ArbCom only to be told he is violating the ban by doing just that. It is not about what I have said. As to him mentioning your name in the request, there is no ban on mentioning your name. The ban was that he could not participate in discussions about your conduct and he was told by an Arb that he could not comment on your conduct. Seems to me that he clearly tried to respect that.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is not clear if AGK redacted those comments on the basis that the mere mention of you was a problem, or if it was more reasonably due to the possibility that the comment could provoke a response. When Ed and MBisanz warned Sight it is clear they were talking about the possibility of Sight filing an arbitration request on Trev's behalf, in partial response to a direct query on that point by Sight. Your suggestion that Trev was somehow not heeding those warnings, presuming he did read them, is not meaningful as the warnings did not directly address him or the question of whether so much as uttering your name was prohibited. I should note the restriction against Trev is not worded as a normal interaction ban one-way or otherwise, where mentioning an editor would be prohibited unless the other editor violated or is perceived to have violated the ban. The restriction seemingly allows interaction with you so long as it is not to discuss your conduct. It is a thin line to tread, but a situation where he is disputing the involvement of an admin regarding administrative actions supporting your position that includes a block against Trev and removal of his user talk privleges that resulted from interactions between you and a banned editor on Trev's talk page seems to be an obvious situation where mentioning you is unavoidable. Really it is an example of the problem with these one-way restrictions since it seems punitive to the extreme to bar Trev from complaining about conduct in his userspace.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:05, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On that point Seren raised, it should be noted that an Arb cited that exact kind of activity from Mathsci as problematic battleground behavior. Obviously, Math did not give much regard to that comment. I also would add that Trev has removed the material in the case request and said he made the wrong choice so I think taking action at this stage would be inappropriate.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:36, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Math, my use of the term "battleground behavior" above is noting a description of your behavior given by one of the Arbs in the recent update of this case. Anyone who looks at the diff can see that this is true. In that case you were also admonished for battleground behavior. AE is not just for reporting people who have violated a sanction. That you were admonished for battleground behavior in a recent update of the case, with one Arb pointing to the very behavior that sparked off this recent dispute, and the fact you filed this report against one of the other parties of this dispute makes your conduct perfectly valid to raise as the notice at the top of the page clearly states.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 13:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cailil, whether ArbCom takes on an arbitration case seems to be a separate issue from whether there are legitimate conduct issues in need of addressing. Mathsci's conduct is probably not worthy of a new arbitration case, but that does not mean it is not relevant to this AE case. Earlier you said "it's clear that rather than finding other things to do on wiki Trevelyan is following the area he is topic banned from and the editors he is banned from interacting with" when the fact is that a banned editor obsessed with Mathsci and Mathsci himself sucked Trev into something related to that area and those editors. He did not choose involvement in this of his own volition. Mathsci's conduct towards that editor is largely responsible for there being any cause for Math to push for sanction, because that editor objected to Math's conduct towards him. Can you really expect an editor to be completely silent over another editor's conduct when it involves the editor's own userspace? The answer to that question points to where there is a "clean hands" issue.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:51, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Enric Naval

TrevelyanL85A2 is banned from commenting about Mathsci. Echigo Mole is the sock that is harassing Mathsci. Commenting about Echigo is just begging for further tests of limits of his ban. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Trev's request to Arbcom was declined[11]. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Silver seren

Mathsci has no right whatsoever to be editing TrevelyanL85A2's talk page beyond general notifications. Anything else can be seen as provoking an incident in order to force TrevelyanL85A2 to break the ban. Such instigation by Mathsci can be seen here where he removes a comment by an IP address that has absolutely nothing to do with Mathsci. Trevelyan reverts him and states, "I would rather you not edit my user page. Thank you." Mathsci then reverted again here, saying, "rv edit per WP:BAN - please consult a member of arbcom in case of doubt - thanks)". Regardless of whether there is any truth in this statement, Mathsci should absolutely not be the one to be enforcing the ban. Trevelyan then reverted him back again, responding, "I have asked you to stay off my page. Please respect that, and do not edit my user OR talk pages again. Thank you."

Mathsci then on the 10th removed the Arbitration notification. Yes, banned user, whatever. However, not all comments by banned users everywhere are reverted, nor should they be. It is quite clear that all of this is meant to just be harassment of Trevelyan and it also appears that Johnuniq was involved in both cases of harassment as well, so take that for what you will. User talk pages may "belong to Wikipedia", yes, but no one has the right to remove comments from them that the user who the page is for wants to be there. Silverseren^C 03:58, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Maunus

Re:Salvio, I don't think it is reasonable to invoke clean hands when the issue is a clear cut sanction violation. Enforcing arbcom sanctions is not optional that way, but should depend only on whether the conditions of the sanction have been breached. If you believe that Mathsci has done wrong too then that should be considered as a separate issue. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:23, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Penwhale

~~Cailil, uh, Trev did list MathSci as a Party. Check this diff. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 18:10, 15 July 2012 (UTC)~~ Answered below by Cailil - thank you. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 19:05, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: Also, Trev's ban isn't an interaction ban, so as long as the dialogue isn't regarding R&I or MathSci's (and other involved parties') conduct, he could communicate with them if he so chooses, if he so chooses. He could wish MathSci a happy birthday, for example, and it wouldn't violate the remedy (granted I'm using an unlikely example here...) - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 18:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More addendum: I can't remember where it was brought up, but you could revert a banned user if you decide to be personally responsible for the content. (And it is on Trev's user talk page, which we generally give more leeway to people as they see fit.) Also, it might just be my personal point of view, but let's say that MathSci and MastCell communicated with each other privately (I do not have evidence of this, mind you) - if MastCell didn't act on MathSci's behalf (or have the actions seem that way), then yes, I agree that Trev wouldn't have been able to bring up MathSci's name. If, however, MastCell did act on MathSci's behalf, then the question is more meddled. The details of this case is very unclear to me (I do not currently have information that a lot of editors here seem to have), so forgive me if I say that all I can offer is a view that is as impartial as I can have. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 18:28, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Cailil: Thank you for making yourself clear. I have struck out my comment above as it no longer applies. However, I still think that Trev filed the case as to prove that someone was editing on MathSci's behalf - for him to show that, he had to show private communication did happen between MathSci and MastCell. In this case, I feel, it is unfortunately unavoidable if that was the point being proven. As far as I could tell, the only places MathSci's names were being brought up in the initial request was to show that MastCell was editing or acting on MathSci's behalf. It was (only) in his reply to Jclemens that he directly addressed an action by MathSci (but the action in question involved Trev's name - see this, which was SightWatcher's post to SilkTork's talk page). I am still unsure where MathSci's conduct was brought up in the original request - and, as such, I'm not sure the topic ban was violated. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 19:05, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Quest for Knowledge

This request was filed as a result of a arbitration request made by TrevelyanL85A2. Based on what I've been reading so far, TrevelyanL85A2's request seems like a good faith error based on a misunderstanding regarding instructions given to TrevelyanL85A2 by ArbCom. Plainly stated, I don't think editors should be penalized for making good faith mistakes. Given that case has since been declined by ArbCom, this enforcement request is now stale, and any sactions imposed against TrevelyanL85A2 would be punative, not preventative.

However, I am concerned by the WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality exhibited by MathSci. Prior to TrevelyanL85A2's arbitration request, MathSci edit-warred with TrevelyanL85A2 despite TrevelyanL85A2's request that MathSci not edit his use page. MathSci could have simply notified an uninvolved admin and ask that the posts be removed. Since then, MathSci has made insulting comments "Even in itty-bitty words of less than one syllable", threatened other editors ("TDA will probably receive a an official logged warning if they continue making unhelpful remarks here" and accused Salvio giuliano of "gratuitous insults", etc.. Mathsci has been previously admonished for engaging in battlefield conduct and apparently at one point agreed to binding topic ban. Perhaps another break from this topic-space might do them good. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning TrevelyanL85A2

Result concerning TrevelyanL85A2

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

I don't think we can treat this as an infraction, if the arbitrary committee encouraged him to do this. Maybe one of them could clarify if they actually meant a request like the one that was filed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:41, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever, now while that strange new arb request over at the "Case" page is ongoing, I probably ought not to be participating in decision-making here anyway, so ignore me for the moment. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree. It might not be an infraction to discuss Mastcell, who blocked him. It is a violation to mention Mathsci in his discussion of Mastcell's conduct. While it might be hard to do from a grammatical perspective, I believe Trevelyan's hands are tied by the Arbcom restriction to only discussing Mastcell if he can do so in a manner that does not reference Mathsci. I'm leaning towards a block of three months unless an Arb tells me they specifically said he could mention Mathsci's editing on-wiki. MBisanz ^talk 20:59, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TrevelyanL85A2 was told via e-mail: "Yes, you are restricted from making comments on Mathsci's conduct". Courcelles 21:17, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Courcelles for clarifying. Specifically, I find that TrevelyanL85A2's statement "This is concerning because MastCell's involvement in the dispute was privately requested by Mathsci:" (emphasis added) includes at least one reference to Mathsci's conduct. If TrevelyanL85A2 withdraws his Arbcom request and agrees that if he ever references Mathsci again on-wiki he will be indefinitely blocked, I am willing to forgo a block at this time. If he cannot agree to that, then I will implement a three-month block for violation of his topic ban. MBisanz ^talk 21:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@TDA: As I read the topic ban, TrevelyanL85A2 may only comment in discussions concerning their own conduct; not the conduct of others towards them. That may result in the appearance that their hands have been unfairly tied and Mathsci may or may not be taking advantage of TrevelyanL85A2's restriction, but Arbcom has reviewed the situation previously and decided the way disruption would be resolved in this area is by preventing TrevelyanL85A2 from making any comments about Mathsci, even those regarding Mathsci's conduct towards TrevelyanL85A2. As I understand it, the primary goal is the cessation of disruption, not fairness or equality. Also, it is worth noting that TrevelyanL85A2 has not been entirely silenced with regard to Mathsci, as he is free to email requests concerning Mathsci to Arbcom. MBisanz ^talk 23:50, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@TDA: That interpretation might be more plausible if he had not named Mathsci as a party to the dispute. If he is a filing a case where Mathsci is a party, then he is not simply referencing Mathsci's name in passing as a bystander. Also, there is no evidence that Arbcom intended to leave TrevelyanL85A2 the right to report bad acts if Mathsci was somehow involved in. Sort of like "even if you see person X paying person Y to pee on your lawn, you cannot report it to the police if it involves discussing person X." MBisanz ^talk 01:48, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would take no action on this complaint, but only because I believe that we should leave it to the arbs and clerks to deal with any alleged topic ban violations on arbcom case pages. T. Canens (talk) 00:08, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- That's a fair point. I asked at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Clerks#Question_on_protocol, because Courcelles is an arb and he commented here without saying we should leave it to them. MBisanz ^talk 01:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It might be reasonable to put this AE complaint against Trevelyan on hold until the committee has reached a conclusion on the Arb request opened by Trevelyan, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Admin Involvement and Handling of Edits by Sockpuppets. I read Trevelyan's RFAR as a complaint about restraints that admins have put on the editing of Echigo Mole. Defending Echigo Mole is surely a prohibited activity for Trevelyan, leaving aside the fact that he names Mathsci in his complaint which is also prohibited. By the time the committee reaches their conclusion on his request for arbitration, we should know if they saw any good-faith purpose to Trevelyan's request. EdJohnston (talk) 03:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Tim & Ed - we should either place this on hold or wait for the Arbs call on it (but at this point with 5 declines it is unlikely to be accepted). However I also agree with MBisanz. If the Arbs don't deal with this in their decision then it'd be fair to say we see this is a direct breach of the topic ban (mention of Mathsci and as Ed points out the mention of Echigo Mole). In my view 3 months would be an appropriate sanction, as it's clear that rather than finding other things to do on wiki Trevelyan is following the area he is topic banned from and the editors he is banned from interacting with, in so doing he's both breached the spirit & the letter of the ban--Cailil ^talk 01:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose sanctioning Trev in any way because I firmly believe that he who seeks a remedy must have clean hands; in this case, Mathsci's hands do not appear clean and, therefore, I don't think his request should be satisfied. Furthermore, it is also doubtful that Trev actually intended to violate his restriction, considering that the reply he got from ArbCom could be, in good faith, misunderstood. By the way, one-way interaction bans never work and are basically drama waiting to happen; that is why I personally encourage any interested parties to ask ArbCom to amend their decision. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 13:17, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Salvio can you evidence your position re clean hands?--Cailil ^talk 01:27, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if Mathsci is so upset by Trev mentioning his username, then I'd say that he should not be editing Trev's userspace... All this started because Mathsci reverted another user on Trev's talk page, despite being repeatedly asked not to and being informed that such actions were signs of a battleground mentality — for diffs, cf. The Devil's Advocate and Silver seren's submissions —; now, you may call it poking the bear, having unclean hands or even trying to game his opponent's restriction, but the bottom line is that if he had just refrained from editing said opponent's userspace, as asked, this would never have happened. Mathsci conduct should be discouraged and, that is why, this thread should be closed without action. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:54, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The way I look at this Salvio is that if the ArbCom had seen it that way they would have taken the case. Furthermore MBisanz has addressed this above: TrevelyanL85A2 could have filed an RFAR that neither listed Mathsci as a party, or that did not take pot-shots. He didn't do either, and has breached his restriction.
I take your point that Mathsci should have stayed away from TrevelyanL85A2's user space that is a piece of advice we can give, but as a point of fact he was reverting a banned user.
We can both discourage Mathsci from interacting with TrevelyanL85A2 and address the substantive issue of enforcement for TrevelyanL85A2. But there is no clean hands issue here (that would be tantamount to calling this thread vexatious or frivolous) -TrevelyanL85A2's restrictions, as Courcelles has explained, are quite clear--Cailil ^talk 15:17, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think unclean hands is limited to frivolous or vexatious filings, and I think it should cover cases where the reporter's misconduct is a proximate cause of the respondent's misconduct. But, unlike real courts, we have the option of sanctioning both sides rather than sanctioning neither. The question of whether Mathsci's hands are clean, and, if not, what should be done about it, is sufficiently difficult that I'd rather not answer it when, in my view, we should not be acting on this request in any event, for the reasons expressed below. T. Canens (talk) 09:15, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wholeheartedly agree. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:49, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Penwhale - I should have said Neither. Also ArbCom made their ruling on the rejecting TrevelyanL85A2's case - we're not here to go through that again--Cailil ^talk 18:40, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, a critical issue is whether TrevelyanL85A2 could believe in good faith that his arbitration case filing, including the mentions of Mathsci, is allowed by the Committee. If they could have so believed, then I don't think sanctions are appropriate, even if arbcom did not intend to allow such mentions in the filings. But to determine that question, we will have to examine the emails exchanged between TrevelyanL85A2 and the Committee, which, to put it charitably, is quite unlikely to happen. The single sentence quote Courcelles provided is not nearly enough to answer the question, and only the Committee itself is in possession of all the information necessary to make an intelligent determination in this case. Since I do not believe we can act on the basis of the information before us, I think this should be closed without action, and without prejudice to Mathsci seeking any relief directly from the Committee. T. Canens (talk) 09:09, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yep, in my opinion, this would be the best solution to the busillis. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:49, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - I disagree re clean hands Tim in this paricular instance (unless there are diffs I haven't seen I think that that is quite a claim); I do however think Mathsci should stay away from TrevelyanL85A2's user space no matter what is there from here on in. That said I do see where you're coming from re: the overall level of information, so I wont argue with a close without prejudice--Cailil ^talk 15:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So closed. T. Canens (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nableezy

Frivolous complaint. AgadaUrbanit (talk · contribs) is banned indefinitely from filing new AE reports, or making comments in existing ones, except that they are permitted to comment in threads in which they are the subject of a report, but only to the extent necessary to defend themselves, and that they are permitted to appeal this ban at AE. T. Canens (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning Nableezy

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: AgadaUrbanit (talk) 02:44, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Nableezy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions

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

21:42, 12 July 2012 (UTC) Might appear as a comment on editors instead of content. A vague reference to "some", while expressing his personal opinion on their intentions: "seek to deny them that title".

First, isn't it wonderful to know that AGF is alive and well here? ;). This change popped up in my watch list. I believed that content point was clear without "some seek" part. My intention is cleaner editing environment. I wanted AE administrators to evaluate if such a rhetoric is acceptable. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 22:08, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I get your point, this is a waste of everybody's time, so let's close this. I don't worry about being sanctioned, I do not use WP:AE that much. In my defense, I was not sure about this request, the comment appeared as toxic to me but I myself mentioned "vagueness", thus I'm not sure the request stands as absurd a priori. The fact that a claim is lost does not imply that it was frivolous. Despite our long history I do not have any standing content or personal conflict with Nableezy and appreciate his non-confrontational comment here. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 00:22, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

It is safe to assume that a sufficient warning was issued.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The account has just returned to active editing. Despite his history it appears that the lesson was not learned.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification

Discussion concerning Nableezy

Statement by Nableezy

What? In the comment I responded to, brewcrewer wrote: The descendents of refugees may be considered by some to be "refugees" in the legal sense (emphasis added). I was responding to that. Using the same word used by brewcrewer. I can't say "some" now? This really has to be one of the more frivolous things to have been brought to any admin board anywhere. nableezy - 03:37, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Before yall go overboard here, Agada hasn't been editing in the topic area for some time, so far as I know, and the motivation for this, if I were to hazard a guess, is more personal than ideological. An interaction ban would be enough to prevent any further issues, at least as far as I am concerned. nableezy - 21:47, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Nableezy

Result concerning Nableezy

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

Maybe I'm just missing something, but I'm really not seeing it. I don't see anything that's commenting on anyone in that conversation, so I'm a bit confused. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:28, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Me either; I just see Nableezy commenting on content. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thirded. This is frivolous. Some sanction on the filer may be in order. T. Canens (talk) 04:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Not knowing the history here well enough, I'll defer to you and others on your last point. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
AgadaUrbanit has a significant history of misconduct in this area, with several blocks for edit warring/1RR violations and a 5-month topic ban from I/P altogether imposed in June 2011: [12], reduced on appeal essentially to "time served" in August 2011. I don't see this as a possible good-faith mistake, but as an attempt to use AE as a bludgeon against one who disagrees in a content dispute. I would be in favor of, at minimum, reimposing upon AgadaUrbanit the suspended 2011 5-month ban from the entire I/P topic area. I would also not be averse if others think a longer sanction is needed. Nableezy's comment is not remotely actionable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I would go with T. Canens' idea of an indefinite ban from commenting on or filing AE topics, with the exception that AgadaUrbanit can comment in a thread if he is the subject of a report, and then only to the extent of defending himself. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:48, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with Seraphimblade on his final point here. There is no reasonable basis for an actionable complaint here. There is some reason to believe that the motivations of the editor bringing the complaint are, basically, strategic, given his own history regarding this content. As such, this request could be seen as an attempt to game the system on the part of the filer. No objections to reimposing the suspended ban limit, which seems to be of somewhere between 2 or 3 months. I'm not entirely sure of any precedents in that area, so I don't know whether there is any rounding involved or anything like that. Alternately, no objections to just imposing a completely new sanction of some greater length than the suspended ban, to avoid any questions about the mathematics involved. John Carter (talk) 21:39, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After thinking about this, I'm not sure that a topic ban is a good fit for this, since AU does not seem to be involved in the underlying dispute. This is either a personal campaign against Nableezy, or, in my view more likely, simply pure cluelessness. Whether or not in good faith, frivolous AE filings waste everyone's time for absolutely no benefit whatsoever, and are by definition disruptive and sanctionable. I think a restriction from filing or commenting in AE cases is warranted. T. Canens (talk) 15:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I regret not having checked the editor's recent history earlier. Yeah, there have been a lot of edits lately, but not so many dealing with the topic. That being the case, as per Nableezy's second comment above, there is a decent reason to think that it might be more personally motivated than content related. However, as indicated, that itself is sanctionable. The AE restriction suggested by T. Canena above seems reasonable. John Carter (talk) 18:49, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So closed. AgadaUrbanit (talk · contribs) is banned indefinitely from filing new AE reports, or making comments in existing ones, except that they are permitted to comment in threads in which they are the subject of a report, but only to the extent necessary to defend themselves, and that they are permitted to appeal this ban at AE. T. Canens (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Varlaam

Varlaam (talk · contribs) blocked for 3 months and given official notification of the the Troubles. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:20, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

Request concerning Varlaam

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 13:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Varlaam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

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

17:39, 13 July 2012 Revert #1
13:42, 14 July 2012 Revert #2, within 24 hours of the first

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

Warned on 20:44, 13 July 2012 by One Night In Hackney (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint: The same inflammatory edit summaries and inflammatory talk page posts to go with the edit warring that can be seen at this recent 3RR report involving the same editor. I won't even try to hazard a guess at what this addition is doing in the article itself. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 13:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested: [13]

Discussion concerning Varlaam

Statement by Varlaam

Comments by others about the request concerning Varlaam

Result concerning Varlaam

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

This ingenious edit, along with the obvious 1RR violation and their lengthy block log, has earned Varlaam a three month break. T. Canens (talk) 16:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given said previous blocks, I'd also be for an indefinite ban from the Troubles, broadly construed. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:51, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- As I just placed the formal Troubles warning at the same time I made the block, I'm not sure that we technically can place the topic ban right now. T. Canens (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Did this count as notification, or would we consider that article-specific? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:14, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That just mentioned the 1RR (which is what I based my block on), and not the discretionary sanctions. T. Canens (talk) 17:33, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fair enough. I'll close this. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

talknic

Talknic (talk · contribs) indefinitely banned from all I/P articles and discussions, broadly construed. All parties reminded that brevity is a virtue, and is far more likely to help your case than is verbosity. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

Request concerning talknic

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:14, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: talknic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions

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

July 9th talknic puts the word "Nakba" in bold in the lead despite the fact that in an RfC he started [14] before his TBAN specifically about this issue, it was concluded the word should not be bolded in the lead.
July 14th Calls part of an article (that has been there for well over a year with no objection) "insidious appropriation[s] of Palestinian wikispace". This is obvious BATTLEGROUND mentality.
July 14th Accuses me of attempting to "coerce an editor into contravening Policy". I consider this a very serious accusation indeed. I gave him an opportunity to retract his accusation but he declined.

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

Notified of case here.
Received a 3 month topic ban [15] for his talk page conduct, which unfortunately still hasn't improved.
Recieved a 6 month topic ban [16] for, among other things, being "persistent and oblivious".

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Talknic has recently returned from a 6 month topic ban. During those 6 months he edited exactly one article outside the topic area (on a subject he previously raised in an IP related article [17]) but he did find time to collect various diffs on his talk page "for future reference" [18]. As soon at the topic ban was over, he immediately returned to exactly the same arguments from before his ban. See for example the talk page of 1948 Arab–Israeli War, an article over which he was blocked twice for 1RR violations. Compare the talk page now to archive 12 and onwards.

Talknic shows obvious WP:TE and WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. I can provide additional diffs of problematic behavior, if necessary. In the diffs above I provided only the most straightforward and easy to follow examples. There are plenty more.

@Nish: You and I agreed, on the basis of the sources you provided, that neither "Nakba" nor "War of Independence" are synonymous with the title of the article in question and therefore the Hebrew should be removed from the first sentence of the lead and both should be bolded in another article. I edited accordingly. How does that amount to it being ok for talknic to make an edit that was specifically rejected in an RfC? How is it improper for me to bring it up? He edited against an explicit consensus based on WP:LEAD ("Nakba" not being synonymous with "1948 Arab-Israeli War" (as you yourself argued) and therefore should not be bolded in that article). He added "Nakba" after I removed the Hebrew, so there was no NPOV violation at the time. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[19]

Discussion concerning talknic

Statement by talknic

~~I can only hope this time administrators allow me time to prepare a reply before passing judgement. Won't be long. Thanks talknic (talk) 18:39, 15 July 2012 (UTC)~~[reply]

I've not attempted at length to contest the prior bans place on me. For the most part justifiable, though the last was quite bizarre [20] The administrators could not even agree[21] on WP:1RR. Instead they default to my past bans without taking into account No More Mr Nice Guy's own [22], obvious belligerence and determination to maintain a contravention of NPOV.

For the duration of the last ban period, No More Mr Nice Guy's contribution to the articles I've attempted to edit and/or rectify was virtually nothing. His presence virtually non-existant. He's shown:
No interest in: the numerous already existing Primary Sources in those articles even though he claims Primary Sources cannot be used, which is contrary to actual "Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them"
No interest in: "clunky", confusing wording. You'll note No More Mr Nice Guys is now collaborating with other editors who agree there is an issue after I identified and attempted to rectify that issue.
No interest in: unsourced statements Note the unsourced statement by Chaim Weizmann was never and has still not been addressed.
No interest in: the deliberate and blatant contravention of NPOV, by consensus and predominantly maintained by himself
Virtually no interest in maintaining the quality of articles until I make an edit. [23] [24] [25]

The moment I have attempted to rectify in good faith some of the issues I've identified (and often have agreement from other editors that there are issues), No More Mr Nice Guy is back. This has been an ongoing pattern by No More Mr Nice Guy since I first started editing Wikipedia. Generating huge and mostly un-necessary discussions, instead of attempting to collaborate. Never once offering a suggestion, never once collaborating. Presenting instead a sea of changing goal posts. Misrepresenting WP:Primary. Misrepresenting WP:BRD. A few examples:

Early Period:

[26] Where No More Mr Nice Guy immediately attempted to coerce me into contravening editorial policy "Although wikipedia tends to avoid labeling people and organizations as "terrorist", I wouldn't object to you doing it here if you'll join me in doing the same for other groups involved in this conflict." No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 08:57, 21 March 2011. Note his hasty retraction. Yet in the continuing discussion at numerous points, he still falsely accuses me of trying to label people as terrorists. No More Mr Nice Guy eventually had to concede. The edit was made almost identical to my first suggestion. The length of the discussion was generated, not by myself, but by No More Mr Nice guy's obfuscations, refusal to collaborate, numerous moving goal posts, deliberate provocations and threats.

[27] No More Mr Nice Guy desperately attempts to keep faulty maths, against the consensus of numerous editors. No More Mr Nice Guy makes no attempt to collaborate or solve the issue of faulty maths. It was myself who sought outside help and my determination to collaborate that eventually saw No More Mr Nice Guy having to concede. The edit was made almost identical to my first suggestion, it stands today [28]. The length of the discussion was generated, not by myself, but by No More Mr Nice guy's obfuscations, refusal to collaborate, numerous moving goal posts, deliberate attempts to go against consensus and WP:BRD which he has falsely claimed is binding policy.

Recent:

[29] and Deliberately preventing the rectification of a blatant contravention of NPOV which existed for some 16 months, until Nishidani appeared, using much the same argument and evidence as myself .. see an analysis of the discussion below). The length of the discussion was generated, not by myself, but by No More Mr Nice guy's obfuscations, refusal to collaborate, numerous moving goal posts, deliberate provocations and threats.
Talk Reverting everything where a partial revert could have been performed. His reason "If you make smaller edits I won't need to revert the whole thing to correct your made up stuff" Yet he fails to show I've "made anything up" and seems to be claiming Hebrew is not a Jewish language. This is battleground mentality.

No More Mr Nice Guy's On Going Belligerence:

Since 18 March 2011 (UTC) over a period of some 16 months or 477 days or 686,880 minutes, I had attempted by various means to address the blatant contravention of NPOV - [30] - [31] - [32] - [33] - [34] - [35] in the Lede of an Article.
I don't believe it is against any policy to address a contravention of policy, even if it takes a thousand attempts.
Opposition to correcting this obvious breach of NPOV was led predominantly by No More Mr Nice Guy. On each, the length of the discussions was generated by No More Mr Nice guy's obfuscations, refusal to collaborate, numerous moving goal posts, deliberate provocations and threats.

On my last attempt to address the long standing contravention of NPOV and several other issues in the Lede of the article, No More Mr Nice Guy entered the discussion @ 05:10, 1 July 2012, lodging an immediate objection to everything "I disagree with all the suggestions above, most of which were discussed at length before talknic got topic banned, and failed to gain consensus. Coming back over and over with the same stuff is just tendentious. "

Attempting to retain a breach of NPOV is tendentious. Attempting to address that concern is not. Furthermore his objection was to all the suggestions, several points were never discussed before. No More Mr Nice Guy has made this "coming back over and over with the same stuff " accusation numerous times, when in fact different points have been raised in this and in previous attempts. I pointed this out, as I have in the past at the same tired accusation [36]. No More Mr Nice Guy has always chosen to ignore this detail

After 477 days of No More Mr Nice Guy attempting to maintain a contravention of NPOV, Nishidani entered the debate 9@ 22:07, 1 July 2012 (UTC).[reply]

No More Mr Nice Guys suggests Nishidani read the archives. He does read them and comes to the conclusion that "Talknic's point is not that nakba is not in the lead. It is that a balancing set of Arabic terms for their definition of the war does not follow the Hebrew terms. This is a clear violation of standard article leads in the I/P area, where all places, events and peoples with names in both languages are mentioned in sequence. It is an elementary point, and if the consensus ignored it, the consensus ignored the problem." Nishidani (talk) 19:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC). This consensus to contravene NPOV policy has been led by none other than No More Mr Nice Guy![reply]

Nishidani goes on to offer very much the same arguments and evidence as I had for over a year and through numerous bans. Lo and behold and after some 16 months of my being brow beaten, accused, hounded, fed misrepresentations of editorial policy, being reported and banned, without the administrators ever noting No More Mr Nice Guy's own errant behaviour, the issue of NPOV was finally addressed

Looking at No More Mr Nice Guy's complaints:

July 9th talknic puts the word "Nakba" in bold in the lead despite the fact that in an RfC he started [37] before his TBAN specifically about this issue, it was concluded the word should not be bolded in the lead. "

Inadvertent as explained here. Neither I or No More Mr Nice Guy were aware there were two re-directs, the one I used still led to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, leading me to believe the edit was still warranted. The errant redirect was changed by No More Mr Nice Guy, only after I'd made an inadvertent edit based on that redirect and after I'd pointed out the fact that there was an errant re-direct.

Furthermore, the previous consensus he mentions had already been superseded by his agreement with Nishidani. In the discussion No More Mr Nice Guy agreed that the word/s should be bolded, reversing the previous consensus he now sees fit to mention and; in it's new position at 1948 Palestine War he has bolded both
The eventual addressing of the NPOV issue and the bolding issue is surely vindication of my attempts over the past 16 months to address the matter of a contravention of NPOV. A contravention led by No More Mr Nice Guy wherein he coerced others into concensus contravening NPOV.

It was only after Nishidani's argument @ 11:39, 7 July 2012 (UTC) No More Mr Nice Guy agrees to a solution @ 12:30, 7 July 2012 (UTC) a matter of only 49 minutes. This sudden 49 minute about face, sudden show of cooperation, despite my having previously presented in numerous discussions almost identical reason and evidence over a period of some 16 months, would seem to indicate a history of belligerence on No More Mr Nice Guy's part, stretching back to 18 March 2011 (UTC)

July 14th Calls part of an article (that has been there for well over a year with no objection) "insidious appropriation[s] of Palestinian wikispace". This is obvious BATTLEGROUND mentality.

A tongue in cheek comment is not BATTLEGROUND mentality. Purposefully preventing the addressing of NPOV is BATTLEGROUND mentality. Doing a total revert for one word is BATTLEGROUND mentality. Moving goal posts is is BATTLEGROUND mentality. Misrepresenting WP:PRIMARY and WP:BRD is BATTLEGROUND mentality. Hounding is BATTLEGROUND mentality.

July 14th Accuses me of attempting to "coerce an editor into contravening Policy". I consider this a very serious accusation indeed. I gave him an opportunity to retract his accusation but he declined.

No More Mr Nice Guy challenged me to "Go ahead and revert". Which would have been a contravention of WP:1RR and of WP:BRD, an essay, which No More Mr Nice Guy demands as policy. ... attempt to coerce "Although wikipedia tends to avoid labeling people and organizations as "terrorist", I wouldn't object to you doing it here if you'll join me in doing the same for other groups involved in this conflict." No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 08:57, 21 March 2011 ... and finally, convincing editors to maintain a Lede in contravention of NPOV is coercing editor/s into contravening Policy.

No More Mr Nice Guy's Additional comments: "During those 6 months he edited exactly one article outside the topic area (on a subject he previously raised in an IP related article [38])"
What relevance does this have? Or this?
"..but he did find time to collect various diffs on his talk page "for future reference" [39]"
"As soon at the topic ban was over, he immediately returned to exactly the same arguments from before his ban. See for example the talk page of 1948 Arab–Israeli War, an article over which he was blocked twice for 1RR violations."
Question: Is re-addressing an obvious and blatant breech of NPOV (led by No More Mr Nice Guy) a breech of policy? I think not.

However I suggest a long standing and consistent effort on the part of No More Mr Nice Guy to maintain a breech of NPOV most definitely is! I am only attempting to inform readers improve articles and address breeches of policy. No More Mr Nice Guy has resumed his belligerence on my return in order to prevent information he doesn't like from being included.

Folk might also note: no other editor has attempted to have me banned!

Addressing the Complainant

No More Mr Nice Guy 20:38, 16 July 2012 -- "How does that amount to it being ok for talknic to make an edit that was specifically rejected in an RfC?"

You had already agreed at 12:30, 7 July 2012 to supersede the RfC and; at the time the late bold edit was made 13:11, 9 July 2012 two days later, neither of us were aware there were two redirects. One lower cased Israeli war of independence (now changed to 1948 Palestine war, thx) which, since we'd been discussing redirects, I'd used. The other, Upper Cased Israeli War of Independence which obviously you had used.

For two days I was still being redirected to 1948 Arab-Israeli war, so your prior discussion on changing the redirect was making no sense to me until after the edit and revert and on your complaints I looked at the difference between lower casing and Upper Casing, revealing two different redirects. At that point I informed you and immediately conceded, explaining how it came about ... Inadvertently. At 17:46, 9 July 2012 after I'd pointed to the lower case/upper case you changed it, appropriately. Problem solved ... for everyone!!! Why are you still making accusations? talknic (talk) 09:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addressing Administrators:

Administrators ought surely be looking at the ongoing behaviour of the person bringing this complaint, some of which I have addressed above. None of which was taken into consideration on my last banning [40]
More to the point, note my response to EdJohnson Where I am accused of "hurling acronyms at random". As can be seen by the eventual addressing of the blatant contravention of NPOV my comments were completely justified.

Coren 04:03, 16 July 2012 -- Talknic, from here this looks clearly like an immediate return to the same battleground mentality and tendentious editing you were sanctioned for as soon as the ban ended. Editing Wikipedia is about collaboration, not battles to control article contents; and you seem entirely unable to engage in the former.

I suggest reading this 18 March 2011 (UTC). Then tell us who refuses point blank to collaborate, has a battleground mentality, has a field of constantly moving goal posts attempting to control article content.

Then read this [41] where, on being presented with the same debate, almost identical evidence by another editor, No More Mr Nice Guy suddenly drops his belligerence & collaborates. Within 49 minutes the issue is resolved after 16 months of point blank refusal to collaborate when debating the issue with myself.

As for my immediate return to the same battleground mentality and tendentious editing. In the period of my banning, No More Mr Nice Guy showed virtually no interest what so ever in maintaining the quality of articles. Did not address the contravention of PNOV. Did not attempt to remove Primary Sources or find sources for unsourced statements.

All I have done is attempt to address those issues. It has been No More Mr Nice Guy who has resumed his hounding, full reverts when a partially revert is all that is necessary and resumed his attempt to retain a blatant breach of NPOV. He has never once attempted to collaborate with me. Meanwhile I have offered hundreds of suggestions in numerous attempts to satisfy his criteria, only to be met with another moving goal post.

Coren 21:35, 16 July 2012 -- "perhaps you wish to point me at a particular point in it?"

Sorry, there is no Archived History @ [42] I can't extract specific diffs.

"All I see there is you insisting on some phrasing in the lede "

I beg to differ. I was attempting to address the breech of NPOV, regardless of the final wording. By default there are only suggestions from one party, myself. It's rather difficult and incredibly frustrating to collaborate when one party stubbornly refuses.

This is No More Mr Nice Guy's first response, only voiced when I proposed actually making the change:

"I think the current version works better. First of all not only the Palestinians refer to it as the Catastrophe. Second I think that "the neighbouring Palestinian Arabs" is not clear. Neighboring to whom? Syria? Lebanon? Also it's incorrect to say that the Palestinians were left under the military control of Israel, Jordan and Egypt." No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's what he 'thinks'. No asking for sources. The original was completely unsourced BTW.

"...and responding poorly when supporting sources are requested of you (which is as policy demands)."

I beg to differ again. In all I offered in that discussion alone, five suggestions, each with different sources. When 1st asked for sources, I gave them:

@ 05:33, 25 March 2011: "I suggest the following change be made in order to reconcile the closing line with the opening line :" "The war between Israel and the neigbouring Arab States concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements, leaving the neighbouring Palestinian Arabs under the military control of Israel (1) , Jordan(2) and Egypt(3)." talknic (talk) 05:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@ 18:25, 25 March 2011: I re-shaped the suggestion & provided different sources, by which time attempting to fulfill no More Mr Nice Guy's ever changing criteria and growing demands, resulted in a ridiculously bloated sentence to which he naturally objected.

At every point and every suggestion No More Mr Nice Guy moved the goal posts, offering no suggestions whatsoever, no collaboration. He has repeated the same pattern in every discussion we have had on this matter. talknic (talk) 04:00, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Blade of the Northern Lights -- "I agree with Coren ..."

By 22:42, 17 July 2012, there's no final decision by Coren to agree with. Coren's last words were "The discussion is rather long; perhaps you wish to point me at a particular point in it?" I did so. There has yet to be a response.

Re - "number of words" comment. I have attempted to explain fully a long, on going and clear case of blatant breech of NPOV maintained by the complainant, the actual cause of the going dispute. The guidelines for making requests do say complainants should have clean hands. Please read Comment by Nishidani's. I have been shown to be correct. talknic (talk) 00:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

T. Canens -- "Agree with Coren and Blade."

Same. by 23:49, 17 July 2012 there's no final decision by Coren to agree with. Please read Comment by Nishidani re No More Mr Nice Guy's 16 months maintaining a breech of NPOV talknic (talk) 00:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

T. Canens/The Blade of the Northern Lights -- Coren had the decency to ask for more specifics, which I gave. You could at least have had the decency to await Coren's response before agreeing with what was a non existent final response. Furthermore, my past behaviour, based on past judgements is not the issue here. No More Mr Nice Guy's current complaints are. Please address them. Repeated and refuted here for your convenience:

July 9th talknic puts the word "Nakba" in bold in the lead despite the fact that in an RfC he started [43] before his TBAN specifically about this issue, it was concluded the word should not be bolded in the lead.

A) I explained at 17:15, 9 July 2012 -- "Interesting - to make the edit I got to the page from Israeli war of independence try it. Too many redirects for WoI might confuse readers....." ... B) No More Mr Nice Guy had already agreed at 12:30, 7 July 2012 that the 'alleged' consensus on the RFC was obsolete. ... C) The discussion had encompassed redirects. I'd noted a redirect and when I made the late bold edit 13:11, 9 July 2012, a full two days later, the redirect I'd been using Israeli war of independence still pointed to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Look at the redirect history, changed by No More Mr Nice Guy at 17:46, 9 July 2012, after I'd made the edit, after No More Mr Nice Guy had reverted, after I discovered the confusion over there being two different and confusing redirects, after I'd told No More Mr Nice Guy about it, after I'd already conceded, thereby solving the confusing two redirect issue for everyone, including future readers. Issue marked done! He is complaining about a resolved issue, that came about through and was resolved by, an inadvertent edit via an errant redirect!

July 14th Calls part of an article (that has been there for well over a year with no objection) "insidious appropriation[s] of Palestinian wikispace". This is obvious BATTLEGROUND mentality.

A tongue in cheek comment, is not battleground mentality. Purposefully maintaining a blatant breech of NPOV for over 16 months, over numerous attempts to have it addressed [44] - [45] - [46] - [47] - [48] - [49] - [50] - [51] is battleground mentality. Making no attempt to cooperate in addressing the NPOV issue, is battleground mentality. Doing everything he can to have me banned (no one else has), is battleground mentality.

July 14th Accuses me of attempting to "coerce an editor into contravening Policy". I consider this a very serious accusation indeed. I gave him an opportunity to retract his accusation but he declined.

No More Mr Nice Guy challenged me to "Go ahead and revert". Which would have been a contravention of WP:1RR and of WP:BRD

He has for 16 months mounted a consistent campaign to persuade numerous editors to maintain a blatant breach of NPOV at every attempt I have made to address the matter

"Although wikipedia tends to avoid labeling people and organizations as "terrorist", I wouldn't object to you doing it here if you'll join me in doing the same for other groups involved in this conflict." No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 08:57, 21 March 2011

Are these not attempts to coerce editors into breaching policy?

No More Mr Nice Guy's Additional comments: "During those 6 months he edited exactly one article outside the topic area (on a subject he previously raised in an IP related article [52])"

What relevance does editing an article outside the topic area have?

"..but he did find time to collect various diffs on his talk page "for future reference" [53]"

Notes on my own page? Is this against some policy?

"As soon at the topic ban was over, he immediately returned to exactly the same arguments from before his ban. See for example the talk page of 1948 Arab–Israeli War, an article over which he was blocked twice for 1RR violations."

Of course I did. The breach of NPOV POLICY was still there!!! It didn't go away during the period I was banned. No More Mr Nice Guy didn't attempt to resolve it!! In fact, on my return No More Mr Nice Guy resumed his attempts to maintain a breach of policy!

Question: Is it actually against any editorial policy to re-address an obvious, ongoing and blatant breach of NPOV?

Only after 16 months of my trying and the intervention by Nishidani, has it been resolved, with No More Mr Nice Guy having to concede!

No More Mr Nice Guy also makes this false claim "in an RfC he started [54] before his TBAN specifically about this issue" ... My Last post there was on the 17:00, 7 October 2011 (bottom of the page). The TBAN was 16:59, 26 December 2011. The TBAN was the result of attempting to resolve the issue since 18:31, 18 March 2011 and administrators failing to look at the hands of the complainant..

As the breach of NPOV has now been resolved through my determination to address it, I've surely been vindicated in respect to all those attempts, isn't it time to look at the behaviour of the person bringing the complaint for once? Can you find any instance where he has actually attempted to collaborate with me? Ever offered a suggestion for wording? Meanwhile I've offered scores of suggestions attempting to meet every changing demand No More Mr Nice Guy has put forward talknic (talk) 07:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to Received a 3 month topic ban [15] for his talk page conduct, which unfortunately still hasn't improved

The blatant and purposeful breach of NPOV Policy issue hadn't gone away! No 'improvement', no attempt to rectify it. No More Mr Nice Guy maintained it for 16 months, while coercing other editors to maintain concensus to breach Policy.

Recieved a 6 month topic ban [16] for, among other things, being "persistent and oblivious".

The blatant and purposeful breach of NPOV Policy issue hadn't gone away! No More Mr Nice Guy 'persistently' maintained it, 'oblivious' to NPOV Policy until Nishidani stepped in presenting much the same argument as my own, only then did No More Mr Nice Guy make any attempt to collaborate.

Administrators failed to also take into account the dirt on No More Mr Nice Guy's hands. It is not the role of editors to continually and purposefully prevent information they do not like by obfuscation, misrepresenting policy, moving goal posts, coercing editors to break the rules, frustrating & goading other editors OR continually attempting to have other editors banned! talknic (talk) 12:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cailil - Agree with what? Coren has yet to give a final determination after I provided the requested information. Allowing a person who has for 16 months maintained a blatant breach of NPOV and coersed other editors into consensus to breach NPOV and; on my re-addressing the un-addressed breach of NPOV, resumed his determination to keep breaching NPOV and in doing so generated countless pages of useless dialogue in order to keep that breach of policy in EVERY discussion on the issue! Please read Nishidani's comment, because were it not for Nishidani's intervention No More Mr Nice Guy would still be doing it talknic (talk) 13:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning talknic

Comment by Nishidani Since he returned, Talnic's very detailed arguments have been only, as far as I recalled, responded to by NMMGG. NMMGG mainly (apologies if I err, but this is all very much a TLDR altercation) said the prior consensus had addressed his concerns, and he was just more or less kicking a dead horse. What little I examined suggested to me that the prior discussions were not resolutive, nor adequate. It is highly improper of NMMGG in his first diff above, to take that as some violation. Talknic turned out to be correct, and NMMGG's dismissal of his arguments as 'resolved' in a prior consensus superficial. NMMGG denied at length that the hebrew and arabic terms were synonymous. I stepped in, and showed they were synonymous. Given their synonymity, nakba had to be bolded exactly as the hebrew term. Prior to this, as talknic insisted, WP:NPOV was violated by having only the Hebrew term. NMMGG's solution is to avoid parity by removing the Hebrew term for the war, so nakba disappears. Talnic's solution is to emend the earlier stable text by adding the equivalent arabic. They disagree over this. I haven't had time to help out with the other points, but the imbalance in NPOV talknic speaks of does exist, and is very difficult to resolve. Talknic tends to undermine his case by TLDR posting, as per above, but serious issues exist, and he's fingered some. There are essentially only 2 people arguing here, and I do not think the differences can be resolved by eliminating one of the two editors at the request of the other. Nishidani (talk) 20:08, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@NMMGG. I had no objection to your edit removing both, nor an objection to talknic's restoration of both. I've got a good deal of respect for you - without scandalizing you or others - but I think on this issue (the several articles re the 1947-8 war/exodus etc) there are conceptual and NPOV issues that are unresolved, and that you were, perhaps from understandable fatigue, not willing to reexamine. Though I understand how exhausting wiki disagreements on substantive issues can be, I see no alternative but to use due process, however extenuating. I don't think anything's gained by AE resolutions here since a good deal of thinking, and substantial work is required, if those issues are to be ironed out to mutual satisfaction. The RfCs you refer to were inadequate, and precedent is not eternal policy. The refs I adduced showed that in one significant point, Talknic was right, and the RfC wrong. Nakba is used of 1947-1948, and it is used of 1948, and it is used of just the May 1948 onwards vast exodus, and this, together with the ambiguity of the Hebrew term corresponding to it, has caused great confusion over several articles. There's no simple solution. I think a gentleman's agreement to work quietly on a collaborative sandbox alternative page may help, as we did with the SAQ page, which had an equally vexed history.Nishidani (talk) 20:49, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning talknic

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

Talknic, from here this looks clearly like an immediate return to the same battleground mentality and tendentious editing you were sanctioned for as soon as the ban ended. Editing Wikipedia is about collaboration, not battles to control article contents; and you seem entirely unable to engage in the former.
This is a difficult area of editing, rife with disputes and long-standing acrimony. The last thing it needs is yet another participant fanning the flames. Unless you present a convincing statement, I think the only solution left is to ban you from the topic indefinitely. — Coren ^(talk) 04:03, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, Talknic, but the links you offered to the March 2011 dispute do not seem to support your assertions unless there is some subtlety that I am missing. All I see there is you insisting on some phrasing in the lede and responding poorly when supporting sources are requested of you (which is as policy demands). The discussion is rather long; perhaps you wish to point me at a particular point in it? — Coren ^(talk) 21:35, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, I'd like to remind people that we aren't going to make decisions based on who has the highest word count. That being said, I agree with Coren that an indefinite ban from this topic seems like the best move here, and I'll close this in the next 24 hours unless someone objects. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Coren and Blade. T. Canens (talk) 23:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with all above - indef topic ban is thoroughly appropriate--Cailil ^talk 12:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zachariel

Zachariel (talk · contribs) indefinitely banned from all articles and discussions related to astrology, broadly construed, and is warned that continued edit warring will lead to an extended block. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

Request concerning Zachariel

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Skinwalker (talk) 15:24, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Zachariel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary_sanctions

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

July 16, 2012 Edit warring POV tags into the lede of Astrology.
July 15-16, 2012 Numerous unsupported accusations of defamation.
July 15, 2012 Assumes bad faith when an article he created was nominated for deletion.
July 6, 2012 Warned for making legal threats.
July 2, 2012 Warned about edit warring.
July 2, 2012 Edit warring at History of Astrology.
July 1, 2012 Argues for the inclusion of unreliable sources at AFD.
July 1, 2012 Edit warring at History of Astrology.
July 1, 2012 IDHT, advocates unreliable sources.
June 28, 2012 Blocked for edit warring at Astrology, characterizes his opponents as liars.
June 8, 2012 Warned for 3RR.
May 18, 2012 Uses rollback in an edit war, gets warned by an admin.
May 13, 2012 IDHT and assumptions of bad faith.

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

Formally notified of discretionary sanctions on November 6, 2011 by NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Zachariel has a history of battleground behavior revolving around astrology articles. He routinely edit wars against consensus, insists that unreliable sources such as the Journal of Scientific Exploration be given equal weight with papers from Nature (magazine), and assumes bad faith of editors who disagree with him. Though consensus at the reliable source noticeboard has not agreed with his views on sourcing,[55] he persists in trying to add them to the article. The above diffs show he is not able to edit neutrally and collegially on astrology articles. I propose a topic ban of fixed duration from astrology articles, broadly construed.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[56]

Discussion concerning Zachariel

Statement by Zachariel

As stated on the talk page I have little time right now, but I will come back and add diffs to support my view that Skinwalker is an editor who has consistently shown an attitude of hostility and bias against the topic of astrology, as have a number of editors whose collaborative efforts have not been geared towards furthering the aims of Wikipedia, by developing and improving content on this topic, but ensuring that the content is as bad as it can be, and effectively 'bullying off' editors who show willingness to ensure the policies are correctly applied, not tainted by obvious bias, and that the content gives good, intelligent report of what the reliable sources say. In the sense that I have been the main contributor to a number of astrology pages that were in a shambolic state, and that the result of my good understanding of this subject from both sides of the arguments has improved many astrology pages significantly, and that I am one of ... (well let's just say "hardly any") editors left contributing to this topic that does not belief that we are here to push the view that astrology is garbage, but simply report what the reliable sources say, I have no doubt that my edits and talk page contributions will be seen as disruptive to the 'norm' here. Fact is, my edits are not liked - what we have to look at is why, and whether I am creating 'battlegroung behaviour' here, or being confronted by it in every obvious and helpful contribution that I try to make.

An example can be seen here where I was accused of edit-warring (again) by Dominus Vobisdu, who does this regularly (as do others), in order to revert everything I do, whether it is corrections on content, or grammatical, spelling and consistency errors. In the main my contributions are to supply reliable references to content that lacks them. Please check the history of that page to see what good content he was reverting, and the shambolic state of the content he was wanting to revert it to. In order to get him to desist, and the editor who backed his action up at his request, I had to waste a lot of good time on talk pages requests, as I always do. Another example is seen here where I attempted to fix the problem of a redirect that goes to a page that has no information on the subject of the redirect. Also check the history of the main astrology page, long term and short term. I have been one of the most significant contributors to that article over a long persiod of time, and have contributed more towards verifying its content than any other. I am 'the last man standing' from long running edit-wars, and my commitment to that article has been sincere and long term. I am now frustrated by the fact that I am not allowed to make any kind of edit, but must seek permission first from the other editors, no matter whether my edit is controversial or not. Meanwhile other editors do not discuss or explain their edits on the talk page even when making dramatic changes. It will be seen that the article is quickly losing its coverage of content except the the scientific criticisms section which continues to build without limit. My argument - which is not liked - is not that we should avoid coverage of the criticisms, but we shouold strengthen the robustness of our reports on the criticims by focussing on the issues that are deemed authoritative by the notable authoritites, including historians of science and philosophers of science - not just keep building the content up from silly points made in debunkers manuals. That only smacks of desperation and prejudice.

My response to the accusations that are specified are:

I do not create a battlegound mentality, but I am confronted by one that does exist, because the editing of this unpopular topic is (I have come to conclude) marred by agendas and bias.
I do not routinely edit-war but I am routinely accused of doing so when I try to prevent other editors from deleting well referenced content without explanation.
I have never insisted that unreliable sources such as the Journal of Scientific Exploration be given equal weight with papers from Nature (magazine). This is an issue that was raised last year over a matter that concerned many other editors. I know full well that such a thing would be ridiculous. I have never tried to give undue weight to fringe theories over mainstream, nor have I ever sought to put such a reference into any page. My use of references has always been appropriate.
Skinwalker says I persist in trying to add such references to the article. I have not - he can prove otherwise by showing an example where I have.
I always approach every new situation and new editor with good faith. I am, however, guilty of losing my assumption of good faith. Sorry, but my experience and intelligence cannot be set aside when I am confronted by too much evidence for me to believe that many of the editorial activites that concern this topic are not driven by agendas to keep this 'nonsense' topic looking like what the other editors say they want it to look like. Look at this search for the word 'Bullshit' from the talk-page archives, to see how many editors have expressed a wish that there was some way to just simply say that the whole thing is Bullshit, and leave it at that.
My edits show that all my interest has been geared towards neutrality and adherence to policy. Sometimes my frustration seeps, but the editors with conflictinr views are not delicate little souls. They engage in behaviour that I find shocking, and I would find it preferable to be banned from contributing further to WP, than to continue in being 'effectively' banned, in a situation where I believe the involvement of more uninvolved editors is now essential.

I believe Skinwalker's last interaction with me, or involvement with the page was a few weeks ago when he advised me to go edit the page at Citizendium instead, and accused me of being a SPA. I didn't repond to the accusation although he raises regularly (suggest you check my edit count). -- Zac Δ ^talk! 17:28, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If possible I would like to respond to the comments, because some are true (but have another side to them), some have twisted the facts very disingenuously, and some are completely false. Some are also fair comment.

With regard to Skinwalker, I hope his editorial behaviour will be considered. He says: “Though consensus at the reliable source noticeboard has not agreed with his views on sourcing,[42] he persists in trying to add them to the article.”

His link points to a discussion held in September last year. Please look over it to see that I acted entirely appropriately. Since that time I have never attempted to introduce references against the consensus of RSN, or persisted in adding sources that go against consensus. And I have added hundreds of references to pages in need of verification. So I repeat my request that he gives an example where I am supposed to have done that. It is not true.

With regard to the astrology content that Skinwalker would like me to be banned from editing, I have edited in an all-round fashion, making copy edits, adding references, improving layout, ensuring consistency – I have done this on many astrology pages (as well as many non-astrology pages), not because I have a belief in the subject but because I have a good understanding of its history and philosophical issues. Many of the pages I work on are of no interest to me personally, but I see a subject area badly in need of improvement. The scientific coverage is of least interest to me – quite simply I don’t consider astrology is a science. End of story. But it is the only thing that most other editors want to focus on, and most would admit to having no knowledge of the subject outside of that.

Skinwalker has very little knowledge of my edits and editing pattern. He doesn’t gets involved in the astrology content. Check the history of the main astrology page and you’ll see that his only contribution is to revert edits made by other editors, without talk-page explanation. He also added some tags when he wasn’t happy with the content.

His only contributions to the talk page lately have been these:

Zac, have you considered contributing to Citizendium? Their astrology article is woefully inadequate. Skinwalker (talk) 15:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Would you like some cheese with that whine? If you don't like our policies on fringe topics you're free to contribute elsewhere. I really feel you would be a good fit at Citizendium - their astrology article needs attention, and they welcome agenda-driven SPAs with open arms. Skinwalker (talk) 15:51, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I would like to come back to reply to the points in his diffs later.-- Zac Δ ^talk! 05:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Before dealing with the diffs I want to clear one point up. Unless we go back to a year ago, when I held a different view, I categorically deny that I have broken any Pseudoscience sanctions. My argument has been strong and consistent that there must be good coverage of this point, which makes it clear that astrology is not a science; that makes it clear that it is a pseudoscience, and which also explains clearly, by use of reliable sources why that is. I argue for good quality coverage in order that the long-running contention on this point will come to an end, so that time and attention can be given to the other elements of the page. There are many editors fixated about the pseudoscience issue; I am not one of them. This diff demonstrates my attititude clearly - where I encourage IRWolfie in his attempts to improve and strengthen the report of the scienctific criticisms of the subject, to put an end to the edit-warring and controversies that have been going on for years. IRWolfie has given a very unfair representation of my argument regarding his subsequent choice of sources and his editorial text which, because the astrological technicalities are incorrect, has ended up confusing the issues rather than clarifying them. I would like to be able to respond to that later but will go through the diffs first, a few at a time, because I am short of time. I'll respond to them all and explain them in reverse date order, to bring them up to date:

13) Says - May 13, 2012 IDHT and assumptions of bad faith.

I don't see any case to answer here. The "assumption of bad faith" appears to hinge on my remark:

the proposer of the alteration reveals a worrying motivation in the comment he made when he started proposing changes – “It would be nice if we should just succinctly state that astrology is bullshit (in a more encyclopedic way obviously) rather than the clunky wording we have now.” (SÆdon 23:20, 8 May 2012).

I stand by that remark, believe it was appropriate and would make it again in similar circumstances.

I did not refuse to listen or pretend not to hear the argument, but I pointed out that to make a definitive lede comment - that no part of the academic community takes astrology seriously (when quite clearly some do) - is a comment that cannot be attributed to a reliable source; nor is it covered by the text of the article which the lede should be summarising. I demonstrated by reference to one of America's most respectable and notable historians of science, arguing that the study of astrology should be taken most seriously by academics and giving his reasons why (impact on culture and history). I have also offered similar accounts from other notable, leading academics making the same point, but the editors will not tolerate acknowldgement of such material because it contradicts the comment they want to make, which is pushing a POV, is not verifiable by any reliable source, and which has since been put into the lede as a definitive statement (disregarding the interests of many academics who are engaged in a scholarly exploration of this subject).

12) Says - May 18, 2012 Uses rollback in an edit war, gets warned by an admin.

The link given in diff 13 above gives my reason and my apology for doing that - "This was a mistake based on catching up again with WP procedures and not intentional (and doing two things at once)" - as does my response to the admin. It was a mistake, not deliberate, which happened twice close together and has not happened since. I apologised for it, and explained it at the time. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 11:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Diff 11 - and the real reasons I have problems with The Cosmic Perspective

11) Says -June 8, 2012 Warned for 3RR.

I was NOT warned for 3RR, and did not commit 3RR – I was supposedly “warned” about edit-warring on 8 June – by the editor who actually was edit-warring. The accusation was completely spurious as my response demonstrates. I would very much like the edits involved to be looked at to see exactly the kind of situation I get confronted with regularly, by that editor in particular. Please check the history of the astrology page contributions and my edits which started at 1:15 that day and ended at 2:50.

I made a series of 10 contributions to the main astrology page, the culminative effect of which was some movement towards a more neutral and focused account of relevant critisms, the correction of astrological orders, technical details, and historical mistakes; along with content clarifications, copy edits and the addition of two references and two necessary source text-details. Every edit was justified and fully explained in my edit summaries. Afterwwards, without any discussion or talk page explanation, User:Dominus Vobisdu came along and undid every change I had made with the edit summary “Rv. useless changes. POV, blatant appeals to authority, unnecessary detail, whitewashing, etc. etc.”

I reverted with an edit summary pointing out that Dominus Vobisdu does this regularly without reason or justification.

He then reverted the whole collection of edits again with the instruction “Don't edit war. It is YOUR responsibility to get consensus for your changes on the talk page first, per policy"

Since I had spent nearly 2 hours on this collection of contributions, and it was clear he wasn't even willing to discuss any of it or be specific about why he had problems with any of it, I returned the content again with the explanation, as I have pointed out to him many times, that I am not edit-warring by contributing improvements and adding refs and such without first obtaining his permission, and that if he sees fault in any edit he should amend or revert that troublesome comment selectively, not just wipe away every contribution I make without even looking at it. It is my right to act like an editor. It is his responsibility to explain if there is a problem, so the problem can be identified (if it exists).

But once again, without any willingness to identify any specific issue, he reverted all the material again and then he placed the "warning" on my talk page about my “edit-warring”. It is situations like this that make me see the whole editorial approach around that page as having descended into a farce that is marred by bias and unwillingness to entertain anything but content that is critical of the subject, regardless of how reliable the criticisms are.

With regard to my problems with The Cosmic Perspective - Please note that the only edit that was retained at that same time - from User:Saedon - was the comment he placed to suggest that Kepler didn't really believe in astrology and was "just doing it for the money". This is Not a reliable summary of the situation and it is not what the academics and scholars report about Kepler's attitude to astrology. A new work has recently been published exploring his approach to astrology at great length. It details his own perosnl charts that he drew for himself and his family - including one he wrote about in a letter to a friend, concerning the death of his own son and how this was reflected in his nativity. Kepler attacked certain elements of astrology but wrote about the subject with great sincerity. One of his published comments was "Philosophy, and therefore genuine astrology, is a testimony of God's works, and is therefore holy. It is by no means a frivolous thing. And I, for my part, do not wish to dishonor it.". But even though this is of direct relevance to the astrology page and published in pristine, reliable sources, references like this are not allowed on the grounds that they represent "an appeal to authority". I have not tried to introduce content like this, as I know there wouldbe no tolerance for it. But it is a comparison to use against the fact that editors refer to the Cosmic Perspective as their "reliable source" for content such as this.

This impacts on a number of criticisms against me that those two editors raise in their posts. They say I will not accept that book as a reliable source. That is not true - I have said it is a reliable source for its topic - but not for points such as this. It simply is not an appropriate source for building content which should be based on the reliable accounts of suitably qualified and trusted historians. Cherry picking extreme remarks from skeptical accounts doesnot serve anyone's imterests. Cosmic Perspective has over 800 pages of content, only two of which discuss astrology, plus a couple of odd comments elsewhere. It does not give its focus to these kinds of points or qualify them by suitable references. But the other editors seem to only really have exposure to this kind of text and they are not interested in looking beyond it, so long as it pushes the POV that they want on the page. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 14:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Qu to admins. I would like to be able to respond to all the points made against me, but it sounds like admins want to close before I'm allowed to do that. Am I going to be given the time I need to respond to the allegations? I have hospital appointments and cannot do it instantly because it takes time to find the relevant diffs. I would be willing to submit to a self-ban on the main astrology page and talk page in the meantime. In fact, I would suggest that page is the only one afflicted by the battle ground mentality, and that as the only editor who has invested in the related pages, my time is better spent on them. It might help admins to know my feelings, that I don't actually want to remain a contributor to the main astrology page and its talk-page - its problems are too significant, and I would prefer not to have a sense of responsibility towards the way its coverage of points that fall outside the scientific criticisms are being eliminated in order to focus attention purely on its standing in modern science. I have clearly done nothing but good work for Wikipedia on other pages, and seem to be the only editor with a demonstrated history of reliable commitment to them.

Or I would be happy to accept a temporary ban on my editing, as it is obvious that my points are now being seen as nothing more than thorns in the sides of most other editors of that page. I don't accept that WP's report on a 4000year old subject which almost half the populace of the western world believes in or takes a non-hostile interest in (let alone the majority interest in Eastern nations) should be based on what those who have not studied the subject find in books that have no focus on it. I am unlikely to change that view; just as I am not likely to change my opinion that the subject is failing to get an informative and objective account of the relevant issues, in a neutral manner, based on reliable verifyable sources, as WP policies (including WEIGHT FRINGE and NPOV) demand.

One point before I am silenced. I want to thank Robert Curry for commenting, even though his arguments haven't really helped in the case I was making that I have not tried to introduce criticisms of the Carlson experiment onto the page - it is other editors who make a big deal out of this and try to suggest that my points must be driven by a personal involvement and belief. To clarify, I had noticed Robert's absense and so was very surprised to see that he was aware of this complaint and took the trouble to comment. I realised it wouldn't take long before someone left implications about that to try to devalue his contribution. I also find it strange that my complaint is supposed to be about contravension of the pseudoscience policy, but the nom has not been able to provide a single example of what he accuses me of doing on a regular basis. It's pretty inevitable that anyone who tries to continue an involvement in that particular battlegound, with good knowledge and understanding of the subject from all angles, will need to don full-body battle armour; so I am not suggesting that some of my remarks were not made in the expectation that I was likely to get banned anyway, being guilty of having lost my assumption of good faith behind much of the activity that goes on there, as I have already admitted. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 10:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by IRWolfie-

Zac has also consistently used words with legal implications such as "potentially libellous", "defamatory" etc aimed at some of the comments of other editors despite being asked not to [57][58]. See this recent example: [59] (edit summary: "What's a better word for defamatory (which still means defamatory)?") of an accusation that a previous comment by another editor is defamatory.

On arguing that reliable scientific sources are unreliable

Zac has spent a lot of time arguing that the scientific sources are unreliable for covering astrology. He has argued that "Debunked! : ESP, telekinesis, and other pseudoscience" by the Nobel prize winning physicist Georges Charpak, printed in Johns Hopkins University Press, a book which was also acclaimed in Charpak's obituary in Nature is unreliable (not unreliable for anything specific either it seems, just generally), whilst pushing for non-academic sources.

Reliable scientific sources, such as undergraduate text books, journals, academic press books all regard astrology as pseudoscience with no rationale basis for continued belief. To try and remove unfavourable scientific coverage is to move away from neutrality. I have been fairly consistent with my adherence to the reliable sources. The sources aren't skeptic sources etc, but regular normal scientific sources (because there is no need to look at them considering that so many scientific sources discuss astrology). There aren't just a few academic sources that deal with astrology, there are thousands that deal with numerous aspects of it, numerous studies, numerous critiques, numerous discussions of the beliefs etc etc.

When he inserted a misquote to Charpack, I reverted for obvious reasons here [60]. This earned the following response [61] which demonstrates bad faith aimed at me. See here for another examples Talk:Astrology#Theological_criticism which contains needless incivility from Zac, including accusations that I am abusing wikipedia [62].

The examples of this sort of behaviour are numerous, please see the talk page for more. updated IRWolfie- (talk) 21:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Currey
Note that the editor Robert Currey appears to discuss this article at his blog, and appears to advocate that his readers edit the article: [63] ([64]). IRWolfie- (talk) 00:22, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with what Saedon has said. It is difficult when the serous academic sources are near universally disparaging of Astrology. Since I've started editing this article, in may, I've seen that Zac believes he is acting in the best interests of the wikipedia, but this leads to disruptive behaviour as he argues over the reliability of standard academic sources, misuses unreliable sources etc and incivility. IRWolfie- (talk). 08:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Astrology#The_Hartmann.2C_Reuter_and_Nyborg_paper_-_ref_59 for the latest example. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:50, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by A Quest for Knowledge

I've been following the astrology topic-space off and on for sometime (more off than on lately). From what I can gather, the astrology articles used to be a bit of a walled-garden. Recently (within the last year), the astrology articles have attracted more attention from outside editors and this has led to many conflicts at these articles. Skinwalker is correct that Zachariel has exhibited battleground behavior, but he's not the only one and probably not the worst offender. I think that Zachariel means well, but their personal beliefs are in conflict with Wikipedia's content policies including WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:44, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse this summary. Very well put. Itsmejudith (talk)

Comment by Robert Currey

As a past editor of the astrology page, I can say there is and has been much bullying, personal insult and intimidation on the astrology page by a focused group of editors who are pushing their extreme sceptical point of view. They have managed to get most neutral editors banned through trumped up charges or frustrated them by a total unwillingness to compromise and cooperate.

Skinwalker has long been policing this page to revert any edits that disagree with his POV often without discussion or consensus. Knowing that Zac's behaviour is no worse than other editors, Skinwalker makes much of raising the Journal of Scientific Exploration as an unreliable source. Like every debate there are two sides. What Skinwalker omits to say is that the paper in question was written by a statistician, Professor Ertel, from Goetingen University and covers his research into sampling errors in the Carlson Experiment (1985). The conclusions from Carlson's experiment have now been criticized independently by three Professors including Hans Eysenck and it no longer has support from the scientific community. Yet, editors on the astrology page are actively white-washing it lest any stains show through.

These editors have successfully suppressed these criticisms by claiming that the publications - even when peer reviewed - are unreliable sources or that the Professors are biased - even though Carlson himself was backed by CSICOP and originally planned to publish his experiment in the Skeptical Inquirer. Yet, WP:PARITY states that "Parity of sources may mean that certain fringe theories are only reliably and verifiably reported on, or criticized, in alternative venues from those that are typically considered reliable sources for scientific topics on Wikipedia." Some "rational sceptical" editors claim that this only applies if the source suits their POV! The way this experiment has been artificially propped up by wiki-lawyering and now the attempt to penalise editors such as Zac for raising this contentious issue because it challenges their personal views is scandalous. Through the handiwork of a few editors the astrology page is now more dedicated to debunking the subject than anything encyclopedic and informative and lets the whole Wikipedia Project down.

Skinwalker is no paragon and has no right to criticise Zac. He trawled through my published material on the web outside Wikipedia to claim on several occasions that I had recruited editors. It was a false claim designed to undermine me as an editor. Robert Currey talk 23:13, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to IRWolfie

@IRWolfie-, Since, I don't have a blog, I suspect you didn't read what I actually wrote, but recycled Skinwalker's claims. I didn't advocate editing, but I did advise those who have experience in editing to learn about and follow Wikipedia Rules and against edit warring. The news at the time (March 2011) was that seven editors who were supportive or neutral to astrology were banned effectively for having a different view and no anti-astrology editors who engaged in the same edit war were even reprimanded. An anti-astrology majority has been created on the Astrology page by 'killing off' and intimidating anyone with expertise. This pattern has continued since that time and the blatant bias on the page reflects this.

There is nothing wrong with writing about Wikipedia in this way. There are plenty of articles such as this from the Executive Director of the American Psychological Association: Don't Like Wikipedia? Change it. and a WP editor that really do encourage editing.

It is a form of harassment and violation of privacy to take advantage of your anonymity WP:OUTING to find material outside Wikipedia about an editor who is not anonymous and then to twist it and use it against him. WP:PERSONAL Skinwalker has done this three times and you have once.

From my own experience, Skinwalker has, since 2007, never made any constructive edits to the Astrology page i.e. every edit has been anti-astrology. It is his behaviour that should be under scrutiny here rather than the merits of the arguments from an authoritative editor like Zac. Robert Currey talk 07:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Saedon - The problem here is that editors (myself included) are extending a debate that should happen on the Astrology Talk page. However, it seems to have become the main issue.

I agree that Carlson is notable, but this is my opinion. Other editors are entitled to disagree but this is no reason to attempt to seek to restrict their access to editing.

The fallibility of Nature thirty years ago has been seriously questioned on the Talk page already and should not be hushed up by selective use of WP rules. The Carlson experiment was sponsored by the pseudoscientific organisation CSICOP and at the time it was published in Nature, the editor was John Maddox who was also a fellow of CSICOP. Maddox was well-known for being unable to separate his personal bias from scientific objectivity. For example, in 1983, his editorial in Nature "No need for panic about AIDS" suggested that male homosexuals should change their ways of "pathetic promiscuity" and described AIDS as "perhaps a non-existent condition". Such prejudice would be totally unacceptable for an editor of Nature today.

This quote by Jimbo Wales has been invoked many times in this debate. He has never been involved in the details of this debate. I doubt that he wanted his general opinion in the context of his Talk page to become the justification for the Carlson cover-up and the astrology page being used as debunking ground. However, this is what has happened and always in the name of Jimbo. He has never suggested that we should enforce some WP rules to the letter and overrule other WP rules to suppress criticism and hide independent evidence from three professors including Hans Eysenck and many other expert sources.

The problem with any cover-up especially when the facts come down to basic mathematics and obvious sampling errors is that when it comes out as it always does, there will be backlash. You can now read an online copy of a paper I wrote on the Carlson Experiment published in Correlation. [65] Robert Currey talk 09:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Other Choices

I am inclined to agree with the comment by A Quest for Knowledge -- Zac isn't the only one, and probably not the worst offender. With that said, on the astrology page Zac has often been hot-headed and unwilling to bend to the vocal majority which often passes for a consensus.

Skinwalker's accusation that Zac took part in edit warring on the History of Astrology page on July 1 and 2 is simply not true, in my opinion. The history of the relevant diffs on this page is here Zac gave the long-ignored History of Astrology article a much-needed overhaul. Anti-astrology editors followed Zac from the Astrology article onto this page, in what appears to be a clear case of WP:HOUNDING. One of these editors accused Zac of edit warring after Zac convincingly addressed an issue raised by another editor and restored deleted content. This accusation of edit warring went together with a wholesale deletion of content that Zac had added, which led Zac to reply here

The way things developed on this article, there was some modification of Zac's work on July 2, but most of Zac's improvements to the article were upheld by the consensus (which was dominated by editors who are often opposed to Zac at the Astrology article), and Zac continued to substantially revise and enlarge the History of Astrology article over the following days without opposition. In this case, I think Zac did a good job, and his improvements still stand in the current version.--Other Choices (talk) 01:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Saedon

Just to preface, a couple days ago I had emailed admin User:Moreschi about whether Zach's behavior was disruptive enough that AE would be an appropriate venue. He hasn't responded yet. Specifically, I mentioned a couple recent comments Zach has made that convince me that Zach lacks understanding of WP policies regarding WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE subjects, and indeed a lack of understanding of the scientific publishing process.

Firstly, in [66] Zach makes the claim that Nature (Journal) didn't have the criteria checking reputation 30 years ago that they do now and therefore a famous astology-debunking article is not notable. In fact, Nature has been a respected publisher for decades before the Carlson study was published. In the post to which Zach was responding I had also pointed out that the Carlson study was cited 51 times (according to GScholar), which is a lot for an article on such a fringe topic.

Point number two is that Zach contends that a source published in SciEx should be used to contrast the Nature study (or that neither should be used). Zach brought this up on Jimbo's talk page (I highly recommend reading this conversation as it's telling) in Septermber 2011 where after a long conversation Jimbo said

To be clear on my view. Based on this conversation, it seems abundantly clear that SciEx is completely and utterly useless as a source for anything serious at all. People who publish such things, and participate in such things, should be ashamed of themselves. The Journal may have some value as a source, if it is influential amongst crackpots, to document the sort of nonsense that they are willing to publish while pretending to academic standards.
— Jimbo Wales

So Zach is well aware based on conversations on talk:astrology and ut:Jimbo that the consensus is against inclusion and yet he still continues to argue the points.

Lastly, recently Zach has [67] argued that The Cosmic Perspective, an undergrad astronomy textbook used in major universities across the country, is not a reliable source. It is very difficult to work with someone who thinks that a fringe journal like SciEx is a reliable source but an astronomy textbook is not.

Hatting per Blade's request Sædon^talk 22:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I don't believe that Zach is editing in bad faith, I just think he is too personally involved with this topic to edit neutrally. He is obviously very passionate about the subject and it's a large part of his life so I can understand how the article would frustrate him; if some article on WP challenged the way I think about the world in such a condemning way I would be upset too. The problem is that his POV clashes with the reliable sources and so to him the mainstream looks extreme and that's no good for the article. I think he might benefit from mentorship as he might trust an outsider to explain sourcing guidelines etc rather than someone he perceives to be biased against astrology. Sædon^talk 02:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Other Choices: There is no doubt that Zach has done good work on the page, that is not in question here. The question for the admins is whether Zach has violated policy to the point where restrictions are necessary. Sædon^talk 02:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jess

I think Saedon and A Quest for Knowledge summarize the problem well. Additionally, if Zac intends to continue here productively, we must find some way to address his consistent edit warring. Despite many explanations, he still routinely denies any disruption while actively and combatively reverting. I assume this is a misreading of WP:EW, and consequently he is under the impression that if his edit is correct, then reverting to reintroduce it is ok. It is not. See the brief discussion here, for example. His comments on this page, I believe, illustrate the problem. "I do not routinely edit-war but I am routinely accused of doing so", and particularly "Since I had spent nearly 2 hours on this collection of contributions, and it was clear he wasn't even willing to discuss any of it..., I returned the content again with the explanation, as I have pointed out to him many times, that I am not edit-warring by contributing improvements". He's already been blocked once, templated regularly, and the issue patiently explained. I don't know how else to go about it, but it is an absolute bar to collaborative editing on such a controversial subject with which he is intimately connected. — Jess· Δ ♥ 22:59, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MakeSense64

Having edited on the astrology article in the past, I would like to add that Zac's propensity to edit warring is not the only or the biggest problem. It is his endless baggering on Talk pages, as we can even see in his reply here and in the mentioned discussion on the ut of Jimbo Wales, that causes the most stress for editors who try to work on astrology related pages. I can also not help to observe that @Robertcurrey, who has not done an edit for months, was here right away to write in favor of Zac: [68]. MakeSense64 (talk) 08:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Zachariel

Result concerning Zachariel

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

Related to what I said in the thread above this one, could everyone please consider that brevity, not verbosity, is the soul of wit? I'll try to sift through this, but to the people who've commented here; if there's anything you think that's not essential in your statement that could be collapsed, please do so. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:46, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've read through what I can, and I pretty much have to agree with Mann Jess on this. I don't think Zachariel needs to be editing in this topic area, so I'd be for an indefinite ban from all astrology topics, broadly construed, with a further warning that he'll be blocked for an extended period of time if he doesn't quickly figure out both the letter and the spirit of edit warring. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems reasonable enough to me. Do you want to just go ahead and implement the ban? AE threads are generally kept up for too long as it is. NW (Talk) 12:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dailycare

Request concerning Dailycare

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Jiujitsuguy (talk)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Dailycare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:ARBPIA

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

In this edit Dailycare writes the following According to Avi Shlaim, Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence and he references the 2007 edition of Shlaim's book, Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace at page 238. I thoroughly checked that page and found that Shlaim makes no reference to Nasser disregarding the views or counsel of his intelligence service. Indeed, there is no mention of Egyptian intelligence at all, on that page. I then scoured the entire book and read it cover to cover. Perhaps, I thought, Dailycare had just mistakenly referenced the wrong page. In fact, I could not find any reference in Shlaim's book to Nasser disregarding the counsel of his intelligence. I then thought that perhaps Dailycare meant to cite a different book written by Shlaim and that that information could be found there. So I checked the only other book written by Shlaim that is referenced in the article (The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, 2000, 2001) and that book too is devoid of any such reference or information regarding Nasser's disregarding the counsel of his intelligence. See page 238 [69] I was unable to retrieve the cited page reference for the other book on Google Books but I scanned the relevant page into my computer. I will be more than willing to email the page (and any other pages in the book) to any Syop wishing to see the referenced page.
The relevant page can also be accessed here at TinyPic

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

Warned here and here

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is black and white. I could have added additional information concerning other matters but did not want to cloud this clear-cut case. He states that Avi Shlaim said something that Avi Shlaim clearly did not say. If that is not source misrepresentation, I don't know what is. In a previous AE, T. Canens noted that Dailycare was careless in the manner in which he employed a particular reference and Daily was issued a warning. Well, this case represents outright misrepresentation in the extreme and something more that just a warning is clearly warranted. Moreover, even if the insatnt case can somehow, under the most liberal interpretation be construed as "careless," how many instances of carelessness are we willing to tolerate?

@nableezy, Uh no...Other historians including Michael Oren and Leslie Stein have stated that Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence. But Dailycare added the following, "According to Avi Shlaim" and Avi Shlaim made no such representation. Dailycare didn't even bother reading Shlaim because had he done so, he would have seen that Shlaim never said that. By adding the words "According to Avi Shlaim" Dailycare made an affirmative representation that Shlaim said something that he clearly didn't say. That is source misrepresentation.

@Nableezy you view me as your enemy of sorts and since your return from your t-ban, have been the first to comment on AE's which I initiated which says a lot about you. My edit was sourced by Stein and Oren both of whom clearly state that Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own staff I even quoted Stein in the reference. You can't be more explicit than that. But Dailycare then twists it by attributing views held by Stein and Oren (who were explicitly referenced by me just prior) to Shlaim. He stated "According to Avi Shlaim" and Avi Shlaim never held this view.

@Nableezy. Did you even bother taking note of this edit where I clearly and unambiguously attributed Nasser's disregard of his military staff to Leslie Stein? Stein, "Fawzi reported to Nasser that: 'There is nothing there. No massing of forces. Nothing.'" p. 266 these were views held by Stein and Oren, not Shlaim. But Dailycare then writes "According to Avi Shlaim" attributing views to Shlaim that Shlaim clearly never said. That is source distortion. Whether it was purposeful or not, it shows that Dailycare didn't bother reading Shlaim. Otherwise he would have realized that Shlaim never said those things.

@Nableezy That sentence "Nonetheless, Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence" is attributed to Stein and Michael Oren both of whom I referenced immediately prior. The statement is 100% accurate and verifiable. I don't have a problem with the statement that I myself introduced. I have a problem with Dailycare stating "According to Avi Shlaim" which is an outright distortion and misrepresentation of Shlaim. Had he taken just a brief moment to read the sources, he would have realized that his affirmative attribution was an absolute falsity. Anyone reading the article and checks the sources that I noted knows that the sources state that Nasser disregarded the intelligence assessment of his military staff. See for example oren. yet the Egyptian president preferred to overlook these repudiations and to proceed as if the Israelis were about to attack the problem with Dailycare's edit is that by specifically stating "According to Avi Shlaim" he attributes this not to Oren and not to Stein but specifically to Shlaim, which is patent falsehood.

@Dailcare. The first AE I brought was not dismissed as "frivolous" as you falsely state. At least one of your edits was deemed "careless" and as you may recall, you were issued an ARBPIA warning. Second, my goal is to see the accurate use of sources. When you affirmatively attributed a statement to Shlaim that Shlaim did not say, that was a source of concern for me and it should be for all others as well. This AE has turned into the usual partisan bullshit. It is a clear cut case of source misrepresentation by Dailycare. What his intention was in manipulating my edit is immaterial. He performed it in a reckless, careless manner and in his previous AE, he was cited there for being careless as well and that is why a warning was issued.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 20:26, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have now corrected Dailycare's inaccuracy and have properly attributed the edit to Michael Oren with inline citation.

@T. Canens. I absolutely take credit for that edit as well as this and according to Michael Oren and Leslie Stein, Nasser disregarded the advice of his own staff and continued the buildup. What I didn't do is attribute that statement to Avi Shlaim. I noted the sources and if you want me to email you the relevant pages I will absolutely do that. What I did not do is state "according to Avi Shlaim" because Avi Shlaim absolutely never said that. Moreover, even if Dailycare's edit predates the warning, continued retention of it constitutes continued distortion and, I felt strongly that this type of affirmative false attribution is something that had to be dealt with. Bottom line Dailycare affirmatively and falsely attributed a comment to Avi Shlaim that Avi Shlaim did not say.

Comment and notification to other Syops

About six weeks ago, at the request of a member of Oversight, I filed a detailed complaint against Tim Canens alleging bias in the extreme and abuse of his Syop authority. The complaint was long and exhaustive and Canens was required to respond to each and every charge. This likely took some time and no doubt he was annoyed for having to "waste" time answering my charges and clarifications from Oversight. Ultimately, Oversight determined that no sanction was warranted. I obviously disagreed but voiced no objection to the substance of their determination. My only request however was that given the antagonistic relationship between myself and Canens and the fact that he was aware the it was I who filed the complaint, that he recuse himself from all AEs in which I am either the filer or respondent. I predicted that if I was T-banned, it would be T. Canens who would be the main antagonist and the one advocating the ban. Oversight considered the request but noted that there were mechanisms in place to ensure that there would be transparency and fairness. It is interesting to note that in both of the recent AEs that I filed, it was T. Canens who responded as the first syop and almost immediately, this despite the fact that other AEs (like Dali lama ding dong's) were languishing and some were being archived for lack of commentary. I hope that other Syops who view this case will not be influenced by TC's metaphoric poisoning of the well, which he is quite adept at doing. My interest was to ensure that sources remained accurate. The only thing I can be faulted for is not providing an inline cite, which in hindsight would have been more helpful. But my edits were well sourced with reliable and verifiable sources. Dailycare however falsely attributed a comment to Avi Shlaim that Avi Shlaim did not say.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 14:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

user notified

Discussion concerning Dailycare

Statement by Dailycare

Here we go again?

Concerning the content, I added "According to Shlaim" in front of the sentence since the sentence was attributed, by Jiujitsuguy, to Shlaim (and Mutawi, but Shlaim is mentioned first). I decided to mention the author since Jiujitsuguy had removed the Shemesh source, and content sourced from it, from the article. By writing "According to Shlaim, ..." and "According to Shemesh, ..." I was able to present both narratives of why Nasser moved his forces. Pure and simple. Alternatively we could write "According to some sources, ..." and "According to other sources, ..." if there are multiple sources for both viewpoints.

Concerning Jiujitsuguy's behaviour, this is the second frivolous AE against me within a short space of time. Jiujitsuguy is under a recent, personal and stringent warning that any further disturbance will result in an indefinite topic ban. My suggestion is, that this topic ban would now be activated either as indefinite or fixed term. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:09, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm of course moved by the way you're checking my edits with such loving care, in fact I feel like I should be paying you. However, these AE requests need to stop as you're wasting people's time.--Dailycare (talk) 20:52, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Dailycare

This is as spurrious as the last report, and something should be done about this repeated bad-faith use of AE to attempt to remove one of the better editors from the topic area. the sentence Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence and began massing his troops in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel's border (May 16), expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai (May 19), and took up UNEF positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran. was already in the article. It was cited to Shlaim (2007) p. 238 and Mutawi (2007) p. 93. It was added by, and this is where this gets comical, Jiujitsuguy (search for Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence in that diff). The material that JJG is objecting to having cited to Shlaim was added by JJG to a sentence that cited Shlaim. If anybody is to be sanctioned for poor sourcing, it needs to be JJG.

All Dailycare added was According to Avi Shlaim. He did not add the reference, he did not add the rest of the sentence. Dailycare attributed what was cited, in part, to Shlaim to Shlaim. The claim that Dailycare wrote that sentence is false, and seemingly made to intentionally mislead admins. That the material was actually added by JJG only makes this an even more egregious case of an underhanded use of AE. nableezy - 16:41, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ JJG, uhh no. Your edit didn't cite Stein or Oren for the sentence. The only two sources cited in the sentence that you added the material were, and still are, Shlaim (2007) p. 238 and Mutawi (2007) p. 93. That is, you added material to a sentence that had sources without adding any sources for that sentence. Any reader looking at that sentence and seeing what is cited would assume that Shlaim (2007) p. 238 and Mutawi (2007) p. 93 are what backs up the material you added. It is you, not Dailycare, that inserted that material in a sentence that cited Shlaim. All Dailycare did was make explicit what your edit did implicitly. Again, if anybody should be sanctioned for poor sourcing, and yet another bad-faith use of AE, it is you. nableezy - 17:42, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I dont view you as [my] enemy, and its ironic that in a request about a user attributing to somebody something they did not say you do exactly that with me. I comment in AEs where a user, in bad-faith, distorts what has happened so that he can attempt to remove somebody he views as his enemy of sorts. And no, you emphatically did not cite Stein or Oren for the phrase Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence. Anybody can look at the diff and see that the sources that appear following the sentence that you added that phrase to are Shlaim (2007) p. 238 and Mutawi (2007) p. 93. Trying to play fast and loose with the record isnt the wisest choice here as we can all see the diffs. You did not cite Oren or Stein, and the only thing that DC did was explicitly attribute to Shlaim what was sourced to Shlaim, and it was sourced to Shlaim because you were, once again, careless with your sourcing. nableezy - 18:04, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jesus Christ, do you really not understand the simple concept that the citations appear after the sentence they support? That you used Oren and Stein for the sentence Egyptian intelligence later confirmed that the Soviet reports were in fact groundless. but not for the phrase Nonetheless, Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence? That the only sources for the entire sentence Nonetheless, Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence and began massing his troops in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel's border (May 16), expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai (May 19), and took up UNEF positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran were, and still are, Shlaim and Mutawi? If you dont understand that concept then we have a bigger problem, though it is a problem that can be solved without you being banned. If you do understand that concept, and you are simply feigning ignorance, then we have a different problem, one that has a straight-forward solution. nableezy - 18:58, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How is the phrase you added "attributed to Stein"? Are you seriously disputing that the only sources that appear at the end of the sentence that you added that phrase to are not Shlaim and Mutawi? Yes or no for that last question please. nableezy - 19:20, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I dont know how many ways I can write this, but the sentence was cited to Shlaim, and you made it so that Shlaim was the cited source for something that you say Shlaim never said. Again, DC made explicit what you edit did implicitly. There is no rational reason for you to continue to dispute this, and your steadfast refusal to actually acknowledge that the sentence was, and is, cited to Shlaim and Mutawi is inexplicable. Your edit made it so that Shlaim was cited for the material. DC's edit made that implicit attribution explicit. Which of those is "source distortion"? The one that actually adds material unsupported by the cited source? Or the one that explicitly notes what the cited source is? nableezy - 19:48, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - JJG, which of the following do you regard as a more serious violation, what you say Dailycare did or what you did by writing Talk:Operation_Sharp_and_Smooth#Results, a piece of unsourced original research based on your personal opinion, followed by a policy violating addition of OR to an infobox ? I don't understand how it is possible to violate policy in a very obvious way like that on one day and complain about an editor violating policy in a convoluted and obscure way on another day. Dailycare has a clean block record[70]. You don't[71]. Which of the editors presents a greater risk to content based their editing history and the nature of these contrasting edits ? Sean.hoyland - talk 19:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by AnkhMorpork

JJG added the content that "Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence"
This content is not in dispute and is confirmed by several sources (Oren, Stein). JJG then adds a source immediately before this sentence to support his recent additions. This could have been done is a clearer manner by inserting it after the next sentence, even though the material's accuracy is not in question.
Dailycare mis-attributes this statement to Shlaim. This is a poor edit which demonstrates that he did not inspect the sources and that he has a tendentious agenda.

While JJG could have provided better clarity by providing a precise inline citation to support his unchallenged additions, I fail to see how this has any bearing on DC's attempt to trivialize the material by falsely attributing it to a single source that he manifestly had not read. Ankh.Morpork 19:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Activism1234

The case is not a difficult one - although there may have been some confusion over wording initally, at the end, Dailycare still unproperly referenced a source where the source did not say anything remotely close. I'm sure mistakes like these happen all the time - after all, we are only human - but this is part of the Wikipedia process - an edit is made, improved, a mistake is cited, users are notified of the mistake, and the mistake is corrected. Unfortunately, it was not corrected, and based on previous warnings that JJG brought up, and previous source manipulation, the behavior represents a poor agenda, and possibly done on purpose. "According to Shlaim..." but it's not according to Shlaim, and before including those words - regardless of whether he was referenced - it should've been checked, and when it was pointed out that it wasn't true or reverted, it should've been left or discussed further. It was Dailycare's fault for making a statement and not properly checking out to see if it was true. Content was attributed to Shlaim that Shlaim never said - that is a major deal.

After that, there are users here who are arguing against JJG and attacking him in cases that are similar to ad hominem attacks, rather than focus on the case at hand. The AE is being screwed up over that, and it shouldn't be. These should have no bearing on the procedures, as we don't need to take as a fact whatever JJG says - the admins can check up on everything for themselves, and JJG brings Wikipedia links and diffs as well. There is no reason for this to turn into a battleground and silly attacks. That goes for everyone - those attacking and those being attacked. It's childish. State your case, and don't try to divert attention and make this something it shouldn't be. If people can support JJG, or can support Dailycare, then they should go ahead and do so without diverting attention from the main cause. Otherwise, nothing will get done, and this will all turn into a silly chaotic mess without any cohesion or cooperation.

T. Canens, perhaps you saw it, and perhaps you missed it, which is fine. Reading your comment below, I think it's the latter case, but just to help out, JJG did answer what you wrote previously above. He bolded it as "@T.Canens." Hope it helps. I do not see any reason to ignore Dailycare's unproper source manipulation and instead punish JJG when he answered the allegations above, taking credit and explaining according to whom this was true etc, so I just wanted to point this out in order to help with the AE. I do hope it helps.

I would also like if some other admins can take a look at this case and make a judgement call. Thanks. --Activism1234 21:15, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Shrike I see a pretty clear case of source misrepresentation by Dailycare. He specifically attributes a view to Avi Shlaim that Avi Shlaim did not say. The edits made by JJG were accurate, verifiable and well-sourced. Dailycare however didn't bother reading the source and thereby caused a misleading edit. I don't know whether Dailycare did it on purpose but it certainly was very sloppy and careless.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 05:00, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Dailycare

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

Putting aside for the moment the fact that this diff pre-dates Dailycare's ARBPIA warning, I'm particularly interested in JJG's response to this very interesting diff in which the phrase "Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence" was first introduced to the article. T. Canens (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- This request is doubly meritless. First, the diff provided predated Dailycare's ARBPIA warning - in fact, it predated the closure of the last Dailycare thread, also brought by JJG. It therefore cannot be actioned at AE. Second, even were the edit to have occurred after the ARBPIA warning, this request must still be dismissed. This is a straightforward case of unclean hands. JJG's edit here introduced the phrase "Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence" in a sentence cited to Shlaim and Mutawi. By his own logic in his previous report concerning Dailycare ("at the very least made it appear as though [Shlaim]'s book contained this information by adding the [phrase] just before the [Shlaim] reference"), that constitutes source misrepresentation. Having misrepresented the source himself, he will not now be allowed to complain that another editor erred in relying in good faith on his misrepresentation.
  It is remarkable indeed that someone who raised allegations of source falsification in multiple AE threads, engaged in essentially the same misconduct that he has accused others. That suggests a tendentious attempt to game the AE process, rather than a good faith attempt to deal with actual misconduct. The previous AE thread on Dailycare, brought by JJG as well, containing three totally spurious allegations of source distortion, is a good example.
  JJG was subject to an indefinite topic ban in January this year; that topic ban was lifted on appeal in April. I think it beyond clear that the lifting of the ban had been improvident, and that an indefinite topic ban for this kind of continued battleground conduct is appropriate. T. Canens (talk) 06:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have to concur with the comment directly above, although I'd also generally advise Dailycare to be a bit more careful about sourcing. Mistakes happen, it's not A Big Deal, but especially in this topic area it's good to double-check. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

[1] The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.

[2] This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.

[a]

[b]

@@ Line 273: / Line 273: @@
 ==talknic==
+{{hat|{{user|Talknic}} indefinitely banned from all I/P articles and discussions, broadly construed.  All parties reminded that brevity is a virtue, and is far more likely to help your case than is verbosity.  [[User:The Blade of the Northern Lights|The Blade of the Northern Lights]]  ([[User talk:The Blade of the Northern Lights|<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい</font>]]) 18:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)}}
 ''Attention:  This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.''
@@ Line 465: / Line 466: @@
 *Agree with Coren and Blade. [[User:Timotheus Canens|T. Canens]] ([[User talk:Timotheus Canens|talk]]) 23:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 *Concur with all above - indef topic ban is thoroughly appropriate--[[User:Cailil|<font color="#999999" size="2">'''Cailil'''</font>]]  <sup>[[User_talk:Cailil|<font color="#999999">'''talk'''</font>]]</sup> 12:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
+{{hab}}
 ==Zachariel==

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