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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,
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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.

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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;
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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,
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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.

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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.
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Beshogur

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

Request concerning Beshogur

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: EtienneDolet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 19:15, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Beshogur (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:AA2 :

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

25 October "keep your bias to yourself"
25 October Doubles down at Diyarbakir but this time removes native names in a form of a note. Disingenouous edit-summary: "pure aesthetic purpose".
24 October Removes Kurdish, Armenian, Assyrian, and other native names from the Diyarbakir article. Diyarbakir has historically and continues to be a multi-cultural city. Such removals have gotten various users banned before.
22 October. Insists on using Azeri names instead of the much more common Armenian names of villages in Karabakh. He then slow edit-wars to maintain this over the course of this month: 20 October, 20 October, 10 October. Even goes so far as to remove the fact that there's an Armenian school in the village [3]. It is still questionable whether Azeri forces are in control of this part of NK. Nevertheless, this is against WP:COMMONNAME and the user has been told several times already to stop doing this, let alone edit-war for it.
20 October Blanket removal of loads of reliably sourced information pertaining to Azerbaijani nationalism and the Armenian Genocide on Pan-Turkism article with an edit-summary that is entirely false and misleading.
20 October Consistenly refers to Artsakh forces as occupiers, the official language of the Azeri government. The long-standing consensus in AA2 articles has always been to use more netural terms like control and/or more legal terms like de facto. Beshogur has been on a spree to call the Armenian forces occupiers in many instances since the flareup of the conflict. Some other examples: 24 October, 24 October, 24 October, 22 October, 22 October.
2 October Uses very questionable sources to justify military changes on the battlefield. The NK war is very fluid and to rush to judgement on the capturing of one village is disruptive, let alone edit-warring to maintain it is doubly so. Edit-warring diffs: October 3, October 3, October 3 (WP:GAME with this one as it's only 8 minutes over the 24 hour mark of the initial revert). Beshogur's edit-warring lead to him getting immediately blocked. Even after the block and another reminder of AA2, the user continues to disrupt the project and it appears that is not willing to revise his approach towards it.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

3 October blocked for disruptive edit-warring by admin Rosguill (talk · contribs)

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Warned about AA2 sanctions:

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Wikipedia is not a venue to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, nor is it a WP:BATTLEGROUND. The removal of native names and the insistence with calling Armenians occupiers coupled with the edit-warring and a disruptive pattern of editing should raise alarm bells. The user has a history of edit-warring and was just recently blocked a couple of weeks ago for it.

Beshogur (talk · contribs) makes several claims in his rebuttal that must be answered. For one, he refuses to acknowledge the importance of WP:NCGN by removing anything pertaining to Armenia or Armenians in these villages as the war continues. He goes so far as to point to an ongoing discussion that he started (might I add, the WP:VOTESTACKING is quite obvious there) to which no consensus has been reached. Yet, even as the discussion continues and no consensus has been reached, he continues using the term occupation. Another fallacy in his argument is that not only did he do this before he opened that discussion, he did it after. In other words, gaining consensus does not phase him in this regard.

He then states that he only calls these villages occupied if they're outside of the NK Republic. This is false. In the 20 October diff, for example, he added this phrase to the article: "When it was under Armenian occupation, Hadrut was twinned with:" Hadrut lies plainly in NK boundaries. With that said, the term occupation is still used by him whether or not these territories are in NK boundaries.

His response for the Madagiz issue is misleading. The issue with Madagiz is not the infobox, but rather the first sentence of the article to which he changed the first sentence to the official name rather than the WP:COMMONNAME even as he was told several times to avoid doing so. The slow edit-warring of this is also a recurring problem given that he has been blocked several times for edit-warring. Étienne Dolet (talk) 07:19, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested: [4]

Discussion concerning Beshogur

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

Statement by Beshogur

About occupation. Literally every international source, including OSCE minsk group mentions this as an occupation. Both Zengilan and Fuzuli cities were outside the former NKAO, and those cities had predominantly Azerbaijani majority. If you knew it, both cities' Armenian names are not its native names, but had been renamed after the Armenian occupation. (discussion about the term)

Additional note:

Füzuli (city)'s old names: Qarabulak, Karyagin, and Varanda, named after 1993 when the city actually became a ghost town after NK war, and outside NKAO.

Zəngilan: Pirchivan, Zengilan, and later renamed to Kovsakan after Armenian occupation, another place outside NKAO.

Jabrayil: renamed to Jrakan after NKR war, another ghost town, and outside NKAO.

These are not traditional names used by Armenians but later renamed by an occupying state.

To clarify Madagiz yet again, I am not against that name, the problem is, you are changing "official_name=" into Madagiz. @Rosguill:, an admin, even realized that he was also wrong about that. See talk of that page. And I didn't move that page at the first place, stop putting the blame on my.

About Diyarbakir, I found a note better for an excessive name section. For the first edit, I removed it because it was already on the name section below. That's the main reason. If that was wrong, my apologizes, that was not my intention. Also I noticed that I did the same thing for Sultanate of Rum and Anatolia articles. I really don't understand how this is equal to removing the names.

For Iranian Azerbaijan. That article had been under scope of WP Azerbaijan. Removing is ok, but restoring it not?

Also I don't think it's ok to judge me of my block which is already passed. Regards.

For his second statement: Before accusing me of Votestacking, administrators are free to check my editing or mail history. I did not sent any user, nor did notify about that requested move. Beside that, I do not call only places outside NKAO occupied, I call them all. I was clarifying the name issues, these cities not being majority Armenian at the first place, and the names being changed after Armenian occupation. To clarify Madagiz yet again. I didn't move the article at the first place. I thought that it was looking weird when you had two different names. As I explained, I am not against its old name, and that had been solved on the talk page, why do you bring this up every time?

Additional note: UN: "Demands the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan;"^[1]

About the status of Madagiz. AJ report about Azerbaijan building road to Madagiz.^[2] Another by Euronews from inside of Madagiz.^[3] Beshogur (talk) 14:52, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "A/RES/62/243". undocs.org. 14 March 2008. Retrieved 2020-09-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
^ [1]
^ [2]

@Doug Weller: what's the reason of topic ban? Rosguill seems to agree with me on the term occupied. I have never seen those users discussing this term on the talk page. Reporting is an easy way of course. Also I am keeping my good faith, apologising if I did something wrong, but topic ban wouldn't be fair. I explained my edits. Beshogur (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (Wikaviani)

Beshogur is not assuming good faith when they interact with fellow Wikipedians and the compelling evidences provided by EtienneDolet make me wonder if Beshogur is here to build an encyclopedia, or rather, to be on a mission of Turkification.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How could you explain your edit. Mine is not disruptive, you're is. And what kind of conspiracy is that?

I explained my edit thoroughly in my edit-summary, just take the time to read it instead of attacking fellow Wikipedians. Your above answer alone is enough to show that you are not assuming good faith when you interact with others, and judging by EtienneDolet and HistoryofIran's comments, you have been behaving like that for a while here, on Wikipedia ...---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 11:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well your edit was wrong then. Again I apologize for my text. Beshogur (talk) 13:51, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, it's not up to you to decide what is wrong or right, it's a matter of reliable sources and consensus.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You alone, isn't a "consensus", removing WP Azerbaijan from that page. You do not have any reliable source that shows Azerbaijan Republic isn't related to Iranian Azerbaijan. Pure original research. Beshogur (talk) 10:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I never said that i alone am a consensus, again, you better read what people say instead of attacking them. Also, i would be interested to understand how a 102 years old country (Republic of Azerbaijan) can be related to a historic region that predates the Republic by centuries ? I suggest you to answer this question on the Azerbaijan (Iran) talk page.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 12:12, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Because R of Azerbaijan is populated by same people, speaking the same tongue? Beshogur (talk) 13:54, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will answer on the article talk page, but your argument is clearly irrelevant.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:00, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment : Topic ban sounds ok, since Beshogur's editing profile appears to be biased when it comes to Turkey and surrounding areas ...---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 23:16, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (HistoryofIran)

Beshogur has a tendency to not assume WP:GF of his fellow editors. These are two of my recent experiences with him:

1. I was removing information from Turkestan which was not WP:RS, which then led to him create a whole section just to say this:

you will almost claim that such a region does not even exist.

2. Because I was arguing that the President "Library" of Azerbaijan was not RS, because it is a country without freedom of press, (I did also say that the source cited Wikipedia and Tourism Az amongst others, which was ignored), clearly without any bad intention, my own background for some reason became involved in his following comment:

Ah throwing bait and saying that you are going to be accused of racism. And again(?) But Iran does not have freedom of press either. Considering, a lot of Iranian sources are used here. Do you have anything where it states you can not use state sources? Plus the source only states that Khankendi means City of Khan, do you really oppose that? Or didn't you like it?

--HistoryofIran (talk) 02:13, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The "source", published by a country without freedom of press, cites Wikipedia and Tourism. Az amongst others. Before I get accused of racism (again) by someone, people might wanna google what freedom of press means. --HistoryofIran

First of all, don't play the victim. And you do not have any proof that source is not reliable and the info being wrong. I did not further edit to avoid any dispute. Since it's usual people reporting eachother from such small things. Beshogur (talk) 07:12, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I rest my case. HistoryofIran (talk)

Statement by (Mr.User200)

(Beshogur) editing behaviour adjoins disruptive editing in many issues (All regarding Turkey). He likes edit warring 1 2 3 4 5 6Especially those regarding modern historical events related to Turkey. Most editors that have experienced editing disputes with him cannot asumme good faith because of their particular POV editing and peculiar way of expressing.

He also reverts other users edits calling them jokes and making non civil edit summaries that turn WP into a Battleground.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Most of his edits are reverts on other users edits, by the way.

He uses minor errors on edits to revert the whole content, only because "He dont like" 1.

He have a very particular POV when editing Armenian related articles and Armenian Genocide (I.E "Nothing to do with Turkey") 1 2

Calls Amnesty International reports on Right abuses by Turkish forces "Propaganda". 1

He canvasses Admins when there is no need to 1.

When his wrongdoing is discovered or faced with diff, he just use the "racism card". Something he have done times before. August 2016 October 2020.Mr.User200 (talk) 17:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would add that reported User, keeps with his reverting behaviour 1 2 even he does not have a civil attitude toward other editors ("You really need to be blocked" at edit summary).3.

Statement by Konli17

This user does great work with some historical and cultural articles, but I have to agree about the Turkish nationalist POV I've also seen, e.g. rewriting history, and refusing to allow the placenames of the enemy, in defiance of WP:COMMONNAME: [5] [6] [7] Konli17 (talk) 23:49, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Beshogur

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

Looks like the only solution here is a topic ban from the area. Doug Weller talk 12:35, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm leaving a comment here just to keep the case from archiving prematurely. EdJohnston (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SPECIFICO (3)

SPECIFICO is topic-banned from Julian Assange for 2 weeks. Additionally, with permission from the (now involved) admin who placed the Consensus Required sanction on the Assange article last year, I have unilaterally removed that restriction. If any uninvolved admin thinks the article would be better with the restriction in place and wants to take ownership of its enforcement, they may add it back. Awilley (talk) 16:43, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Request concerning SPECIFICO

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Darouet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 14:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: SPECIFICO (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBAPDS :

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

15:20, 27 October 2020 Removes longstanding text whose removal days earlier was contested.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

23:58, 12 May 2020: "sanctioned for violation of the 1RR and enforced BRD sanctions at Joe Biden."

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 23:58, 12 May 2020 by Wugapodes (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Jack Upland has been engaged in a longstanding and understandable effort to trim page length at Julian Assange. I restored one removed sentence [8], a NYT paraphrase of the Obama Administration's views on the constitutional implications of indicting Assange; the text had been in the article for over a year [9]. SPECIFICO reverted my restoration of the sentence [10], and I informed SPECIFICO their action violated DS (see discussion here [11]). While SPECIFICO has continued to edit at Talk:Julian Assange and elsewhere, they have not self-reverted, nor participated in the ongoing talk page discussion that appears to favor keeping the sentence.

At Talk:Julian Assange, SPECIFICO has previously acknowledged that removing longstanding text, if the removal is contested, is a violation of discretionary sanctions on the page: [12], [13].

Awilley recently confirmed at Talk:Julian Assange that re-removing longstanding content is a violation of the DS on the page [14]. Guy, who originally placed the sanctions on the page [15], has responded [16], "that might apply in another article, but this one has been WP:OWNed by a small cabal of fans and Mueller denialists for a long time." Needless to say, this is offensive, untrue, suggests a battleground mentality, and also creates a situation where DS has opposite meanings depending on Guy's views. Guy has expressed very strong opinions on Assange previously [17][18][19], and I'm unsure if someone with such charged attitudes regarding Assange should be acting as an admin on Assange's BLP. -Darouet (talk) 14:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Guy

I strongly dispute Guy's description of conflicts on the page, and ask that any characterization of my or others' edits there be supported by diffs and sources.

In this edit [20], Guy refers to Assange as an established "Kremlin asset"; I don't recall that I have made any similar comment on Assange, and I don't think anyone should, either for or against him.
In this edit [21] Guy opposes the inclusion of even one sentence in the body of the article that would report a German political appeal on Assange's behalf, a letter covered by every large newspaper in Germany. Guy writes, For all the fervour with which this is promoted off-wiki by Assange cultists, it was one letter that was not, as far as I can tell, covered after its original release. Cult leaders are very good at exploiting what Lenin termed "useful idiots". Do the phrases "Assange cultists" and "useful idiots" refer to to journalists for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, or the Süddeutsche Zeitung? Or is this a reference to signers of the letter including journalist Günter Wallraff or the former Vice-Chancellor of Germany, Sigmar Gabriel? I'm not sure, but this is not about the "consensus view of independent sources": Guy is frequently arguing against them.

I think Guy is a great editor and agree with them about plenty of things, but this attitude towards the topic is not neutral, and is contributing to rather than resolving disputes. -Darouet (talk) 16:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, anybody can check to see if I've ever suggested you can't disagree. Otherwise, your repeated suggestion that all editors at Julian Assange be topic banned after SPECIFICO is alleged to have violated DS [22][23] comes across a clever way of punishing other editors for SPECIFICO's editing, and reversing both the letter and the spirit of the sanctions you added to this page. -Darouet (talk) 17:07, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to @Awilley, Doug Weller, and Bishonen:

In this case I've documented a single clear instance of a violation of DS, according to metrics that SPECIFICO understands [24] [25]. Apparently DS is very important to SPECIFICO: in the past month, they have repeatedly threatened DS at Talk:Julian Assange using an interpretion of DS exactly opposite their earlier reasoning, and contrary to the understanding of admins here [26][27][28]. In SPECIFICO's 22 edits currently found at Talk:Julian Assange and its most recent archive, SPECIFICO references WP:DS four times in various forms (e.g. "Per the page restriction Discretionary Sanction" and "you will... face sanctions"). A brief perusal of their editing elsewhere on Wikipedia shows that they are frequently warning other editors about discretionary sanctions and possible blocks or bans.
SPECIFICO's violation here is not an anomaly: I asked them to please revert and participate in the "discussion" portion of BRD, and they will not do so. Further examination of their editing at Talk:Julian Assange shows that this incident is consistent with SPECIFICO's behavior overall. In those 22 edits I mentioned, SPECIFICO never links to a single reliable source or even bothers to quote from one. Instead, they invoke WP:ONUS 5x, WP:FRINGE 3x, WP:UNDUE 2x, WP:CONSENSUS 2x, WP:NPOVN, WP:WEASEL and WP:POV. How is this alphabet soup of WP:WIKILAWYERING supposed to be supported without references to reliable sources? SPECIFICO sums up their attitude here [29]: "policy, fact, sourcing, whatever."
All this amounts to textbook WP:TENDENTIOUS editing. If you would like to remove the ~~BRD~~ consensus required portion of the DS, I humbly suggest we take this to WP:ARBCOM, which as far as I understand it, is the body that drafted these measures. I have also believed these sanctions are designed to address exactly this kind of behavior. Is that correct? The diffs and quotes above show we have strong evidence that if the sanction were actually enforced, the editing environment at Talk:Julian Assange would improve dramatically, and it's within ARBCOM's mandate to represent the community in putting a stop to disruptive editing. -Darouet (talk) 16:07, 29 October 2020 (UTC) Struck "BRD" and replaced with "consensus required" (bolded) per Awilley. -Darouet (talk) 17:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to @Bradv:

At Talk:Julian Assange#Removal of longstanding content: is the Obama Administration view "SYNTH?", five editors support keeping the text, and two oppose it. Here, the two admins actually commenting on the behavioral issue — Swarm and Awilley — agree that SPECIFICO violated DS on the page. Not one admin has suggested or presented evidence that SPECIFICO's editing there is helpful, or supports consensus. If you're asking us to ignore both DS and also consensus, what evidence and policy do you have to support this course of action? -Darouet (talk) 03:23, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to @SPECIFICO:

985 editors are watching Julian Assange: it requires no conspiracy for others to object to your misusing the discretionary sanctions on the page, and I have never engaged in meatpuppetry there or anywhere on this site. SPECIFICO, your edits also significantly overlap with mine [30], and with other editors commenting at this AE case [31][32] — something that shouldn’t be surprising for people editing on topics prominent in the US and international news.
In the appendix to the first book of his Ethics, Spinoza remarks that humans wrongly suspect intention and intelligence behind all events significant to them. However, rather than blaming everyone else, why couldn’t SPECIFICO simply discuss the Obama Administration and New York Times’ comment, instead of reflexively reverting [33] with a false edit summary [34]? Contrary to SPECIFICO’s allegation [35] that I was not immediately responsive to their request that I change the heading of my complaint, I asked what heading they wanted one minute after their request [36], and changed the heading three minutes after that [37]. Why didn’t SPECIFICO self-revert when asked [38], or just apologize and promise to collaborate in the future? Nobody forced SPECIFICO to interpret DS at Talk:Julian Assange in multiple contradictory ways according to what seemed convenient at the moment ([39][40] vs [41][42]), including while threatening other editors with those contradictory interpretations of DS [43].
Lastly, SPECIFICO continues to assert here that they should be free to edit Julian Assange against DS or consensus because they are right. That has never been a valid excuse for unprofessional behavior. But as often happens when an editor runs afoul of page restrictions, SPECIFICO is arguing against coverage in reliable sources. The Obama Administration viewed prosecution of Assange for his publishing dangerous on first amendment grounds, and the NYT reported that [44]: "The Obama administration had also weighed charging Mr. Assange, but rejected that step out of fears that it would chill investigative journalism and could be struck down as unconstitutional." This is a prominent view in the US and Internationally [45][46][47][48], also expressed by the Columbia Journalism Review [49], by Human Rights Watch [50], and by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture [51]. Of course, this view doesn't need to be shared by Assange's biography here, but it should be recorded where appropriate. In short, SPECIFICO’s attitude towards reliable sources has been similar to their attitude towards professional conduct and page restrictions: dismissive. -Darouet (talk) 18:55, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to @DGG:

The only admin who has questioned [52] the "applicability of the sanctions" is Guy, who earlier acknowledged they are WP:INVOLVED [53], and has explicitly stated that the ordinary interpretation of DS, repeatedly demonstrated by other admins [54][55][56], is correct but should be ignored [57] because Julian Assange is "WP:OWNed by a small cabal of fans and Mueller denialists." Guy is actually stating that they are shifting their definition of DS in order to deal with other editors he calls a "cabal" [58], and DGG you find that to be good-faithed and reasonable? -Darouet (talk) 22:01, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

I have notified SPECIFICO here [59], and also left a comment at Guy's talk page. -Darouet (talk) 14:59, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion concerning SPECIFICO

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

Statement by SPECIFICO

@Swarm:: I see that you feel I should respond to this complaint. Please be assured my silence was not, as you apparently felt, out of disrespect for AE. I had nothing to say in rebuttal because I did not see any Admin sentiment favoring the complaint.

As has been stated below, Darouet escalated this to AE in record time -- less than 24 hours -- without the customary courtesy of a warning message on my talk page or of allowing a reasonable time for an article talk page response. This minimal content disagreement could easily have been resolved on talk in short order, much better than the immediate escalation. My edit summary explained -- too tersely I now see -- what I meant by SYNTH. In hindsight, it would have been clearer to say UNDUE WEIGHT because the SYNTH depends on the larger narrative of the article. My concern was that the repeated and excessive mentions of First Amendment press freedoms reinforces Assange apologists' narrative that he remains a journalist rather than an accused felon. This has been a longstanding matter of contention on that article. As you'll see on the talk page after my removal, I am not the only editor who was concerned about this. Sources' reporting on Assange has changed a lot in recent years, but the article has clung to some now deprecated narratives about him.

In a previous talk page thread, the interpretation of the DS page restriction was discussed and appeared to support the removal of disputed text pending talk page consensus to include. See here. I don't see anything in the sequence of events to suggest that I willfully flouted that page restriction.

Why didn't I immediately give a detailed substantive reply on the article talk page after my removal? I am busy with community responsibilities IRL during the pandemic and my history shows that I currently edit sporadically while I am not at my desk. But you'll note that Darouet launched a talk thread with a personalized title naming SPECIFICO rather than the content issue to be discussed. When I asked him to correct this he was not immediately responsive, and this didn't make me eager to hasten my reply about the edit. Darouet then continued to personalize his concern in that thread and the following thread wherein I don't think it's appropriate to refer to a violation that had not yet been adjudicated.

Given that the restriction has now not only been removed from that page, but deprecated as fundamentally flawed and unworkable, it's hard to understand any rationale for a sanction at this time. I edit in AP2 and BLP areas where disagreements are common and I do not edit war or push the limits of DS or consensus processes. What is the preventive purpose of a sanction at this time? It would appear to be more a case of rules for rules' sake, and not the way I have ever seen AE or WP operate. SPECIFICO talk 02:38, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv: Pardon me for repeating myself, but at this recent thread, @JzG: who was the "owner" of the Consensus Required page restriction, confirmed my interpretation of that sanction. On that thread and on @Awilley:'s talk page, it is documented that there was disagreement about which version requires talk page consensus before reinstatement. If Admins believe that it is a substantive disruption to revert reinstatement of old content without prior talk page consensus, why have you opted to remove this page restriction? I am not understanding why -- now that any editor can arrive and make the same removal I did -- it is not "disruptive" now but it was seriously disruptive a week ago? As Levivich showed (by reinstating the disputed content) the problem was easily resolved. I don't edit war and the matter would have proceeded to talk page resolution as the minor and routine editing disagreement is was and is. Bradv, as you know from various discussions on your talk page, there is disagreement among experienced editors and Admins as to what constitutes a revert and which edit triggers BRD and ONUS. I'd be very disappointed to learn that I could not rely on the recent Admin opinion of in the cited talk page thread to remove what I continue to feel is UNDUE emphasis created by the disputed text. Again, the text conflates a specific concern of the Obama Justice Department regarding prosecution with the general narrative that Assange is a journalist. As another editor has pointed out on the talk page, this information is already stated elsewhere in the article. Yes, the disputed text is properly sourced, but SYNTH-like and UNDUE text is not about Verification. It's about NPOV.

Finally, in case it's not known to all the Admins here, Darouet and Thucydides411, who have not denied being real-life friends have a longstanding coincidence of their editing in what many have called battleground style and often appears to be meatpuppetry Their interaction history demonstrates this is widespread and longstanding. I have long been among the targets of their animus, dating to when they were disruptively tag-teaming the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections article and Thucydides was sanctioned. here among the dozens of times that eventually led to his TBAN. It feels to me as if Darouet's hair-trigger AE complaint, hours after opening a talk page thread with a WP:POINT-y header was Darouet's payback for Thucydides411's frustration that his recent prior AE complaint against me was closed without action. I think this is disrespectful of the AE process and the time and attention of multiple Admins and editors. SPECIFICO talk 15:52, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's a clearly documented disagreement as to whether "longstanding" text that lacks talk page evidence of prior consensus is privileged. JzG as owner of the page restriction had recently affirmed my interpretation. I'm not dumb or inexperienced enough to willfully violate a page restriction or to disrupt a contentious article. I really think this should be closed and we can all consider whether any of the add-on restrictions beyond 1RR makes any sense for the community. SPECIFICO talk 15:52, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have commented on the article talk page thread, including a link to the 2019 RfC which @Bradv: closed documenting that editors rejected portraying Assange as a "journalist." SPECIFICO talk 20:13, 2 November 2020 (UTC) @Awilley: I'm not understanding why you went from pointing out that I am not a disruptive editor at that article to a fairly long topic block for an edit that any WP editors could now repeat without tripping a page restriction. Be that as it may, I'd ask you to leave this open for several days (during which I'll stay off that page, if you wish) because I've just now responded and pointed Admins to a lot of information and context that some of them may wish to review. SPECIFICO talk 20:49, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG (SPECIFICO eleventy)

I applied the DS in November 2019, but since then I have become involved with discussions on the Talk page so as noted a previous time someone dragged SPECIFICO here I consider myself involved on that article and don't take any administrative role in this endless ongoing dispute. My opinion as an editor expressed on Talk has no more or less weight than anyone else's and I would hope would not be interpreted any other way.

It mainly just frustrates me, for exactly the reason noted above: in my view (and in my admittedly limited experience there) the article is WP:OWNed by a small group of people whose view of Assange appears to be almost Messianic, and at odds with the consensus view of independent sources. My view of Assange is ambivalent. I think that's also a fair summary of the RS, but not the current state of the article. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:47, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Darouet, the idea that Assange was a Kremlin asset is taken directly from the exceptionally conservative findings of Robert S Mueller III. And yes, I think that letters full of special pleading are of no encyclopaedic merit, but, on point here, your rather obvious failure to get over the fact that I disagreed with you on that is a point against you, not for you. People are allowed to disagree. If you want to raise the issue of bludgeoning and stonewalling on that article's talk page, I will chip in with a resounding "hell yeah!" and encourage any uninvolved admin to TBAN every editor who has engaged in this, including me if they think it's justified. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:55, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Swarm, except that it's not clear that it was a violation. That's the point: it could be read either way. Reasonable people may differ. So the result here would be to "resolve" a POV-pushing problem by removing one of the few remaining editors working for NPOV and who has not yet been driven off. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:35, 3 November 2020 (UTC) <moved from result section, if inappropriate please revert>Arkon (talk) 22:00, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Darouet WP:AGF is not a suicide pact. Regardless of how many watchers that page has, it is dominated by a very small number of voices, almost all of them strongly pro-Assange. I encourage anyone to go and read the talk page and its archives, as I did after placing the DS. To me, this looks like naked activism. I don't doubt the good faith of those involved, but I do doubt their neutrality, and I sincerely believe that the article would be better if everyone with more than 100 edits to the talk page was topic banned from that article for six months. I recognise that I may be in a minority in holding that view, but there you go. That seems to me to be the best way of removing both first mover advantage and groupthink. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:53, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Objective3000

Frankly, I think the characterizations of SPECIFICO not engaging in discussion and the talk page discussion appearing to favor keeping the sentence are premature since you filed this 18 hours after starting the discussion. I also think perhaps it may have made sense for you to go to the TP before restoring text that appears redundant in an overly long article, particularly in a consensus required article; no matter the letter of the law. Just my humble opinions about collaboration. O3000 (talk) 15:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Guy's description of conflicts on the page; but think it's irrelevant to this discussion and should not have been brought up by the filer in the first place. O3000 (talk) 16:50, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

~~I agree that the edit summary was incorrect -- it was not synth.~~ Not a reason to file at AE. I suggest that this kind of content dispute is not why AE was created and could easily have been handled elsewhere (ATP or UTP) instead of jumping to a board of near, last resort with less than a day of discussion. O3000 (talk) 00:30, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Levivich: Instead of suggesting admins agree with her politics, so she is above the rules, consider the possibility that AE is being weaponized and this particular rule enables such. O3000 (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Having read the discussion on the TP and the rationale for inclusion of this twice, I now understand the SYNTH characterization and have stricken my previous opinion above. O3000 (talk) 20:26, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Arrgh. Examining this discussion and that at the TP still looks like a gross misuse of this noticeboard. Part of this discussion belongs on the article talk page. Part of this discussion belongs on a few boards that can discuss the purpose and/or mechanisms of DS/AE. Filing this here without one day of discussion illustrates how this noticeboard can be weaponized. Frankly, I think the filing should have been immediately sent back to the article TP for discussion. If anyone is sanctioned as a result, I think multiple editors, including the filer, should be included. But, I’d prefer trouting (just finished some rainbow trout for dinner minutes ago), followed by a discussion on the rules with less distraction. I don’t like what looks like drama for the sake of drama. Leave drama to soap operas. O3000 (talk) 01:39, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph

It's really simple, do all editors need to abide by DS? And if so, was this violated, "Consensus required: All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). This includes making edits similar to the ones that have been challenged. If in doubt, don't make the edit."? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:23, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Levivich

The text that Specifico removed: The Obama administration had debated charging Assange under the Espionage Act, but decided against it out of fear that it would have a negative effect on investigative journalism and could be unconstitutional.

Specifico's edit summary for the removal: SYNTH insinuation Assange is on par with journalists.

What the source (NYTimes) wrote: The Obama administration had also weighed charging Mr. Assange, but rejected that step out of fears that it would chill investigative journalism and could be struck down as unconstitutional.

It is not WP:SYNTH, it is directly stated by the source. Le v!v ich 18:12, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So far, we've tried doing nothing, and it hasn't worked. I know it sounds crazy and it's not what the AE admin are used to doing, but how about we try actually enforcing a rule this time? I know what you're thinking: "it's a clear violation, we don't know what to do", or perhaps, "she's an AP2 regular, and I agree with her politics, so she is above the rules", but consensus required just might work if admin actually enforced it, you know, equally, as if everyone were held to the same rules. You may have noticed that AE is not getting inundated with reports of editors breaking consensus required left and right, it's just getting inundated with reports about Specifico. So maybe, just maybe, doing something more than issuing a fifth warning (or throwing up our hands in defeat), who knows, actually might make a difference. After five reports in two months, maybe we can give doing something a try, mmm? Le v!v ich 14:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O3: I've considered whether AE has been weaponized by three different editors bringing four valid complaints with diffs of clear PAG/DS violations, and rejected the theory as implausible. Now please consider whether the diff in this case is or is not a violation of the consensus required restriction, and whether the edit summary did or did not state a valid reason for the edit. Le v!v ich 15:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv: Seriously with that question? Because no one wants to get sanctioned; because it's pending at AE; because the last person to complain about this was sanctioned. Let's not fault editors for reporting things to a noticeboard instead of edit warring. So, I've restored it now. Let's see what happens next. Le v!v ich 03:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bradv: The way we know that the sentence has consensus is that it's been in the lead for a long time (WP:SILENCE). The way we know that removal of the sentence does not have consensus is that it was reverted (and there's no consensus on the talk page supporting the removal).

Also note in this AE, Specifico is arguing that longstanding text can be removed and it needs consensus to be reinstated, but in the last AE, Specifico was arguing the exact opposite, reinstating removed text and claiming that it has consensus because it's been there for a month, and in an AE before that, Specifico was arguing the same thing as here. Can we address arguing one thing and then arguing the opposite?

Can somebody remove longstanding text or not? If someone removes longstanding text, can another editor revert that? And can a third editor re-remove it? Were Specifico's edits policy-compliant, or not? Le v!v ich 03:18, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We should not judge one person's action by another person's reaction. Le v!v ich 03:34, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jack Upland

The text is a paraphrase of NYT and not "SYNTH". By the way, I am not a fan of Assange, still less a cultist, and I have made extensive edits to the page, so I reject the claim of "ownership" by a cabal. Yes, there is a small group of editors who are clearly pro-Assange, just as there is a small group who are anti-Assange...--Jack Upland (talk) 20:49, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Aquillion

This is another example of why blanket "consensus required" DSes are a terrible idea. This one should not be enforced and should be removed from the article.

Consider: There is no indication that the text under dispute has ever had any discussion. Yes, it has a degree of implicit consensus due to its age; that would be worth considering in any discussions, and would matter if an RFC failed to reach consensus otherwise. But that is not a strong consensus, certainly not enough to try and shut down editing or to substitute discussions with a pointless digression in an effort to win a content dispute, followed by a near-immediate leap to AE in an effort to remove the other editor. Is that the sort of "discussion" and consensus-building we want to encourage on controversial articles? Is that supposed to represent the first step in our consensus-building process on the articles that most sorely need it?

Consensus is an important part of how Wikipedia operates, but it is always required - and reaching it, in any sort of constructive long-term sense, requires discussion of the actual issue under dispute; when editors are sharply at odds, that discussion only happens because both sides feel a pressure that brings them to the table to hammer things out. It's clear (and has been for a long, long time) that so-called consensus required DSes are actively harmful to such discussion; putting too much force behind one default outcome encourages people who prefer that outcome in any particular dispute to stonewall and contribute minimally to discussions outside of insisting that policy backs their version. A situation where any editor can, at any time, via a single revert, demand that any change to an article go through a full consensus-building process before any changes at all can be made to the relevant text is simply not viable, especially when so much of our process depends on lightweight "implicit" consensus and a willingness to compromise or back down without going to such lengths every time.

Even Donald Trump, the article which (if I recall correctly) was the genesis of the Consensus Required restriction, is now under the much more reasonable If an edit you make is reverted you must discuss on the talk page and wait 24 hours before reinstating your edit one, which slows things down enough to encourage discussion and avert revert wars without allowing endless, easy stonewalling and red tape. I would argue that the fact that any articles exist which have not been updated to that restriction yet is merely an error stemming from way DSes are mostly under the discretion of the applying administrator (which makes it difficult to update them all at once); while Julian Assange is a controversial topic, it makes no sense to argue that it is more controversial than Donald Trump at the height of an election. Why on earth does it still have a vastly more draconian restriction? --Aquillion (talk) 07:27, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thucydides411

The question here is simple: will an editor who intentionally and repeatedly violates a DS restriction be sanctioned in any way? SPECIFICO is perfectly aware of the "consensus required" DS restriction. SPECIFICO simply thinks they don't have to abide by it. At the same time, SPECIFICO asks others to abide by it at Julian Assange, and even threatens to go to AE to enforce it ([60] [61]).

Just a few weeks ago, SPECIFICO violated the "consensus required" DS restriction at Julian Assange, by re-removing longstanding content from the lede: [62]. The only reason SPECIFICO was not sanctioned was because some (but not all) admins reasoned that SPECIFICO's edit could be interpreted as falling into a BLP exception. I found this argument absurd, since SPECIFICO was removing material that WP:BLP requires to be included (a living person's denial of accusations made against them - per WP:PUBLICFIGURE, If the subject has denied such allegations, their denial(s) should also be reported.), and because SPECIFICO's edit summary completely needlessly insulted the living person in question: Typical nonsense conspiracy theory pandering to his fans and the ignorant ([63]). Interpreting SPECIFICO's last DS violation as falling into a BLP exception was extremely generous. Now, SPECIFICO has again violated this restriction, on the exact same page, and nobody is claiming that it falls into any exception this time.

The DS rules are supposed to prevent disruptive behavior, such as removing longstanding content from an article and then demanding long-winded discussions in order to re-insert it. It would be one thing if a normally collaborative editor inadvertently violated the DS restriction. That's not the case here. Last time SPECIFICO violated the DS restriction at Julian Assange, they barely attempted to justify their removal of the material in question. They repeatedly asserted that the material was WP:UNDUE, without any explanation. When I and other editors provided a long list of reliable sources that backed up the material in question, SPECIFICO again simply asserted that the material was undue, again without explanation. When asked to provide any justification for the assertion that the material in question was undue, SPECIFICO just asserted that they had already done so - despite the fact that they hadn't (as I detailed here). They were just stone-walling. You can see the full conversation here, and verify that my summary is accurate: [64].

In this case, SPECIFICO has again justified their edit with a nonsense reference to a Wikipedia acronym that doesn't apply. They assert that the material is WP:SYNTH, despite the fact that it's quite obviously an accurate paraphrase of the source (see Levivich's statement above). Again, we are not dealing with a collaborative editor who has inadvertently run afoul of a technical rule. We're dealing with someone who needlessly insults the subject of the BLP, who refuses to justify their edits (and when they do, throws out obviously non-applicable Wikipedia acronyms), and who threatens others with this very same DS restriction, while at the same time violating it themselves.

SPECIFICO has not commented in this case, just as they didn't comment in the last case about their violation of "consensus required" at Julian Assange: [65]. They apparently don't think they have to answer here, because there won't be any consequences for their violations of the restrictions. Last time, Awilley stated, As for the violation of the DS rule, this is about as clear-cut as it gets. I'm surprised SPECIFICO didn't self-revert when asked. The reason is clear: while SPECIFICO is not shy about threatening others with this very same DS restriction at the very same page, SPECIFICO feels empowered to violate the rule, and doesn't believe they will face any consequences. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug Weller: Any thoughts on the disruptive behavior I've detailed above? -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:05, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Objective3000: SPECIFICO intentionally violated a DS restriction here. They were asked to undo their violation and given time to do so: [66]. SPECIFICO acknowledged this request by commenting in response to it ([67]), but chose not to undo their edit. If this is weaponization, it's the softest, most considerate weaponization I've ever seen. SPECIFICO could simply decide to abide by the rules, and none of this would happen. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:01, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Objective3000: How is this weaponization? This is as clear-cut as it gets. Just this February, at Talk:Julian Assange, SPECIFICO explained the "consensus required" restriction in this way:

This was longstanding consensus content, at least since last November. So the removal was a Bold edit and Snoogs challenged the removal with his revert. My understanding is therefore that the Bold edit (removal) stands reverted, and the content restored, unless consensus is reached for the removal.

-[68]

Based SPECIFICO's own very clear explanation how how "consensus required" works, SPECIFICO's recent re-removal of material from the article was a violation. The problem here is that when convenient, SPECIFICO does a 180-degree turn and argues the exact opposite interpretation of the "consensus required" restriction. Compare the above explanation of "consensus required" to the new explanation SPECIFICO gave last month, when the shoe was on the other foot and they wanted to remove material from the article:

Per the page restriction Discretionary Sanction placed by JzG, the pretext bit should not have been reinstated in the lead. It should be removed, and any subsequent reinstatement without consensus would again violate DS.

-[69]

It is only after SPECIFICO made this reversal that JzG "confirmed" SPECIFICO's new interpretation (Note that JzG was, by this point, very much involved as an editor at Julian Assange. I asked Awilley, as an uninvolved admin, to clarify. They contradicted JzG. JzG's response was essentially that Awilley would normally be right, but that the rule should be changed to its exact opposite at Julian Assange because of the supposed existence of a "cabal"). SPECIFICO's transparent gaming of the rules should be addressed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:10, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mandruss

As far as I'm concerned, Donald Trump is as close as we have ever come to peace in political areas – that's even more remarkable given the article's subject – and could serve as something of a model for the best we can expect. We use fairly strict BRD there (consensus required for any change that has been disputed by reversion), and a rule that prior consensus is required to change something backed by consensus. The article's consensus list, now at 38 active items, embodies the response to Doug Weller's comment, Coffee added consensus required to a number of articles but he also kept track of the consensus.

When this system doesn't work, it's an editor behavior problem, and no system will work very well without enforcement of some degree of good editor behavior. That means more than blocking disruptive IPs and newbies.

Recipe for chaos: Decline to enforce standing rules because we (still) can't agree they are good rules. Work toward rule improvements all you like; in the meantime enforce the rules we have. That's how civilization has worked for at least eight centuries, and it was good enough to get us to the Moon.

I'll offer my standard challenge: Show me a system that is proven to work better over some amount of time in areas of politics, and point me to said proof.

I am responding to previous comments, but I otherwise consider this area of discussion to be off topic on this page. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:45, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mr Ernie

We've had a lot of discussions the past few months over 1RR, reverts, consensus, onus, and enforcement. But I go back to what Bradv said in their first comment in this discussion, namely "these restrictions need to be applied uniformly, or they simply won't work." And Muboshgu in their first comment "I agree that I don't want to see discretionary sanctions enforced selectively." I don't think there's any real question that the edits here (and in SPECIFICO 1) violated the sanction. I guess that the restrictions are not applied uniformly to all editors, and I'm not sure why that is the case. Mr Ernie (talk) 10:17, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning SPECIFICO

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

Responding to the "Consensus required" portion of this report: I did a little analysis of my own and I find a technical violation of the rule.
- 26 September 2019 The sentence beginning The Obama administration had debated charging Assange under the Espionage Act... is first added to the article. It sits there for a year, enough to be considered "longstanding".
- 21 October 2020 The sentence is WP:BOLDly removed by Jack Upland (no edit summary)
- 27 October 2020 The sentence is restored by Darouet (edit summary: Restoring this one sentence, as the Obama administration's view (according to the NYT) is relevant to this section)
- 27 October 2020 SPECIFICO reverts without having obtained consensus for the re-removal. (Edit summary: SYNTH insinuation Assange is on par with journalists)

A couple other points:

This is almost exactly the same thing that happened last month at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive272#SPECIFICO. Same article, same user, same sanction. We didn't find a consensus there to enforce the sanction then.
I personally oppose enforcing this sanction because I think it's a stupid rule. The above scenario illustrates some of its problems. I shouldn't have to use Wikiblame to figure out if the rule was broken. And this is SPECIFICO's first edit to the article in nearly a month. Do we want to be blocking users for making 1 revert per month?
The admin who placed the sanction is now involved in the article and it's debatable whether he should be able to modify or remove it even if he wanted to.

Bottom line: I think we should either enforce the rule or get rid of it. My vote is to get rid of it. ~Awilley (talk) 02:59, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at Awilley's analysis above and can't fault it. I really dislike this rule and think it causes more problems than it's worth. We need to get rid of it from this and all articles. I also don't see how enforcing it here will improve Wikipedia. Doug Weller talk 12:32, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I dislike BRD as much as a restriction. Coffee added consensus required to a number of articles but he also kept track of the consensus. BRD, meh. Outside of AE it's just an essay that people sometimes throw around as though it's policy, and many times not practical. Like Bish, I hate it. Doug Weller talk 10:19, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've never enforced BRD and I never would, I hate it. Let's get rid of it. Can we do that here? Bishonen | tålk 15:04, 29 October 2020 (UTC).[reply]
- Ugh, please let's not muddle the terminology here, Bishonen. "Consensus required" and "BRD" are apples and oranges. "Consensus required" is the DS rule we're discussing here that was added to tons of American Politics articles in 2016. "BRD" is short for WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, the behavioral guideline that's been around since 2005. And "Enforced BRD" or "24-hr BRD" is the DS rule I came up with in 2018 to replace the "Consensus required" rule, because at that time the community was opposed to removing the rule entirely. The sanction at Talk:Falun Gong mentioned by User:Guerillero is something new I've never seen before, but is most similar in practice to the "Consensus required" rule. At this point it would take a consensus of admins to retire any or all of those rules everywhere. And I think it would need to be done in a dedicated thread that's not mixed up with an individual editor. ~Awilley (talk) 17:14, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  Minor point: BRD is an "explanatory supplement", not a guideline. And it's first sentence, which says that BRD "is an optional method of reaching consensus" (emphasis added) should make it clear that this is never something to be "enforced".
  
  See also BRD is best used by experienced Wikipedia editors. It may require more diplomacy and skill to use successfully than other methods, and has more potential for failure. Using BRD in volatile situations is discouraged. and BRD is not mandatory and BRD doesn't work well in all situations. It is ideally suited to disputes that involve only a small number of people, all of whom are interested in making progress. There are many other options, and some may be more suitable for other situations.
  
  If you want to enforce something, 1RR or even Wikipedia:CRP might work, but BRD is not the right approach to every dispute and should never be mandatory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It helped control things at Falun Gong, so I am not 100% opposed to BRD. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 15:39, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:JzG has now clarified on his talk page that he is OK with admins here revising the 1RR that he originally imposed if they think a different kind of restriction is better. His 1RR was simply {{American politics AE}}. This is the 1RR that requires consensus before reverting. My impression from the admin comments above is that the proposal on the table is to abolish 'Consensus required' and make this be a 'BRD' type of 1RR. It appears that both Awilley and Dougweller are opposed to 'Consensus required'. Not sure what they think about BRD, though I see that at least Bishonen is opposed to BRD. Personally I think that 'consensus required' is not a bright-line rule which makes it hard to enforce. With BRD, you can at least check if somebody *tried* to discuss. (that is the 'D' in 'BRD'). The sanction at Talk:Falun Gong looks like a hybrid of 'Consensus required' and 'BRD':

"You must not make more than one revert per 24 hours to this article. All edits to the article need … a clear consensus on this talk page for the change if challenged"

where the 'clear consensus … challenged' phrase is made into a wikilink to WP:BRD. The exact wording of BRD seems to say that you must not revert again if you have not reached consensus. So perhaps the two rules are in act requiring the same behavior. The weak link in both is that the admin needs to figure out whether consensus has been reached. This could be a matter of opinion, and might be as hard as closing an RfC. EdJohnston (talk) 20:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need to ask me twice. I've removed the "consensus required" sanction and left just normal WP:1RR. I'd rather not add the "24-hr BRD" sanction at this time...that rule is currently confined to the American Politics topic area, and I'd rather keep it that way unless the rule gains widespread acceptance, which it has not. ~Awilley (talk) 22:22, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My view remains that enforced BRD is, in most cases, inferior to Consensus required. I disagree with Awilley for having supplanted CR with enforced BRD on multiple pages in the past, and I am opposed to them continuing to do so in the future. Calling CR "stupid" does not make it so, nor does it make enforced BRD smarter. Just because there apparently is neither the will to observe nor is there the will to enforce CR on that particular page, does not mean enforced BRD would work better for it. So, while Awilley's framing above reinforces enforced BRD's would-be superiority to CR, I, myself, (still) am just not seeing it how that is even remotely so. Anyway, if AE is at the point right now where these beyond-1RR enhancements, in general, are proving too nuanced to enforce, then abolish both and stick to 1RR only. That's fine. CR is not hopelessly complex. Often, when a dispute proves intractable, at some point WP:ONUS may be needed to be enforced by an admin for the remainder of the consensus building process. That happens all the time. That is what CR is — a strict version of ONUS that does so as page-level restriction. But, again, the argument that enforced BRD is the solution to its shortcomings, that it is better than CR in resolving disputes... I have never seen evidence (even of the loosest variety) to support that assertion. El_C 01:02, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What El C said. Consensus required is in essence a way that ONUS can be enforced. El C has accurately expressed my views on EBRD as well, so I don’t have much more to add. No comment on removing CR, but oppose supplanting it with EBRD. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:26, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the above. Enforced BRD is just the "consensus required" sanction with the actual requirement to resolve the dispute removed, and replaced with a procedural 24 hour hold on reverting. It's essentially a more lenient version of both 1RR and consensus required, and it doesn't work well in practice since it allows for edit warring to continue and I have seen it do so in practice. No offense, but Awilley is hardly the authority on "consensus required" being a stupid rule when he made up "BRD enforced" and went about trying to systematically replace it with his new rule, and then it went to AN and no one supported him. That was a massive gaffe on his part. I don't see anything wrong with "consensus required" in general, it just says you can't edit war over a disputed edit until a consensus has decided the dispute. That is in line with the basic principle from which this whole project is governed. Now, I'm not saying we should ignore context and blindly enforce sanctions either, so what's the context? SPECIFICO seems to have removed longstanding content per WP:SYNTH. Per @Levivich:'s comment, it wasn't SYNTH, but a rather straightforward paraphrase of a single source. So there's no real justification for SPECIFICO having violated the sanction here, and no convincing reason not to enforce the sanction. I'm fine with a short block, or even a warning, but I'm a bit baffled that some admins are leaning towards just turning a blind eye here as if this is just some "gotcha" technicality that we should overlook. And even if SPECIFICO was like "my bad, it was a mistake, I'll be more careful", fine, but SPECIFICO is apparently at the point of not even taking AE enough seriously to comment at all at this point. Why are we giving special treatment? ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 05:08, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Swarm: The fact that this is SPECIFICO (3) is a sign that they are either engaged in misconduct or being hounded --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 20:19, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Uh...yeah. I literally explained in my comment that they engaged in misconduct here. They literally violated the editing restriction. People have repeatedly explained this. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 00:23, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Setting aside the discussion of the sanction and focusing on the user, I wouldn't be opposed to something like a short (couple of weeks?) topic ban. As people have pointed out it's not really fair to have one person repeatedly flaunting a rule that everybody else is following. ~Awilley (talk) 03:54, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for saying so, I think that's very reasonable. Any objections, not involving meta-commentary about the editing restriction itself? ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 01:40, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

With SPECIFICO's comment, we now see that your rush to remove the sanction, was not only arguably abusive as an INVOLVED admin, but it has backfired spectacularly, with SPECIFICO now hiding behind it as "deprecated as fundamentally flawed and unworkable", rather than acknowledging that they committed a straightforward violation of an editing restriction which had no consensus to be removed, and which you removed because you thought it was "stupid", and they are now misrepresenting the removal as evidence that they cannot be sanctioned. Your removal was apparently based on the fact that you don't like the restriction and simply removed it because you could. It's uncontentious that SPECIFICO committed a clear-cut violation here and was on the path to receiving a sanction unless they responded in good faith, and now we have them arrogantly responding in bad faith, and at this point it is actually, genuinely unclear, whether they can be technically sanctioned, when the sanctions have been lifted in the middle of the AE discussion, whether your removal itself can be overturned per WP:WHEEL, and whether there's any recourse for SPECIFICO's violation and your extremely dubious lifting of a sanction that you were biased against. This has already gone to the community and no one supported your approach of procedurally removing "consensus required" because you personally don't like it. Now you've done it again and it's apparently given a free pass to a user who committed a violation, and hamstrung the AE process, even though even here there's certainly no consensus for you to have lifted the editing restriction. You did it because you personally oppose that restriction in general. That is patently inappropriate. I'm not sure where we go from here, but next time you arbitrarily lift a "consensus required" editing restriction without a consensus because you have deemed it to be "stupid", and in doing so give a free pass to a user who has violated a clear-cut rule, I will be bringing it to Arbcom. As for SPECIFICO, I'm not sure where we go from here, they deserve to be sanctioned, they're now claiming we can't sanction them since someone has lifted the restriction, it's a proper mess. However I can certainly say that based on their arrogant comment here I will have no inclination to cut them a break if I see another violation from them. Shame on everyone involved here for botching this report so completely and utterly. I apologize to @Darouet:. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 03:15, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Swarm: It doesn't have to be this complicated. I apologize for removing the sanction before this thread had been closed. That was a miscalculation on my part. I can clean up my own mess. If you don't object, I will close this thread with a 2-week topic ban. That's something we both found reasonable, and no admin has objected to that in the 2 days since you first said a sanction was needed here. As for WP:WHEEL, it's fine with me if you or any other admin restores the CR sanction if you're willing to take ownership over that. If you do, it might be a good idea to avoid using the "American Politics" template again since Assange is neither an American nor a politician. ~Awilley (talk) 20:36, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If Specifico's removal of this content was so disruptive as to warrant consideration of a sanction, why has it still not been restored to the page? – bradv🍁 02:55, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Levivich, the point of this wasn't to say it should be restored – it was to suggest that if an edit has consensus it can't be at the same time considered disruptive enough to warrant sanctions. "Consensus required" is a reasonably effective article restriction, but it doesn't work if we enforce it blindly. – bradv🍁 03:07, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have already addressed this point, we're not talking about blind enforcement, it has been specifically articulated that SPECIFICO didn't have a legitimate reason for their edit warring. Their SYNTH argument was straightforwardly not convincing. We're not talking about "blind enforcement", we're talking about a clear violation with no mitigating factors when examining the rationale and context. Are you seriously an Arb? Because you're ignoring things that people have already written, and writing things that people have already refuted. What are you doing? Just throwing random statements at the wall and seeing if it will stick?! ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 03:19, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is why I framed it as a question – I was surprised at the argument here that Specifico's edit was disruptive enough to be worthy of sanctions, and trying to reconcile that against the reality that the text hadn't been restored. I didn't mean to imply that anyone was enforcing things blindly, nor am I unappreciative of any of the work that's being done here in trying to resolve this. I'm sorry if my question made things less clear – that was opposite to my intent. – bradv🍁 03:26, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If your question is whether edit warring is disruptive, we already know the answer. If your question is whether violating an editing restriction is disruptive, we already know the answer. So at this point, your "question" is whether the violation itself was disruptive or constuctive, and that has already been clearly answered. It was disruptive, because the underlying reason for the violation was dubious at best, false at worst. In that context, why would the violation possibly be not worth sanctioning? You're posing a question that has already been answered, many times. Yes, it is absolutely a violation fairly worth sanctioning, and myself and others have literally explained this simple fact. A better question is why are you even asking this question? We're clearly at the point where it's been demonstrated that a violation took place, and that the context surrounding the violation does not reasonably excuse the violation. In spite of that, an admin who already felt that the editing restriction was "stupid" has lifted the editing restriction, in an apparent violation of WP:INVOLVED. So now we're left to wonder if enforcing a clear-cut ACDS violation will leave us facing negative consequences in our own right, with no obvious recourse. So to see an ARB stonewalling enforcement with an already-answered "question" as to whether an explicit violation is actionable is extremely chilling and concerning. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 05:05, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly don't object to any sanctions being applied here, and I hope my comments don't have that effect. My main concern was about the effectiveness of the "consensus required" sanction versus the various alternatives, a topic which has been discussed extensively on my talk page (thread 1, thread 2), and specifically the concern that "consensus required" occasionally results in the wrong version being endorsed. Without saying more here than I need to (I'll save that for the next talk page thread), my thoughts on these various custom restrictions largely align with your own. – bradv🍁 14:22, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion illustrates why I have come to think DS a poor idea--if experienced good faith admin can differ to the extent shown above about the applicability of the sanctions it permits, it adds to conflict, rather than prevents or resolves it DGG ( talk ) 20:57, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting page restrictions for Margot (activist)

Request concerning Margot (activist)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBGG

Margot (activist) is the article for a Polish non-binary LGBTQIA activist and co-founder of the Stop Bzdurom collective. An RfC recently concluded on the article's talk page arrived at the consensus that, absent direct communication from Margot specifying her wishes, Wikipedia should refrain from deadnaming her in the article's lead and infobox.

The question of whether deadnaming should occur in the rest of the article was left unresolved at the closure of the recent RfC, but several editors expressed criticism of the article section Margot (activist)‎ § Naming controversies, with Gleeanon409 remarking, The naming controversy section should also be removed as it’s a magnet for misgendering trolling.

Today an editor has been repeatedly inserting Margot's deadname into the article, diffs: 1, 2, 3. It seems that MOS:DEADNAME has recently been updated to support complete exclusion of the deadname from the article as usual practice; but if I understand how everything works properly with Arbitration Enforcement, it seems like this combination of circumstances may still warrant placing page restrictions on the Margot (activist)‎ article under WP:ARBGG as a person related to any gender-related dispute or controversy. Cheers, ‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:17, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion concerning Margot (activist)

Statement by complainer

As the infamous author of the three edits, I have now read MOS:DEADNAME five times without finding any "has recently been updated to support complete exclusion of the deadname from the article as usual practice". In fact, it says "In the case of a living transgender or non-binary person, the birth name should be included only if the person was notable under that name; it should then appear in the lead, and may be used elsewhere in the article where contextually appropriate." As the use of her deadname is the subject of a whole paragraph of the article, I would say it is contextually appropriate; the only argument that could be put forward from MOS:DEADNAME is one of privacy, which is preposterous here, as the information is present several times in the talk page as well as in multiple quoted sources. The RfC clearly concluded that the deadname should be removed from the lead and infobox (which is not in the article), with a single commenter asking for it to be removed from the "Naming controversy" section. I edited the first and second time without reading any of the material, as no man knows all wikipedia policies, including me. The third time, I had; while my edits are being used to ask for protection of the article, and I am being subtly threatened with disciplinary action, my understanding of the RfC and MOS:DEADNAME is that my second edit was correctly reverted, while the first and third were reverted without merit. I will furthermore add that I have no political agenda in the matter and that, if I had one, it would be to annoy Polish conservatives in general, and Catholics, in particular, as much as possible, and that I would wholeheartedly support a bill to only allow attendance to the Sejm in drags. complainer 16:47, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gleeanon409

The article needs long-term semi protection, and likely ongoing vigilance for confirmed accounts misgendering Margot. The controversy section, the only place the deadnaming was still done, had the name removed by me. There was still a lot of questionable sources used there. Subsequently the entire section was removed and summarized in one sentence elsewhere in the article which I fully support.

The consensus on the page has been that her birth name, although prominent in right-wing sources, was a deadname to Margot, and never notable on its own. Glee^anon 16:32, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, the Updated MOS section that Truthious 𝔹andersnatch refers was in process of being worded on the MOS page, during the Margot RfC. And was done expressly for situations like this which are, I think, particularly stressful and draining particularly to LGBTQ editors and readers. These battles are toxic and poisonous to collegial editing.
I’m not sure what would help the project as a whole but addressing casual hate speech, specifically against LGBTQ people, but maybe incorporating all minorities, could ease things for everyone. Glee^anon 03:51, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Struthious Bandersnatch

@Complainer: I apologize if you feel threatened that I pinged you, but I don't think you should. I brought your edits up in this request because you essentially acted out the behavior described by Gleeanon409 in the RfC; then, since I was mentioning you in passing, I felt it appropriate that you at least be notified of this discussion by ping.

An operative part of MOS:DEADNAME which you quote is only if the person was notable under that name; the most salient part which was updated since the RfC began says, If such a subject was not notable under their former name, it usually should not be included in that or any other article,^[ⅆ] even if some reliable sourcing exists for it. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name.

^
ⅆ A "deadname" from a pre-notability period of the subject's life should not appear in that person's bio, in other articles (including lists and disambiguation pages), category names, templates, etc.

One of the conclusions arrived at by the RfC in the article's talk page was that Margot was not notable under her birth name. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Juliett Tango Papa

The deadnaming and misgendering by User:Niemajużnazwy, 5.184.34.193, 85.222.96.146, User:GizzyCatBella, and User:Complainer is awful. Deadnaming makes people die inside, please just make it stop. Juliett Tango Papa (talk) 20:10, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GizzyCatBella

Please note [70] - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Margot (activist)

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

Seems reasonable. I semied the page for a year and I am waiting for more comments about what we need to do --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 17:16, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Guerillero: I'd recommend just leaving it with the semi for now and monitoring to see what happens. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:13, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jenos450

Jenos450 is indefinitely topic banned from all ~~Indian subjects~~ subjects connected with India, Pakistan, or Afghanistan. Bishonen | tålk 18:40, 7 November 2020 (UTC). (Changed per closing note Bishonen | tålk 22:25, 7 November 2020 (UTC).)[reply]

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

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

Request concerning Jenos450

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Tayi Arajakate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 09:45, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Jenos450 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBIPA :

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

Special:Diff/985874277 & Special:Diff/986013855 Fringe POV pushing, see Special:Diff/986013855 for context. Also see, Talk:OpIndia#Neutrality?
Special:Diff/985170326 & Special:Diff/985871196 Similar conduct on Slavery in India followed by edit warring over the same, see article history.
Special:Diff/986653841 & Special:Diff/986655556 Addition of the word descriptor "the great" to Chanakya and Shivaji with either the use of self-publishing sources, fake citations or obvious questionable sources. (see Postcard.news for additional context)

Special:Diff/986162872 Introduction of of the word "Marxist" to the biographical article of Prabhat Patnaik with a cite that doesn't verify the descriptor followed by edit warring over the same, see article history.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Special:Diff/974602904

Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Note that their edit summaries are also highly misleading, with improper use of minor edits and inappropiate referal to guidelines.

No technical error can cause one to misrepresent a citation to "unintentionally promote a fringe theory" as was done on Love Jihad. Pinging, Newslinger, if you could shed some light on this.

On the other hand the claim on Slavery in India that the citation,^[1] which is a recent high quality scholarly work, had a quote within the cite and was even attributed to the author in-text, doesn't meet WP:BESTSOURCE, WP:VERIFYOR and WP:UNDUE is frankly ridiculous. It also appears suspicious that after an hour of the removal of the citation by an IP, the text was removed by the editor. Not to mention it was removed 6 times more by the editor after the restoration of the citation.

I'm not even going to bother with the rest. Just going to point out that the promotion of Love Jihad, favorability towards OpIndia, Postcard.news and glorification or negation in Indian history all coming from the same user do point towards Hindutva POV pushing. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 11:00, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Scott C. Levi (2002). "Hindus Beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in the Central Asian Slave Trade". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 12 (3). Cambridge University Press: 277–288. doi:10.1017/S1356186302000329. JSTOR 25188289. Sources such as the Arthasastra, the Manusmriti and the Mahabharata demonstrate that institutionalized slavery was well established in India by beginning of the common era. Earlier sources suggest that it was likely to have been equally widespread by the lifetime of the Buddha (sixth century BC), and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period. [footnote 2: (...) While it is likely that the institution of slavery existed in India during the Vedic period, the association of the Vedic 'Dasa' with 'slaves' is problematic and likely to have been a later development.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Special:Diff/986678708

Discussion concerning Jenos450

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

Statement by Jenos450

Special:Diff/985874277 The original statement in the article Love Jihad was added through The Independent (RSP entry) by me only. Further, due to some technical error which was completely unintentional, It seems unwarranted promotion of a fringe theory was narrated. For that, I had an discussion with another mod Newslinger on his talk page, admitting this mistake was made.

Talk:OpIndia#Neutrality? Regarding OpIndia, I raised an RfC which only included asking them to rephrase the page as it seems little too negative^[1]. Later I asked them what do they think of improving the format of the page. That's all. I did not vandalize the page or anything similar, rather, I took on the talk page to get comments and views regarding OpIndia. That's it.

Special:Diff/985170326 This edit was missing citations and it seems like the research was removed from the source itself.

Special:Diff/985871196 The conduct was actually performed by another user called Aaallman, who in the later edits accused me by "to sypport hindutva.... that is yout opinion" when asked to discuss the issue on talk and to see WP:DUE WP:VERIFYOR as per the policy.

In various summaries I tried to explain to him that the meaning of dassa/dassie changes with the usage and it doesn't appropriately mean Slavery. I would have suggested him to include this statement as a note than on the introduction part as it was looking odd. Instead he never took this to the talk page even though, regardless of me asking him to take this to the page's talk page.

Special:Diff/986653841 & Special:Diff/986655556 Addition of the word "the great" to Chanakya and Shivaji was done after I acknowledged and discussed it with another mod RegentsPark that adding name doesn't have to satisfy HISTRS,

All you need to do is to find a source that says that he is popularly known as that or whatever combination is in a source. It doesn't need to satisfy HISTRS because that popularity is not historical

The conversation could be found here.

Special:Diff/986162872 I think Tayi Arajakate is little mistaken here. I was not the one who originally used "Marxist" to the biographical article of Prabhat Patnaik. Through History, one can find that Prabhat Patnaik was being called a "Marxist-economist" as back as 11 February 2010‎ by a user called Chhoton and it stayed like this for 10 years before being vandalized by the user Aaallman. Many economist/researchers are cited as Marxist-Economist, so this is nothing new either.

So, one thing to note is that, I was protecting Prabhat Patnaik & Slavery in India from possible vandalism by the user called Aaallman, who repeatedly reverted the edits than discussing on the talk page. WP:WARNVAND

I gave him warning twice and suggested him to discuss the issues on the page's talk page but he kept on vandalizing. Further, I was about to report him to an admin today. Jenos450 (talk)

References

^ "Talk:OpIndia", Wikipedia, 2020-11-02, retrieved 2020-11-02

Statement by Vanamonde

I have been concerned for some time by Jenos450's propensity to stray from what reliable sources say into speculation and original research. In addition to the evidence above, there's these discussions [71], [72], [73]. The third one, in particular, is concerning; BLP applies to talk pages also. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:21, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RegentsPark

Diff for the HISTRS referred to by Jenos: [74]. While I stand by the general comment, the context was specific to the use of Chattrapati and Maharaj for Shivaji (using it for "the great" is a bit dubious, imo). I suspect Jenos has a few axes to grind, as the three links provided by Vanamonde show, and sanctions are probably warranted. --RegentsPark (comment) 20:03, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Newslinger

Jenos450's edit to the Amit Shah article in Special:Diff/981172473 removed the text "Shah has been a key present-day proponent of Hindutva.^[1]"

References

^ Vij Aurora, Bhavna (2014-04-07). "Spreading the Hindutva agenda: BJP's Amit Shah unlikely to lower his 'revenge' tenor". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2020-06-20.

The source, The Economic Times, states: "Amit Shah, the party’s general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, is working towards a Hindu consolidation, say BJP leaders, familiar with the unfolding strategy. [...] The plan is to spread the Hindutva agenda and encourage Hindus to vote against alleged 'protectors of minorities' or parties such as the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Congress." If Jenos450 wanted to comply with WP:BLPSTYLE, as claimed in the edit summary, the correct action would have been to replace the word "key" with something more precise. Instead, the edit removed the only sourced text linking Shah to Hindutva from the article, effectively whitewashing the article. — Newslinger talk 01:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Jenos450

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

I've just been looking at this and am not at all happy. C Scott Levi is a very respectable source, his CV shows him as author of" The Bukharan Crisis: A Connected History of 18th-Century Central Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020); The Rise and Fall of Khoqand, 1709–1876: Central Asia in the Global Age (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017); Caravans: Indian Merchants on the Silk Road (Penguin, 2015); and The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and its Trade, 1550–1900 (E. J. Brill, 2002). He has also edited India and Central Asia: Commerce and Culture, 1500–1800 (Oxford University Press, 2007) and co-edited (with Ron Sela) Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Sources (Indiana University Press, 2010). He is currently serving as editor-in-chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian Commercial History".[75] Although I know that Scottywong blocked Aaallman I'm not at all convinced that Aaalman is a vandal or not here to improve the encyclopedia and I've told Scottywong that. At the moment I'm leaning towards a topic ban. Doug Weller talk 19:33, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I too think a topic ban of Jenos450 is warranted. Besides the Scott Levi issue at Slavery in India which Doug analyzes, Jenos450's editing of Love Jihad has been shockingly tendentious. Notice that after they added a supposed example of love jihad, which did no justice to the source,[76] another editor added "conspiracy theory", as was proper according to the source. This led Jenos450 to change their own source to another, less reliable, one, clearly in order to be able to remove the words "conspiracy theory" and to push the islamophobic "love jihad" conspiracy theory into Wikipedia as if it was a reality. Hindutva POV-pushing has no place here. I intend to topic ban Jenos from Indian subjects unless new information surfaces or other uninvolved admins object within the next couple of days. Bishonen | tålk 21:42, 3 November 2020 (UTC). P. S., with the diff Newslinger has adduced above, I'm even more convinced. Bishonen | tålk 10:53, 4 November 2020 (UTC).[reply]
I would favor an appropriate topic ban for source misrepresentation and tendentious editing. Neutrality^talk 23:25, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Closing note: I have changed my close to a ban from subjects connected with India, Pakistan or Afghanistan, in view of the important Love Jihad matter, plus the fact that my colleagues may well have been thinking of a topic ban from the whole area. Bishonen | tålk 22:22, 7 November 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Atsme

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user: Atsme (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Atsme 💬 📧 17:29, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sanction being appealed: indef t-ban from Antifacism (United States) imposed July 22, 2019

 Nov 14, 2019 - asked Awilley's advice 
 Nov 18, 2019 - needed more clarity at ARCA
 Nov 23, 2019 - AWilley's further response to my request for advice
 May 2020, my appeal on Awilley's TP
 Awilley's denial

Administrator imposing the sanction: Awilley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator: No need, I got the pings. ~Awilley (talk) 04:48, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Atsme

My t-ban was imposed a year & 3 months ago. I have stayed away from the topic throughout my t-ban, but am concerned that I might inadvertently mention the words in a discussion where the topic might be raised, such as discussions at WP:RSN, WP:BLP, or WP:NPOV not to mention potential hinderances of my work at WP:NPP & AfC. I've created a few articles during the past year such as Robert H. Boyle,Christopher Demos-Brown, & Don Stewart (Bonaire activist) which quickly come to mind, reviewed/promoted a few GAs, worked a little in NPP & AfC, worked a bit in WikiProject Dogs, and tried to fix a few things in AP2, participate in some RfCs, but I don't have to convince anyone here that AP is much too controversial a topic area to spend very much time there so I try to avoid it when I can, and try to help when I can. Atsme 💬 📧 17:29, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a bit more for clarity

I agree for the most part that I probably should not have gotten involved in those 3 very brief instances that led to my t-ban, but then that begs the question, why did I become the target? considering I was simply trying to reach consensus by calling an RfC at Antifa (United States), and doing my job as an editor by trying to make the template on Talk: Fascism align with the lead in the article itself, and for my 2 responses to the questions of an editor who was behaving aggressively at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Willem_van_Spronsen?

I do hope editors are reading the diffs in context, and are aware of the apology I received by one of the editors I asked to DROPTHESTICK and stop gaslighting me - which is the primary reason I was t-banned.

Editor1 apology, just before Awilley's t-ban.
Editor2, who I asked to stop his disruption, and from whom I picked-up the terminology "couldn't care less" that he first used against me, and why I went to Awilley for help to stop the disruption. Why is my response to that behavior actionable but not the behavior that led to my response?
Awilley redacted a BLP vio by that same editor, and took no action against him - not even a warning.

Of course it saddens me to read the misrepresentations below, but it doesn't surprise me. Also troubling is the fact that some of the diffs used against me are their own comments rather than evidence of my actual behavior - just their opinions of it.

Struthious Bandersnatch misrepresentated me in his statement below, but it actually addresses Awilley's concern re:state your case and move on. My participation on Jimbo's UTP in the section “Your thoughts on this please” re: WP:NONAZIS comprised 2 comments from me as evidenced by the following diffs in that thread:
Oct 10, 2020 - I asked Jimmy to clarify his statement
Oct 11, 2020 - I posted a link to an article in The Atlantic titled Anti-racist Arguments Are Tearing People Apart

Jimbo responded to the first:

Oct 11, 2020 - Jimbo's clarification
Newyorkbrad showed up at that thread, and asked a highly relevant question about the thread in general, Oct 13, 2020, “Is this a useful discussion?”

Bandersnatch may have been referencing the thread, Interviews with the British Prime Minister relative to The Daily Mail:

Daily Mail discussion
Oct 16 2020 - Jimbo's response
Oct 16 2020 - Jimbo's conclusion which aligns with my thinking as well.
Oct 16 2020 - my first comment
Oct 16 2020 - my second comment further proving my behavior about stating my case and moving on. But what do UTP discussions have to do with my work on articles and article TPs relative to my T-ban? My t-ban was for Antifascism (United States), it was not a global t-ban.

More confusion stemming from Awilley's comments:

Nov 23, 2019, wherein Awilley stated "I guess I'm a bit confused why this is all such a big deal. Anti-Fascism is an extremely small and relatively ugly part of the encyclopedia. Why is it so important that you want to spend time there? You said yourself that you'd only made 30 or so edits there. What exactly comprises the "backroom deals" he mentioned?
May 2020, I accepted what Awilley advised me to do, and appealed to Awilley directly only to receive...
his refusal based on a conclusion that was rather disconcerting. Read it for yourselves. From my perspective, his comment about wanting me to "rethink my approach generally", is what I see as cognitive restructuring, which goes beyond the duties of adminship. I'm really trying to do the right thing, and not get anyone in trouble. I just want to edit peacefully without being attacked, or having to defend myself, or being overly cautious about expressing my views - is that too much to ask? I'm naturally careful, but I'm feeling pressured that it's never going to be enough. Atsme 💬 📧 13:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Awilley

My main criteria for appeals are that 1. the editor show some amount of recognition of what the problem was that led to the ban, and 2. they make some kind of commitment to avoid the problem in the future. I haven't seen that here, otherwise the ban would be lifted by now. In this case a good appeal (IMO) might look something like the following: "I recognize that 'bludgeoning' and accusing people of gaslighting on talk pages isn't helpful. In the future if I find myself in similar stressful situations where I feel like people aren't listening or are ganging up on me I will..." (multiple choice)

...state my case and move on
...edit something else for a while and come back to it later
...take a break from the computer and do something I enjoy
...ask a trusted friend for advice
...put a sticky note on my monitor reminding me to assume good faith

I haven't had time to review Atsme's recent contributions other than skimming Talk:Hunter_Biden#Hunter_Biden's_alleged_laptop,_Post_Story,_and_related_topics a few days ago where things were pretty heated and she seemed to come down on the wrong side of BLPCRIME. To her credit she did ask me for advice and backed off as I suggested, so there's that. Anyway I'd feel much better about this appeal if my points 1 & 2 were addressed. @Atsme: ~Awilley (talk) 04:48, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by MastCell

Atsme's topic ban was placed because of her habit of bludgeoning article talkpages with partisan rhetoric, despite previous promises to avoid such behavior ([77]).

She has continued this pattern of bludgeoning and partisan rhetoric, leading to a pointed warning from an uninvolved admin in August ("you have gone all the way back to inappropriate persistence and 'overzealousness to win'... Please go back and re-read your own appeal, Atsme, and start living up to your promises, or I will consider reinstating the topic ban.")

As recently as a week ago, she was deluging Talk:Hunter Biden, using low-quality sources to push dubious or discredited partisan insinuations about a living person, resulting in another caution from a different uninvolved admin ("It might be a good idea to step away from the Hunter Biden article for a few days... from a brief skim it looks like you're wanting to use lower quality sources to say negative things about a living person.")

Atsme summarizes this acitivty by saying she "tried to fix a few things in AP2", which seems a bit incomplete, if not misleading. To the extent that the topic ban was less about the narrow topic area (antifa) and more about a pattern of behavior, I'd like to understand why we should expect the behavior in question to have changed. Atsme, what is your understanding of why the topic ban was placed, and why the problems identified in Awilley's topic-ban notice won't recur? MastCell ^Talk 21:20, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Struthious Bandersnatch

I don't know if all the same rules operate at WP:JIMBOTALK but it seems apropos to mention a point where antifascism, claims about quality of sources, and Atsme intersected: in User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 243 § Your thoughts on this please a thread was begun last month discussing the WP:NONAZIS essay, which Atsme participated in, in part objecting to the disparate evaluation of The Daily Mail and Fox News versus CNN, MSNBC, and other sources on the reliable end of the spectrum by Wikipedia convention.

Also, in the context of her professional experience in the media industry, she made the statement that Journalists today are opinion journalists. In the US, the laws changed to accommodate propaganda, and so did the process of recording, editing and televising/streaming. The rules have all but disappeared... (Maybe that's valid, or maybe it isn't; it doesn't seem true to me but I have the perspective of a media consumer rather than a professional.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 13:50, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Atsme

Statement by PackMecEng

I am not really seeing anything presented as a reason to keep a topic ban on Antifa. Honestly the arguments against lifting the topic ban are weak, even if they were actually related to the topic at hand. From what I can tell Atsme has done very well sticking to the issues and has taken feedback whenever offered and greatly improved overall. At the end of the day it has been over a year with no infractions and with her being an overall positive contributor to the encyclopedia. I see nothing to be gained by keeping a topic ban on Antifa in place. PackMecEng (talk) 03:30, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Levivich

The principles of "preventative not punitive" and WP:ROPE suggest lifting the TBAN. I have crossed paths with Atsme many times in AP2 and elsewhere; sometimes we agree, more often we disagree, especially about content, but I can't say I can think of an instance of Atsme being disruptive, at least not in the last couple years since I've been here. Sure, I'm part of the Left-of-Center-is-the-New-Center Coalition, so I perceive Atsme's politics as being right-of-center, but that is not a reason to tban someone from Antifa (or any other topic). Sure, Atsme was an active participant at the Fox News RSN, but there's a lot that can be said about that (in no particular order): (1) that was almost six months ago; (2) she was by far not the only editor who was that active at that thread, (3) the end result of the RFC (no consensus re: politics/science, otherwise generally reliable) was not far from what she was arguing, so it's not like she was bludgeoning at WP:1AM, her viewpoint had plenty of support; (3) multiple editors !voted "per Atsme", so at least some of our colleagues found at least some of her contributions there useful; (4) the vast majority of her contributions were properly in the discussion section and not the survey section; (5) here are Atsme's last 200 RSN edits (going back about 12 months), which prove that the Fox News RSN was an outlier, and that she has participated in other RSNs with only one or a very few comments – in fact, she didn't just say I try to avoid it when I can, she said I try to avoid it when I can, and try to help when I can, and her RSN contribs prove that out: she generally avoids AP2 RSN threads, and when she does participate, her participation is minimal – Fox News being the only apparent exception to that rule for at least a year if not longer; (6) She changed her vote on the NYPost RFC so it's not like she's some kind of hardcore partisan shill; and, (7) the Fox News RSN has nothing whatsoever to do with Antifa: it might be relevant to whether she should be tbanned from Fox News RSNs (no), but it's totally irrelevant to antifa. Additionally, we should not tban someone for life: compliance with the tban for six months should basically be enough to lift any tban. We should never tban someone for the political beliefs they express, or for how they !vote in RFCs, for reasons well explained at WP:NOTTHOUGHTPOLICE. Le v!v ich 19:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One thing I wish we could get away from is the too-commonly-imposed standard, expressed and demonstrated understanding of why the topic ban was put in place. Nobody is in a position to evaluate anyone else's understanding of anything from across a computer screen. What that really is, is a request for Atsme to write a personal reflective essay that personally convinces the admin(s) evaluating the appeal. This is not a fair thing to ask somebody; it tests people on their writing ability, which is irrelevant to the question at hand. The only thing that's relevant is is the sanction necessary to prevent disruption, and so we can look at whether there are signs of disruption in the topic area or elsewhere, or signs of non-disruptive productive editing elsewhere, but not at how well an editor can write a mea culpa. Also, admin shouldn't position themselves as a parole board or as judges of editors' understanding or state of mind. No admin was elected because of how well they can peer into an editor's soul. Admin are not therapists or behavioral specialists or in any way qualified to determine if someone is "sorry enough" or if they "get it". Admin should respond to actions, they shouldn't judge people. (This applies to unblock requests as well as sanctions appeals.) Le v!v ich 07:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tryptofish

Based on Atsme's request, she is not so much requesting (at lest not explicitly) permission to resume active editing about Antifa, but rather, she does not want to risk falling victim to a "gotcha" situation while engaging on the periphery of the topic area: [I] am concerned that I might inadvertently mention the words in a discussion where the topic might be raised, such as discussions at WP:RSN, WP:BLP, or WP:NPOV not to mention potential hinderances of my work at WP:NPP & AfC. I can see two sides to this issue. On the one hand, there is no question that Atsme is, on the whole, a very good contributor, and it is quite understandable that one would worry about falling victim to a "gotcha". It seems to me that AE should endeavor to lower the temperature around American Politics (as should a whole lot of people and institutions beyond the digital walls of Wikipedia these days). I would like the result here to help lower that temperature. On the other hand, it is reasonable to take a hard look at "I might inadvertently mention the words in a discussion where the topic might be raised". Although everyone can make a mistake, no one who is really taking a T-ban seriously is going to "inadvertently" post about that topic, or take part at all in a discussion that may be about it, so long as they think before hitting save.

I think the restriction should be left in place. I mean no disrespect to Atsme when I say that, and I think she can do loads of good while steering clear of the topic. But I would also like to reassure her about the "gotcha" risk. I hope that this AE discussion will be closed with a statement, that can be linked to whenever needed, that specifies that she may self-revert any post that might otherwise run afoul, without facing additional sanctions, so long as she does so before anyone else initiates a formal complaint. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:04, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BD2412

Having worked with this editor on the improvement of a number of articles far removed from current politics, I find them to be a pleasure to collaborate with, and I understand their concern that a loosely-enough worded prohibition can be interpreted to catch innocent activities that are far beyond the scope that an editor might reasonably understand to apply. Since the current votes seem skeptical about lifting the prohibition entirely, I propose a compromise: change it to a substantially narrower prohibition specifically limited to the article in question (Antifa (United States)), or some specified set of articles that are directly of concern, which would probably not be more than a half-dozen. We can then revisit the issue in six months or so to see whether a continued restriction is warranted at all. BD2412 T 06:41, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Springee

I'm in agreement with Levivich. Blocks are meant to protect, not punish. What is Atsme doing that requires Wiki-protection. If the worst thing we can say is that Atsme made a lot of civil comments in a very long discussion of Fox News. We aren't supposed to tban people because they disagree. There is zero evidence that she has disruptively editing the article space since the primary t-ban was lifted. That others don't always find her arguments for/against content convincing shouldn't be a justification for a tban but that is what it looks like. I support Dennis Brown's view that the t-ban should be lifted. However, if others aren't persuaded perhaps the compromise solution suggested above? Reduce the tban to specific articles with an automatic expiration in 6-months if there are no new issues. Springee (talk) 13:53, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph

I mostly agree with Levivich. If Atsme has shown that she can participate for several months without incident, then we should re-evaluate the need for a TBAN. I disagree with Awilley that one must acknowledge their wrongdoing before a TBAN is overturned. In many cases, there was no wrongdoing, yet they abided by the TBAN, which is good enough. I have no idea if that is the case here, but someone who abides by the TBAN and is now asking for an evaluation, is what we want from editors. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Floq

Ever since I started using this umbrella, I haven't gotten wet once. This is proof that there is no need for this umbrella. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:13, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (uninvolved editor)

Result of the appeal by Atsme

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

Support lifting tban - It's been over a year, didn't see any problems since the tban was put in place, she knows the consequences if she goes back and starts problems in that topic area. It's been plenty long enough to extend a second chance. My confidence is high that this productive editor will be ok. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:46, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Update: After reading the comments and concerns, I'm still of the mindset that we can lift the restriction. Again, she knows the consequences if she reverts to problematic editing. We don't require that editors be saints to have restrictions lifted, just demonstrate that they aren't really needed anymore, and it my opinion, she has demonstrated this. To continue the restrictions when there hasn't been a breach in that topic area, and the editor has shown to be productive in several other areas, begins to appear punitive rather than preventative. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:56, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very dubious about lifting the ban. Atsme's roughly 75 edits to the Fox News RfC this summer contrasts both with her claim above that she tries to avoid AP when she can, and with the promises she made in order to have the larger topic ban, from the whole of AP, lifted in February 2019: "If I happen to be notified of an RfC, I will simply cast my iVote, state why, and move on to other areas." It seems likely that the comments the RfC closers made about bludgeoning referred principally to Atsme (possibly to others as well): "There was a very large amount of what we considered to be bludgeoning from certain participants of this RFC.". I warned Atsme in August 2020 about this egregious backsliding from her promises,[78] and AFAICS she has been a little more circumspect since then. That would be the last two and a half months only. She says nothing about this in her appeal here, and I frankly think her description of her participation in AP is rather misleading, if only by omission. Well, actually not only by omission. I see her dissing a reliable source here and here in October. And when I saw her input in this thread on Talk:Hunter Biden, suggesting that The Washington Examiner (the publisher of the 'Hunter Biden laptop scandal', if you remember) is just as reliable as NYTimes, WaPo and CNN, I started to consider posting a new warning to her. Her comments in the entire thread are very interesting in relation to her demure claim above to "try to avoid [AP] when I can, and try to help when I can". Is it really the same person talking..? My point is that Awilley's TBAN was well-considered, and needs to stay, lest there is yet more backsliding from Atsme. IMO she is very good at abiding by topic bans, but quite bad at keeping herself from tendentious editing on her own. Bishonen | tålk 22:08, 7 November 2020 (UTC).[reply]
I've not interacted much with Atsme, but after reading this appeal and the comments by others I'm strongly leaning towards declining at this point. This is per the lack of expressed and demonstrated understanding of why the topic ban was put in place, the need for multiple reminders about bludgeoning (including rather recently) and the discrepancy between stated intent to avoid the AP area and the observed behaviour of not doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 21:15, 8 November 2020 (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.

[3] "A/RES/62/243". undocs.org. 14 March 2008. Retrieved 2020-09-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[4] [1]

[5] [2]

[cnote_ⅆ] 
ⅆ A "deadname" from a pre-notability period of the subject's life should not appear in that person's bio, in other articles (including lists and disambiguation pages), category names, templates, etc.

[6] Scott C. Levi (2002). "Hindus Beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in the Central Asian Slave Trade". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 12 (3). Cambridge University Press: 277–288. doi:10.1017/S1356186302000329. JSTOR 25188289. Sources such as the Arthasastra, the Manusmriti and the Mahabharata demonstrate that institutionalized slavery was well established in India by beginning of the common era. Earlier sources suggest that it was likely to have been equally widespread by the lifetime of the Buddha (sixth century BC), and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period. [footnote 2: (...) While it is likely that the institution of slavery existed in India during the Vedic period, the association of the Vedic 'Dasa' with 'slaves' is problematic and likely to have been a later development.

[7] "Talk:OpIndia", Wikipedia, 2020-11-02, retrieved 2020-11-02

[8] Vij Aurora, Bhavna (2014-04-07). "Spreading the Hindutva agenda: BJP's Amit Shah unlikely to lower his 'revenge' tenor". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2020-06-20.

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@@ Line 603: / Line 603: @@
 ===Statement by Sir Joseph===
 I mostly agree with Levivich. If Atsme has shown that she can participate for several months without incident, then we should re-evaluate the need for a TBAN. I disagree with Awilley that one must acknowledge their wrongdoing before a TBAN is overturned. In many cases, there was no wrongdoing, yet they abided by the TBAN, which is good enough. I have no idea if that is the case here, but someone who abides by the TBAN and is now asking for an evaluation, is what we want from editors. [[User:Sir Joseph|Sir Joseph]] <sup>[[User_talk:Sir Joseph|<span style="color: Green;">(talk)</span>]]</sup> 16:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
+===Statement by Floq===
+Ever since I started using this umbrella, I haven't gotten wet '''once'''.  This is proof that there is no need for this umbrella. --[[User:Floquenbeam|Floquenbeam]] ([[User talk:Floquenbeam|talk]]) 17:13, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 ===Statement by (uninvolved editor)===

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