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Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Wifione		26 December 2014	{{{votes}}}

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Wifione

Initiated by Jehochman ^Talk at 04:09, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Jehochman (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
Wifione (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Vejvančický (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Jehochman

This is a case about accusations of serious misconduct by admin Wifione, including POV pushing, lying and paid editing. Accusations have been made by multiple editors; I've selected Anthonyhcole and Vejvančický as parties because their complaints seem more prominent and more persistent, though there may be others who could be added upon further review. If the accusations are true, Wifione needs to be desysopped, and possibly banned. Only ArbCom can take the necessary steps. The evidence in this matter is sufficiently voluminous that it would be unreasonable to expect passing editors at AN/I to fully familiarize themselves with the facts to make an informed decision. If the accusations are not true, there is a mob of angry editors hurling personal attacks at Wifione that needs to be disbanded. In my opinion, this is a matter where Arbitration could be very useful. Is this case ripe? Accusations have been floating around for more than a year, and still haven't been resolved one way or the other. I'd say this case is over-ripe.

Statement by Wifione

This is to acknowledge my presence here. If there are any clarifications that the community wishes on any diffs/actions (if the case is accepted), I'll be readily available to provide them. @Biblioworm, if you notice the complete set of my statements at ANI, I've mentioned that I haven't had any intentions of deleting the Editor Review. I was just put off by two commentators out there who were plainly discrediting the fact that I started the review and continue maintaining the review till date (despite the Editor Review process becoming redundant by community action) just to ensure transparency. My statement was more of an in-the-face reply to those commentators and shouldn't have been made that way. Thanks. Wifione ^Message 06:12, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Anthonyhcole

Gaaaah. I was hoping I could put together such a compelling executive summary here that you would deal with this by motion. But it's going to take ages to construct something short, clear and comprehensive enough. Do what you will. I'll keep working on this and post here if the request is still open when I'm done. If you go ahead with a case before I've posted here, I'll post it there.

Statement by Vejvančický

I already commented and provided relevant evidence, diffs and links at Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione (the page also contains links to relevant discussions on-wiki, off-wiki, and mentions in the media such as the Times of India). Anyone who wants to comment on the case should read the review first. I don't think that the response by User:Wifione was sufficient, and I explained my opinion in the editor review. I'll continue here. I wrote in the review that in my opinion Wifione knowingly manipulated articles about educational institutes in India. In February 2011, he created the article Ashok Chauhan about the founder of the Amity group of institutions. The article started as a single sentence with a reference to a critical article published by the investigative magazine Tehelka. I'm convinced that the real intention of the creator was to highlight marginally important information about an arrest warrant issued in Germany against Mr. Chauhan to show this person in a bad light. Wifione later developed the information in this edit.

In Autumn 2011, another editor, Cfiveindia, started a conversation now archived at User_talk:Wifione/Archive_2011_(September)#How_Can_I_discuss_with_you.3F and later re-opened here. Cfiveindia, who guilelessly admitted that s/he is a part of the Amity Group, complained about the unfair manipulation of the articles Amity University and Ashok Chauhan. Cfiveindia also noted that the arrest warrant has been revoked and "the Tehelka article was removed by the publication after they were informed and realised the real motives of the journalist". It is true that the article has been deleted from Tehelka archives (see [4], June, 11 2005), however, it still remains here. Wifione promised his assistance to Cfiveindia, however, he quietly left the discussion, archived, and did nothing. A year later, in Autumn 2012, Wifione quickly spotted a post by another editor, Higheredutrust, and posted a threatening message on their talk page. Soon after that, he started a sockpuppet investigation which resulted in blocking of his opponent(s). Case closed.

Let's compare with another discussion, regarding Mr. Chauhan's competitor, Arindam Chaudhuri. Surprisingly, in this case Wifione attempts to whitewash and completely remove negative information despite more convincing evidence recording many controversies around Mr. Chaudhuri. Wifione removes criticism and negative information not only from the article, but also from the talk page [5], [6], [7]. It's being noticed by others, see for example Talk:Arindam_Chaudhuri#New_section or User_talk:Wifione/Archive_2012_(January)#Arindam_Chaudhuri, however, Wifione with his manipulative skills manages to enforce his version most of time. Wifione, in this edit you asked an editor who requested "criticism section" in the article Arindam Chaudhuri: "...what long term encyclopedic worth do you make of this?" Now I ask you: What "long term encyclopedic worth" you see in mentioning a marginally important, oudated and revoked arrest warrant against a living individual in an encyclopedic article? I have on my mind the article Ashok Chauhan (who is a direct competitor of Mr. Chaudhuri). You have removed a lot of content from multiple articles about Indian Institutes of Management (schools competing with Mr. Chaudhuri's IIPM) as "boosterism" [8], [9], [10] etc. I don't say all your edits were bad, but it looks strange when, on the other hand, you insert to articles - and insist on - statements like Mr. Chaudhuri is a "management guru" [11] [12] [13] or when I compare for example this edit to the article Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad with this edit to Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) - in the first edit you remove the same kind of information you add in your second edit cited here.

Now, let's compare some of your edits to the article Indian_School_of_Business (ISB) with your edits to IIPM article. Here, for example, you changed the lead section of the ISB article to insert information about ISB courses violating All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) regulations. Here, you repeat that "courses are not approved by AICTE", again, in the lead section. However, when you edited the lead section of the IIPM page, you've added a long and completely irrelevant explanation about how corrupt and incompetent the regulatory body (AICTE) is.

Wifione, all I can see in a sample of your edits to the articles about education in India is fraudulent behavior, use of double standards and misuse of Wikipedia's rules and policies to promote interests of selected subjects and entities. Your edits to the above mentioned articles are prime examples of dangerous manipulation. One has to examine your "work" in a broader context and compare your edits to articles about competing subjects in this field to see your real intentions. I did that in your editor review and I continue here. All I can tell is that I'm deeply ashamed to collaborate with a person like you on this beautiful project. In my opinion you should resign as an administrator and retire immediately. I apologize for the length of my post, but this is a very complex story.

Statement by Lukeno94

This is pretty open-and-shut. All the evidence one needs to place an indefinite ban is present at Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione, and Wifione's only defence in the recent ANI has been a hilarious WP:BADSITES-based one, where everyone who happens to comment at WO must be a sheep toeing the "party line". Some of the evidence is highlighted clearly in diffs in that thread as well. Wikipedia has enough paid shills as it is; we should be actively banning the ones who do get caught (this is not the same as paid editing, by the way) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:33, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also note that Wifione has directly, and nakedly, stated their intention to delete and obfuscate that editor review here. Not only that, Wifione appears to be an abuse filter manager - which makes it very easy for them to censor criticism. If they do delete the editor review, then I will repost it in my userspace straight away. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Wifione: Your words in the ANI thread do not lie. You absolutely did threaten to delete your editor review, and there is absolutely no other way of interpreting "Why don't you or Andrew make a copy before I delete it? For your benefit, I'll keep it as-is for a couple of days more." Just in case you try and obfuscate that, I've saved the entirety of ANI from that post's time, and will add the whole section to my userspace if you do try and hide the ANI thread. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Only in Death: Whether direct admin bit abuse has occurred not is both academic and irrelevant at this point. Behaviour of this kind absolutely warrants both a desysopping and a full-on site ban - we cannot allow administrators who have a history of abusing the system to retain their bit, particularly when it comes to BLPs, which Wifione has a large history of inserting extremely inappropriate content to, and censoring others. Allowing Wifione to remain on this site as an admin, or indeed at all, sends out a message to everyone that it is OK to be a paid shill, and it is OK to violate several of the core policies of this site, and that we won't do anything about it. To suggest that desysopping is not warranted suggests that you've not looked at any evidence whatsoever. Also, premature Arbcom case? This should've happened 6-12 months ago, when Wifione tried to avoid all of the awkward questions from their editor review. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:00, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I can find a dubious block that isn't related to this case at all, and is in fact very recent indeed. User:Matt 20123 was blocked indefinitely for "Repeated removal of warning notices without acknowledgement; disruption suspected in future", despite the user talk page policy only restricting the removal of unblock requests - something the user did not remove, and indeed, had never posted. Indeed, removing warning notices is explicitly stated as "The removal of material from a user page is normally taken to mean that the user has read and is aware of its contents." This block also came two days after the user had last edited anything in mainspace, and less than 24 hours into an existing block. Extremely poor indefinite block that was punitive, not preventative, as the user had no chance to reform post-block. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dusti; I agree with Nsk92's assessment of the case's current status. ANI cannot decide if a desysopping is required or not, let's not forget. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 20:17, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dusti: There doesn't need to be obvious evidence of tool misuse if the user has been manipulating Wikipedia in pretty appalling ways to further their POV. Besides, I pointed out above an extremely dodgy block that shows a poor grasp of the blocking policy; Wifione was clearly listening, as they unblocked/reduced the block (don't remember exactly which) within about half an hour. This user is not fit to be on Wikipedia, and certainly not to be an admin. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:01, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Brief comment by Biblioworm

I have absolutely no involvement in this whatsoever, but I wanted to say that Wifi should not be allowed to delete his editor review. Doing so would be evasion of accountability. --Biblioworm 19:31, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

While there are many issues at play here, I think Arbs should pay close attention to the potential WP:BLPCOI issues regarding this editor. There has been persistent editing by various COI parties to sanitize the BLP of a person from one institution, while simultaneously seeking to trash the BLP of someone from a rival institution. Wifione has engaged in the same behavior, including being the original author of the trashed BLP who added the various attacks against the individual in the first place, and is possibly also a COI party given certain clues. Articles pertaining to this potential COI appear to be the focus of most of Wifione's article contributions and so any avoidance of accountability on the matter should be addressed forcefully. At the bare minimum Wifione should not be allowed anywhere near this topic, though I expect a desysopping would be in order as well given the severity of the misconduct. I take no stance on whether the conduct is severe enough to warrant a ban from Wikipedia altogether, though there is obviously precedent for that sort of response even when it concerns an admin.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Only in Death

As all issues are bog-standard editing issues (COI, NPOV etc etc) of which there is ample evidence, a simple topic ban from the areas would suffice. This is well within the ability of AN/ANI to impose (I did actually propose it, but any discussion or investigation was effectively cut off by this premature request for arbitration). As there is no accusation of admin-bit misuse, there is no need for arbcom involvement at this time. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:48, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved Nsk92

I disagree with both Only in Death and Lukeno94 in their characterization of this case. @Only in Death: I don't believe this case is suitable for an easy resolution at ANI. The issues and conflicts raised here have festered for a number of years and to an uninitiated observer, such as myself, they appear to be fairly complex. DGG's comments at Talk:Indian Institute of Planning and Management#Draft are illuminating in this regard and they show, in my opinion, why this is not a very easy case to figure out. I think it requires greater care and more in-depth analysis than an ANI discussion usually allows, and ArbCom seems to me to be the right venue for sorting things out in this case. @Lukeno94: by the same token, this does not appear to me to be an "open-and-shut" case, not at all. I have read through Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione and also read the wikipediocracy article mentioned in the statement of Maunus[14] (Maunus' statement seems to have been removed since then). There are a number of accusations raised against WifiOne in various places. The more explosives of these seem to be: that WifiOne is actually Nichalp; that WifiOne has engaged in undisclosed paid editing; that WiFiOne has an undisclosed substantial COI related to the locus of this dispute. In Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione WiFiOne has unequivocally denied all of these. If some of WiFiOne's opponents wishing to participate in this case do maintain that some of the above mentioned charges are true, they need to say so directly and unequivocally in this RFAR request and provide some supporting evidence here, with diffs, (and not simply refer to previous threads elsewhere). The remaining charges seem to be that WiFiOne has engaged in POV pushing and some BLP manipulation to advance a particular POV. These are very serious accusations, but they are also usually the hardest to prove. Vejvančický's statement above does a fairly good job in laying the ground for some of these charges, and I must admit that I find the information presented by Vejvančický very troubling. Still, IMO, this is not the sort of a situation that could be described as an "open-and-shut" case, and the exasperation evident in DGG's comments at Talk:Indian Institute of Planning and Management#Draft underscores the difficulty in untangling what's what here. If WiFiOne's opponents, including Lukeno94, have some extra direct evidence, in terms of diffs, timeline, editing patterns, etc, in addition to what is given in Vejvančický's statement above, they should certainly provide it here. You can't expect the arbs to wade through the links to the various prior discussion threads on their own if you want the ArbCom to accept this case. Nsk92 (talk) 19:47, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Dusti: I suggest that you read through the current ANI thread and the links listed by Guy Macon at the start of Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione, including User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_152#User:Wifione. Do you really think that more AN/ANI discussions would do any good here? I think Jehochman's description of the situation in his comments above is correct. Nsk92 (talk) 20:10, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion from SB_Johnny

A rather large and thorough collection of evidence regarding this case is publicly available on Wikipediocracy, and frankly I can't see how going through the motions of a full case will yield anything more than arbitrarily scheduled weeks strife, drama, and public spectacle.

I strongly recommend the committee privately consider the option of passing a motion or motions before endorsing a case. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 02:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dusti (uninvolved)

The information and dispute here haven't gone through any other dispute resolution processes unless I'm missing something. AN and/or AN/I haven't sufficiently been used to try passing any appropriate topic bans, etc. as stated by someone above who tried doing so but that discussion was cut short by someone jumping the gun and filing an ArbCom case. All I see here is an upset crowd throwing allegations, of which there's no actual allegation of abuse of the admin bit. There are other sufficient avenues that we should try first. This falls outside of the purview of ArbCom at the moment I feel. Dusti ^{*Let's talk!*} 19:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I may be completely missing something, and forgive me if I am, but @Lukeno94: - I'm not seeing any allegations of administrator tool abuse, so why would desysoping be necessary? Dusti ^{*Let's talk!*} 02:01, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Clerk notes

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

Wifione: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <12/0/1/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other) Number in brackets includes incoming arbs

Given that realistically this case even if accepted won't get underway before my term expires on December 31, I will leave it to my colleagues to vote on. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:47, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Clerk note: This arbitrator's term has expired. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Based upon the background here, we have one of two possibilities. Either we have an administrator who is editing in defiance of the terms of use, or we have a group who is unjustly making an accusation of such. I offer no opinion as to which of those might be the case, but given the likelihood of private handling for at least some portions being required, I'm minded to accept. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:35, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Accept. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:40, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. AGK [•] 23:12, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Provisional accept. This will come into effect on 1 Jan unless I state otherwise. --Guerillero | My Talk 01:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Provisional accept. This will come into effect on 1 Jan unless I state otherwise. I agree with Seraphimblade's opinion above. Thryduulf (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Provisional accept. Seraphimblade pretty much laid out my thoughts on the matter. Courcelles 19:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Formal accept Courcelles 00:18, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~Provisional accept, effective Jan. 1. DGG~~ ( talk ) 04:04, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

the named party asked me to recuse, so I shall. DGG ( talk ) 04:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Accept though the case will need some clear ground rules and tight clerking, Roger Davies ^talk 07:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

~~Non-acceptance "accept" safe in the knowledge that I'll be gone before it's open... Worm^TT(talk) 09:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)~~

Clerk note: This arbitrator's term has expired. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another provisional accept which will become official January 1st. Dougweller (talk) 11:10, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
~~Given my comment made here, I'm recused on this request (though I would not have remained active on the case if accepted before 2015 anyway). Carcharoth (talk) 19:33, 29 December 2014 (UTC)~~ Clerk note: This arbitrator's term has expired. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. LFaraone 20:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:04, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Provisional Accept. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Accept --Euryalus (talk) 01:08, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]