Pumpie has been creating many very poorly translated articles about minor interest topics such as Greek actors and politicians and French railway stations. The translations are worse than machine translations, and often unintelligible. Pumpie is apparently unable to write proper English, and he does not understand French or Greek either. Without a thorough re-writing from other users (such as Cplakidas, Yngvadottir and myself), these articles are worthless (see for example Klassiki periptosi vlavis). He does not respond to warnings, criticism and questions about his articles, he does not correct his translations when asked, and has not responded to the request for comment that was filed about him last August.

RfA seemed like a logical step after Pumpie didn't respond to the RfC, nor improved his editing. Do you think I'd better take this case to WP:ANI, and ask for a block? Markussep ^Talk 07:51, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Admin intervention seems to help, at least Pumpie has responded to our complaints now. It hasn't really improved his edits (yet), but I guess we can solve this without arbitration now. Thanks for your advice! IMO this case can be closed. Markussep ^Talk 10:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Yngvadottir

Pumpie has a long history of creating poorly translated articles (Schloss Lenzburg appears to have been the inspiration for the Rough Translations category; in addition to often being incomprehensible, many of his articles contain mistranslations or copy and paste errors and some of the geographic ones seem to use outdated sources); his user page and some of his early responses indicate he has in mind some sort of automatic interwiki translation project. But his articles create an immense amount of work and his choice of stations, films, people, and places is odd. The August Request for Comment was the second on him. Neither produced any solution; he has responded less and less and did not respond to the second RfC. His translations have improved very little despite many offers of help and some specific guidance, although he sometimes writes in edit summaries that he considers it good. He hardly edits an article after creating it. His English itself is incoherent.

Statement by Cplakidas

Pumpie has good intentions, but utterly lacks the language skills or knowledge to translate properly. Virtually all his articles need to be re-translated from scratch to make any sense, creating unnecessary and often frustrating workload for other editors. The problem has been pointed out to him by a large number of editors over the years and various solutions have been suggested. His usual response is either that there is no problem or that he will improve/fix it, but when the latter fails to happen, he invariably meets new inquiries with silence, as the two RfCs show. Unfortunately, his persistent failure to communicate and unchanged MO make any hope of improvement almost impossible.

After reading Pumpie's reply to his block, once again, I can't really say that I see any evidence that he understands the issue. He simply repeats the usual, that is English is good, that he is making an effort, then rambles on about irrelevant languages. The core of the issue, that his English is not "nearly good", still has to be acknowledged. Even if his language skills were top notch, he completely lacks any knowledge of historical, geographical, etc. context, and it shows when he cannot translate terms or names properly. Constantine ✍ 05:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved The Wordsmith

This doesn't appear to be something Arbcom needs to handle. It seems to be a case of WP:COMPETENCE, and I would strongly suggest the filing party go to ANI instead. They're likely to get a quicker and more satisfactory decision, rather than a long and drawn-out process that ends the exact same way. The Wordsmith^Communicate 09:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved JodyB

Concur with The Wordsmith that this is not an arbitration issue and should be declined. If he is unwilling to discuss his editing with others at this point he will likely not discuss it at all. A block will get his attention. However a mentor is probably a difficult task as you need someone who understands all the languages involved and has reasonable patience. Given his prior history a mentor would likely need to be an admin as well. JodyB_talk 14:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by so-far uninvolved Georgewilliamherbert

Is anyone going to shoot me if I handle this from the community side? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:15, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After due review, and a brief discussion with Coren on his talk page, I have issued an indefinite (but not permanent) block on my discretion (diff of notice: [1]). The objective of this block is to get Pumpie engaged in fruitful discussions regarding editing problems they have, both on their talk page and on article talk pages. Any administrator may unblock at their discretion if they believe that Pumpie has engaged collaboratively (on his talk page) to discuss the issues that have been raised here at the Arbcom case, on Pumpie's talk page, and on article talk pages.

I would like to request that one or more of those involved in the complaint make a new post to Pumpie's user talk page summarizing the issues as a new section, to start a productive discussion out of.

If Arbcom or other administrators feel this was an inappropriate intervention you can override it, of course. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/0/2)

~~Accept~~; though I suppose this would be best (and more simply) handled by summary motion. Sadly, no amount of good faith or willingness to edit can overcome difficult editing combined with inability (or unwillingness) to communicate. Whether it's a language barrier, or a communication problem, this editor would — at least — need to engage with a mentor before they can contribute productively. — Coren ^(talk) 16:46, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
@Risker: I was considering something along the lines of "banned unless in a mentor accepts to supervise and help". I don't think that's a remedy that ever originated from the community itself (though there is no overriding reason why it could not). — Coren ^(talk) 19:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to have been handled reasonably. — Coren ^(talk) 19:53, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Comment~~ Is this something the community could handle, or does it need an ArbCom restriction? SirFozzie (talk) 16:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Decline Looks like GWH's actions will either set a default status, or if/when Pumpie wishes to appeal the block, the community can come up with possible terms. SirFozzie (talk) 22:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: What outcome is being sought here? I suspect that the community can probably address it with the same outcome as would be likely at Arbitration. Risker (talk) 17:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Decline - this appeares to have been managed by the community. Risker (talk) 18:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. This is something that the community can, and probably ought to, usefully address, especially in view of the RFC. There was a similar case a couple of years ago, which has some useful principles; though the remedy there may not be appropriate in the present instance. Also, I have to say that the edits - and I looked at the Gare de ... series they created at the end of last month, which may not be representative - don't look too horrendous to me. Roger Davies ^talk 09:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Allowing a bit more time for a statement by Pumpie before voting. There is an argument for accepting the case; we have addressed similar situations before (Stefanomencarelli as cited by Roger and also International Churches of Christ; interestingly, I see that Stefanomencarelli is editing again following his one-year ban, though I haven't checked the quality of his recent editing, while the subject of the "Churches" case walked away from En-WP after the case). An ANI discussion might also result in a solution to this problem; I'm not sure whether this would be a better or worse way to handle the matter than an arbitration; comments on this would also be welcome. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I see that Pumpie is now unblocked and editing. We could probably use some input as to whether the parties think the situation is improved. I note that if we decline this case but problems continue that are not resolved in another fashion, an updated request can be filed in due course. Newyorkbrad (talk) 09:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Decline, as the community appears to be handling this without any need for our assistance. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 17:50, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. per above. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]