Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling/Evidence

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Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Giving a short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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Evidence presented by Dreadstar

Unblock of Ludwigs2

Again, I apologize to the Committee. I have zero admin experience of dealing with AE blocks, and didn't realize the full implications of it. Overall, I've only made a total of four unblocks in the past two years (including this one); the other three were unrelated to AE and were of blocks made by me where the blockee gave assurances of better behavior – so I have no history of unblock abuse.

Regarding the Ludwigs unblock, I saw what appeared to be a hasty block that would increase drama, with several editors on both sides of the debate speaking out against it (and I believe no one in favor when I unblocked), so my aim was to reduce drama quickly. I apologize that my actions had the opposite effect. When I began to realize the implications of it being an AE block, I e-mailed the Committee to explain my actions. I was unsure how to proceed at that point: to reblock for the sake of process seemed wrong and unfair to the blockee, so I waited to hear from Sandstein. When he came back online he filed the case immediately, so there was no opportunity to look for another way forward.

It would be helpful to me and possibly others to clarify what conduct, in what venues, by which editors, regarding what issues, should fall under an AE restriction. I didn’t see this as being directly related to the Pseudoscience ArbCom case. Also of help would be verification that any block marked as AE be treated as AE, even if the association seems distant.

But, once again, mea culpa here, and let me assure everyone that it definitely will not happen again. Dreadstar ☥ 06:30, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Response to Newyorkbrad

Responding to NYB's question, let me again say that I didn’t see this as a pseudoscience dispute. I don’t engage in discussions or disputes over pseudoscience anymore. Years ago I did edit a few paranormal-related articles and engaged in discussions about them, always striving to work with other editors and to have the articles meet NPOV as well as other policies.[1][2][3][4] There are still a few paranormal articles that I watch for vandalism and policy violations,[5][6][7] but I’ve moved on to many other subjects. (e.g. my last discussions on most of the articles mentioned in evidence was in 2007 Mediumship - 2007 Natasha demkina - 2007 Psychic surgery - 2007 Psychic - 2007

I’ve never coordinated anything with Ludwigs2; it’s sheer coincidence that Ludwigs and I both commented on the NPOV/FAQ issues – this was something I was involved with well before Ludwigs2. [8][9][10][11]

I'd totally forgotten that Ludwigs2 had commented on the NPOV/FAQ discussions, as well as the comment I made almost three years ago in support of an unblock request for Ludwigs2, and there’s more to my comment than Skinwalker reveals, [12] plus my view was supported by other admins[13]. Skinwalker also mischaracterizes my involvement in the NPOV/FAQ discussions, my view that a FAQ should not be policy was fully supported and we moved the Policy material to WP:NPOV from the FAQ:[14]

Rest assured, I will not act administratively regarding anything to do with Ludwigs2 again. Dreadstar ☥ 23:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by BullRangifer

Desysop Dreadstar

I have totally rethought this in light of evidence of a pattern of protection and promotion of fringe POV and editors who promote or defend such POV. This makes Dreadstar's act part of a pattern and not an isolated incident. I have therefore stricken my old comments and added a new comment below.

I think Dreadstar's statement is sufficient to end this right now with no more drama. A mistake was made because of inexperience. That's forgivable.

Now all that is needed is a statement that will prevent such things from happening again. The proper process for unblocking an AE block should be followed. The determination of whether or not to call the initial block an "AE block" isn't anyone's business but the blocking admin. If they say it was, then all other admins must AGF and not unblock without following due process. If the blocking admin has abused the "AE block" template, that's an entirely different matter.

This could be the shortest AE case in history. There is no need for more drama. We just need a clear statement for the record.

PS: Ludwig2's block should be reinstated. Due process must still be followed in this case. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

In light of Skinwalker's damning evidence of the long-standing alliance between Dreadstar and Ludwigs2 as defenders of fringe POV, and Dreadstar's misuse of admin tools in the process, I support full desysopping of Dreadstar. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Sandstein

This section was last updated 06:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC). Please tell me on my talk page if any factual assertion made here is incorrect.

Dreadstar

Dreadstar undid a block which he knew was an arbitration enforcement action

At [15], Dreadstar unblocked Ludwigs2. A few lines above the unblock request I had previously added the {{uw-aeblock}} notice and a further message explaining the AE nature of the block. Dreadstar was therefore aware that he undid a block that was an arbitration enforcement action.

Dreadstar was aware of the rules governing reversals of AE actions and of the penalties for not abiding by them

The {{uw-aeblock}} notice on Ludwigs2's talk page contains a link to the ArbCom decision in the Trusilver case as well as its full operative text, which reads:

"Administrators are prohibited from reversing or overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy, except: (a) with the written authorization of the Committee, or (b) following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). If consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page. Any administrator that overturns an enforcement action outside of these circumstances shall be subject to appropriate sanctions, up to and including desysopping, at the discretion of the Committee."

Additionally, my message linked to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary sanctions, which reads in relevant part:

"Appeals: Sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement), or the Committee. Administrators are cautioned not to reverse such sanctions without familiarizing themselves with the full facts of the matter and engaging in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators' noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue. The Committee will consider appropriate remedies including suspension or revocation of adminship in the event of violations."

Dreadstar's unblock message made reference to that decision, which indicates that Dreadstar read it. Dreadstar was therefore aware that he was not allowed to undo the AE block of Ludwigs2 except as provided for in the abovementioned decisions, and he was also aware of the potential consequences of disobeying the Committee's decisions.

Dreadstar's unblock clearly did not meet the requirements for reversing an arbitration enforcement action

Requirements set forth in the Trusilver decision

The Trusilver decision, reproduced above, requires a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard" to undo an AE action. The three-hour WP:AN discussion that preceded the unblock, linked to here as it was at the time of the unblock, obviously did not meet these requirements. The following editors commented in between my announcement of the block and Dreadstar's unblock announcement:

• Supporting the block:

1. Collect, [16]. (Paul Siebert below asserts that Collect is biased because of alleged past conflicts with Ludwigs2 concerning Communism, but I neither keep track of who is on whose side in the various topic battlefields, nor do I think that it matters much here in a Pseudoscience-related matter. At any rate, a similar web of past associations and conflicts can probably be found for most people commenting both in the AN thread and on this page.)
2. Protonk, [17]

• Not clearly supporting or opposed to the block:

1. WhatamIdoing, [18], does not address the block
2. Hans Adler, [19], possibly critical of the block ("Sandstein has decided to shoot the messenger") but does not advocate overturning it. Hans Adler was at any rate involved in the underlying dispute.
3. N419BH, [20], possibly supportive of the block ("WP:BOOMERANG strikes again")

• Opposed to the block:

1. SlimVirgin, [21]
2. Short Brigade Harvester Boris, [22]. Whether he is an uninvolved editor is open to discussion, as his contributions show that he is heavily engaged in disputes related to Wikipedia's coverage of science and fringe science topics.
3. The Four Deuces, [23]
4. Xxanthippe, [24]. Xxanthippe was involved in the underlying dispute.

Only two clearly uninvolved editors, therefore, opposed the block, while two others (three if one includes N419BH) supported it, and the whole discussion lasted only about three hours until Dreadstar unblocked Ludwigs2. No editor can argue in good faith that this constituted a "clear, substantial, and active consensus" to unblock Ludwigs2.

Requirements set forth in the Pseudoscience decision

The Pseudoscience discretionary sanctions remedy, moreover, provides that

"Administrators are cautioned not to reverse such sanctions without familiarizing themselves with the full facts of the matter and engaging in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators' noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue" (my underlining).

Dreadstar did not do so. He did not only not wait for any consensus to emerge, as shown above, but he also made no attempt to engage me (as the blocking admin) in discussion, either onwiki or per e-mail, and he also did not engage in discussion with other editors, but simply announced his decision to unblock.

Moreover, Dreadstar's statement that he read the AN discussion as "no one in favor" of the block, which is at odds with the editors' actual comments as outlined above, indicates that Dreadstar did not even properly read the discussion and that he thereby failed to familiarize himself with the full facts of the matter, as he would have been required to.

By unblocking Ludwigs2, Dreadstar therefore did not comply with the Arbitration Committee's instructions, of which he was aware as shown above, in both the Trusilver and the Pseudoscience cases.

Dreadstar is responsible for the escalation of this matter to the Arbitration Committee

Even after his unblock, and after realizing (as he claims in his submission) his mistake, Dreadstar could have avoided the escalation of the problem by either

• reinstating the block, as he had been advised, or
• contacting me to seek my approval for the unblock or to propose another way to resolve the problem.

He did not do so. Instead, even after being advised of his mistake by another user, he replied:

"It was a very bad block and in my opinion did not properly fall under the ArbCom findings. If this goes to ArbCom, so be it." [25], and

"I was prepared for backlash when I did it." [26]

Then he archived that whole talk page section, with the apparent intent of cutting off any continued discussion, and did not reply to continued messages from other users advising him of his mistake ([27], [28]).

Given that Dreadstar had thus repeatedly made clear that he was not going to undo his unblock, that he had made his decision in the full knowledge of its possible consequences, that he was not ready to discuss the matter further and that he was ready for escalation to ArbCom, any communication by me (after I came back online and read the above) would not have served any useful purpose. This left me only the possibility of a request for arbitration to remedy Dreadstar's disruption of the arbitration enforcement process.

I am not certain that Dreadstar's statement that "I waited to hear from Sandstein" can be taken at face value, because his actions (as outlined above) do not provide the slightest indication that he was interested in hearing from me - rather, the opposite.

Conclusion

The evidence above shows that Dreadstar wilfully and repeatedly held the Committee's decisions in contempt and failed to exercise the judgment expected of an administrator. Even in view of his apology, which appears honest but rather belated, some kind of tangible sanction against him is still, I think, appropriate (even if not necessarily an indefinite desysop). If no such sanctions are imposed, other administrators would not be deterred from likewise wilfully undoing AE actions or even Committee decisions, which would lead to more entirely avoidable cases of this sort, and which would also substantially undermine the authority and binding nature of the Arbitration Committee's decisions. Additionally, I predict that such a development would reduce further the willingness of administrators to engage in enforcement work.

Dreadstar's unblock enables continued disruption by Ludwigs2

This evidence is added after the deadline for submitting evidence because it relies on an edit made after the deadline.

The Committee has repeatedly held, most recently on 16 March 2011 in the Kehrli 2 case, that:

"The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda (...) and political or ideological struggle, is prohibited."

Assuming that the Committee means what they say, in enforcement of this decision, I occasionally block editors that fail to meet these requirements after having been warned. In this case, I blocked Ludwigs2 also because his threats are part of a pattern of conduct, as seen in his block log (including a new 3RR block during this case), to use Wikipedia as a battleground for struggle (rather than cooperation) with those he disagrees with. This conduct continues even during this case, notably with this edit of 04:55, 30 March 2011 to the workshop page:

(Edit summary: "DreamGuy - picture yourself being slapped in the face with a glove. we're on.")

"(...) Kudos to you all for being able to lie through your teeth so effectively for so long, but by the same token you all earn the label 'troll' and the condemnation that goes with it. (...) I will gladly admit my side in this problem - I am smart enough to catch you all with your ideological pants down and pissy enough to berate you for it ungraciously in public - but you know, if y'all didn't try this kind of crap, y'all wouldn't get your fingers burned for it, yah?"

This evidence is not submitted as a basis for any ArbCom action against Ludwigs2 - his is a routine case of a battleground editor whose disruption could be effectively and quietly addressed via arbitration enforcement, if that enforcement is not wilfully disrupted, as it was by Dreadstar in this case. By unilaterally unblocking an editor who had been blocked for disrupting the editing environment, Dreadstar validated Ludwigs2's approach to disputes, and enabled (if not motivated) Ludwigs2 to continue such disruption. This makes Dreadstar directly responsible, in part, for Ludwigs2's continued disruption, and thereby responsible for contributing to an editing environment that is at odds with the purpose of Wikipedia as outlined by the Committee above.

Sandstein

My block of Ludwigs2 was within the ambit of discretionary sanctions

The discretionary sanctions remedy provides in relevant part (underlining and bracketed numbers added for reference):

"Any uninvolved administrator [1] may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict [2] (defined as articles which relate to pseudoscience, broadly interpreted) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior [3], or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.

Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision by an uninvolved administrator; [4] and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines."

My block of Ludwigs2 complied with these requirements, in particular the following:

• [1] "Uninvolved administrator": The remedy provides that "an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she is not engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic with the user receiving sanctions. Enforcing the provisions of this decision will not be considered to be participation in a dispute." I meet this requirement, as well as the more stringent requirements of WP:UNINVOLVED, because I have never been engaged in a conflict with Ludwigs2 as far as I recall. (It is possible that I did engage with him at some time in an administrative capacity, apart from my previous warning mentioned below, although I do not recall that either, and according to his block log I have not previously blocked him).
• [2] "Editor working in the area of conflict": The thread that triggered the block was a complaint by Ludwigs2 about editing on the Pseudoscience article. Ludwigs2 has also edited that article, most recently on 4 March, in what seems to be an edit war that had to be stopped by full protection. He is therefore an editor working in the area of conflict.
• [3] "Repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to any expected standards of behavior": The reason for the block was the following threat by Ludwigs2:

  "I'm dropping this in your lap now, because if you don't do something to get him to fly right you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly" (italics in original).

  Announcing one's intention to "shout down" and "shut up" another editor, and that things will "get ugly" can only be construed, as even Dreadstar agrees, as a serious threat of disruption, violating WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL and WP:BATTLE as well as the Committee's particular advice to editors working in this topic area "to edit carefully, to adopt Wikipedia's communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, dispute resolution [...]) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators".

  This threat by Ludwigs2 did not only represent serious, but also repeated misconduct, because his block log shows several blocks for similar problems (incivility, attacks etc.), of which many seem to be in the same topic area also.

• [4] "The editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision by an uninvolved administrator": Ludwigs2 received the required warning on 22 September 2008 by Elonka, an uninvolved administrator. More recently, I warned Ludwigs2 myself for a similar problem (thanks for reminding me of that, Mathsci). Additionally, prior to blocking Ludwigs2, I invited him to respond to the concerns I voiced about his threat at the AN thread, where the previous warning by Elonka was also linked to.

I did not communicate optimally with Ludwigs2 prior to blocking him, but that does not invalidate the block

While not required to by the remedy or any policy, for reasons of fairness, I always ask an editor whom I am about to sanction to comment about the concerns that have been put forward about their editing. This gives them an opportunity to explain any possible misunderstanding or to undo their problematic edits and so possibly avoid the sanction altogether.

I did so in this case as well, inviting Ludwigs2 to respond to the concerns I voiced about his threat at the AN thread. In retrospect, as I already commented at the request stage ([29], [30]), I agree that my communication could have been better:

• My message to Ludwigs2 did not explain my specific concerns but only referred to Ludwigs2's AN thread where I had explained them. The tone of the message was also not, as Casliber noted, "conducive to calming a frustrated editor down and moving forward."
• When Ludwigs2 responded without addressing the threat I had objected to, instead asking me "hunh? what are you talking about?", I should not have assumed that he was wilfully ignoring my question or failed to understand why the threat was problematic. Instead, it would have been better to give him another opportunity to respond.

I regret this miscommunication and will pay more attention to such issues in the future. Nonetheless, my messages did impart all information that would have been required for Ludwigs2 to respond appropriately, had he read my messages more attentively. In addition, pre-sanction communication of this kind is not a requirement under the discretionary sanctions remedy (although maybe it should be - I will consider making a corresponding workshop proposal). This is to say, following the remedy, I could have made a valid enforcement block without talking to Ludwigs2 at all. For these reasons, my suboptimal communication does not remove the arbitration enforcement purpose of my block, and, consequently, it does not excuse or mitigate Dreadstar's unblock.

I did not disregard a two hour period set for a response by Ludwigs2

Some submissions suggest that I gave Ludwigs2 two hours to reply to my concerns, but then blocked him before these two hours were up. That is not so. What I said to Ludwigs2 was (underlining mine):

"I will assume that you decline to respond to this concern if you do not do so within two hours of your next edit."

That is to say, I expected Ludwigs2 to reply within two hours after he indicated, by making any edit, that he was back online and editing Wikipedia. And indeed his response, even if it did not address the threat, was submitted within this timeframe.

It would have made no sense to expect him to answer within two hours after my message, because I had no reason to expect that he would even be online during that period.

Arbitration enforcement in general

Arbitrators wish to review AE practices in general and the use of discretionary sanctions in particular. In my opinion, the AE system is generally well-established and a benefit to the project. No major changes to the rules are therefore required, except perhaps certain tweaks and clarifications (for instance, that discretionary sanctions do apply to conduct outside of topic-related articles). This section provides evidence for this assertion.

Discretionary sanctions are frequently used

In the 14 areas where they are authorized (Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions), discretionary sanctions are regularly imposed. With respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict alone, where they are available since January 2008, a very approximate count in the enforcement log indicates that about 150 such actions (including blocks enforcing previous sanctions) have been made.

Many of these disputes, if they could not have been handled with some degree of finality through the AE system, would have needed to be addressed on community dispute resolution fora or by the Committee, usually with much more drama and effort. Also, it can be assumed that the availability of a relatively fast and authoritative framework to handle misconduct has deterred established editors in the respective topic areas from much confrontational behavior. Without AE, therefore, the number of escalating disputes may well have been higher.

Discretionary sanctions are seldom overturned

Also using the Arab-Israeli conflict area as an example, according to the enforcement log, only 7 of the about 150 enforcement actions seem to have been changed by somebody else than the admin who made them, or as a result of an appeal discussion in a public forum:

Details

Jewish lobby placed on a one-revert-only rule due to edit-warring by Moreschi, 22 January 2008. Undone as no longer necessary by PhilKnight, 19 September 2010 Pallywood placed on 1RR/week limit to expire in 30 days by Kylu, 2 February 2008. Lifted by Tariqabjotu, 4 February 2008 Tundrabuggy banned from editing Muhammad al-Durrah or Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah for a period of three months by MZMcBride, 10 June 2008. Lifted by Elonka, 17 and 30 June 2008 MeteorMaker banned from making Samaria-related reverts, or removing citations to reliable sources, for 90 days by Elonka, 14 February 2009. Lifted "without prejudice pending arbitration" by Jehochman, 1 March 2009 Nishidani blocked one week by Jehochman, 1 April 2009, unblocked "per ANI consensus" by Bishonen the same day. Nableezy topic-banned for two months by Sandstein, 1 January 2010. Ban lifted by Sandstein following appeal and discussion at WP:AE, 6 January 2010. Nableezy interaction-banned by Timotheus Canens, 29 November 2010. Ban partially lifted on appeal by Timotheus Canens, 8 December 2010.

No AE sanction that I know of has been overturned by the Arbitration Committee or Jimbo Wales.

This indicates that most discretionary sanctions seem to be considered appropriate (or at least not clearly inappropriate) by the wider community and the Committee, in the cases where they are appealed at all.

Discretionary sanctions are subject to review by a well-established appeals system

Under the rules instituted by the Committee in the Trusilver case in March 2010 (as quoted at WP:AEBLOCK), users subject to discretionary sanctions can appeal to the sanctioning admin, to the committee or to a community noticeboard discussion (which requires a "a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" to overturn). Since then, the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}} exists to provide structure to such appeal discussions. Its use is explained in the WP:AE edit notice and at WP:AEBLOCK, which is linked to from the AE block notice template, {{uw-aeblock}}. Users are therefore well-informed about the venues of appeal. The appeal template has been used 19 times in the AE archives. I am not aware of any appeal discussion derailing or of the result of any appeal discussion being contested.

Discretionary sanctions are generally accepted

I am not aware of any community discussion (such as a WP:RFC) that has expressed community discontent with the system of discretionary sanctions as instituted by the Arbitration Committee, or any particular aspect of it, such as the "Trusilver" restriction on undoing enforcement actions, the appeals framework or the enforcement practices of any administrator. As is to be expected, there have been expressions of discontent by users affected by individual enforcement actions and their friends.

Discretionary sanctions are routinely applied to conduct outside of article and article talk space

Even though the remedy providing for discretionary sanctions contains no limitation regarding namespace, the question of whether discretionary sanctions may be applied to conduct outside of article and article talk space has been raised.

The following incomplete list of enforcement actions, taken from a brief perusal of only the Arab-Israeli sanctions log (similar examples could be found for the other cases) shows that discretionary sanctions have routinely been applied and enforced outside of article and article talk space by many admins over a long period of time. To my knowledge, it has never even previously occurred to anybody that this might not be a valid use of discretionary sanctions, nor has the issue been raised in any previous appeal or complaint that I am aware of.

• Topic bans which explicitly extend to pages other than articles and their talk pages: [31], [32], [33], [34] (declined appeal),[35], [36], [37], [38] (by a now-arbitrator), [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46]

• Interaction bans, civility restrictions or similar sanctions that restrict interaction in discussions other than on article talk pages: [47], [48], [49]

• Arbitration enforcement blocks for edits outside of article or article talk space: [50] (by a now-arbitrator), [51] (undone after a discussion unrelated to the matter of the namespace), [52] (by another now-arbitrator), [53] (by the same), [54], [55] (by me)

Discretionary sanctions effectively address situations that would otherwise require arbitration cases

There is a workshop proposal to "reduce reliance on discretionary sanctions". My experience is that discretionary sanctions and the AE process provide for an effective framework that allows one or two experienced admins to resolve situations that are complicated enough that they might otherwise require arbitration cases to satisfactorily resolve. Whether these resolutions are just or appropriate is, of course, open to discussion (as with the outcome of an arbitration case), but judging by the relatively low number of appeals, the outcomes seem to be mostly uncontroversial or at least accepted. The following is a list of examples from March 2011 (!) only:

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive85#Jalapenos do exist: Complicated dispute about alleged source misrepresentation and POV editing, closed with a warning, no appeal.
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive85#Jacurek: Very complicated dispute about nationalist edit-warring in an Eastern European context. Four editors sanctioned, one ongoing appeal (but which seems to be resolved also)
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive85#ZjarriRrethues: Longterm conflict between several editors about "my nation is more glorious than yours" editing in Balkans-related articles. Two editors interaction-banned and warned, no appeal.
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive84#Shrike: Complicated case of Arab-Israeli conflict battlegrounding. Two editors topic-banned and revert-restricted, no appeal.
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive84#Jiujitsuguy and #Supreme Deliciousness: Complicated case of alleged misrepresentation of sources and ideological POV-pushing. One editor topic-banned, no appeal.

Evidence related to the evidence submitted by others

Hans Adler

Hans Adler's allegations are unsupported by specific evidence, and seem to contain a good dose of bad faith. Nonetheless, I take note that some perceive me as a heartless bureaucrat. Thanks for the compliment! Seriously, I feel that a certain resoluteness is necessary to effectively address misconduct in the highly confrontative and clique-ridden AE topic areas, and a concise style of communication helps to keep me from becoming involved in the underlying, often incredibly lame and time-wasting disputes (year-long edit-wars about whether Foo was a Pole or a Lithuanian, etc.). But I regret it if this has been mistaken for an unwillingness to communicate in earnest. I will try to bear in mind that the people involved in these disputes, who are often much more emotionally committed to their position than an administrator who just happens to come along, may mistake a concise, unemotional warning or block message in enforcement of some abstract-sounding policy for bureaucratic arrogance.

As far as I know, I have never declined to explain and discuss my actions reasonably promptly and in appropriate detail when asked to (as Dreadstar did not in this case). But at least the assertion that I am unwilling to change my mind in the face of new evidence is falsifiable. Just off the top of my mind, in the last few weeks, I have changed AE sanctions twice after others convinced me that they were not optimal or not well thought out:

• Change to a sanction regarding the article Mass killings under Communist regimes‎‎, 21 February 2011
• Vacating an editing restriction under WP:DIGWUREN, 24 March 2011

Evidence presented by Ludwigs2

I'm breaking my evidence down into three sections, for clarity and convenience. The sections cover the following topics, for the following rationales:

1. That QuackGuru was tendentiously engaged in promoting overt synthesis from publish sources.
   • This is intended to show that my wp:AN thread was neither frivolous nor out-of line.
2. That Sandstein made no effort whatsoever to examine the context of the wp:AN complaint, but instead trumped-up an excuse that would allow him to immediately jump to placing sanctions on me.
   • This intended to show that Sandstein acted with deliberate bad faith with respect to me and with respect to the interests of the encyclopedia.
3. That Sandstein and other editors have a pattern of intimidating editors (through harassment or sanctions) in order to exclude or deter them from presenting disliked content perspectives on fringe articles.
   • This is intended to demonstrate that this is a broad systemic problem, rather than simple administrative misjudgment, to make it clear that stronger measures are necessary to remedy the problem. --Ludwigs2 16:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

QuackGuru aggressively promoted synthesis from published sources

This section is intended to show that QuackGuru (talk · contribs) was explicitly engaged in synthesis from published sources on the pseudoscience article, and to suggest that this is an established pattern of behavior. I say 'explicitly' rather than 'deliberately' because I am not entirely certain that QG understands the policy on synthesis - this despite a variety of interactions with him on issues related to SYN. His responses on such issues are invariably didactic and confused.

QuackGuru's overt synthesis in this particular case

The contested passage was originally added by QuackGuru here in December 2010 (one month after the publication of the article, incidentally), and was removed by me as inappropriate in the next edit - [56] - with a discussion begun in talk. The passage has gone through a number of revisions, removals and changes since then, but none of the changes addressed the actual problem of synthesis.

This claim comes from the following abstract, which I include in its entirety (collapsed) for easy reference:

Article abstract, Matute et al, Br J Psychol. 2010 Nov 18.

Pseudoscience, superstitions, and quackery are serious problems that threaten public health and in which many variables are involved. Psychology, however, has much to say about them, as it is the illusory perceptions of causality of so many people that needs to be understood. The proposal we put forward is that these illusions arise from the normal functioning of the cognitive system when trying to associate causes and effects. Thus, we propose to apply basic research and theories on causal learning to reduce the impact of pseudoscience. We review the literature on the illusion of control and the causal learning traditions, and then present an experiment as an illustration of how this approach can provide fruitful ideas to reduce pseudoscientific thinking. The experiment first illustrates the development of a quackery illusion through the testimony of fictitious patients who report feeling better. Two different predictions arising from the integration of the causal learning and illusion of control domains are then proven effective in reducing this illusion. One is showing the testimony of people who feel better without having followed the treatment. The other is asking participants to think in causal terms rather than in terms of effectiveness.

Things to note about this abstract:

• The initial 'pseudoscience, superstitions, and quackery' statement - which is what was quoted in wikipedia - only appears in the abstract, and is not part of the article itself
• The article is clearly an article about cognitive distortions that lead to erroneous beliefs, and not an article about pseudoscience itself.
• The experiment in the article clearly (sentence 6) limits the scope of the article to quackery.
• The article is a psychology article in a psychology journal, and is consequently not reliable for discussing pseudoscience in general (except in the specific vein of possible cognitive distortions).
  • It's doubtful that this source is even reliable for discussions of medical quackery - there's no indication that any of the authors are MDs - but the idea that medical quackery might pose a health risk is so common-sensical that I probably would not have opposed the source on that narrow ground.

However, this quotation - "Pseudoscience, superstitions, and quackery are serious issues that are a threat to the public" - was placed in the overview of the pseudoscience article in such a way that it could only be interpreted to mean that all pseudoscience was a threat to the public. That is not true to the source's intent, is not tracaeble to other sources, nor is it even remotely consistent with common sense. As I pointed out in talk -[57], [58] - UFOlogy, parapsychology, cryptozoology, cold fusion, and a host of other pseudoscientific topics pose no conceivable threat to the public.

N.b. Mathsci produced an older surce that says much the same thing as this except adds a phrase about public science education. That makes more sense - all pseudoscience raises concerns about public science education, and some medical pseudoscience creates a more direct risk to the public. However, the worries about public science education do not constitute a 'threat' in any meaningful sense, and so even this source does not justify the claim made in the article.

Upshot: QuackGuru was pushing for a literal reading of a non-significant portion of the abstract of an article on a completely different topic, just so he could say something damaging about pseudoscience as a whole. It's about as clear a case of wp:original research as I have seen.

QuackGuru's tendentious behavior with respect to promoting this synthesis

This source was repeatedly reintroduced to the article in that capacity, mostly by QG, but also by a number of drive-by editors. To give an idea of the talk page tendentiousness, here is a fairly typical exchange (please forgive the heat in one of my responses - this was in the third month of repetitions of this same kind of argument, and was one day before I decided to take a day-long chill-out break from the page):

• [59] QG claiming that the source 'literally says' this, so the quote is relevant.
• [60] L2 noting that no one is saying that the source doesn't 'literally say' that, but that it's a misrepresentation to use the quote this way.
• [61] QG asserting that my objection is a personal bias, and that we have to stick to what the source 'literally says' without interpretation of context.
• [62] L2 (somewhat heatedly) pointing out - again - that no one is questioning what the source 'literally says', but that the source is not reliable for or relevant to the pseudoscience article, and is being taken out of context and used for original research.
• [63] QG simple contradiction - saying the source is relevant and is not taken out of context, and accusing me of making 'vague' objections.
• [64] L2 pointing out that I have made several clear and relevant objections, that he is just refusing to acknowledge.
• [65] QG simple denial that I have made any argument at all.

There are numerous other examples of this kind of discussion on the talk page; this was just a particularly clear version of the conventional exchange.

Upshot: QuackGuru's pursuit of adding this original research was dogmatic and tendentious, simply repeating the same formulaic position repeatedly, and dismissing any counter-arguments as so much meaningless noise.

QuackGuru's long-term problems on fringe articles

QuackGuru has a long history of problematic editing on fringe articles. This has led to to 11 blocks, 3 wikiquettes, 1 RFC/U, and 21 Administrative threads in which he was the subject. This was all detailed when I asked for a community ban for him in decmber, 2010. Almost all of these concerns the same kind of behavior at pages relating to alternative medicine, or on policy pages where he tries to defend or institute the context-free literalism that he advocates (for as shown above). A typical contribution to Chiropractic, for instance - that being one of his most frequently edit pages - consists of him trying to do the following:

• Remove or reinsert sources under wp:MEDRS due to reliability, with no explanation of what he means, and no acknowledgement of any requests for explanation or of any arguments offered against his blanket assertions [66], [67], [68].
• Further examples of literalistic reasoning, and accusations of wp:OR against editors who try to discuss the text in its context [69], [70].

Upshot: I could go on with a vast number of further diffs, and will if requested, but the main issue here is that my wp:AN complaint agains QG was reasonable and valid - referencing a tendentious policy violation by an editor with a long history of tendentiousness issues. Sanctioning me on the misinterpretation of a single statement while ignoring and dismissing an ongoing policy violation is inexplicable, but clearly against the greater interests of the project.

Sandstein's block was unjustified and combative

This section is intended to show that Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) entered this situation with the clear and singular intent of blocking me, on whatever pretext possible. It is an obvious abuse of his administrative powers, which is only magnified by the fact that there is no evident reason for the abuse

Sandstein's actions detailed

The original statement that caused this was the last paragraph of this diff, repeated here for convenience:

So, you guys want to keep QuackGuru around as an editor - okayfine. Now, tell me how to get him to use even a modicum of common sense and reason so that we can have a proper discussion on the page. I'm dropping this in your lap now, because if you don't do something to get him to fly right you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly. We don't want that (or at least I don't), so give me another solution.

I am aware and have admitted that this paragraph reeks of frustration, and I subsequently redacted the last half at Dreadstar's request, but read in whole like this, the paragraph cannot reasonably be construed as a threat towards anything. It's simply an unpleasant moment of venting at the end of a long, fairly reasonable description of a behavioral problem I was experiencing at an article. However, note the progression of Sandstein's actions:

1. [71] In this post, Sanstein:
   • Dismisses the substantive element of the complaint with a glib "As far as I can tell, this is a content dispute", despite the fact that I specifically described behavioral issues and pointed out my concerns over them.
   • Misquotes me by omitting the beginning and end of that paragraph (the parts where I ask for help on how to get QG to use common sense, and state that I want some other alternative than escalation of the conflict).
   • Asks me to "show cause why I should not be sanctioned", implying that he has already decided to sanction me unless I give some undisclosed response.
2. [72] Sandstein follows this with a post on my talk page in which he:
   • Repeats his demand that I "show cause why I should not be sanctioned".
   • Makes an extremely bad faith assumption that I will not respond, and dictates a two hour time limit in which I must respond to his point or be sanctioned regardless.
3. [73] Again tries to direct attention away from the discussion of QuackGuru in wp:AN.
4. [74] Blocks me, simply because I requested further information in talk [75] rather than doing whatever never-specified thing would have satisfied him.
   • Note that in his block notice, he cites the problem as being an effort to "coerce administrators into taking action against an opponent", but then returned to the "making threats against other editors" rationale. Neither is true, but I believe he felt the latter wold be easier to sell under policy.
5. [76] Adds a comment to wp:AN, saying:
   • "Did not withdraw or address the complaint" - obviously, since I was blocked before I could do so, or even figure out what he wanted.
   • "Considering their block log, in order to prevent such conduct from recurring...", despite the fact that my block log has only two entries since 2008 (one for 20 minutes and one for 25 minutes), both due to similar bad blocks.

Upshot: It is clear that Sandstein had no interest whatsoever in considering the context of my complaint, but was intent from the start on blocking me (for whatever reason he could drum up). He asserted that he was going to block me unless I 'showed cause' why he shouldn't, misquoted my statement to make it look more blockable, never explained what 'showing cause' might mean and blocked me when I asked for clarification, and repeatedly dismissed the possibility that there could be any valid complaints against QG. Placing the issue under the AE rubric was simply a convenience for him, so that he could have more leeway to block me and could make even this bad, pointy, senseless block 'stick'.

Really, it was just pure bullying. Admins should not behave in that kind of thoughtless, biased, irrational manner.

Afterthought: As I review Sandstein's actions while filling out the section below, I have to say that - while I still see a bias - I'm getting the impression that Sandstein is simply heavy-handed with everyone when it comes to AE sanctions. It's nice to have the sense that this is not such an intensely personal injustice, but in some ways more troubling. I do not believe that the 'discretionary' part of discretionary sanctions was meant to imply a "shoot first and ask questions never" approach.

On the (ir)relevance and (mis)use of AE sanctions

Much of Sandstein's argument relies on the fact that he was entitled to 'use his discretion' under the AE sanctions about where and when they could be applied. As I understand it, however, the breadth given to administrators under AE sanctions was intended to prevent editors from exporting fights from one article to another article. In other words, it was to prevent an editor at (say) 'Cold Fusion' from avoiding ArbCom sanctions by moving to an article like 'Nuclear Fusion' and continuing disruptive arguments there, or creating a new article to house the same disruptive arguments. I can see a certain sense in allowing AE to apply to content noticeboards (if it were done very carefully, so as not to inhibit editors from using content noticeboards), but trying to apply AE sanctions to administrative noticeboards is bizarre and counterproductive. Administrative noticeboards are explicitly for discussion of behavioral and policy problems. I do not believe the committee intended to make reporting potential problems to administrators sanctionable under their auspices. Doing so would inhibit editors from raising valid concerns for discussion, and ultimately cause worse problems on articles in the long run.

I'm fairly certain that Sandstein is aware of this - I don't see how he could not be, given the amount of AE work he does. I think he tried it because he knew that he could not have made the block stick if he blocked me under conventional procedures - i.e., he knew that any such block would have been undone as yet another bad block in a matter of a few minutes. This is supported by the fact that numerous editors objected to the block immediately after he committed it. It's unfortunate and disturbing that he decided to try to up-the-ante that way.

Also, given the unwavering beeline that Sandstein made towards blocking me (as described above), it is farcical to claim that he is an uninvolved admin. Clearly, an uninvolved admin would have asked me to redact the problematic line and gone on to evaluate the merits of the claim being made - that's just cool-headed, common sense behavior. I have no idea what Sandstein's involvement is, mind you, but I do not believe that any objective observer could look at his actions towards me and interpret them as neutral, reasonable, and disinterested. I think we have to use QUACK here, based on his behavior, and assert that he is in fact (somehow) an involved admin who is obscuring his reasons for involvement.

Pattern of using unjustified sanctions against editors on fringe article

This section is intended to show that there is a distinct and irrational prejudice against editors who have (for whatever reason) been labeled as fringe, and that this results in a general atmosphere of hostility and aggression, and an unfair and disproportionate application of sanctions by some administrators. This produces content biases that are just shameful for an encyclopedia, as editors who are willing to give fair shrift to fringe topics are blocked, banned, or harassed off of fringe topic articles.

Ongoing hostility towards anyone perceived as being 'fringe'

The early responses to the wp:AN thread that started this problem include the following:

• [77] an administrator ignoring any potential problems with QG and suggesting that I banned from editing policy (assumedly from edits I made at wp:NPOV trying to rationalize it so that QG's kind of literalistic synthesis would be discouraged)
• [78] kww suggesting that 'pseudoscience advocacy' should be a blockable offense in and of itself.
• [79] Kww (in response to my suggestion that he was not being serious), claiming that he is, and that the best way to relieve QG's frustration would be to block me. (I'm ignoring for the moment his poor assessment of science editing on wikipedia - I may deal with that in a later section).

Note, incidentally, that this fairly overt threat against me went unnoticed by admins.

This is a typical type of experience for any editor who works on fringe articles. 'anti-fringe' editors and admins (I could make a short list of about 20 that I run into with regular frequency) have a decidedly 'us-or-them' attitude: they have no problem labeling other editors as advocates and treating them like opponents, they work in tandem to revert changes on a kneejerk basis, they threaten and apply sanctions disproportionately, and harass other editors with impunity. It's not uncommon for me to spend days being berated and insulted by a coterie of anti-fringe editors without any administrators commenting, but then receive a stern warning within minutes of saying something intemperate. Frankly, if I weren't such a stubborn ass I'd have left wikipedia long ago - one needs to have cojones the size of bowling balls to edit fringe topics on wikipedia, because it is simply one aggravating event after another. This issue with QG, for instance: I report an en clair act of tendentious original research (no one thus far has even bothered to try to suggest that QG's actions were correct), but rather than administrators and editors showing concern that fallacious information was being pushed into an article, QG's behavior is dismissed and ignored and numerous people focus their efforts on trying to sanction me for pointing out QG's policy violation.

A similar case occurred with Littleolive oil (talk · contribs) a few weeks previously. olive received a 3-month topic ban under AE rules from NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). This topic ban (as I argued) was not based on any real problem, and the ostensible reason - a short editing tussle over a passage - was clearly insignificant, and clearly prompted by meatpuppets (drive-by editors who had never edited the article before, but showed up in rapid succession to revert Olive's changes). Further, Olive's behavior was always polite and reasonable, while anti-fringe editors on the same article (especially Jim62sch (talk · contribs), who was the only person directly admonished by arbcom in the TM arbitration), were generally allowed to be rude and uncooperative on the talk page. However, before I could get an explanation for the ban or an accounting of these issues Sandstein closed Olives appeal [80] citing procedural grounds.

SkinWalker's evidence

I want to thank SkinWalker and BullRangifer for giving a far more effective demonstration of the anti-fringe bias on project than I could ever have hoped to do by myself. Read SkinWalker's evidence, and note the breezy way in which he conflates content discussion with editorial disposition, as though anyone who dares to say anything non-condemning about fringe topics must automatically be a dedicated fringe advocate: e.g. where he says "Dreadstar's unblock was based on ideological grounds stemming from the fringe battleground", as though the mere act of overturning a very problematic block must involve some ideological stance, or the way SkinWalker interprets Dreadstar's statement: "This entire situation over WP:FRINGE and paranormal articles needs to be investigated in detail and the paradigms for what Wikipedia presents should be clarified" as fringe advocacy. I was particularly pleased by the way Skinwalker claimed that the fact that Dreadstar, Little Oliveoil and I all happened to work on the NPOV/FAQ revisions (as well as the fact that Dreadstar cautioned someone about an uncivil comment) as evidence of "collaboration". When BullRangifer makes this subsequent edit in which he (with an apparent absence of independent thought and a complete insensitivity to civility and common sense) adopts Skinwalker's poor reasoning and inflammatory rhetoric whole hog, reasserting it as a truth, the political dynamic becomes absolutely clear. Neither Skinwalker nor BullRangifer are at all interested in establishing a proper discussion or engaging in any deliberate reflection on the issues involved; both are merely looking for some rhetorical stance from which to pursue a dedicated campaign against any editor who is not as diametrically opposed to fringe topics as they are. It's nothing less than an effort to control content on articles through the dedicated removal (through blocks, bans, intimidation, or what you will) of editors who take even moderate positions - a kind of wiki-pogrom, as it were. It's particularly sad, since Dreadstar, Olive, and myself are all reasonable, highly educated, thoughtful and moderate editors - I'm the grumpiest of the bunch by far, yet my behavior pales in comparison to the aggressive editing of favored science editors. Using politics this way to try to dispose of good editors in order to defend an entrenched content perspective is just offensive.

Astrology

A late addition to evidence, but worth considering. Moreschi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) topic banned a number of editors from astrology related articles and their talk pages [81], apparently because they engaged in a discussion over whether the lead should say

• "Astrology is generally considered to be a pseudoscience by the scientific community."

as opposed (assumedly) to the current version

• "The scientific community states that astrology's pseudoscientific status is due to making predictive claims which either cannot be falsified or have been consistently disproved. It cannot be classified as science because it lacks empirical support, supplies no hypotheses, and resolves to describe natural events in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural causes. Psychology explains much of the continued faith in astrology as a matter of cognitive biases."

At least one editor Costmary (talk · contribs) has complained about being unfairly included in the mass ban, to no avail.

I make no judgement about the ostensive reasons for the ban (except to note that Moreschi himself recognizes that no one has done anything block-worthy [82] and that Moreschi refuses to offer an explicit rationale for the bans [83], essentially telling people that he won't bother to explain himself in detail unless someone 'takes it up with the arbitrators' - I dislike 'guilty until proven innocent' reasoning). I don't believe I would agree with this content change myself (though to my mind the current version is fairly pugnacious and ought to be revised some), but banning editors both from editing the article and participating in talk is extremely heavy-handed, and only justifiable as an effort to prevent the issue from being raised and discussed. There's nothing here that could not have been handled by short-term page protection and civil discussion, and the result might have been a compromise that produced a gentler, more neutral treatment of the scientific community's appraisal of the topic.

Habitual use of trumped-up AE sanctions against editors on fringe articles

This section is a placeholder - I personally know of my case (in which Sandstein used AE to give an inappropriate block) and the case of Littleolive oil (talk · contribs) - in the archives (In which Sandstein closed the case in the midst of a discussion over whether it was an inappropriate AE topic ban). I will need to take some time over the week, however, to dig more thoroughly through Sandstein's AE actions, and the actions of other admins that he has supported.

Responses to other editors

Response to Sandstein's evidence

with respect to this post about my response to DreamGuy on the workshop page. three points to notice:

1. Sandstein (again) misapplies AE - this time assuming that AE sanctions would apply to discussions in an Arbitration case itself. This was not a disruptive comment here; this was a normal part of the discussion process at ArbCom
2. Sandstein - again - misinterprets a small section of my post in an overly-eager way. He took a fairly conventional challenge image (the dueling image of striking someone with a glove to protest a violation of honor) as though it were a battleground mentality.
3. Sandstein - again - ignores a violation of policy by a favored editor in order to attack another editor he dislikes. In this case, DreamGuy explicitly lied about me and my behavior on project. Sandstein actually points to the passage where I tell DreamGuy that he's lying and challenge him to prove that he isn't as though it were a bad thing to point out people's lies.

I don't actually believe that Sandstein would generally endorse people lying in ArbCom evidence in order to satisfy some political agenda, but in fact that is what he is doing here. Is it because he believes the lie itself? Because he doesn't believe in the lie but supports the agenda behind it? Because he has such a distaste for me as a person that he is willing - yet again - to go to any extreme to make me look bad? Ask him. None of these attitudes, however, reflect the sober judgement one would expect from an administrator.

A comment on fringe issues, or why I am in the anti-fringe camp's bad books

Just so we are clear on why I get such trouble from anti-fringe editors...

I follow a "gorilla cage" model for editing fringe articles. In short, I believe that when readers come to wikipedia to read about fringe topics, they do so in the same spirit as people who go to zoos to see gorillas. In that sense, we should handle fringe articles the same way that modern zoos handle gorillas - display them in something akin to their natural context, but ensure that there is sufficient 'caging' (barriers between the thing and the viewer) so that people can understand the thing-as-it-is without the danger of being caught up in it. I see this as a decent balance between the advocate's route (which basically tries to subsume the reader into the "gorilla's" worldview), and the skeptical route (which basically wants to throw the gorilla into a 6x6 steel and concrete cage, with huge signs that say "this is a stupid, ugly, and dangerous animal, so keep away!").

Unfortunately, numbers of anti-fringe editors see any effort to display fringe topics in a natural context as advocacy and oppose it militantly, and anti-fringe editors are cliquish and automatically defend each other against any perceived threat. The result is that it no longer matters how reasonable, accurate, well-sourced, informative, or intelligent any of my actions might be; I am more-or-less permanently classified as a 'fringe advocate' and am opposed on almost everything I do in a heavy-handed and thoughtless manner. This is aggravated by the fact that I am generally rational and often correct with respect to policy and common sense - rather than making things easier, this just gets people angry at me (understandably, because no one likes to be corrected on rational grounds, and I'm not particularly gentle on such matters). I have resigned myself to the fact that editing fringe articles will always be a painful process of repeating the same reasoned arguments to a dozen different hostile editors for every small change I want to make, but ArbCom should be aware that few editors have my inner resources for dealing with this kind of crap, so the attrition rate amongst editors on fringe articles is more than likely extraordinarily high.

Evidence presented by Hodja Nasreddin

Sandstein followed the rules

You should not punish an administrator (or any other user) who followed your instructions and rules in this case. It appears that Ludwigs2 made a statement that may be perceived a threat, exactly as Sandstein said. Sandstein is also generally willing to ask for a piece of advice from others [84], discuss the issues, and modify decisions [85].

Yes, AE has become a battleground. But who creates wikibattles? Certainly not administrators (this case is an exception). Do not edit war, do not report each other to AE, and do not use every arbitration to sanction your content opponents.

How to improve the system

DGG said: AE "is therefore the special province of a few self-selected administrators. If one of them has bad judgment, the system collapses." Yes, the system may need improvement. You can make the following:

1. Ask that any block or ban longer than a week in the area of discretionary sanctions should be posted for discussion at AE, rather than applied by an individual administrator
2. Appoint a group of experienced and trusted administrators who agree to work at AE
3. Sanctions should be taken by consensus of at least three administrators from the group;
4. These sanctions should not be undone by individual administrators, but only based on appeal and new consensus at AE.
5. Make sanctions more constructive by providing the following clear guidelines: (1) someone who was engaged in edit wars should be issued only 1RR restriction for a couple of months, but not topic ban; (2) someone who was uncivil should be given only a brief (2-3 days) block; (3) never issue topic bans longer than 2-3 months for a good content contributor; keep such bans only for obvious SPA.

More important, perhaps the psychology of sanctioning users "by the rules" is wrong. Our only purpose is creating the encyclopedia. Therefore, main goal of administrators should be improving the production, rather than enforcing the rules. There are many people who occasionally edit war or make questionable comments in the areas of discretionary sanctions. Should one report them all to AE? Yes, if we want to enforce the rules. No, if we want to create encyclopedia. Yes, banning SPA who create nothing but disruption is great. However, consider a frequent situation when a good content contributor was indefinitely topic banned after having some problems. In theory, the removal of such contributor should allow other more neutral contributors to fix the articles in this area. However, this never happens in the areas I am familiar with. The subjects liked by banned contributors (and there are so many of them!) are suffering from neglect. In fact, almost no one edits these articles, or sometimes, another "side" takes revenge and restore their POV (yes, new editors are occasionally coming, but they edit something else). Hence I suggested never issue long topic bans for good content contributors above.

Evidence presented by Stephan Schulz

Sandstein lacks the self-reflection and flexibility to administer AE-blocks

See [86], where he process-wonks and wiki-lawyers without any substantial understanding of the situation or his role in it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Special status for AE blocks is, at least, problematic

When undoing of a clearly disproportionate block leads to this mess, something in the process is broken. I believe its the special status awarded to AE blocks that any admin can create at his whim. "We'll eventually reign in serial abusers" is a noble idea, but it does not help the affected user. This tool is too sharp to let in the hand of individual people. Wikipedia has run for years on the definition that "a ban is a block that no single admin undoes". If AE blocks need special protection (which I doubt), require "any three admins", but not "consensus" (which, in contentious areas, is naturally hard to come bye, and a fuzzy concept to star with) or "ArbCom" (which typically takes days). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Dreadstar shows reasonable behavior

...e.g. here, although he is a bit defensive. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Paul Siebert

Sandstein's statement that both editors who supported the block were uninvolved is questionable

By writing that "only two clearly uninvolved editors, therefore, opposed the block, while two others (three if one includes N419BH) supported it" [87], Sandstein was not completely correct. L2 and Collect have been extensively involved in disputes on several Communism related WP pages, such as Communist terrorism and Mass killings under Communist regimes. It is not a secret that the users working in this area frequently display more or less pronounced partisan behaviour, and, taking into account that Collect and L2 definitely belong to the opposing camps, Collect can hardly be considered as a neutral uninvolved party in a discussion about the L2 block. The examples of their disputes went to archives now, but they can be found, e.g., there [88], there [89], [90], etc. I do not know if Dreadstar was aware of that fact, but in actuality only one editor who supported the block was clearly uninvolved. Taking into account that Sandstein seems to monitor the Communism related articles, they should be aware of the opposition between these two editors.
For sake of objectivity, I believe I have to explain that, since I myself also frequently participate in Communism related disputes, and since L2 and I belong to the same camp, I cannot be considered as an uninvolved party. Nevertheless, I believe that the above information should be taken into account.

Evidence presented by DGG

The various statements above give the diffs; I attempt to show the underlying logic. If this is in the wrong place, & should go in the talk page, please move it there. This area of WP is one in which I have little experience; I would only saying something here if it appears to be needed to avoid an exceptionally unacceptable and inequitable result.

The underlying dispute

a.QuackGuru was unequivocally wrong on the underlying dispute. Trying to use the rather vague introductory sentence in the abstract as evidence of anything about pseudoscience i general is absurd on the face of it. The article is not a study of pseudoscience, or of its harmful effects, whether respecting one particular pseudoscientific belief, and certain not of all of them collectively. QG's use of it was selective quotation, the art of finding a sentence which says what you want to say, if looked at narrowly and out of context.
b.The consensus in the discussion was that this use was wrong, but it was impossible to convince QG, who was basically exhibiting IDON'THEARTHAT, otherwise known as sout denial regardless of the evidence, a method which can only succeed by intimidation.
c.Ludwigs2 was merely expressing his frustration at the situation. The most that can be read into his statement is an attempt to urge someone to either ignore QG or to block him. Warning that one might request of block of someone exhibiting obstructive behavior is not a threat, but a proper action
d.Sandstein's block is thus simply wrong.

The specific AE procedure here

e. Saying something is AE does not make it so, unless it is reasonably justified.
f.Any admin may and should undo an invalid action of another admin., and therefore in terms of the actual situation Dreadstar was fundamentally justified in doing so.
g.Under the current wording of AE, however, he was not permitted to do so.
h.The current wording of AE is thus counterproductive in this situation, and IAR supersedes it.
i.Dreadstar was courageous enough to take action accordingly, and should be commended. The technical violation was justified.

The general procedure of AE

j.In a situation where there are 700 active admins, a system that lets any one of them take action that cannot be readily reversed is unstable.
k.It can only work when there is very general agreement on what action to take, or where most admins have enough sense not to assume the full authority they are technically permitted to assume. l.Most admins do have the sense to avoid AE, and it is therefore the special province of a few self-selected administrators.
m.If one of them has bad judgment, the system collapses.
n.The only way we can preserve it is by sanctioning admins who abuse it. I wish I could suggest of a replacement system less subject to abuse, but I am not able to do so.

@Collect. You ask "should arb com enforce its dicta?" The answer (as Ocaasi & Johnuniq & HJMitchell say also) is that Arb Coms's dicta & methods are incapable of equitable use in difficult circumstances. Yes, Arb Com may choose to either enforce its dicta or to do justice. If it does the first, the Arb Enforcement system must be replaced by the community because it is being used wrongly; if they choose the second, it must be replaced because it cannot be used rightly. DGG ( talk ) 19:21, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

@skinwalker. Yes, it does seem that Dreadstar is not an uninvolved editor with respect to pseudoscience, and he should not be using admin powers in this broad area. We have too long tolerated admin action in areas where the admins are involved, and we should interpret this much more broadly and stringently. This needs to be made very plain, going forward from here. Possibly consensus at ANI should be enough to prevent an admin from using the tools in particular areas, without needing to come to arb com. DGG ( talk ) 05:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Ocaasi

I'm marginally involved, as a frequent advocate of Ludwigs' anti-excessive-skepticism, a critic of QG's editing style, and an editor at Pseudoscience.

Ludwigs had a substantial reason to go to ANI

• I don't think QG's Wikipedia career or future should be addressed here, but the specific issue about which Ludwigs' went to ANI seems relevant. QG was taking a statement in a source per WP:V and using it with a kind of literalism that makes encyclopedic writing impossible. There was no consideration for the statement's context, whether it matched up with the author's authority to make such a claim, whether the claim was backed up in the essay, whether other sources similarly or more reliably address such issues. In short, it's the kind of adherence to a single policy and a single policy reading that makes this community grind to a halt. In the interest of NPOV, Editorial Discretion must be balanced with prohibitions on Original Research. We are here to write an encyclopedia, not to take any statement presented in a reliable source and blindly present it as fact.
• It is very difficult to discuss these issues with QG, who tends to just repeat the policy he claims supports his edit and while accusing editors who disagree as violating it.
• However, even if QG was beyond obviously wrong, Ludwigs' statement and subsequent block/unblocks would not depend on that.

Ludwigs' language was used out of frustration, in the context of requesting help

• I believe Ludwigs' comment was not a meaningful threat, just a statement of intention to go argue his point vociferously. I think that despite the unfortunate choice of words, it was an empty threat, and was accompanied by an open request to the community to pursue the problem within procedures. Also, Ludwigs is not always calm, but he's clearly not an idiot, and going around guns blazing at AN would have been beneath his judgment. In the context of seeking help at AN, the language could have been cautioned while taking it as mere venting on the way towards dispute resolution.
• Ludwigs could chill a bit on the rhetoric.

Sandstein's block set a confusing timetable which he did not stick to

• Sandstein's block was within reasonable discretion, but there was an added component of a self-imposed 2 hour time limit (Request for response: 21:54, March 8, 2011), which was not heeded (Block: 23:33, March 8, 2011). There was an intermediary response by Ludwigs asking for clarification, which I assume Sandstein took as just him being obtuse, since Sandstein did not answer Ludwigs' request. If there is clarification on the appropriateness of an AE block here, it should also include some statement about whether and how administrators should go about setting up preconditions for blocks, and if not following them is grounds for overturning a block.

QuackGuru's editing may be a problem but this case is not the place to address it

• QG needs some closer eyes, but this case is not the forum for it and doing so would turn a minor situation in to a mess. Wait for an RFCU.

Something's wrong with the AE block system

• There is a misalignment between any administrator being able to issue an AE block without barely any process and the prohibition on any other administrator overturning that block without a significant amount of process. This mismatch will likely lead to more IAR unblocks and more of these situations without either: a) some clarification; b) more process required to issue an AE block; or c) clear sanctions for Dreadstar (not my preferred option). If Arbs intend to sanction Dreadstar here, I recommend it in be accompanied by a change to the AE block template stating, in bold letters, Administrators: This is an Arbitration Enforcement block. Do not unblock without communicating with the blocking Admin or obtaining clear consensus from uninvolved Admins. No small text, just make it obvious.

Ocaasi (talk) 02:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Johnuniq

Like DGG above, I believe adequate diffs have already been given and want to present my analysis of the logic of the case, and would also welcome having this moved to the talk page if it is inappropriate here.

AEBLOCK does not have draconian power: it only requires that an unblocking admin wait for a few hours while consensus is reached. It is conceivable that an admin could go rogue and block Jimbo citing AEBLOCK, or a compromised admin's account could make similarly unhelpful blocks. However, this case cannot be regarded as requiring an emergency override of the blocking admin, regardless of whether the block was incorrect.

A discussion at AN will be seen by many editors, and there would be a clear consensus to overturn a bad block within a few hours. Sandstein blocked Ludwigs2 at 23:28, 8 March 2011 and Dreadstar unblocked 3¼ hours later at 02:42, 9 March 2011.^{block log} When Dreadstar unblocked, the AN discussion looked like this (02:44, 9 March 2011); there were four "overturn" statements, and I count three "keep" (Collect, Protonk, and Franamax), as well as three comments with no clear overturn/keep. Those numbers are not sufficient to claim a clear consensus.

AEBLOCK is dead if it can be overruled by IAR or a weak consensus after 3¼ hours. AEBLOCK must be revoked, or there must be at least a minor sanction. If AEBLOCK is revoked, an admin could immediately reverse an AE block and be fully protected by WP:WHEEL. The problems with that situation should be apparent, while the only problem with keeping AEBLOCK is that the unblocking admin has to wait for a significant period and a significant consensus (perhaps AEBLOCK could present a brief guideline about that). Johnuniq (talk) 07:45, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Xxanthippe

I have been an occasional editor of the pseudoscience article but gave up after the antics of QuackGuru; however I continued to watch the page. The block of Ludwigs2 by Sandstein was neither justified nor (Wiki)legal. The block violated the principles of natural justice and due process. In all jurisdictions of the English-speaking world the accused is given a clear statement of the charges against him at the start of the process. Ludwigs2 was entitled to similar consideration, whether or not other editors, found the charges to be "clear". Such explanation was not given when asked for. Sandstein invented his own process and then violated it by blocking before the end of the period he granted. It was doubtful if any offence was committed in the first place and the penalty was wildly disproportionate. Sandstein's claim of an AE on an AN page is spurious Wikilawyering. The block was void both in terms of Wikilaw and natural justice and Dreadstar was correct to remove it. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC).

@Ocaasi. The root cause of this mess is the disruptive editing of QuackGuru, which set off Ludwig2's rather short fuse. Anybody can edit Wikipedia, but it takes inordinate effort to deal with those who do so inappropriately. I shrink from another layer of bureaucracy and think it would be better to deal with QuackGuru's editing here. I suggest a ban on pseudoscience topics, broadly construed. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:07, 14 March 2011 (UTC).

Evidence presented by Mathsci

Arbitration enforcement is a difficult and thankless job

It is often a difficult task to determine how to apply specific guidelines resulting from an ArbCom case, since they are often tailored to specific individuals implicated in a particular case. In almost all cases, administrators have been fair-minded and cautious. This particular incident is no exception. Since the conduct problem involved here was not an isolated incident and was on an article covered by a previous ArbCom case, Sandstein's block was not an overreaction. As far as administrators are concerned, both Sandstein and Dreadstar have done excellent work. Dreadstar is probably more flexible than Sandstein, who tends to stick to the letter of the law. Since only a relatively short block was concerned here and both administrators have almost immediately willingly come forward with what they perceived as their own different shortcomings, no action against either seems appropriate beyond reminders and advice for future actions.

Background prior to Sandstein's block

Ludwigs2 has received two explicit warnings under WP:ARBPSEUDO:

• [91] - warning and logged notification from in September 2008 from Elonka. The notification included the statement: Generally, the next step, if an administrator feels your conduct on pages in this topic area is disruptive, would be a warning, to be followed by the imposition of sanctions (although in cases of serious disruption, the warning may be omitted). Hopefully no such action will be necessary.
• [92] - unlogged official warning in January 2011 from Sandstein about conduct related to WP:ARBPS with reference to all pages on wikipedia, including noticeboards. This was as a result of this comment to Stephan Schulz [93]: I don't know whether you are doing it intentionally, but you are presenting a prime example of the kind of myopic, self-entitled chauvinism that's a hallmark of Wikipedia science mavens.

In several other topics, many of them controversial, Ludwigs2 has received multiple warnings for uncivil comments that often verge on personal attacks. Here are some recent examples:

• Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts/archive99#User:Ludwigs2 - incident in February with Collect (talk · contribs)
• [94] - it is pointed out to Ludwigs2 that he has been uncivil to Professor marginalia in this thread on Wikipedia talk:Town sheriff, Ludwigs2's project to reform wikipedia
• [95] - civility problems with QuackGuru
• [96] - warning on talk page related to uncivil comment advocating rape on WT:RD, reported at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive636#User:Ludwigs2 / refdesk
• [97] - civility warning from Jayjg about phrase kindly get your heads out of whatever orifice you have them stuck in used on Talk:Messianic Judaism
• Thread 1, Thread 2 - warnings from multiple editors about confrontational conduct on Talk:Intelligent design
• [98] - warning from Killerchihuahua and Dave souza about making personal attacks and threats on wikipedia, as Ludwigs2 did here [99], [100], [101], [102] (to KC: I'm always amazed at how neurotic people get when you ask them to be reasonable and rational.)
• [103] - warning in January from Hrafn about unduly personalised comment [104]

Conduct during the case

There have been problems with Ludwigs2's conduct this week (ending 27 March). He received a warning from one of the clerks (NW) for making personalised comments on the talk page of the workshop page. A few days later he made similar comments on the workshop page, which were redacted by a clerk. Prior to that he acted as if he had the privileges of a clerk by trying to hide objections to those comments. In addition the same kind of conduct towards other editors that prompted Sandstein's original block resulted in a 12 hour block for edit warring and disrupting wikipedia to make a WP:POINT. On the talk page of the clerk NuclearWarfare he has suggested that he is being victimised on wikipedia. He has compared himself to victims of racial discrimination, although others have queried the validity of this comparison. From the start of the case he appears to have assumed that he can use the case as a means of imposing editing restrictions on another user, QuackGuru, whose conduct, although quite different and not without problems, seems no better or worse than his own. Ludwigs2's current conduct places in doubt almost all the evidence he has presented against other users, including his suggestions that there is some established cabal of "anti-fringe editors". I am not suggesting that any measures be taken against Ludwigs2, who regrettably seems to have got himself into deep water recently. Possibly some advice on how to interact better with editors, with whom he might not necessarily agree, might be helpful to him personally.

Attempts by Ludwigs2 to reopen an already resolved ArbCom case

In spite of the warning from a clerk, Ludwigs2 has decided to persist in the poor conduct mentioned just above. He has prepared "evidence" [105] involving a wholly unconnected matter (WP:ARBR&I). It would appear that, possibly as a result of some perceived slight, Ludwigs2 has decided that he should now use this ArbCom case to settle a wholly unrelated personal grudge that he harbours. Since the previous case has been resolved and most of the evidence that he presented there in huge detail has not been acted upon or accepted, he seems to be giving the impression (it might not be correct) that he has the right to an unprecedented second chance on wikipedia to reopen an already resolved case and present his evidence for a second time. For that attempted disruption, and what appears to be a deliberate attempt to harrass another user during a case (me), some kind of sanction from ArbCom might be necessary, at their discretion.

In Ludwigs2's latest evidence he fails to mention that the diff referred to by Sandstein contained a reference to me and R&I. Ludwigs2 had been advised on multiple occasions, first by the clerk NuclearWarfare and then by both drafting arbitrators that he could not bring up those issues during the case. I requested that he redact the slurring reference to me. His reaction was not civil. [106] NW subsequently redacted the reference [107] and warned Ludwigs2 that he would be blocked next time he ignored advice of arbitrators and clerks. [108]

Evidence presented by HJ Mitchell

"Hasty and ill-considered"

Somebody on the requests page (I forget who exactly, but make yourself known and I'll attribute you) used the words "hasty and ill-considered" to describe the original block which sparked this slightly odd chain of events. I think those four words (or are compound adjectives one word?) sum this whole business up with amusing accuracy.

Ludwigs' original post on AN, in which he made what Sandstein believed to be a threat, was certainly ill-considered. I think he acknowledges, with the benefit of hindsight, that he should have made an effort to present his point in a calmer manner. Sandstein then blocked Ludwigs on the basis of what he perceived to be a threat. I believe that Sandstein was absolutely sincere in his belief that he was upholding the principles of the psuedoscience case, but the block was certainly "hasty and ill-considered". I don't think Sandstein was adequately clear (something which he acknowledges, I think, in his own evidence) in the AN thread that he was considering sanctioning Ludwigs under the discretionary sanctions, not least because the issue was buried (no fault of Sandstein's) among other posts on the original issue Ludwigs brought to AN. Nor do I think that he gave adequate consideration to whether sanctions would serve to resolve or de-escalate the situation or whether it would merely fan the flames. Following the block, Dreadstar made the third "hasty and ill-considered" move in this saga by unblocking Ludwigs without a clear consensus at AN and without discussing the matter with Sandstein. To top it off, Sandstein then filed a "hasty and ill-considered" request for arbitration, without (correct me if I've missed it) attempting to discuss the matter with Dreadstar.

HJ's conclusions

I think it would be most unhelpful for the Committee to apportion blame here. I think it should try to guide all involved into learning lessons from it.

Sanstein is a very good administrator who does a hell of a lot of valuable work in an area which can be very challenging. However, I'm not the first person to remark that Sandstein is very "by the book" and seldom departs from The Book™, something which can be useful at AE, where admins often have to decide on whether something is a violation of a ruling in very black-and-white terms. I do think, though, that he applies The Book™ to situations where it might be better ignored and that this is one such situation—a better approach would have been a friendly note on Ludwigs' talk page asking if he wouldn't mind dialling down the language so the discussion on the issue at AN could proceed. The block was (imo) within the bounds of the discretionary sanctions, but that doesn't make it the best course of action.

Dreadstar is another very good administrator. Dreadstar's unblocking of Ludwigs at that point in time was not a good idea, but I think it would be discourteous not to take him (sorry, assuming, please correct me if necessary) at his word that he didn't fully realise the gravity of blocks under discretionary sanctions.

I would assert that this highlights the weakness of discretionary sanctions. They can be extremely useful and, in the Israel-Palestine dispute for one, I would say they are essential to maintaining some sense of decorum. However, I think ArbCom has come to be overly-reliant on them and thus on administrators to do the dirty work, so to speak. It's also my view that the current system places far too much faith in the judgement of the imposing admin, but then completely discounts the judgement of any other individual admin who may disagree. Admins are expected to have good judgement, but admins are human and we all cock up from time to time—that goes for Sandstein, Dreadstar and, in no small part, myself, so it seems odd to place such a high value on the judgement of one person being impeccable.

My recommendations, in short, are for ArbCom to seriously consider:

1. Implementing some form of fast, lightweight appeals process for AE blocks. Perhaps a small committee could be assembled from admins familiar with AE to hear appeals, particularly those of of short blocks and allow for an action to be reversed by the agreement of a certain number of those admins? Or perhaps ArbCom itself could handle such appeals on the same basis as it does with emergency desysops in the case of compromised accounts? Idea adapted from an off-wiki conversation with User:Courcelles
2. In the longer term, reducing reliance on discretionary sanctions. That's not to say that they don't work or that they should be scrapped altogether, but ArbCom would be wise to recognise the heavy load discretionary sanctions place on the shoulders of a small number of admins and that those admins are human.

My apologies for the length of my post, I know folks have enough light reading as it is, but I've tried to be as concise as i can. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence provided by Collect

This case should be restricted to a narrow area. Already we have litigious posts seeking mainly to show that L2 is without sin and QG is evil incarnate. :) All of that is totally irrelevant to the actual reason for the case. ArbCom has repeatedly stated that content issues should not be raised here. So let's cut to the chase.

Sandstein blocked L2 with a clear message in the block notice that he was using AE as the basis for the block. I understand no one at all contests this fact.

The notice provides that no other admin is allowed to unblock on his own judgement - that the minimum requirement is a clear consensus to undo the block. I understand that this is also accepted by everyone.

Ds was aware that the block notice was clear. Again, I understand this is not disputed.

Ds unblocked L2 with the response "Considering the user's statement that he will redact the comments that the blocking admin found to be a threat, adding that he didn't mean the comments to be a threat of disruption, the comments here by editors who support unblocking, and the fact that this block is a long stretch of the ArbCom pseduoscience restrictions, I'm going to unblock Ludwigs2. At this point, the block is punative, not preventive Dreadstar ☥ 02:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)" which should be accepted as fact.

Ds did not assert that any "clear consensus" existed. Nor, on its face, did a clear consensus exist. This is a matter which someone might dispute, but where the committee is a fair judge.

WRT the assertion that I have made any statements at all about L2 here, I demur strongly. Every post I have made has been without regard in any way whatsoever with who he is or what his positions are in any matter. In point of fact, my positions on "pseudoscience" may well be closer to his than to QG's, but all of that has absolutely not one whit of relevance here, and I am truly sorry that PS interjected such a claim. I would ask that the committee note that there is not one scintilla of evidence supporting any charge that my position here is anything more than a strict supporter of existing policies.

So what is left? Did Ds knowingly violate a dictum of the ArbCom? I suspect this is a fact.

Should ArbCom enforce its dicta? That is not a matter of fact - that is a determination to be made specifically and only by the committee. I, as a personal opinion only, would aver that any deliberate decline to enforce wouuld assure future refusals to heed the dicta by others. Collect (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Appending: As suspected, this is becoming another huge content issue rather than discussion about the unblock and arbcom dicta at all. I would point out that any case which actually admits all the content stuff will possibly break the Scientology case records when it is done. Collect (talk) 07:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Aprock

There is some discussion about whether Sandstein acted in a hasty manner. Part of the problem I suspect is that the block is less a reflection of the specific edit and more a reflection of Ludwigs2's general philosophy on civility [109] (emphasis in original):

"I firmly believe that the way an editor treats others is indicative of what that editor considers appropriate behavior, and then I treat that editor in that appropriate-to-them manner. I can be the most sensible, reasonable, and considerate editor you've every met, and I can also be a complete ass, and it doesn't matter to me which I am (except that I prefer the former). If it's the norm on wikipedia to bitch each other out and call each other names, I can work with that. If it's the norm to engage in high-minded deliberation and collegial respect, I can work with that as well. I happily let others determine the cultural norms." - Ludwigs2

"Very few people in this dispute respect civility or consensus, and while I am one of them, I am not going to cling to those principles..." - Ludwigs2

His Eye for an eye approach invariably leads to these kind of showdowns. So while the original block may not have been the optimal action, and probably not justified based on the single diff, it's possible Ludwigs2's broader editing attitude played a role in the the enforcement action. aprock (talk) 17:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by DreamGuy

I am not directly involved with this incident, but have had interaction with some of the same editors on other articles.

Other editors have already shown diffs showing Ludwigs2 was warned that he could be blocked if he persisted with disruptive behavior on articles both in the past and more recently. But it is very clear that he just refuses to get the basic rules involved. Take the edit comment "(rv. that was my second edit in 3 days - this is my third. this does not constitute edit warring. besides, reverting editors who refuse to discuss the matter in talk is OK.)" in which he responds to a warning against edit warning by making a claim that it wasn't (by now he should clearly know the definition). With that and other edits on the article in question, he was clearly acting in a disruptive manner. This is what the AE sanctions cover.

But the issue at heart of the dispute here is his comment "I'm dropping this in your lap now, because if you don't do something to get him to fly right you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly." Some have claimed this falls outside of the AE mandate because it was an action on a page unrelated to pseudoscience. This statement is a clear and unambiguous statement of intention to disrupt the Pseudoscience article unless he get one or more admins to act in a way he approved of. This is completely inexcusable, and is exactly what the AE sanctions are for. Anyone saying "Oh, he was just frustrated..." ot the equivalent seems to be aggressively ignoring the true situation here.

It is also been demonstrated that Dreadstar knew of the sanctions, knew of the prohibition of wheel warring in these cases, and did so anyway. It is fairly easy for a single admin to block a single editor over an ambiguous situation in any dispute, and there's an inherent double standard involved when it takes almost an act of god to get an admin in trouble in any way. In this case the admin knowingly and clearly violated ArbCom rulings, which is about as bad as it gets. There must be action taken or else no ruling by ArbCom will ever have any weight. It's up to you to determine what action that is, but if you don't do it then why even bother to ever make any ruling ever again? DreamGuy (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

@Xxanthippe: Trying to turn this into a reason to get QuackGuru blocked is frankly obscene. The content QuackGuru added could have been edited to improve it, but absolutely did not justify that total removal of the entire section through edit warring and blind reverts. That is just organized bullying and attempt to ignore all contributions by an editor. The content was sourced and valuable. It could have been improved, certainly, by streamlining it, but the end result of the actions of Lugdwigs2 and other editors has been strict kneejerk denial of editing privileges. You state that you want him blocked, and clearly that's the same practical end result as things currently stand with a gang of editors blanket removing anything he does. I have seen this kind of behavior on other articles, and that's exactly the nonsense we need to stop. You do not get to determine that an editor is not allowed to make changes of any sort. You and Ludwigs2 do not WP:OWN the article, and it seems like all you are up to is a strategy of civil POV pushing generally, with many instances of it cracking and becoming highly uncivil instead. That is also what the AE sanctions are intended to prevent. DreamGuy (talk) 15:42, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Little olive oil

Ludwigs, as he has stated is an academic. As a sometimes academic myself, and having spent way too much time in graduate school, I can tell you that his straightforward style is common, and is advisable in many areas of academia. A first encounter with a teacher who tells you, for example, that an argument is baseless is shocking, but as a graduate student I came to respect that kind of statement, and to look for it, as did some of my students because it shortcuts learning time. While I find a straightforward style a relief, not everyone is accustomed to this style of discussion and some may find it very uncomfortable. We can’t confuse this with incivility. While we all have opinions on styles of discussion we might like, we have to expect that editors bring their real life training, backgrounds and experiences to Wikipedia.

Now if you take that style and add to it the predictable frustration editors in contentious areas experince, the result may fall below the general standards set here, but a threat with all that word implies, no. Ludwigs admits he gets frustrated and can find himself somewhat over the top. He also has the good sense to take a break. Had Sandstein with an assumption of good faith simply and calmly discussed the offending comment with Ludiwgs, I suspect a lot of drama would have been avoided. Does an editor working in highly contentious areas who self regulates his interactions, withdrawing when he senses he needs to, redacting when approached calmly and fairly, and who apologizes, need to be blocked, or is such a block punitive?

There are numerous discussions where the future of Wikipedia is being considered. Those who think Wikipedia is fine the way it is argue vehemently against change sometime stonewalling and often attempting to squash ideas that would facilitate change. Ludwigs is one of a few who understands the way in which communities change and develop and his tenacity in not backing down from discussing those issues even in the face of those who stronlgy oppose change, is admirable. Most of us would run. Wikipedia like all systems will change or die. Change on Wikipedia can either be random with, at the least, some chaotic results expected, or it can be guided. Ludiwgs is against multiple odds, attempting to guide it. In all of this, had Sandstein engaged in one small, but critical step in dealing with the people involved, that is, talk to them, this arbitration could have been avoided. While he admits to his mistakes and I assume expects to be understood, he might consider other editors are deserving of the same treatment. When editors apologize, and admit to mistakes, action taken after that, in this kind of community is, make no mistake, punitive. And Wikipedia not only should not, but cannot knowingly engage in punitive action.

Inaccuracy in Skinwalker's evidence

I caught my own name in Skinwalkers’ evidence and give the accurate correction below. Dreadstar’s action was appropriate and innocent.

I have experienced two episodes of anonymous phone calls that coincided exactly with highly contentious episodes of discussion on Wikipedia.. When I first came on Wikipedia I naively posted personal information underestimating the quality of the environment. That information also made me easily traceable. Dreadstar is an admin whose actions I became aware of and respected through interactions with ArielGold, an editor who I had watched and learned from. He’s also approachable and friendly. Although a case of closing the barn door after the horse had left, I went to his talk page and asked him to remove personal information, which he did. He removed content on my user page and a block of content on my talk page. I hoped to prevent any further problems.

More concerns with Skinwalker's evidence

General points that occurred to me:

• A fair amount of evidence/diffs presented is pre Dreadstar’s RfA that Skinwalker strongly opposed, which looks like there's a lot of personal agenda involved.
• Skinwalker is also bringing up pre RfA behaviour for an RfA that was successful. We should be dealing with post RfA evidence.
• In his evidence Dreadstar clearly states what his motives were for unblocking Ludiwgs. Skinwalker assumes motive based on a personal opinion and bias he has in regards to what he sees as fringe,” Dreadstar's unblock was based on ideological grounds stemming from the fringe battleground.” an ABF.

Accurate Evidence? ( text from Skinwalker's comments in italics)

• From evidence given by Skinwalker on Dreadstar’s RfA:

"….But mainly per the fact that if one of the opposers hadn't mentioned your editing under another name previously (User:Dreadlocke), we would never have known, [110]

Skinwalker neglects to add, which doesn’t seem particularly honest to me, that this confusion was cleared up in the RfA. [111]

• Additional discussions cited in the RFA:

Skinwalker confuses a pro fringe position with a neutral position, and a personal POV with comments about the sources themselves as in this discussion/thread. [112]

Dreadstar‘s explanations:

"…but I am describing what his critics have said about his comment, not necessarily my own pov…I'm not implying anything."

"If you read what I wrote, it clearly describes both angles with "if, then" statements: "if you believe what Randi says, then" and "if you don't believe what Randi says, then..."

• Skinwalker applies inflammatory, exaggerated language to pretty harmless interactions:

When ScienceApologist was blocked for incivility, Dreadstar showed up on his talk page to gloat over the block. [113]

Dreadstar’s comment where he actually commends SA while supporting the block….”he made some excellent and valuable contributions."Dreadstar

• Skinwalker mischaracterizes notification of discussion and requests for opinion as canvassing:

The actual comments by Dreadstar:

"I noticed that Fortean Times falls under the scope of this project and I wanted to get opinions on whether or not it was a WP:RS…!" Dreadstar [114]

"Some of you may be interested in this discussion: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_March_18#Category:Purported_psychics." Dreadlocke [115]

• Skinwalker’s information is inaccurate:

Indefinitely blocked an editor in content dispute with Littleolive oil for outing, later overturned…[116]

I have never edited the Warnborough College article. Skinwalker also neglects to mention the situation was worked out in an amicable way another instance of leaving out pertinent information.

And another instance of giving only the part of the story that suits his agenda:

Ludwigs2 was blocked in 2008 for disruption at Intelligent Design. Dreadstar supported Ludwigs2's unblock and concluding with a statement... [117]

Skinwalker neglects to include parts of that statement that indicate Dreadstar's neutral position.

"If Ludwigs2 proves to be a disruptive, tendentious editor, I will support a re-block…I've objected. But I'll be happy to re-block if the disruption continues." Dreadstar

• Skinwalker wrongly accuses by using wording that is not supported by the diffs:

Presented himself as an uninvolved admin: [118]

At no time in this comment does Dreadstar indicate he is uninvolved. In fact he says he prefers not to be involved.

Redacted a discussion to support an ally's content position. [119]

This was a BLP violation. The discussion was not redacted but was left intact only the content which violated BLP was removed.. Dreadstar as far as I know has never edited this article and has not stated an opinion or position on this article.

Declaimer: I have edited on a few articles with Dreadstar, and have always felt him to be fair. If I messed up I’m pretty sure I’d have been reprimanded like anyone else. I know very little about Ludwigs’ editing, and only vaguely remember having commented on notice boards where he was present. He did bother to meticulously rebut points against me in an AE appeal when no one else bothered to. I’m not commenting on either of these editors for any of these reasons. I commenting because I feel accusations on Dreadstar are untrue and unfair and because Ludwigs has a great deal to offer Wikipedia and does so in the most difficult of situations. Somebody has to start speaking up when things are wrong so why not me.

Evidence presented by Hans Adler

Note: Not being used to Arbcom bureaucracy, I was not aware of the deadline. The stuff below is in very poor shape, but I don't know if I am allowed to fix this now, and it's better for my real life if I don't have to spend the time. (I missed the posting of the deadline on the talk page, but kept looking for the appearance of a deadline at the top of this page itself, which IMO would be the logical place for such crucial information.) Hans Adler 10:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Underlying reasons for Sandstein's block of Ludwigs2

When Ludwigs2 reported QuackGuru's persistent policy violations to AN, QuackGuru responded with misrepresentations of the situation, as usual. The first previously uninvolved editors to comment were Collect and Short Brigade Harvester Boris, who immediately downplayed the issue, apparently without having examined the situation – or without being interested in the facts. Sandstein then jumped on the bandwagon and decided that it was just a content dispute, and that Ludwigs2 was disruptive by taking it to AN. Sandstein being Sandstein, there was no chance that he would revise his assessment based on Ludwig's response or on closer examination and insignificant new insight such as that he had misjudged the situation.

The initial dynamics are very remarkable, since as I will show QuackGuru is widely known as an extremely erratic and tendentious editor who has long been overdue for a site ban. Apparently the anti-fringe and anti-Ludwigs2 bias were stronger here than the natural anti-QuackGuru prejudice that makes accusations against QuackGuru appear a priori plausible and worth examining.

Militant anti-fringe editors derailed Ludwigs2's report of QuackGuru

By militant editors I mean editors who see themselves in a battlefield and are more interested in winning than in doing what is just and what is right for the encyclopedia.

After filtering out some noise from WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive221#QuackGuru again - what do I do now?, we get the following dynamics:

• Ludwigs2 reports QuackGuru's persistent baseless accusations of policy violations by others with which he is trying to push through his own policy violations that he tries to disguise by constantly repeating which policies they don't violate.
• Arthur Rubin shoots against Ludwigs2 on principle, essentially admitting that he has not looked at the current situation at all.
• Collect claims that the report will be futile and appears to opaquely take up one of QuackGuru's talking points.
• Short Brigade Harvester Boris simply agrees with Collect without really contributing anything. (Note that these two editors managed to move the thread in a certain direction without saying anything at all about the substance. They did not make a single potentially verifiable or falsifiable claim.)
• Sandstein decides that it is just a content dispute and that Ludwigs2 was threatening.
• Xxanthippe points out that QuackGuru's behaviour is in fact disruptive, and in more than one place.
• Short Brigade Harvester Boris makes an ambiguous comment that apparently means that the disruption was on Ludwigs2's side. But it is formulated so as to provide plausible deniability in case it is challenged.
• Kww suggests that "pseudoscience advocacy" should be blockable, thereby painting Ludwigs2 as a pseudoscience supporter.
• Kww suggests that QuackGuru is just acting out of frustration, a problem that can be solved by removing Ludwigs2. (Kww ignores that QuackGuru has been very active frustrating other editors for years.)
• Sandstein blocks Ludwigs2 just in time before Ludwigs2 can understand his concern, react to it, and thereby make the block threat moot.
• Whatamidoing says that the editors who previously insisted on leniency for QuackGuru did not subsequently assist in containing his disruption.
• SlimVirgin agrees and asks Sandstein to unblock.

Pseudoscience-related conflicts tend to be dominated by pseudosceptics

When conflicts related to pseudoscience escalate, often a large number of editors who self-identify as sceptics swarm in. As a sceptic myself, I think the attitude of most of these editors is better described as unthinking pseudoscepticism. Unless countered by editors with a more mainstream approach and a lot of stamina, this swarm typically pushes bigoted "debunking" into article space which makes pseudosceptics and some sceptics feel at home, but does not convince anybody else. This is relevant to the present case because Ludwigs2 is one of the few editors who are trying to do something about the problem. He reported such a situation to AN, was quickly attacked by a mob of pseudosceptics, and then blocked by Sandstein.

An unusually clear example, and an instance of widespread disruption, occurred in February/March 2010. Since I spent many hours documenting this for a planned RfC/U about BullRangifer (eventually moot since BullRangifer stopped the disruptive behaviour), it seems most efficient to use it here as evidence. This is all the more appropriate because the dispute also involved QuackGuru (essentially supporting BullRangifer) and Ludwigs2 (supporting me). See User:Hans Adler/NSF disruption for the total extent of the dispute in article space. Both QuackGuru and Ludwigs2 were involved in it at Ghost, Pseudoscience and List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. I never got around to documenting the even more significant extent of the problem in talk space, including several confusing RfCs. Examples: Talk:Pseudoscience/Archive 11#NSF 2006 (will be extended).

Background: A Gallup poll used belief in 10 concepts as proxies for belief in the paranormal. For some years the NSF, in its huge biannual report on the status of science and engineering in the US, referred to this poll in passing as if it was about belief in pseudoscience. BullRangifer misrepresented this fact by spamming language such as the following to more than a dozen articles: "The scientific consensus, as expressed by the National Science Foundation (NSF), considers that beliefs in ten survey items are pseudoscientific beliefs. They are: 'extrasensory perception (ESP), that houses can be haunted, ghosts, telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, that people can communicate mentally with someone who has died, witches, reincarnation, and channelling.'" For details of why this misrepresents the sources, see User:Hans Adler/Science and Engineering Indicators. But it should be clear that neither is belief in ghosts or witches typically pseudoscientific, nor is there a scientific consensus that it is, nor did the NSF claim such a consensus when it slightly misquoted a Gallup poll in passing. To this day the article astrology contains the following misleading language: "In 2006 the U.S. National Science Board published a statement identifying astrology, along with ten other practices or beliefs, as 'pseudoscientific'." (This is in spite of the existence of numerous sources of blameless quality/relevance which unequivocally identify astrology as a pseudoscience and so could easily replace this false claim.)

QuackGuru's pattern of tendentious editing

According to WikiChecker, QuackGuru has 11,000 edits to article and article talk space. These are distributed as follows:

• 37% Chiropractic, Chiropractic controversy and criticism and 9 more chiropractic articles (counting vertebral artery dissection as one)
• 22% Larry Sanger, Jimmy Wales, Essjay controversy, Rachel Marsden, Rogers Cadenhead
• 11% Stephen Barrett, Quackwatch, Barrett v. Rosenthal
• 9% Community of Wikipedia, Citizendium, Criticism of Wikipedia, History of Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, English Wikipedia, Conservapedia
• 5% List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, Pseudoscience, Quackery, National Council Against Health Fraud
• 5% Naturopathy, Aspartame, Aspartame controversy, Homeopathy, Vaccine controversy, Acupuncture, Water fluoridation controversy
• 2% Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, John McCain

Among the remaining 9% or so, no further topic sticks out. (An established IP editor has helped me improve the statistics, see my talk page if interested.)

Characteristic quotation: "We have policy because editors are not supposed to think for themselves." [120]

A relatively obvious trait is that once QuackGuru has got an idea in his mind he cannot let it go. Examples include describing Larry Sanger as a founder of Wikipedia, insisting on extensive quotations at Essjay controversy against the feedback at FAC, and accusing editors of BLP violations merely for disagreeing with Larry Sanger or Stephen Barrett on a talk page. But sometimes he is just disrupting discussions with no apparent goal, as in the extensive discussions around the former section WP:ASF ("assume some facts"/"a simple formulation") of WP:NPOV. See the extensive discussions starting with WT:Neutral point of view/Archive 42#Unexplained reverts and stretching from there into talk page archive 44.

The following examples were taken from my analysis of the dispute mentioned above because this was easiest for me.

• [121] QuackGuru reverts a revert, but disguises it as a substantially new edit by using the edit summary "Summarise body ; give example from National Science Foundation".
• [122] QuackGuru steps into the edit war around the categorisation of the Ghost article in Category:Pseudoscience. Edit summary: "The cat is to help readers." This was in support of Verbal's argument that despite the article already being in a sub-sub-category, it should also be made a direct member to "mak[e] it explicit".
• [123]. QuackGuru reverts BullRangifer's spam sentence back into List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. Edit summary: "The lead should summarise the body. If you don't like this source then we might be able to swap sources. See Talk:List of topics characterized as pseudoscience#Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience." The passage added to the lead in this edit mentioned several topics not present in the article itself (haunted houses, ghosts, witches, reincarnation, channelling) and made a false claim on scientific consensus that was also not part of the article. (Ludwigs2 reverts, pointing out that the text is not summarising anything. This prompts BullRangifer to add a paragraph to the body so it can be summarised.)
• [124] In an apparent effort to extend BullRangifer's new section, QuackGuru adds a bizarre paragraph based on a source that does not even mention pseudoscience and is thus totally off-topic in the article.

RfC/U:

• WP:Requests for comment/QuackGuru

Some AN/ANI sections concerning problematic behaviour:

• 2007-03 ANI#Talk:Essjay controversy & User:QuackGuru
• 2007-03 ANI#User:QuackGuru --- "His main userpage is a fork of Essjay controversy."
• 2007-03 CSN#QuackGuru and Wikipedia-related articles
• 2007-04 CSN#Proposed article ban for User:QuackGuru
• 2007-04 CSN#Proposed ban of User:QuackGuru
• 2007-04 ANI#QuackGuru, again --- "Wales is also a lefty." [125]
• 2007-05 CSN#proposal of community article ban --- "this smacks of attempting to win an edit war through the backdoor"
• 2007-06 ANI#Watch List on Project Space --- Report by QG, demonstrates his extreme stubbornness.
• 2007-06 ANI#QuackGuru --- "My sense is that QuackGuru cannot walk by a pile of smoldering cinders on Wikipedia without pouring on a can of gasoline. The above AN/I thread, in which QuackGuru accused User:Levine2112 of 'identity theft' (as far as I can tell), is a good example of this tendency."
• 2007-07 ANI#Canvassing accusation --- QG makes a baseless canvassing/meatpuppetry accusation.
• 2007-09 ANI#Block of QuackGuru --- "I have blocked this user for 24 hours for edit warring. This is the third time in the last few days that he has reverted three times - on Jimbo Wales, Larry Sanger and Essjay controversy respectively. He was warned on all 3 occasions"
• 2008-01 ANI#User:QuackGuru --- QG released from an undiscussed indef block.
• 2008-02 ANI#Stealth canvassing --- "Not only is there a strong suggestion that he engaged in email canvassing, but he also accused another editor of canvassing by using highly cherry-picked diffs and conveniently failing to note that the editor in question had notified people on both sides of the fence"
• 2008-03 ANI#Vandalism by Classic Tendentious Editor--- Classic boomerang report against Levine 2112.
• 2008-04 ANI#QuackGuru
• 2008-08 ANI#Levine2112 again --- Completely baseless report by QG.
• 2008-09 ANI#QuackGuru and Kelly going at it --- "He is revert-warring her sandbox, currently at 9RR (not a typo)."
• 2008-10 AN#QuackGuru topic ban --- The linked discussion is archived at Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 28#Topic ban.
• 2008-12 ANI#Harassment at my usertalk by User:QuackGuru --- "It was bad faith by DigitalC to accuse me of wiki-lawyering and harrsment. It was bad faith by Surturz to accuse me of bullying. An editor falsely accused me of readding comments to a talk page. We have a lot of WP:AGF violations today." -- "AGF does not mean OCTBIGFISOAETTC (Obstinately Continue To Believe In Good Faith In Spite Of All Evidence To The Contrary)."
• 2009-03 ANI#Disruptive editing by User:QuackGuru on Larry Sanger
• 2009-04 ANI#User:QuackGuru --- "The concern here is QuackGuru editing Jimbo's userpage to state that he was co-founder, not founder of Wikipedia." -- "Is this the longest running edit war in history?!? He's been doing this semi-regularly for YEARS now."
• 2009-05 ANI#IP puppet show (my oh my) --- "[...] Quackguru did not just put a sockpuppet on Levine's talkpage, but [...] he completely blanked out Levine2112's User page twice, and replaced it with a big Sockpuppet accusation, even though QuackGuru had filed no WP:SPI report."
• 2009-05 ANI#Admin needs to gain consensus first before considering to unblock --- "I do not think your posts here are helpful, nor is threatening Mangojuice with a block. [...] There is no need for admin intervention in a case where an admin just is doing his job."
• 2009-08 ANI#QuackGuru: continued harassment and edit warring/baiting --- "If I go to a talk page and see multiple archives with no search, I will add the template Template:search archives so that the editors on that talk page can easily search the archives. QuackGuru has reverted my addition of the search box on the Larry Sanger talk page, and posts that I am a sockpuppet"
• 2009-12 AE#Request concerning QuackGuru --- QG reporting himself.
• 2010-02 ANI#Uncivil behaviour after warning or is this how things go at Wikipedia-land --- Frivolous report against Rvcx for disagreeing with Larry Sanger.
• 2010-10 ANI/Problem on BLP noticeboard --- Ludwigs2 reports Ronz for blatant behaviour at BLP/N#Noticeboards, source criticism and claims of BLP issues, and QG for supporting him. Focus is on Ronz.
• 2010-12 ANI#User:QuackGuru --- Report by SlimVirgin: "[QG] appears to be a fairly disruptive editor. He has a strong POV on various issues, often seems not to understand policy, and is a serial reverter. He was blocked 11 times between 2007 and 2009 for edit warring, including one indefinite block. Nowadays he reverts up to 3RR, then stops to avoid a block."
• 2010-12 AN#Community ban for User:QuackGuru --- Subsequent ban proposal by Ludwigs2.
• 2011-03 AN#QuackGuru again - what do I do now? --- Report by Ludwigs2 that led to this case.

Sandstein's behavioural patterns

Note: I think I have permission to fill in this section late [126]. If I misunderstood that, I trust that a clerk will remove it. Hans Adler 11:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

My general impression of Sandstein is that he typically acts in a legalist, draconian and often erratic way and, having once made up his mind, does not change it when new evidence comes in. It also appears to me that instead of communicating clearly in order to reduce tensions, he avoids explaining his actions as a trick for revision-proofing them. All of this strikes me as behaviour appropriate for someone who is trying to make a fast law-related career, but not for a Wikipedia admin.

In this specific case, several of the typical components are here:

• A perfunctory warning that appears intended to be ignored and serves only for revision-proofing a decision that has already been taken.
• Unavailability for discussion immediately after the block. (I did not have time to check whether this is actually typical for Sandstein, but by now it should be sufficiently established that making a contentious block immediately before going to bed is not a good idea.)
• Wikilawyering ex cathedra. (The claim that the block falls under AE.)
• Rage and Arbcom after the predictable unblock.

Quoting myself from WMC's talk page: Template:Blockquotetop

"I do not believe in cutting anyone any slack whatsoever with respect to WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, under any but the most exceptional circumstances." [127] Indeed. I guess when he has just blocked a long-term contributor called "William M. Connolley" that is one of those most exceptional circumstances, which then allows him to stoke the situation by referring to him as "the user" and "they". [...]

[...] This is a good example of his technique of stirring shit through formal behaviour combined with failure to communicate. I am sure he knows what he is doing to the emotions of his victims, and I would not be surprised to learn that he enjoys the power of doing so while maintaining plausible deniability and thus staying invulnerable.

Here is another example where Sandstein uses his particular kind of unactionable aggression against you. After making your unfair block in August longer instead of lifting it, he wrote: "As an admin reviewing WP:RFU, I have declined this user's unblock request and extended their block for the reason provided here." Note the excessively formal language with which he probably tried to isolate himself from criticism, probably knowing that he did something wrong (as he does seem to have a tendency to turn up at the unblock requests of users he doesn't like) and the use of gender-neutral language to refer to a user with a very obviously male name. This is in contrast to his use of gender-marked language at other times, even when referring to new users of unknown gender. It obviously served to depersonalise you as a mere object of 'administrative action'. Such demonstrations of contempt from a position of assumed power are of course not constructive at all. They tend to lead into confrontations in which his opponents may be seen as getting furious for no reason at all – creating a pretext for additional sanctions. [...]

Arbitration cases started (or attempted to start) by Sandstein

• 2009-05 "Giano II wheel war"
• 2009-09 "Law's unblock of ChildofMidnight"
• 2009-12 "GiacomoReturned" (statement only)
• 2010-03 "Trusilver's unblock of Brews ohare"
• 2010-11 "MickMacNee"

Further evidence

• 2009-05 User talk:Sandstein/Archives/2009/May#Vintagekits unblocked
• 2009-09 WP:Administrator review/Sandstein
• 2009-12 to 2010-01 WP:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive53 (sections 1,2,9)
• 2010-01 [128] Coffee edits through protection to prematurely implement an RfC, Sandstein demands that Coffee self-reverts, Coffee refuses, Sandstein blocks Coffee. (Sandstein had !voted for the change implemented by Coffee, albeit with a caveat.) Block happened 13 min after Sandstein's demand, 6 min after Coffee's response. [129]

Evidence presented by Becritical

QuackGuru

QuackGuru is the reason I stopped helping at the Chiropractic article, even when I was asked to come back (I was too polite to say so at the time). I noticed that other editors who were not invested in Chiropractic also avoid it. By reputation, QuackGuru is a firestarter, an editor who brings discord, bad sourcing, bad writing, interminable arguments over trifles, and every sort of negativity. My observation of him, both at Chiropractic and more recently at the Pseudoscience article, confirms that he deserves this reputation. I made a brief investigation, and found that he has been warned constantly for years about his behavior, including an RfC (it's difficult to know how many times on his talk page, as he constantly blanks it blanking Shell Kinny).

Considering that this user has been fully warned, and has for years ignored these warnings, I request that the Committee ban him permanently from Wikipedia.

Sandstein

It appears that Sandstein has an attitude toward arbitration enforcement (and Wikipedia and other editors in general) which is fundamentally in conflict with the spirit of the project. This was driven home to me when he actually proposed that Dreadstar be desysopped (and more recently in this thread). Dreadstar had already apologized for any rashness or inattention to procedure. Sandstein's prosecution of Dreadstar seems to imply that Wikipedia is a system of laws, in which everyone is responsible for knowing the law. Yet even in law, an apology before the judge (or the other party) may go a long way toward obtaining leniency. It is not as if there is physical danger to anyone involved. Nor do we have any reason to believe that Dreadstar will repeat the alleged offense. Yet Sandstein has proposed a purely punitive desysopping.

Considering his legalistic approach, his uncollegial attitude, and the complaints against his actions at Arbitration Enforcement, I would suggest that Sandstein be banned from participating in Arbitration Enforcement for a period of time.

ArbCom's position

It is not true, as several people are saying that ArbCom needs to make an example in this case (representative diff). If reinforcement of their prerogative is necessary, Wikipedia will provide the ArbCom with a case where desysopping is a fair and decent option consistent with the spirit of Wikipedia.

Ludwigs2

I think the actions of Ludwigs need to be seen in context. He is an editor who gets frustrated fairly often. As I see it, that's a result of the areas of Wikipedia in which he chooses to edit. Those areas attract trolls and discord of varyingly subtle and unsubtle types. When Ludwigs is frustrated, he tends to bark and make grandiose statements which violate CIV. This is wrong. However I have also found him to be very reasonable and intelligent (when you actually read his long tracts), very dedicated to improving Wikipedia, and in the ultimate analysis good-natured. While he is opinionated and (as with many people who are smarter and better trained than everybody else) thinks he's smarter and better trained than everybody else, I do not see him as pushing a particular POV. I think the Committee should seriously consider seeing his frustration as a response to various things which are wrong with the system.

He does deserve to be warned to be more civil and not to make statements that can easily be misinterpreted, as with the supposed “threats” that started this case.

Skinwalker's evidence

This evidence reeks of a personal agenda. On checking some of the diffs I found that some of Dreadstar's edits seemed very justifiable, and some were supported by a link to an Arbitration decision which, in turn, clearly described a NPOV-based principle supportive of the edit [130] [131] (it seems other editors may have been ignoring this principle). Other edits purported to be POV were simply replacing one qualifier with another, or eliminating WP:WTAs [132] [133]. I noticed that the sections on misuse of administrative tools are especially thin on real evidence. In what seems to be the most damning instance, he makes a content edit after semi-protecting an article, but in that case he was directly supported by an Arbitration decision [134]. In short, the evidence is very strongly worded yet those strong words are not supported by equal evidence. I should say however, that I did not follow every diff provided, so perhaps I missed something. Also, perhaps, I missed how the evidence is actually relevant to the current situation.

Evidence presented by Enric Naval

The reason for Ludwig2's block

I have seen some worrying assertions in the workshop, so I am posting this.

Ludwig2 wasn't blocked for expressing his frustration with Quackguru. He was blocked because, after expressing his frustrations, he added:

"I'm dropping this in your lap now, because if you don't do something to get him to fly right you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly. We don't want that (or at least I don't), so give me another solution."[135].

Then Sandstein told him in ANI to remove the threat [136] and told Ludwigs to reply to his concerns "within two hours of your next edit." [137]. Instead of addressing Sandtein's concerns, Ludwigs played silly[138][139]. So Sandstein blocked him [140] using a diff that doesn't point very clearly to the exact threat.

Dreadstar had a fail of judgement

Dreadstar explained why he believed that the block was unjustified[141], then someone explained to him point by point why he was wrong[142], but Dreadstar unblocked anyways[143]. Dreadstar should be encouraged to pay more attention to the words of people who have more than experience than him in a certain topic. And he needs to learn to be less fast with the trigger.

And AE blocks need so much review before unblocking to avoid this sort of situations.

Evidence presented by Skinwalker

Dreadstar has participated in significant content and policy disputes regarding issues of pseudoscience - invariably in favor of the "pro-fringe" position. He is therefore not an uninvolved administrator in fringe and pseudoscience topics per WP:UNINVOLVED. As such, his unblock of Ludwigs2 in a dispute over pseudoscience was a direct misuse of administrative privileges. Dreadstar's unblock was based on ideological grounds stemming from the fringe battleground. Furthermore, over time he has demonstrated a pattern of misusing his admin tools to aid like-minded editors and to defend his preferred version of articles.

Note: I am intentionally not addressing the correctness of Ludwigs2's' block nor the general circumstances of arbitration enforcement. I believe these topics will be discussed adequately by others.

Another note: In many cases I link to full discussions so readers can understand context. This evidence dates back to 2007 - however, his editorial involvement and misuse of tools has persisted to the present. The early evidence establishes this pattern of behavior. I also refer readers to WP:UNINVOLVED, which states in part: "Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute." (Emphasis mine).

Final note: Dreadstar's previous account was Dreadlocke, so you may see some of his comments signed accordingly.

Dreadstar's fringe editing attracted significant opposition at his Request for Adminship

In 2007, Dreadstar's RFA was successful, but was opposed by many editors because of his sympathetic attitude towards fringe topics. Example opposes from editors who were not involved in fringe topics include:

"...I find that Dreadstar has spent a lot of his time on Wikipedia promoting one side of the paranormal issue, and I'm afraid he would use his admin powers to benefit that point of view."[144]

"This is an encyclopedia. In an encyclopedia, the likes of John Edward do not get equal standing with science." [145]

"Oppose because of fears he might use his admin powers to skew debates in the paranormal realm." [146]

"Oppose, per Jay Henry, and rspeer's concerns about your ability to remain neutral and your understanding of NPOV. But mainly per the fact that if one of the opposers hadn't mentioned your editing under another name previously (User:Dreadlocke), we would never have known, as you don't admit it to it anywhere in your comments, and nor did any of the co-nominating statements." [147]

Additional discussions cited in the RFA: [148],[149]

Dreadstar has edited articles to provide sympathetic treatment of fringe views

Electronic Voice Phenomenon

In 2007, Dreadstar participated in a protracted MartinPhi-ScienceApologist battle on electronic voice phenomenon, firmly supporting Martinphi, Davkal, and other editors who wanted to remove skeptical material from the article. [150]

"Naturally, skeptics will have a problem with it, because it's a clear statement, without skeptical qualifieres (sic); but a clear statement from all views is absolutely necessary for NPOV - and since the actual basis for EVP is indeed from the view that it exists, and is from a paranormal source - that is the significant definition to start the article with. From the skeptical viewpoint, EVP is a mirage, false, and so EVP doesn't exist, thus there would be no article. Secondly, EVP hasn't been proven false." -Dreadstar.[151]

Dreadstar repeatedly removed[152] [153] [154] qualifiers like "alleged" "claimed", wording which later became an issue in the paranormal arbitration.. Here[155] is another relevant talk page discussion where Dreadstar supported MartinPhi's sympathetic treatment of the subject.

Natasha Demkina

Dreadstar has edited the article to give impression that Demkina's paranormal abilities have not been debunked[156]. Then he reverted[157][158] over objections. Here[159] he added promotional information and unreliable sources to the article.

More relevant talkpage discussions: [160] [161] [162]

What the Bleep Do We Know!?

What the Bleep Do We Know!? (henceforth WTBDWK) was another significant battleground between Martinphi and ScienceApologist that persisted for over two years. Dreadstar participated in this dispute again on the side of Martinphi. Another fringe partisan of note was Littleolive oil - I will show that Dreadstar later used his admin tools inappropriately to help her during transcendental meditation disputes. WTBDWK is a film that, among other things, presents transcendental meditation favorably.

Dreadstar was an originating party in the dispute, which began when he started removing references and text that were critical of the film.[163] (note Dreadstar's editorial stance regarding John Hagelin, a central figure in the transcendental movement).

Dreadstar continued to remove unfavorable information about the film[164]. Here Dreadstar removes the term "pseudoscience" - a perennial bone of contention in the fringe battleground.[165] Dreadstar was supported in these edits by Littleolive oil and TimidGuy; both were later parties to the transcendental meditation arbitration.

More disagreements: Dreadstar and MartinPhi remove Quackwatch sourcing from the article[166], [167], Dreadstar dismisses information about TM,[168]. Later ScienceApologist entered the discussion,[169] provoking multiple edit wars. Dreadstar and MartinPhi's edit warring led to protection several times.[170][171][172] As can be seen in these history links, Dreadstar participated in WP:TAGTEAM behavior with MartinPhi and Little olive oil in these edit wars.

At one point ScienceApologist filed a Wikiquette alert[173] on Dreadstar, which was dismissed after being shouted down by WTBDWK-involved editors.

The situation at WTBDWK quieted down after Martinphi was indeffed; however, Dreadstar continued to edit the article as recently as March 2011 to reduce criticism of the film.[174][175]

John Edward

John Edward is a purported psychic and TV presenter. Here[176], Dreadstar removed negative info from John Edward.

Recently, Dreadstar has slow-motion edit warred on the Edwards article to remove qualifiers[177] [178] [179] [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] [185] [186] [187] [188]. He ignored talk page discussion on the issue.[189]

Edit Count Analysis

According to the edit counter tool,[190] four of Dreadstar's ten most edited articles are reasonably described as fringe topics:

• John Edward
• What the Bleep Do We Know!?
• Champ_(cryptozoology)
• Mediumship

Seven of Dreadstar's ten most edited article talk pages are also fringe topics:

• Talk:What the Bleep Do We Know!?
• Talk:Natasha Demkina
• Talk:John Edward
• Talk:What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!?/Bleep_sandbox
• Talk:Psychic
• Talk:Mediumship
• Talk:Psychic surgery

Dreadstar has engaged in battleground behavior outside of articlespace, including at Wikiprojects, User RFCs, Noticeboards, and XfDs

Canvassing

Dreadstar repeatedly canvassed for support from Wikiproject Paranormal. Here [191], he canvassed Wikiproject:Paranormal for support on WTBDWK; the conversation degenerates into making fun of "pseudo-skeptics". Here[192] he canvassed for support in CFD discussion. A relevant quote from the matter:

"I'm just amazed at how the skeptical POV always wins out - I don't think there's one paranormal article in Wikipedia that properly gies (sic) the view of the believers. It's all skepticism, all the time." - Dreadstar

More canvassing: [193][194].

Conflicts with ScienceApologist and Support of MartinPhi

Like many who edited fringe articles, Dreadstar had conflicts with ScienceApologist. Dreadstar invariably supported MartinPhi. For background on the protracted Martinphi-ScienceApologist disputes, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal and to a lesser degree WP:ARBPS.

Here[195] Dreadstar canvassed for support at a RFC involving ScienceApologist. Martinphi, Perfectblue, Nealparr, Littleolive oil, Dlabtot - all of whom were disputants at WTBDWK - all showed up to oppose ScienceApologist.[196]

Here[197] Dreadstar agreed with MP in a side-discussion mocking skeptics. When ScienceApologist was blocked for incivility, Dreadstar showed up on his talk page to gloat over the block.[198]

When a user conduct RFC was filed against MartinPhi, Dreadstar again canvassed Wikiproject Paranormal for support.[199] At the RFC[200], Dreadstar endorsed nearly all the fringe viewpoints.

An especially telling quote from the RFC:

"The paranormal section is essentially a platform for skeptics to espouse their view of the world, and only a few editors have had the courage to take them on. It is impossible to seek an informed consensus in those articles without being a little aggressive, and the skeptical editors are very good at baiting people into edit wars." - View by Tom Butler, endorsed immediately by Dreadstar.

On the talk page of the RFC, Dreadstar showed hostility to an editor who disagreed with MartinPhi.[201].

Later, Dreadstar was awarded a barnstar by MartinPhi[202] for his "indefatigable contributions to the paranormal articles, in the pursuit of unbiased understanding".

Ludwigs2 was blocked in 2008 for disruption at Intelligent Design. Dreadstar supported Ludwigs2's unblock,[203] concluding with a statement :

"This entire situation over WP:FRINGE and paranormal articles needs to be investigated in detail and the paradigms for what Wikipedia presents should be clarified. We are not here to promote truly fringe OR, nor are we here to debunk. Some here seem to be confusing scientific methodology with debunking." - Dreadstar

Dreadstar participated in and then closed a discussion[204], supporting MartinPhi’s restoration of banned user Davkal's inflammatory posts about ScienceApologist.

Dreadstar commented[205]at a Request for Clarification regarding WP:CIV edit warring, supporting MartinPhi and attacking ScienceApologist. Just previous to this he participated in the edit war[206] to restore contentious language to WP:CIVILITY.

Dreadstar voted to delete[207] the pseudoscience infobox on the grounds that the term term "pseudoscience" was pejorative.

Dreadstar filed an arbitration enforcement request against SA over dispute at WTBDWK, which was dismissed as no violation.[208]

Dreadstar has repeatedly supported unblocking MartinPhi. Here[209] is a representative example.

Policy, guideline, and essay editing regarding pseudoscience

Dreadstar has repeatedly removed or diluted language describing pseudoscience topics from WP:NPOV and WP:NPOV/FAQ, a position supported by Ludwigs2.

Here [210] Dreadstar makes contentious edits to FRINGE, indicating that the term "POV-pusher" is incivil and removing reference to WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. ScienceApologist reverted[211] him.

Dreadstar supported Littleolive oil in a dispute at WP:SPADE.[212]

NPOV/FAQ

Dreadstar argued extensively in support of removing downgrading WP:NPOV/FAQ from policy to guideline in conjunction with Little olive oil.[213] [214] The reason for this position was that NPOV/FAQ contained specific instructions on how to handle pseudoscience.

Here Dreadstar demotes the FAQ[215], a position later supported by Ludwigs2. [216]

Dreadstar removed the pseudoscience material from the FAQ, claiming to add it to the main NPOV page, but does not do so.[217] Previously, Ludwigs2 edit warred to keep this material out of the main policy, also supported by Dreadstar.[218] Here[219] Dreadstar, Ludwigs2, and Littleolive oil collaborated to advocate the removal of the discussion of pseudoscience from both FAQ and policy.

Here,[220] Dreadstar issues an unwarranted caution against personal attacks on Ludwigs2 (see end of conversation, especially Shoemaker's assertion of collaboration between Ludwigs2, Little olive oil, and Dreadstar).

Here[221][222][223][224] Dreadstar violated 3RR in an attempt to demote NPOV/FAQ.

Dreadstar's efforts to demote NPOV/FAQ continued well into 2010.[225]

Other instances of ideologically-based policy/guideline/essay editing include tag-teaming with MartinPhi on WP:NPOV dispute.[226] [227],

Specific examples of misuse of administrative privileges

Diffs to direct tool use are bolded. Other diffs are intended to show context.

Created a derogatory mainspace article about ScienceApologist, then deleted and revdel'ed it

During the TM arbitration, Dreadstar declared his intent to leave Wikipedia and deleted a large swath of his userpages, including his main user talkpage. In a fit of pique, he created - and subsequently deleted - a derogatory and vulgar article about ScienceApologist (who was not a named participant in the TM arbitration) in mainspace.[228] Will Beback described it as going "out with a bang".[229] After returning Dreadstar used revision delete to remove something from the page history.[230] Also of note from this short departure is Dreadstar's deletion summary of evidence he presented in the TM case: "Yeah, and fuck you Fladrif".[231]

Transcendental Meditation

Long-term disputes on Transcendental Meditation - henceforth TM - articles led to WP:ARBTM. Dreadstar had edited TM and TM related articles like What the Bleep Do We Know. Dreadstar repeatedly intervened administratively in these disputes, invariably on the side of Littleolive oil - an ally of his from numerous other fringe disputes in articles and in policy, as shown above - and other TM advocates. Will Beback compiled a detailed account of Dreadstar's inappropriate behavior[232], which I will not reproduce in detail here. In summary, Dreadstar:

• Presented himself as an uninvolved admin.[233]
• Threatened to block opposing editors.[234]
• Intervened in the sockpuppet investigation that led to the arbitration case, claiming to have private information.[235]
• Peremptorily attempted to end a COI discussion.[236]
• Threatened to block an editor for personal attacks against Littleolive oil.[237]
• Repeatedly deleted and restored Littleolive oil's talkpage to remove purported COI discussion.[238]
• Indefinitely blocked an editor in content dispute with Littleolive oil for outing, later overturned.[239] Dreadstar deleted and restored the talk page where the purported outing occurred.[240] The blocking and delete/restore are objected to by multiple admins - who see no evidence of outing.[241]
• Redacted a discussion to support an ally's content position.[242]

This evidence was presented as part of the TM arbitration - presumably it was overlooked because the arbitrators chose to focus on resolving the behavioral aspects of the content dispute. On the workshop Cool Hand Luke expressed mild concern,[243] but the issue was not followed up on. Considered in light of the present case - which revolves around administrative privilege misuse - this evidence shows significant cause for alarm.

Misused tools on articles where he has content goals

On several instances Dreadstar has made fringe-related content edits to articles that he has protected, semiprotected, or blocked people from.

Here[244] Dreadstar makes a content edit to an article about a purported psychic after semiprotecting it.[245]

Dreadstar's editorial involvement at John Edward is documented above. Here[246] he semiprotected the article for non-BLP reasons.

Dreadstar blocked a single-purpose account indefinitely from Francesco Carotta.[247] Later he made a content edit to the article, calling the term "pseudohistory" pejorative.[248]

Other instances of tool misuse

On 21-Dec-2008 Dreadstar deleted multiple pages in Martinphi's userspace.[249]

Dreadstar unilaterally ended ResearchEditor's probation from Satanic ritual abuse articles.[250] ResearchEditor (formerly User:Abuse truth) aggressively promoted the fringe view that Satanic ritual abuse is not a moral panic but a real phenomenon. After Dreadstar released him from his probation, ResearchEditor immediately resumed his disruptive behavior at ritual abuse-related articles. Eventually ResearchEditor was caught using numerous sockpuppets and indeffed. RE continues to disrupt ritual abuse articles with sockpuppets.[251]

Repeated deletion and restoration of User talk:Dreadstar

Throughout my examination of Dreadstar's editing history I have noticed that he quickly archives content from his user talk page and uses a complicated, incomplete, and idiosyncratic method of archival. I have tried to find instances where other editors have raised concerns with him - I know it has occurred, multiple times – but I have been stymied by this. The history of User talk:Dreadstar only dates back to August 2010. User_talk:Dreadstar/Archives gives an overview of his archives, but it is impossible to tell what (if any) history has been removed.

Deleted checkuser on MartinPhi (withdrawn)

[252] Withdrawn after it was explained to me that there was no misuse of deletion.[253] Skinwalker (talk) 10:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Summary

For over four years, Dreadstar has edited pseudoscience and fringe articles with the specific content goals of minimizing criticism and promoting a sympathetic presentation of them. He has edited and edit-warred on policy pages to dilute language regarding pseudoscience - in direct alignment with Ludwigs2. At his request for adminship, numerous editors expressed concerns that he would use administrative tools to advance fringe beliefs. These concerns have been bourne out by Dreadstar's repeated misuse of his administrative privileges to defend like-minded editors, to punish "anti-fringe" editors, and to preserve his preferred version of articles. He has administratively deleted items both inside and outside of his userspace with the intent of evading scrutiny.

Dreadstar’s unblock of Ludwigs2 was not an isolated lapse in judgement nor the actions of an uninvolved administrator. It was yet another salvo in the ongoing fringe battleground. I urge the committee to consider sanctioning Dreadstar to prevent further disruption.

Evidence presented by (uninvolved) Captain Occam

Note: this is not all of my evidence. At the arbitrators’ suggestion, sometime in the next few days I’ll be submitting the rest of it to ArbCom via e-mail.

Articles about proponents of fringe theories are often riddled with BLP violations

The article I’m going to use as an example of this is the article about the living person Adnan Oktar, a Muslim creationist author. In August of last year, I spent a few days removing BLP violations from this article. The following examples aren’t the only BLP violations that I removed, but they’re four for which I consider the violations to be particularly obvious:

• [254] This statement was cited to someone’s personal webpage at Fortunecity. I replaced this source with an article in The Guardian, which satisfies WP:RS. (Self-published personal websites don’t, especially not in a BLP.)

• [255] The only source provided for this information was someone’s blog at Blogspot.

• [256] This information was cited to PZ Myers’ self-published blog Pharyngula. Unlike some of the other bloggers being cited in this article, PZ Myers is enough of an expert that his blog could be considered a reliable source in some articles per WP:SELFPUBLISH. However, this policy is very clear about the use of self-published sources (even from experts) in a BLP: “Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.”

• [257] This was cited to the blog of Richard Dawkins, another self-published expert source that could be acceptable in some articles, but not in a BLP.

There’s no question that Adnan Oktar’s ideas about science are fringe, and I don’t believe that they should be described as anything other than that in the articles where they’re discussed. However, since he is a living person, it’s still a BLP violation for information about him to be cited to blogs or other self-published sources.

When I was discussing this on the article talk page, another editor pointed out to me that Dawkins’ and Myers’ blogs were being used as sources in over 20 different BLP articles, most of which are also about proponents of fringe theories about biology. (Although I attempted to fix several of those also.) The reason this is worth mentioning is to demonstrate that the BLP problems I noticed in the Adnan Oktar article are by no means unique to that article. In articles about proponents of fringe theories, non-compliance with BLP policy is fairly commonplace.

Editors attempting to fix these violations generally face an uphill battle

Most of the BLP violations that I removed from the Adnan Oktar article had previously been in it for years. For comparison’s sake, here is the version of the article from October 2008, which contains the same citations to a personal web page at Fortunecity and the self-published blogs of Myers and Dawkins. Either nobody before me made an effort to remove this material, or (more likely, in my opinion) other people made efforts at this and were subsequently reverted.

Within a few months, the material that I removed began being added back. In December 2010, a different editor made a post at the BLP noticeboard complaining about the attitude being displayed in this article, and mentioned there that any efforts he made at correcting BLP issues were being quickly reverted. Most recently, someone has added back the information I removed that’s cited to PZ Myers’ blog, using the argument (in their edit summary) that since Myers is a recognized expert, self-published sources from him are acceptable. The policy on self-published sources is clear that they aren’t acceptable in a BLP, but this has already been pointed out numerous times in the article talk page, and I don’t believe that pointing it out yet again is likely to have much additional effect.

I’m probably not going to make a continued effort to keep the BLP violations out of this article. Other editors (such as the one who brought this up at the BLP noticeboard) have already tried and failed at this, and I don’t care enough about the article’s subject to be willing to put forth the effort it would require to make the article conform to BLP policy. I also think that, given the overall attitude of the community about this, making the article comply with BLP policy may simply not be possible. What I’ve learned from editing and watching this article, and what I’m intending to demonstrate to ArbCom here, is that the anti-fringe attitude of the community frequently overrides BLP policy.

Editors who remove policy violations from fringe topics are helping the encyclopedia, not harming it

This is probably the most important point I have to make. There is a pervasive culture at Wikipedia that anyone whose edits have the effect of reducing the amount of criticism for fringe or minority viewpoints is a “fringe advocate”, and these editors tend to be sanctioned more harshly than other editors. I don’t disagree that it should be a sanctionable offense when someone is clearly is pushing a fringe point of view, making edits that give this viewpoint undue weight. But there is also another type of editor who removes criticism of fringe viewpoints not because they’re trying to give the viewpoint undue weight, but rather because the criticism that they’re removing contains original research, is cited to unreliable sources, or otherwise violates policy. I think Ludwigs2 is an example of that type of editor. But even though in terms of content these editors have the effect of improving the articles they edit, they are still considered “fringe advocates” and sanctioned especially harshly as a result.

Interestingly, one of the people who has been accused of contributing to this problem—Sandstein—has admitted in a different context it’s a problem in general. Sandstein mentioned this in December in his arbitration candidacy:

In my view, the main problem with policy enforcement is not that it is either too strict or too lenient, but that it is conducted unevenly, because in practice it is shaped too much by social dynamics and not enough by rules. Popular and experienced editors can often get away with problematic behavior more easily than new editors who espouse fringe opinions. But it should be the other way around: The longer somebody participates, and especially if they hold positions of trust such as adminship, the higher a standard of conduct should they be held to, because they are expected to know better. (Quoted from Sandstein)

When I discussed this issue with Jimbo Wales in his user talk, he also agreed that the issue described by Sandstein was a problem. [258]

Captain Occam, thank you for your comments. I agree with the quote from Sandstein, although I think not as severe as some people seem to think, and I would be eager to hear ideas in this area. It's probably important to keep in mind that ideas have to be practical, i.e. have to be about changes to policy that we can actually enact and enforce in some reasonable way. "How to get there from here?" should always be at the top of our minds. One aspect of this is that we are really a pretty small community - always have been - and this community does run (and properly so!) on friendship and mutual respect. That necessarily introduces some dangers of subjectivity. (Quoted from Jimbo Wales)

In my opinion, what viewpoint an editor seems to support should never be a factor in how they are sanctioned—sanctions should be based only on specific misbehavior, nothing else. If a person is pushing a fringe point of view and giving it undue weight, then that’s an example of sanctionable misbehavior, but it should also be sanctionable to repeatedly add criticism of fringe theories that contains BLP violations or original research. And when the focus of a person’s editing is to remove those violations, that should be regarded as something valuable, not something to be discouraged.

Evidence presented by Tothwolf

Personal experience with an editor gaming AE

(I originally drafted this for WP:VPP however I've been considering adding something here and this seems to sum up my experience pretty well.)

I know most people won't be willing to use themselves or their experiences as examples for stuff like this, but I have a well-documented real world example which helps show the flaws in the system. I was blocked for 18 days [259] after I made the mistake of venting my frustrations by ranting at Sandstein via email [260] over on-wiki and off-wiki harassment [261] and attempts by Theserialcomma to track down my personal information. My appeal attempts were denied and ignored, [262] until I finally got frustrated with the normal process and contacted an administrator with WP:MEDCAB/WP:MEDCOM and asked him to review the mess. This isn't how the process is supposed to work and most editors would not have been able to use an alternative means to get such a mess reviewed. Having been in this position, I can certainly understand how other editors who might find themselves in this position could "turn to the dark side".

In the case of Theserialcomma, he continued to make personal attacks on-wiki, eventually leading to him being indef blocked [263] (more information, see also: AN/I discussion) and has since continued to sockpuppet and harass other editors. [264] [265] Back in November-December 2010 I sent a rather large amount of material directly to the functionaries list regarding this person's long term sockpuppetry and harassment behaviours, which I could document going back to at least 2006. Based strictly on the contribution histories of his many accounts, he seems to have been a net drain on the project with little in the way of positive contributions. His main focus seems to have been to pick editors which he thought he could bully or harass and do so until they would finally stop editing Wikipedia entirely. I've not yet had the time to finish drafting a proper WP:LTA entry for this individual and take it to WP:AN for a community ban, but here are two of his many accounts: [266] [267] Comparison: [268] Comparison with more of his IPs: [269] A few more: [270] [271] [272] If anyone would like more information or would like to help draft the WP:LTA entry, I can be reached via email. --Tothwolf (talk) 14:18, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Lambanog

Supposedly we're here to build an encyclopedia

But that's not the impression you'll get if you ask an administrator for help. Ask for help and you're more likely to get suspicion, be accused of something, threatened, and punished. Blocks should be used sparingly—especially with longstanding editors—but this case illustrates they aren't. If there are administrators out there that actually actively protect contributors give them a medal. One can be legalistic here, but then what is WP:IAR about? Wikipedia is bleeding editors and RfA is dysfunctional. Expect that to continue if editors are not treated well. Lambanog (talk) 19:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.