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MarshallBagramyan

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

Request concerning MarshallBagramyan

User requesting enforcement

 Sandstein  22:17, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

MarshallBagramyan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement

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

MarshallBagramyan made the following excerpted contributions on 20 or 21 January 2011 to Talk:Caucasian Albania#WP:CHERRY:

1. [1] "The same cannot be said about those scholars working in Azerbaijan, who are apparently too preoccupied with attacking Armenians and too absorbed with trumpeting their own purported achievements"
2. [2] "I just believe that Armenian authors have less reason to lie or distort reality, since much of what they say is backed by a multitude of sources. ... I object to using any and almost all Azerbaijani sources because they have an invariable vested interest to distort and misrepresent what the sources say. The fact that almost all their works reflect the position of official state propaganda and are published in Baku or elsewhere by themselves is enough to suggest that their works hold little to no academic value."
3. [3] "We all know that the works produced by scholars in Azerbaijan would not have a snowball's chance in hell in surviving a critical review, but to see them posted here in full, as if they're reliable sources, is a waste of time for all us serious editors who actually wish to improve this article."

As in the cases of Xebulon and Tuscumbia, whom I topic-banned for 3 and 6 months respectively for similar statements, MarshallBagramyan has disrupted the Wikipedia editing process by making these sweeping statements which are based on nationalist prejudice rather than on policy, in violation of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Users national background and neutrality: "Editors with a national background are encouraged to edit from a Neutral Point of View, presenting the point of view they have knowledge of through their experience and culture without aggressively pushing their particular nationalist point of view by emphasizing it or minimizing or excluding other points of view."

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

Warned by AGK in 2009; has since been subject to sanctions under this case.

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

This is not a request but an announcement of intent to take enforcement action, see comments below.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I make this post in my capacity as uninvolved enforcing administrator. While I could simply take enforcement action without any discussion, I prefer to use this board as it provides for proper documentation, a forum in which to reply and easier review of arbitration enforcement.

Tuscumbia has pointed out in his appeal above that in the nationalist exchange at Talk:Caucasian Albania#WP:CHERRY only he and Xebulon were sanctioned, but not MarshallBagramyan. This should be remedied as a matter of fairness. Without admin objections, therefore, I intend to topic-ban MarshallBagramyan for six months, like Tuscumbia, because he too was already made subject to a three months topic ban for similar misconduct.

Tuscumbia and Xebulon should remember that they may not comment in this thread, which does not concern them, because of their topic bans.  Sandstein  22:17, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[4]

Discussion concerning MarshallBagramyan

Statement by MarshallBagramyan

Alright, I think I now see the basic gist in this misunderstanding: nowhere in the statements above have I said that we should reject authors on an ethnic or national basis. What I took objection to, and what has apparently been misunderstood, were sources emanating specifically from Baku and the country of Azerbaijan, since it is essentially ruled by a repressive regime which regularly jails dissidents for criticizing the administration or for voicing unpopular opinions and because many of the sources are published under close government sponsorship. That does not even come anywhere close to saying that all scholars who happen to have Azeri heritage should now be disqualified from consideration as a reliable source. Such a statement would personally go against my own editing activities, since I have greatly profited and made use of valuable sources written by Azeri authors relating to the history of medieval and early modern Iran and Ottoman Turkey and the article on the Nagorno-Karabakh War. In my statements, I have been extremely careful in distinguishing the people from the entity: by Azeri I refer to ethnicity and by Azerbaijan I refer to works published in the current-day Republic of Azerbaijan.

Nor, as it is alleged, have I acted upon making my arguments on the basis of "nationalist prejudice rather than on policy." They have, instead, been predicated entirely on on what scholars and other individuals in the field have stated. Seraphimblade makes an excellent point below in saying that sources that are excluded must be given adequate reasoning. To facilitate in the attempt to clear up this understanding, therefore, I have quoted several authors below regarding the unreliability of such sources and I ask that everyone fully read their statements. Robert Hewsen, a historian from Rowan College and the acknowledged authority in this field, wrote in his book Armenia: A Historical Atlas, published by no less a respectable a publisher as Chicago University Press:

Scholars should be on guard when using Soviet and post-Soviet Azeri editions of Azeri, Persian, and even Russian and Western European sources printed in Baku. These have been edited to remove references to Armenians and have been distributed in large numbers in recent years. When utilizing such sources, the researchers should seek out pre-Soviet editions wherever possible. Armenia: A Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 291

The British journalist Thomas de Waal documented the systematic attempt to remove Armenians from history in his influential 2003 work on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict:

I gathered that Mamedova had taken the Albanian theory and used it to push the Armenians out of the Caucasus altogether. She had relocated Caucasian Albania into what is now the present-day Republic of Armenia. All those lands, churches, and monasteries in the Republic of Armenia—all had been Albanian. No sacred Armenian fact was left unattacked. Armenia’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century a.d.? It had actually taken place thousands of miles to the south of present Armenia, on the River Euphrates. The seat of the Armenian church at Echmiadzin? It had been Albanian right up until the fifteenth century, when the Armenians relocated there...

The urbane Mamedova is the sophisticated end of what, in Azerbaijan, has become a very blunt instrument indeed. The crudest version of the Albanian argument has swept through Azerbaijan. Not once did I hear any pre–nineteenth-century church in the entire country called any-thing other than “Albanian.” The Albanians have even spread to the distant southeastern region of Nakhichevan, all of whose surviving Armenian churches have been declared to be Albanian.

A 1997 pamphlet entitled “The Albanian Monuments of Karabakh,” by Igrar Aliev and Kamil Mamedzade, ducks the issue of the medieval Armenian inscriptions altogether. The front cover bears a drawing of the façade of the church of Gandzasar, but the draftsman has carefully left out all the Armenian writing. All the photographs in the church were taken from a safe distance, so the Azerbaijani reader has no idea that there is any Armenian writing there at all. Aliev and Mamedzade finish their historical overview by saying: "The undisputable conclusion follows from everything said above that the so-called Armenians of Karabakh and the Azerbaijanis as such (who are the descendants of the Albanian population) of northern Azerbaijan share the same mother. Both of them are completely indisputably former Albanians and therefore the Armenians as such on the territory of Nagorny Karabakh, into which they surged in huge numbers after the first quarter of the nineteenth century, have no rights."
-Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War. New York: New York University Press, 2003, pp. 167-69.

Professor Victor Shnirelman, a senior researcher of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, authored a monograph titled The Value of the Past: Myths, Identity, and Politics in Transcaucasia in 2004. While his book is too extensive to quote from, he took objection to the manner in which historiography progressed in modern Azerbaijan, as can be gleaned from the following chapter titles: "The birth of the Azeri nation", "The search for historical concepts, and major politics", "The Median temptation and Soviet Patriotism", "Between Media and Caucasian Albania and the Turkic World: Thirst for a new view", "Revisionists: the Pan-Turkic assault", "The struggle between conservatives and revisionists and a school education".

There are at least half a dozen other sources which I can quote, all of which speak about how political ideology has compromised the academic reputation of scholars working in Azerbaijan, regardless of their ethnicity. But what everyone above is saying or alluding to is that sources which intentionally edit or remove people from the pages of historical sources, which reconsecrate historical monuments and give them new identities, or distort the data that is available should be avoided as best possible.

I have therefore been not so much airing my views but merely repeating what others have already stated. My chief objection was to sources originating from Azerbaijan, not sources whose authors are Azeri. To the contrary, and as I emphasized several times to Tuscumbia during our long exchange, what mattered to us was not whether a scholar was Armenian, Azeri, or Martian, but the "breadth of their scope and their acknowledged expertise" in the area. And even then, my objection stemmed from the politically repressive climate that exists Azerbaijan, not its nationality. This has turned out to be a misunderstanding on massive proportions and I don't think I can emphasize it enough that my arguments were never predicated on the basis of excluding sources on the ethnic or national heritage of someone and I ask that the administrators to please ask me to clarify anything which might seem unclear since this is, after all, a very difficult and complex topic. --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 02:55, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Sandstein, please understand that no one is more fed up with these useless debates than I am. But as the authors I quoted above make clear, historiography in Azerbaijan is geared toward certain purposes and, unfortunately, no one is spared, no matter your profession. If a poor, underpaid scholar, who through no fault of his own, chooses not to toe the government or popular line, he might be deprived of funding or even face persecution. And so he is encouraged or forced to say or write something that holds official approval. Note how even some innocent Azerbaijani youths were brought up for questioning by the Ministry of Internal Affairs after the 2009 Eurovision contest because they chose to vote for the "wrong" (i.e., the Armenian) candidate. The history of Armenia, according to Azerbaijan's leadership, begins in the 19th century, only after the Russians "brought" and settled them into the region. This is the deplorable situation that now prevails in Azerbaijan, although it can be argued that similar, if less oppressive, climates now exist in other fragile post-Soviet countries, the current Republic of Armenia not being an exception. This was the prevailing situation until the early 1990s in the Republic of Turkey, when all scholars - regardless of political or ethnic distinction - were forced to not speak about or question controversial topics, especially the Armenian Genocide or human rights issues involving the Kurds. But every now and then courageous faces decide to spurn political ideology and censorship, such is the case with luminaries like Taner Akçam and Halil Berktay, who are widely respected academics in their field, not because of their ethnic heritage, but because of their laudably objective approach to controversial issues.

My statements must thus be viewed as responses within this context. The journalist de Waal presents this point in a very interesting manner when he says that "All those lands, churches, and monasteries in the Republic of Armenia — all had been Albanian. No sacred Armenian fact was left unattacked. Armenia’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century a.d.? It had actually taken place thousands of miles to the south of present Armenia, on the River Euphrates. The seat of the Armenian church at Echmiadzin? It had been Albanian right up until the fifteenth century, when the Armenians relocated there...The crudest version of the Albanian argument has swept through Azerbaijan. Not once did I hear any pre–nineteenth-century church in the entire country called any-thing other than 'Albanian.' " And now it seems that the same arguments have spilled over onto Wikipedia. The article on the thirteenth century monastery of Gandzasar has borne witness to all this, as numerous authors have attempted to deprive this monument of its Armenian identity for politically-motivated reasons. We can speak about and question certain aspects of the church but to question its most fundamental aspects, which almost all other scholars caution us not to, would be an incorrect step to take. The most visible manifestation of this campaign has been the intentional destruction of an Armenian medieval cemetery inside Azerbaijan. While the Azerbaijani government still denies that it ever took place, it does say that the cross-stones found at the cemetery were not even Armenian to begin with but, again, were of Albanian origin. How does one exactly react to this after the second or tenth time this claim is put forward? How exactly do we react to those who repeatedly make disingenuous attempts to deny the Holocaust? --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 19:08, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Sandstein, I am not at all implying that disagreeing with my viewpoint here is now tantamount to denying the Holocaust (another unfortunate instance of misspeaking, one which I had second thoughts after posting *sigh*). I was simply trying to illustrate that questionable sources which challenge established facts are often viewed with a certain degree of skepticism. My point backfired, like so many other things said on the internet, and so, unless you guys ask me any direct questions, I'm just going to lay back here and stop typing.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 00:08, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I know I said that I would recuse myself from making further comments unless asked to, but could someone please evaluate Atabey's comments below in the "Result concerning MarshallBagramyan" section. For some reason, I feel that comments like "Well, of course, he does. He is Armenian contributor who demonstrated inability to detach his personal biases from his contributions" to be extremely insensitive considering that this is, afterall, a discussion on ethnicity and nationalism.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 02:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Atabey, my misgivings stemmed from the fact that scholars in Azerbaijan are living in an oppressive country, whose regime essentially controls the information that is published by academia. While the wording and the formulation of my remarks certainly have room for improvement, I must emphasize once more that I never took, nor have ever taken, ethnic heritage into consideration in my arguments. Regarding the removal of the map you keep referencing to: the arguments raised against it were never addressed and that's why its presence there remains questionable, at best.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning MarshallBagramyan

Sandstein, I was unable to locate what is it exactly about the lines that you have selected from his contributions that you think justifies imposing sanctions upon MarshallBagramyan. How exactly do they violate the established remedies concerning the topic area? Are you recommending this topic ban simply because this user was not topic banned initially when the other two were "as a matter of fairness"? Am I to understand that the very participation in similar exchanges irrespective of user conduct or substance of responses will now warrant a topic ban?-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 23:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

To address your points in order: I'm sorry to hear that. Please see my explanation above. No. No.  Sandstein  00:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

[Commenting as someone completely uninvolved]. One should read complete statements at the article talk page (like here), rather than only quotation above. MarshallBagramyan makes an argument that a number of Armenian historians are internationally recognized scholars (which is factually correct); they published a lot of manuscripts and can be regarded as reliable sources. This is a legitimate argument. Biophys (talk) 14:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

His praise for Armenian scholars is not at issue. His inflammatory blanket dismissal of Azerbaijani scholars is.  Sandstein  23:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

He explained at the article talk page: this is because of wide-spread censorship in the state of Azerbaijan. This is a legitimate argument. Of course, it would be best not to use any Azerbaijani or Armenian sources on Azerbaijan-Armenian conflicts. Use Western sources (that is what I usually did).Biophys (talk) 16:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Saying that, I agree with restriction proposed by Sandstein: "He may not make derogatory statements about sources or their authors on the sole basis of their nationality, place of birth or publication, ethnic group, religion or some similar general characteristic that is unrelated to their reliability in terms of Wikipedia policy". That should apply to everyone. Biophys (talk) 03:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Volunteer Marek

Having looked through this I also don't really see any justification for any kind of sanction, except a warning to be careful in statements. There does not appear to be any kind of a "peg" that you can hang a topic ban or other editing restriction on.

Basically, I agree with Seraphimblade below. Some of the wording of the comments is less than satisfactory. But these do not appear to be motivated by either WP:BATTLE or bad faith, but rather are simply a result of an editor commenting quickly and off the top of their head in midst off a heated discussion. If you edit in a controversial topic area (and we do need editors willing to do so) at some point or other you're going to be unclear, imprecise and maybe even a little frustrated and this is in fact just a natural part of how human interaction usually takes place. There's no evidence here of any kind of wrong doing. A reminder to be more careful (which we - especially content editors, since non-content editors rarely ever actually deal with difficult content issues - could all use sometimes) is sufficient. Volunteer Marek  23:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I got to add that Sandstein's characterization of MB's second statement [5] with I am much less impressed with MarshallBagramyan's second comment, which does not address his conduct and instead appears to argue at length why disagreeing with him in the content dispute (which AE does not care about) is equivalent to denying the Holocaust. seems to be on the whole quite inaccurate. The 2nd statement consists of two (fairly long) paragraphs and in them MB essentially reiterates the distinction between Azeri scholars and Azeri-government-produced sources which is the locus of confusion here. In fact he explicitly states that a similar distinction could apply to Armenia and Turkey in the early 1990's. This is just an elaboration on a previous point. At the end of these couple paragraphs, the statement does stray into "content disputes" but this is really just a reflection of the fact that as much as you try, at the end of the day, you can't clearly separate out "behavior disputes" from the "content disputes" that underlie them (and his point is valid - is Holocaust denial on Holocaust related articles a content or a behavioral dispute? - though it is a bit of a Godwin Law violation). I would also encourage admins involved in this discussion to try and put themselves in the shoes of someone who has just all of sudden been brought to AE and for whom severe sanctions have been proposed - it's a stressful situation and honestly, it's often quite hard to know how to properly react, which issues to address and which topics are relevant (that's actually why in real life we do have lawyers). Nothing here. Volunteer Marek  00:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Atabey

Check out MarshallBagramyan's recent edit here. For Nth time, removing the map from Azerbaijan Democratic Republic page, while arguing in favor of map at Democratic_Republic_of_Armenia. And this and numerous other POV edits by MarshallBagramyan fit well with his eloquently expressed: "I just believe that Armenian authors have less reason to lie or distort reality, since much of what they say is backed by a multitude of sources." Well, of course, he does. He is Armenian contributor who demonstrated inability to detach his personal biases from his contributions, thus resulting in non-neutral edits. Atabəy (talk) 00:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I find this comment by Atabəy to be unhelpful. His wording about MarshallBagramyan "He is Armenian contributor who demonstrated inability to detach his personal biases" smacks of all-too-familiar racial battleground attitude. I suggest the following. 1). do not penalize MarshallBagramyan at this time. 2). stick to the suggestion of Biophys above not to use sources coming from Azerbaijan or Armenia, unless those are un-discredited, unadulterated primary sources. This informal policy has been in place a long time ago and it seems that MarshallBagramyan has been suggesting in his comments to continue sticking to it in the future. Thanks. Vandorenfm (talk) 18:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Vandorenfm, I only sought to demonstrate that MarshallBagramyan continues to revert war on other pages with the same POV position, while his case goes on in AE. I don't see why MarshallBagramyan saying "I just believe that Armenian authors have less reason to lie or distort reality... almost all Azerbaijani sources because they have an invariable vested interest to distort and misrepresent" is not considered racist, while my comment that MarshallBagramyan does represent Armenian POV is? Can you explain me the difference? If this is about sources, again I would like to find out based on which sources MarshallBagramyan removes one map for Nth time, while doing exactly the opposite about the same area here? Thank you. Atabəy (talk) 15:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

NW and others, I did not seek to inflame any debate, or claim that MarshallBagramyan's ethnicity is a reason for his editing, and I am sorry, if my words were perceived that way. I only wanted to emphasize that the nature of complaint and the concurrent activity of MarshallBagramyan clearly emanates from a one-sided POV (he could be of any other background pushing the same POV). This conflict has been going on for years now, and I don't see how your warnings address the problem. And why topic ban me for telling the truth? Did I insult MarshallBagramyan by saying which side's POV he represents? No. He does represent Armenian POV, that is a fact already established by several Arbitration cases, and in fact spelled out by himself above.

Before trying to apply arbitrary topics bans to people expressing their opinion on AE, why don't you take a closer look and see whether your actions would help to resolve the problem. I would like to find out based on which sources MarshallBagramyan removes one map for Nth time, while doing exactly the opposite about the same area here? You may argue that this is topic-related, but it's about a topic discussion going on for months if not years now over a plain POV pushing involving MarshallBagramyan.Are your topic ban or warning proposals going to help resolve these issues, or would it be more practical to find someone to get involved on these page discussions and enforce a single position?

To give you a clearer idea, if I now revert Democratic Republic of Armenia page removing the POV map, MarshallBagramyan will be all over me with even harsher language and you would be discussing another long AE thread. I won't do that, of course, but I do not believe it is fair to put everybody opining on this case into Catch 22 position. Atabəy (talk) 15:12, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Also, per Sandstein's comment, this is the link to latest Human Rights Watch report on Armenia. It does not indicate that the country is any better than Azerbaijan in terms of media freedom or freedom of expression, neither is there a reason to believe that its sources are any more reliable than those from Azerbaijani side. This is mainly the reason why, I never try to use either side's sources in my edits. The historiography and media in both countries is heavily affected by Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, all the biases and righteousness thereof. Atabəy (talk) 15:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

MarshallBagramyan, that is exactly the point, that your misgivings seemed to focus on Azerbaijani scholars, whilst latest Human Rights Watch clearly demonstrates that Armenian scholars live in no less oppressive country. While I agree with you that ethnic heritage is not a consideration factor, the ardent support for particular POV is. And such is the case with your "misgivings" in case of Azerbaijan while overlooking in the case of Armenia, as I believe is the case in your edit here vs. your edit here, among the multitude of other similar dichotomies. Atabəy (talk) 18:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Fedayee

It is bizarre to find that an analogy is being made between MarshallBagramyan's statments and Tuscumbia's. I must've missed something. The mentioned Armenian scholars are only Armenian scholars by their ethnicity, many were used by the two sides here before. Hewsen whom Tuscumbia discredited because of a possible partial Armenian background has been used by the other side several times in Wikipedia. He is recognized as an internationally reknown scholar who is by all means Western. So Tuscumbia's comment in that light could have only been interpreted as saying that because someone has Armenian blood flowing in his veins, he can't be credible. Disturbing.

That's quite different than MarshallBagramyan's comments when considering that those scholars (which he named) of Azerbaijan have been systematically criticized for having erased Armenians and Armenia from the face of history. The position is backed by several sources that the dictorial regime in Azerbaijan has systematically financed and trained their scholars to follow that line of reasoning. How can a user be topic banned for half a year for such a comment?

Also, not that Atabek is answering again in the results section when he most probably knows that the said place is actually the administrator's section... he's been here for years and did it even after his comment was removed. Also, his language was disturbing to say the least... directly accusing an editor of having ulterior motives fueled by that editor's ethnicity. He had his chances here, he was one hair away from being banned in AA, he's received several topic bans, he was engaged in mailing lists to disturb Wikipedia and now to top it off, he comes here and makes that infuriating comment. If anything, he should be topic banned for that much... it is long overdue. Besides, what is the relevence of the freedom of press of Armenia when most internationally known Armenian scholars live abroad and therefore not affected by the levels of freedom of press in Armenia.

That's pretty much all I had to say about this and will be adding no further comments about this issue. Thank you. - Fedayee (talk) 02:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment by NovaSkola

• I totally support  Sandstein . This is ain't first time so Admins can forgive him, this is happened so many times. MarshallBagramyan is always involved in Azerbaijani related conflicts and suspending him for long time would decrease the pressure. Why cause of few provocateurs, a lot of fair users must be banned? I also offer, removal of his twinkle. As, they removed my twinkle in first time but this user who multiple times violated Wikipedia's policies still got with it? You want to be fair, so be fair to everybody. --NovaSkola (talk) 07:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning MarshallBagramyan

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

• I would agree with Sandstein's assessment, and would add that a blanket refusal or even reluctance to use sources simply because of the nationality of the source's author is odious and unacceptable. If the source really is unreliable, you should be able to find a good reason why. Otherwise, if it meets the standards, it does—period. I don't think editors with such a view could even possibly edit neutrally in areas where such sources might be necessary, and so I support the topic ban proposal. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:50, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
  • In light of the new statements here, I must say that I'm also impressed with the responses. I would still state that MarshallBagramyan's phrasing of the statements he made was poor (to say the least), and that he would have done better explaining things in this manner before it came to this point than after, but his response shows careful thought. I would suggest, given these new developments, that a requirement be placed on MarshallBagramyan that, if he believes a source is not reliable, he is required to come up with reasoning as to why that particular source is unreliable, and not dismiss it due to where it was written or who wrote it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
    • I am much less impressed with MarshallBagramyan's second comment, which does not address his conduct and instead appears to argue at length why disagreeing with him in the content dispute (which AE does not care about) is equivalent to denying the Holocaust. That is not a good sign at all. It is clear that he holds strong opinions about the dispute that was the focus of the arbitration cases, and I remain unconvinced that he can approach it from a neutral point of view.  Sandstein  23:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
      • I fully agree that he needlessly inflamed the situation, and that sanctions are called for. I think the only question is what form they should take in order to most helpfully address the issue. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• I think that Marshall Bagramyan has come up with a fair response to Sandstein's assessment. I would prefer to see other evidence that Marshall is POV pushing before I would support a topic ban. NW (Talk) 07:13, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

• I appreciate MarshallBagramyan's measured comment. It is true that our article Human rights in Azerbaijan and the most recent reports by Freedom House ([6]) and Human Rights Watch ([7]) indicate that Azerbaijan is an unfree country, and that there are therefore good reasons to take much more care with sources published in that country, especially with respect to political issues that the state cares much about. We can and should assess sources for their reliability, including on the basis of whether or not there is reason to believe that they may have been written under the influence of state coercion.

  But I remain concerned that in the statements at issue, MarshallBagramyan did not address the reliability of any individual source or writer, on the basis of specific evidence pointing to its unreliability, but repeatedly and sweepingly dismissed all "scholars in Azerbaijan" as unreliable on the basis of broad generalizations, rather than discussing the specific sources at issue in the content dispute. As a consequence (and also because of similar conduct from the other, now-banned disputants) the discussion devolved into a nationalist shouting match rather than remaining focused on the sources and the content at issue. This is very inflammatory and unhelpful conduct in a topic area that is so much characterized by nationalist hatred and prejudice, on all sides, that it took two arbitration cases to bring it somewhat under control, and in which exceptional discipline is therefore required from all participants. For these reasons I still believe that MarshallBagramyan's conduct was sanctionable, but I am open to suggestions as to what sanction might be adequate.  Sandstein  08:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

• • • I think that a warning to refer to specific sources rather than overgeneralize would suffice at this time. I think that this is enough of a gray area that a topic ban is not necessary, but still something that Marshall would be advised to avoid in the future.

      However, moving on to Atabəy. For needlessly trying to inflame this AE request, and considering a past history of sanctions, I'm thinking a three month topic ban would be appropriate. NW (Talk) 02:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Without knowledge of the past sanctions against Atabəy, I do not currently see a case for a three month topic ban.  Sandstein  23:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

• I see past edit warring in the topic area[8] as well as previous bans (see the AA2 log). Perhaps it is excessive, but I do not think that there was any reason for such a needlessly inflammatory comment to be made in the context of a sanction request on whether or not other statements were needlessly inflammatory. NW (Talk) 00:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

• Ah, yes, he's the editor named "Atabek" in the case log. No objections to the sanction on my part.  Sandstein  07:30, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing the discussion among uninvolved editors above, Volunteer Marek and NuclearWarfare believe that the conduct at issue is not sanctionable, an assessment with which I disagree, while Seraphimblade agrees that sanctions are called for, but not necessarily a topic ban. Hodja Nasreddin (signing as Biophys) does not support but also does not explicitly support oppose sanctions. In consideration of this, and for the reasons outlined above as well as in the request section, in application of WP:AA2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement, MarshallBagramyan is indefinitely restricted as follows: He may not make derogatory statements about sources or their authors on the sole basis of their nationality, place of birth or publication, ethnic group, religion or some similar general characteristic that is unrelated to their reliability in terms of Wikipedia policy, in the context of the area of conflict of the arbitration case WP:AA2. This restriction is to be enforced by blocks or other discretionary sanctions. It is not to be construed to encourage any derogatory comments that it does not explicitly prohibit.  Sandstein  23:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

That is a fair-enough sanction, I think. NW (Talk) 00:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement appeal: Littleolive oil

Appeal unsuccessful.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
} Appealing editor Littleolive oil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction being appealed [9]; Three month topic ban to TM articles; Notification: [10] Discussion:[11] Administrator imposing the sanction NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Notification of that administrator [12] Reason for appeal Evidence of wrong-doing is based on false and assumptive information, guilt by association, illogical argument, and clear assumptions of bad faith. Statement by Littleolive oil Reasons given for ban Nuclear Warfare banned me for tendentious editing, pointing to two threads as evidence.[13] [14]. He seems unfamiliar with the history of the articles and the contentious nature of the sentence under discussion. The ongoing discussion on this sentence (let's call it X :) being discussed is months long. Will Beback began the thread, “Bone of Contention”, an explicit recognition that there was an unresolved issue. And by way of resolution, WB himself put in a compromise version of X. I participated in good faith. Nothing is gained by once again repeating the same points on a topic that has been discussed many times over months. I suggested we get outside help rather than continue. here and here, hoping we could move this log jam. None of this is tendentious behavior, and topic banning an editor for taking part in a difficult discussion, started by someone else, and then trying to resolve the issues with mediation, is illogical. Doc James also points to this as an implied reason for wrong doing: "In this edit on Jan 14th 2011 [15] User:Littleolive oil again changed a summary of the research that was decided on in this RfC. A change which she was previously put under a 1RR for." This is misleading on many counts: There was no consensus in this RfC. I was taken to AE for these two edits, the only reverts I'd made in months, (Will Beback made 2 edits in that same time. Doc made 5) . I was sanctioned and the case closed before I could comment. Now I'm being described, because of this sanction, as a disruptive editor. ..."again changed a summary of the research":(Quote above James) I moved content that contained a sentence X, to the TM article which already had a sentence X in the lead. Will had already changed the X in the lead but was reverted, and supported Doc's revert of the sentence. I adjusted the X in the content I'd moved, to closely reflect the sources by actually quoting the sources and by referencing the studies, assuming the quote would satisfy everyone in terms of accuracy. I also didn't think we needed two of the same sentence in one article. I was reverted. Will and I both made edits to this same sentence, X. Will says his edit [16] is bold.[17] Doc cites my edit [18] as an implied reason to topic ban. This is a double standard which isolates one editor and looks a lot like ownership by two others. By what Wikipedia standard is a good faith edit considered impetus to ban an editor for three months. There are now 4 instances of sentence X in three articles: [19]-lead, [20], [21]-lead, [22]-lead. Other accusations According to Nuclear Warfare[23] but James has pointed out many issues with the filer's actions. Personally, I think that the POV pushing/tendentious editing exhibited in continuously trying to use sources to make sure their point of view is gotten across rather than just picking the best 20 or 30 sources and writing the article is something that discretionary sanctions was designed to prevent. NW (Talk) 14:16, 21 January 2011 (UTC) He incorrectly implies I’ve added sources on the research. I haven’t. The rest of the statement falsely hinges on that assumption. Comment James:[24] …we have a serious issue here. We have a small group of editors who primarily or only edit TM articles who continue to misuse and misquote sources in an attempt to prove that TM has a degree of scientific support which is not shown by a careful review of the scientific literature. They have been taken much information out of context and are trying to use Wikipedia for advertising. James personalized a comment that isolates a group of editors, creates a we/them environment into which he, James, Wikipedia and the admins on the page is the “we” and the good guys, the rest including me are the “them”, the bad guys. He makes some serious accusations, accusing editors of misusing and misquoting, but does so with out a single diff. The TM research is a source of contention, and no editor has the definitive opinion on the research. As another example of ABF, he accuses editors of using Wikipedia for advertising purposes, a COI, yet no COI was found in the TM arbitration. If he has new proof of COI he should take it to the COI Noticeboard. So do we wish Wikipedia to be written by those who are here to write an encyclopedia or those who are here to promote a religious movement? [25] He creates a false premise here, another personalized comment, ABF, and more guilt by association. Nuclear Warfare seems to be banning me for an affiliation with a whole group of editors, and that group as identified and characterized by James. James has a history of personalizing comments and assumptions of bad faith. These are a few:[26] [27][28]. Comment: Nuclear Warfare:[29] The problem with littleoliveoil's editing is not now a propensity to edit war, but more disruptive and tedious editing, and attempting to use AE to win the disagreement, something this forum is not designed for. I came to the AE in good faith asking for a warning for an editor who had made 8 removals of reliably sourced content without prior discussion That 8 was an excessive number of removals was based on a standard set by Will Beback[30] when he warned me here fro a single move of content to the talk page. Six of the sources James removed were WP:MEDRS compliant. All were reliably sourced. What I got was another layer in an ongoing, falsely construed narrative that casts me as a disruptive and now tendentious editor, setting me up in this most recent situation for a topic ban. Add , per the TM arbitration,” if, after a warning, that editor repeatedly or seriously violates the behavioural standards or editorial processes of Wikipedia.” and "Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning advising of the problems with his or her editing and containing a link to this decision." [31]. I wasn’t warned. I also realize this is not a simple case for any admin. dealing with it. Case in point: The opinion of any editor on the TM research is of zero consequence. I could care less. Like any research it has its good and its weaker points. The concern is using a personal opinion of the TM organization/research as basis to judge another editor.(olive (talk) 23:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)) Note: @ Anthony. Thank you for updating the format . I had trouble with the template so "posted by hand". AKG, you are making sweeping generalizations for which you provide no proof, but your personal opinion. Its impossible to defend myself against generalizations. Implied in your comment is that in removing one editor from a discussion, everything will improve. Implied further within that idea is that one editor or one side of a debate is the source of all the problems, and that I am on the wrong side. In fact everything will be quieter if you remove either side from a debate, but better or not is a value judgement probably based on a point of view. I don't see that Wikipedia functions on a system that removes editors from either side because they disagree. Wikipedia functions on standards that support collaboration and with the knowledge that multiple views and multiple sources of knowledge will help build better articles. I am a good faith editor, thank you for recognizing that. What I have as a gaol is that the articles I work on are both accurate and neutral. I am a civil editor respecting that other editors have opinions different than mine and will see and find sources that I don't see or discover. I don't have to agree with other editors and they don't have to agree with me, but I have on many occasions compromised even when I thought something wasn't right. On contentious articles such as the TM articles its a given that there will be prolonged discussion because there are lots of sources and lots of opinions. An editor who is working collaboratively when things get bogged down, and as the TM arbitration specifies, should look for dispute resolution. If I were truly being vociferous about my editorial position why would I ask for outside eyes to come in and help us through difficult points when such scrutiny could lose me my "favoured" position. What you are saying about me and my actions is contradictory. As well, you see me as a good faith editor, but you recommend removing me rather than complying with the TM arbitration which specifies a warning prior to a sanction. (Response to above) There are multiple instances of discussions in which you have refused to recognise when consensus is clearly against you. As an example, see the diff cited here on your talk page immediately after the ban. What I assert regarding your conduct is not contradictory and you omit one important component of my thinking: I do believe you are a good-faith editor, yes, but I also believe that your approach of arguing against changes and discussing old topics ad nauseum is so frustrating to the other editors as to be disruptive. In response to the additional argument you entered, that the initial sanction is invalid because you were not warned about the existence of discretionary sanctions and educated, I will say that that does appear to be true, and that I am unsure why NuclearWarfare did not take account of that. But it is within an administrator's general discretion to remove disruptive editors by blocking, and perhaps you were simply banned from the article in lieu of, say, a two-week block—a rather good idea for you, in my view. AGK [•] 22:01, 31 January 2011 (UTC) If you are going to cite an instance of the so called multiple instances when I have refused to recognize consensus, you might consider not citing Will Beback's version of a sequence of events, and note what really happened which is as outlined above: that I did not change the original version in the article which was under discussion, but adjusted a version added in other content. The adjustment was a copy edit, quote, as well as a citation of the studies, a more specific rendering of the same sentence so we didn't have a case of redundant text and so the text was close to the source...You'll note that Will Beback left ce for syntax in place some. You also seem to forget that Will Beback made a much larger change to the text removing the sentence completely and replacing it with a summary ... but Will did it so It seems acceptable. And no AGK I don't ignore consensus. When an editor continues with a behaviour as Doc James does of unilateral editing which eventually emboldens him to delete reliably sourced content , yes I do comment on it, and eventually after 8 times try some kind of intervention. What is it you think I need a block for. Commenting here. Trying to set a record straight that has been scewed. Concerns about repeated use of DR to try and render an editor unable to edit or even move for fear some admin with a bias will show up and once again with out really knowing what's going on, slap some sanction on me. I'm sorry you use the kind of manner you do here. I've admired your fairness in the past and your even tone and handedness. And while you have the power to block, ban, or sanction if you do so you do it not understanding or knowing what's going on. You might take into consideration that in the TM arbitration all editors but one came out of that arbitration on the same footing. I wasn't the bad guy as you seem to depict me here. (olive (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2011 (UTC)) Reply Will Beback's claim that I "declined to discuss" FYI, you should be aware that the dispute over this material dates back to June or July, not just to December. Here are two of the main threads started by Olive on the topic: NPOV_violation_of_lead Inaccuracy_in_the_lead As far as this material goes, I wouldn't characterize Olive's behavior as POV pushing. It's more a matter of tendentious editing and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. To the extent that a POV is being promoted, it's one that promotes relatively poor research which finds positive effects from TM while minimizing the highest quality research which does not find much special effect from the technique. Will Beback talk 01:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC) I made a change to a version of the sentence because it was the second time the same sentence would have appeared in the article, not the original one you had removed and summarized Will, and what I did, which was as I have said repeatedly, to make it more specific, per the content, with syntax changes. I also then quoted from the source. I assumed the reason to repeat the same sentence would be obvious and would be acceptable to everyone. I did not analyze which of the sources/reviews was better; I simply randomly chose one as an example. If you didn't like it you could have said so, and it could have been added. I have said repeatedly what the problems were for me, as I do here: Selecting a few studies to support a view while ignoring others, and ignoring a summary of the content in the article itself to present a one sided view constitutes and creates a POV, and creates a lead that is patently absurd. The lead must summarize and reflect the article. if this paragraph is not pulled out and rewritten to comply with NPOV and WP:LEAD standards we need to ask for formal mediation. Enough is enough. (olive (talk) 06:04, 7 August 2010 (UTC))' and again here: We've been through this before, but we have two reviews here. The wording inaccurately suggests all reviews have found these results, which isn't true. We should name the reviews I didn't decline to discuss. I'd discussed in the "Bone of Contention" thread. I 'd stated my position several times. I couldn't see doing another round of the same and thought, per the TM arbitration which suggests DR instead of endless discussion, that a mediation would be the best way to proceed.(olive (talk) 03:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)) Further to Will: Will's judgment that I somehow deliberately changed content to a more POV is based on one basic assumption, and that is, that I was aware that my editing was wrong somehow. I didn't. I was simply working with content trying to make it fit into another article. While I see that Doc has taken a rigid position on a sentence, Will actually removed the whole thing earlier. The urgency Doc seems to feel to have this sentence appear as he wants it too and in several articles was already being addressed by the version already in the article. Further I can't second guess how Will thinks the articles should be written. Its risky to assume another editor's motives, seems to me. Note per Cirt and Involved editor status Perhaps Cirt 's comment should be moved to "comments from involved users" since he has edited/written a TM article, TM and Cult Mania [32].(olive (talk) 15:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)) (Comment to Olive and also to Will Beback) I've taken this matter up off-AE with Cirt[33]. AGK [•] 00:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Comment: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Transcendental_Meditation_movement#Discretionary_sanctions = "For the purpose of imposing sanctions under this provision, an administrator shall be considered "uninvolved" only if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes as an editor in articles within the topic." I cannot recall participating in a content dispute as an editor in articles within the topic. If I have, I will gladly admit being mistaken about that, and move my comments. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 03:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Reply to Fladrif's comment: Fladrif neglects to mention that New York Brad drafted the original version of this part of the TM arbitration and that this is what he intended [34]. Fladrif also states Roger Davies and Shell Kinney decided the outcome of the TM arbitration, untrue. Further, editors have the right to expect the arbitration decisions and remedies be upheld and that the arbitrators support their own decisions. While different arbitrators may interpret the decisions in diverse ways, asking that the decision as read be adhered to is not Wikilawyering but a right every editor has. I have been taken to AE twice. Both times by Doc James: In the first instance, based on 2 reverts in months, where the sanction was handed down by Future Perfect before I could comment and the case closed within about 45 minutes by Cirt an involved editor. In the second instance for one strong comment, not uncivil, I wan't sanctioned or warned. I don't find Fladrif's comment to be particularly accurate.(olive (talk) 17:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)) Comments referencing pre TM Arbitration edits The TM arbitration took almost four months to come to a decision/conclusion, included hundreds of diffs. and multiple pages of evidence. Nowhere in the decision was I or any other editor sanctioned for any of the actions Doc James and Fladrif are accusing me of below. Using this old evidence once again as if its points to some sanctionable wrong doing, when both Doc and Fladrif know the arbitration didn't find wrong doing seems deliberately misleading, even dishonest.(olive (talk) 20:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC)) Per Warning There are certain procedural processes laid out by arbitration and supported in official forums by the committee. A warning, one of these processes, is not something that should be handed out for those who subjectively are seen to deserve them. Clearly worded neutral warnings are a right every editor should have if these editors are thought of as people with abilities to edit, but who may be at some threshold where they may need to be guided. Those processes must be applied evenly and not with opinion as basis for applying them even if the opinion is an arbitrator's. The arbitration says "if, after a warning", not "if after what is construed to be a warning". I asked for a warning for Doc James to suggest a unilateral editing style and eventual deletion of sourced content was a problem rather than try to trap him so that he could be removed. In my case the warning was a simple recognition of due process that had been neglected. I respect process realizing that unless we adhere to it fairly and consistently, and with out bias, Wikipedia will start to look like something out of an old cowboy movie. I don't think anything Fladrif says allows for this process to be ignored, whether I'd done something that needed a warning or not. This is probably something ArbCom has to clear up.(olive (talk) 22:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)) @Will: Round and round we go "Olive has continued to work to diminish the the prominence of the most reputable scientific reviews of TM Will you're making the same old comment with out a single shred of evidence. Repeating a false hood over and over doesn't make it true. And, the quality of the TM research, fringe science, my so called lack of education are all beside the point... (Sheesh. Nine years in university and copy editing for one of the top corn botanists in the world and apparently I can't read and understand a research paper.)(olive (talk) 03:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)) @ Fladrif. Why the rush? Burying the body even before its cold?(olive (talk) 03:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)) Statement by NuclearWarfare AGK notes one thing above: "In response to the additional argument you entered, that the initial sanction is invalid because you were not warned about the existence of discretionary sanctions and educated, I will say that that does appear to be true, and that I am unsure why NuclearWarfare did not take account of that." I hardly think that after being instructed and reminded in the original ArbCom case, as well as having been sanctioned for behaving tendentiously in the past[35], that any further warning was necessary. NW (Talk) 01:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC) I was sanctioned with two reverts given as evidence. As far as I know the tendentious comment was directed at another editor.(olive (talk) 03:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)) Thanks for responding, NuclearWarfare. In light of your comment and also per #Statement by involved User:Fladrif, I would agree that there was no need for Olive to be formally notified before being sanctioned. There does exist the unresolved argument, floated primarily by Ludwigs elsewhere in this thread, that Olive did not deserve to be sanctioned, but that is an entirely different matter. AGK [•] 20:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Statement by involved User:Jmh649 It is interesting that my comment "it seems that TM publishes a huge amount which they like to brag about, little of the work [however] has any real scientific substance to it. " is refereed to as "personalizing comments and assumptions of bad faith". It enforces the concerns regarding WP:COI that I bring up in the next two diffs Olive mentions. If my comments regarding TM are taken as personal attacks against Wikipedia editors than some may be too close to the subject matter to continue editing neutrally. To say that Cochrane is a biased source I find astonishing. This is not a view held by either the scientific community at large or those who edit over at WP:MED. We have guidelines regarding what should be used as a reference here WP:MEDRS. Evidence In this edit Olive changes the conclusions of the research [36] Will reverted this change [37] and she changed it again Jan 14th 2010 [38]. This was the same content she attempted to alter back in Aug of 2010 for which she was place under a 1RR [39] and TimidGuy was banned. The version she was attempting to change was discussed here at a RfC July 31st 2010 [40] and received support from two independent editors. The other versions put forwards got no independent support. During talk page discussion I have encouraged her to get further outside input [41] and [42]. This passage has been brought up dozens of times [43]. When I made my first edit to this topic area Jan 19th, 2010 in this edit [44] the best quality piece of research in the field of TM had been kept from the article. What I refer to is a 2007 review of TM and other meditation techniques by the AHRQ [45]. Fladrif comments an edit wars that take place in Feb 2009 to keep this from the article [46] and [47] by Olive and TimidGuy [48] Further evidence can be found here. Olive has an admitted WP:Conflict of interest (as a practitioner of TM and working at the Maharishi University of Management). She has a very long history (in the order of many years) of attempting to remove / playdown the best pieces of scientific research regarding this subject. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Response to Ludwigs2 To this "I happen to think that EBM is a neologism with very little substance and no standing whatsoever in the philosophy of science, EBM clearly began as an effort to refute alternative medicines (it was called 'evidence-based' specifically to exclude medical practices which were not developed according to western scientific standards of evidence)." this is not really much one can say. We do however have an ArbCom that deals with pseudoscience (an area in which Ludwig extensively edits). This statement is like saying that physics was developed to refute cultural relativism and the flat earth people and biology was developed to refute Christianity. You opinion is that of a very small minority. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:45, 2 February 2011 (UTC) As Cirts independence has been scrutinized should we also look at that of User:Ludwigs2? Has been recently warned regarding his involvement in the pseudoscience topic are [49] by a couple of editors. This I assume would fall into that area. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Statement by involved User:Will Beback The text in question was added following an RfC back in August 2010. Olive has repeatedly objected to that RfC, but has not specified what is actually wrong with the material. On January 14, after changing the text without discussion, she said that it "does not accurately reflect the sources",[50] that "accurate sourcing is imperative",[51] that she "checked refs and once again was struck by the inaccuracies of what we are saying".[52] When asked about the purported misrepresentation she again asserted it without any specifics: "The sentence is inaccurate per the sources."[53] When asked to get consensus before making changes to the much-discussed text,[54] she replied "I intend to edit this content so that it is accurate per Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and accurately represents the sources. How that is worded exactly is certainly open to discussion, but representing the sources accurately isn't."[55] Again I ask her to point to the inaccuracies.[56] She replied by saying that the errors were obvious, but "If you'd like to discuss this sentence again, and its been discussed before we could certainly do that. Why don't I start another thread." However instead of discussing the errors she again complains about the old RfC.[57] I again ask her to explain the problems with the actual current text.[58] She again complains about the August RfC and the previous AE case, and again says she will discuss the errors in the future.[59] She says my position is clear, but fails again to point out any errors.[60] Again I ask her to point to the errors.[61] She says it's been discussed in the past, but doesn't link to any previous discussions of errors.[62] Again I ask her to point to the errors.[63] Finally, she says she won't do so because it's already been discussed too much.[64] It's very frustrating to deal with an editor who keeps insisting something is wrong but won't say what it is. Comment to Olive In a recent case I said that an admin posting in the discussion section was actually involved. User:Sandstein replied: As long as Scott MacDonald does not intend to take enforcement action himself, the question about whether he is involved is mostly immaterial, and even if he does take action himself, the issue of involvement can be raised on appeal.[65] So apparently the regulars here don't really care too much about who posts where.   Will Beback  talk  23:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Reply to Ludwigs2 Much of the disputed material in this topic concerns WP:Fringe theories. Just because a fringe theory is supported by a range of published studies does not necessarily mean it has gained academic acceptance. Fore example, the TM movement asserts that it trains followers in a technique that will allow them to levitate and fly from place to place, and which can beam a peace-inducing field from thousands of miles away. See TM-Sidhi program. This immediate dispute concerns another assertion of them movement which is not accepted by the scientific community: that the Transcendental Meditation technique is uniquely capable of producing a variety of health benefits. Olive is not a scientist: she says she is an artist and has never claimed any scientific training. OTOH, Jmh649 (Doc James) says he is an emergency room physician. Physicians receive training in science, and routinely read and evaluate the types of studies involved in this dispute. It is important that, as a respected reference work, Wikipedia does not give excess credence to fringe theories, especially those concerning medical issues and which involve significant expenses. Despite numerous warnings and complaints, Olive has continued to work to diminish the the prominence of the most reputable scientific reviews of TM, which is a violation of NPOV.   Will Beback  talk  01:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Statement by involved User:Fladrif The claim that the interim topic ban was improperly imposed because of a lack of prior notice is WP:Wikilawyering at its worst and in and of itself a prime example of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Olive asserts this defense every time she is involved in an AE dispute. It was extensively discussed when she sought "clarification" of the sanctions imposed upon her and two other editors last fall. The members of the ArbCom committee who actually decided the TM ArbCom weighted in on the subject, and made it clear that, in the case of the involved editors in the TM ArbCom, no further warning was necessary before imposing AE sanctions, and that olive's claim of lack of notice was a complete red herring. Arbitrator User:Roger Davies wrote: "Catching up belatedly on this, the purpose of the neutral warning is to avoid a revolving door approach ("here's your warning, here's your summons", delivered in the same envelope) and thus reduce the prospect of biting newcomers either to the topic or the encyclopedia. However, that scarcely applies here and I don't think there's much doubt that in this instance the editors involved have had ample and sufficient warnings by a variety of other means.[66] [Emphasis added] Arbitrator User:Shell Kinney wrote: "Who warned who is a complete red herring here (though I don't disagree with the best practices mentioned above). Frankly I don't understand how editors who were involved in a case can later claim they were unaware of the discretionary sanctions or should have received better/more warnings or that someone should have more clearly explained to them what the problem was. All of the editors who appealed these sanctions were involved in the case, repeatedly warned before things got to the level of a case and should by this time know how Wikipedia works. The findings in the case they were involved in clearly set out the problems in the area, the relevant policies and what sanctions might happen if things continued to be a problem - exactly how much more clear could anyone be?[67] [Emphasis added] The reviewing uninvolved admins should not only reject out of hand olive's lament that she wasn't warned by an uninvolved admin first, but should regard her frivolous claim, forcefully rejected over four months ago by the ArbCom members who actually decided the case, as evidence in and of itself, of grossly inappropriate editor conduct on her part meriting AE sanction. Fladrif (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC) @Ludwig - The argument that olive is not guilty of POV pushing is just astonishing, particularly in light of the ArbCom ruling. The dispute documented above isn't a month old, it isn't six months old, it's years old, and Olive was part of the group warned and admonished at ArbCom for this conduct. Olive has been a part of the tag-team editing to exclude from the article any source that actually meets WP:MEDRS for literally years.[68] The argument that it's just an inadventent oversight that she deleted a RS that doesn't agree with her employer's PR doesn't pass the laugh test. That you would argue, apparently in seriousness, that a Cochrane Review is just a biased POV-pushing source, when it meets the highest standards of WP:MEDRS, indicates a fundamental misunderstanding and misconception of what Wikipedia polichy is and should be about. That she would seek to perpetuate a discussion contesting whether independent meta-analyses of meditation research are actually independent, or, even if independent, are somehow given undue weight by being indentified as indepenent, after another editor was subjected to a six-month topic ban for, inter alia, "general absurd [wiki]lawyering e.g. regarding the word "independently""[69], is an astonishing blindness to consensus. As another editor put it in the prior talkpage discussion, "the editing process cannot survive it, and editors who care about this subject need to take a stand". Fladrif (talk) 03:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC) @AGK - To suggest that admins who have had to deal with, and have in fact dealt with, at AE in prior cases, the misconduct of an editor are somehow "involved" and disqualified from further exercise of Admins powers, is painfully misguided. Were Wikipeida to buy into such patent nonsense, it would disqualify, for example, all the member of ArbCom from ever dealing with a recurring issue. Such nonsense should be rejected out of hand for what it is - nonsense. It is a recurring theme with olive that she claims to have done nothing wrong - ever; that no warning, no sanction, no admonition whatsoever by any uninvolved editor or adminstrator has ever been meritorious, and that every such action has failed to conform to her own unique conception of "due proces" and that everyone who has every issued such a warning, sanction or admonition has never done so for a valid reason. She is, as always, an innocent victim of animus and conspiracy. At COIN, at RSN, at Project Medicine, at ArbCom, at AE, and in every rejected appeal. Entertaining and indulging this self-serving delusion month after month and year after year in the face of overwhelming objective evidence to the contrary does not serve the interests of Wikipedia. Fladrif (talk) 03:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Let's cut to the chase, shall we? The applicable standard for overturning an AE remedy is simple and straightforward: 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. It is clear to me, and should be painfully clear to everyone, that there is no clear, substantial and active consensus of uninvolved editors to lift the sanctions imposed. More importantly, there is no such consensus among uninvolved admininistrators. As such, no-one other than the admin who imposed the temporary topic ban may lift that sanction. There is no reason to prolong this discussion, which has long since spun off into tangents wholly unrelated to the merits of the appeal. Further discussion is only going to get more and more remote and irrelevant. This should be closed now as a denial of the appeal. Fladrif (talk) 01:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Statement by uninvolved Ludwigs2 I've created my own section for further responses, at Will's request. Response to and discussion with Will (refactored from a section he hatted) Thanks for the detailed information, Will. I hope it's alright to respond in your section here; if not, let me know and I'll happily refactor elsewhere Looking back at the RfC you seem to be talking about - this one, correct? - there doesn't seem to have been any consensus reached here at all. In fact, I see Olive offer a short and seemingly neutral suggestion, DocJames presenting a counter suggestion that is heavily steeped in skeptical sources, and then assorted quibbles, disagreements, and rants involving perhaps five or six editors. not really a prime example of the consensus system in action, if you ask me... Apparently, however, DocJames' version was declared to have consensus (I'm not sure how or why), and the discussion immediately goes into 'NPOV violation' mode in archive 34, with Olive and others objecting to a perceived bias in the lead, and Doc and others sticking to their guns to preserve that particular version. That state continues to the present, and includes requests for mediation or other DR that (apparently) never came to any fruition. With respect to "inaccuracy per sources" issue: I believe that refers to the dispute over this edit where the only difference between the two versions is that Olive's version attributes the clam (An independently done systematic review, the Opsina meta-analysis, has not found...), whereas your version generalizes it (Independently[64] done systematic reviews have not found...). and in fact, Olive's version does seem to better reflect the sourcing (unless there's some reason to believe that that independent review should be used without attribution). I don't know why Olive didn't point out that this was the only difference, and I don't know why you didn't note it yourself, but it does seem like a fairly self-evident point. I can understand why Olive was getting frustrated - there was clearly a two-way miscommunication going on here between you and she, and it was aggravated on her side by DocJames, who was making some fairly pushy reverts and changes to the article while this discussion was ongoing. but I'm still not seeing ban-worthy material here. In fact, I would probably have been much grumpier about this than she was, though I probably would also have expressed myself more clearly. Trust me, it is incredibly aggravating to feel tag-teamed (which is the feeling one gets when one is bogged down in a discussion with one editor while another editor starts making rampant and contentious edits to mainspace). In short, I understand that (and why) you were annoyed, and I also understand that (and why) Olive was annoyed. What I can't understand is the talk page dynamic in which none of her concerns got met, while you and James ran a bit roughshod over article content. Nor can I understand why that dynamic (with obvious miscommunications and problematic edits all around) ended up with only people opposed to your side getting sanctioned. --Ludwigs2 01:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Despite knowing that this material was disputed Olive made a significant change without any discussion, or even a clear edit summary. Here are the sequence of edits:[70] Note that there are at least two reviews cited - she just omits mentioning the most important one while leaving the citation but without explaining why she deleted reference to it. That's a bit deceptive and is not helpful to the article. In general, she's kept complaining about the RfC from five months ago rather than working towards a consensus solution. There was a miscommunication because Olive refused to communicate her problem with the material. She kept saying there were obvious errors, but would not say what they were.   Will Beback  talk  01:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Olive was not alone in knowingly making disputed edits on that page, so I'm not sure where you're going with that first line. with respect to that sequence of edits, here's what I see happening: she changes wording to attribute the 'independent research' to the Opsina meta-analysis. seemingly non-problematic she removes some argumentative language about "devotees [...] tied to Maharesh Yogi" to talk about research associated with TM using biased participants. also non-problematic. she adds a couple of (what seem to be) reliable sources that have published material on TM, without any obvious bias that I can see. is there a problem there? It took me a while to see what you meant by omitting one of the sources (messy diffs), but that could easily have been fixed by replacing the first source with the more important one or attributing both of them (e.g. "independent studies by Ospinal and Krisanaprakornkit found no significant...") which either you or she or Doc could have done as a compromise; I'm not sure why that never came up on the talk page either. As far as complaining about the RfC five months later... It was a bogus result (an RfC with no consensus closed as though it had one); What did you expect her to do? Again, she showed more restraint than I would have in the same circumstance, and I can just imagine your and Jim's responses if she had been the one to close it preemptively in her favor. Look, Will, I don't really want to start casting blame in any direction here; this just strikes me as an unfortunately mucked up talk-page. If you want a summary of my opinion on all this, it's as follows: I don't see a whole lot of difference between you and DocJames and Olive with respect to behavior (you're behavior is less problematic than the other two, but they're about equal, and no one is really rocketing off into the deep end). Consequently, I don't understand why there is such a significant and pronounced difference in punishment here. Is it just that you two are admins and she isn't? because if that's the case, that's just plain sad wrong. and that's the least-bad explanation I can think of, barring some pretty damning diffs I haven't seen. If I can offer a compromise, why don't you all un-ban Olive, and I will do what I can on the talk page to make sure communications don't get mucked up again. TM is not something I know a lot about, but I can usually find decent compromises when it's just wording and structural issues like this.--Ludwigs2 02:38, 1 February 2011 (UTC) I kept offering to discuss the issue and asking Olive to point to the problems with the text, and she kept complaining about the August RfC and saying she would discuss the errors later, but she never did. I don't see what I could have done any differently to get her to discuss the problem with the text, rather than the problems with the RfC in August.   Will Beback  talk  03:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Ludwigs2 wrote: she changes wording to attribute the 'independent research' to the Opsina meta-analysis. seemingly non-problematic No, that's mistaken. Olive changed text that referred to two independent reviews and made it about only one review, leaving off the other, more important one (while keeping the footnote to it). Since that other review, from the Cochrane Collaboration, does not support the POV that TM has unique benefits that deletion affected the POV of the material.   Will Beback  talk  05:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC) And again, that was an easy mistake for her or (or anyone) to make, and easily resolved by adding in the second source or discussing the issue in talk rather than engaging in wholesale reverts. Or do you disagree? WIll, I keep trying to point out how everyone on this page made some minor and unfortunate mistakes, and you keep trying to elevate Olive's mistakes to major offenses while minimizing/avoiding what I say about you and Doc. That's not nice, or reasonable. Frankly, f this is the worst thing that you can say about Olive (that she neglected to mention a source she should have mentioned - OMG!), then I am even more puzzled by a three-month topic ban. How do you justify that on the basis of that? --Ludwigs2 17:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Ludwigs, please note that this is an appeal of a sanction on Olive. It's perfectly normal and natural that the focus here is on her editing. Olive has a long history with this topic, so it's reasonable to say that any enforcements are not based purely on one or another edit. Tendentious editing is never found in a single edit. As you can see from my posting above, and from the postings in the thread which led to the enforcement, the omission of one study is not the sole reason we're here. It's just a part of a series of actions.   Will Beback  talk  23:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Will, the few times I've run across Olive on project (there's not too many - our interests overlap some but not a huge amount), I have found her to be unfailingly polite to both me and the people she's debating (she has a tendency to get frustrated, yes, but it's nowhere near as pronounced or strident as my own, so I tend to discount it). Olive and I do tend to share a middle-of-the-road academic perspective on fringe issues, and I know from long, painful personal experience that middle-of-the-road academic perspectives are treated as fringe advocacy on-project, and editors who argue for them slowly develop unjustified bad reputations because of the protracted efforts of anti-fringe editors to discredit them. If you had any idea how many times I've had some <expletive deleted> skeptic publicly accuse me of being a scum-sucking, POV-pushing Fringe advocate your jaw would drop (I've had weeks where words to that effect have been thrown at me a dozen times a day, and no admin ever blinked twice about it). So you'll forgive me if I do not take your word that Olive is a problem editor, or that there is any problem with her editing at all except that she is stubborn for unpopularly neutral positions. The last time I asked for help with a tendentious editor at ANI (who will remain unnamed, unless you push me), he had (i) left 50 angry messages on my talk page over the course of a couple of days, (ii) made completely specious BLP claims to try to prevent verification of a source, (iii) engaged in multiple undiscussed reverts, and (iv) tangled the talk page and two noticeboard threads in what one admin described as the "worst example of IDHT and tendentious editing that [s/he] had ever seen". He faked retirement, got absolutely no punishment, and was back editing in a week (and editing the same article again in three, though with a bit more caution). Now, let's take that three weeks he took off as a self-imposed topic ban - someone needs to show where Olive has engaged in behavior that's four times more disruptive than that debacle (which would seem to be required for a topic ban four times as long), or someone has to start 'fessing up that the system is not being remotely fair or honest towards her. I'm not accusing you (or anyone) of anything, I'm simply asking for evidence against Olive that will convince me that this ban is fair and justified compared to punishments (or the lack thereof) I've seen given to different editors for similar or worse behavior. Can you or someone else do that please? And if not, can we dismiss this topic ban as spurious and specious, like, immediately? --Ludwigs2 00:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Ludwigs2, could you say which articles or talk pages you've worked on with Olive? That might help us understand your interactions. However Olive's behavior on non-TM articles is not the issue here. It's not uncommon for a primary purpose editor to act like bulldogs on the topic of interest but be charming elsewhere. (Not accusing anyone of being a bulldog- just pointing out that editors may bring different approaches to different topics.) Ludwigs2, you have indeed accused me of a variety of things, including not being nice or normal and of engaging in the same problematic behaviors as Olive. You have not provided a single diff or example. This appeal does not concern my behavior - it is about Olive. I suggest saving your commentary about my activity to a different thread. You're also welcome to post to my talk page with your concerns.   Will Beback  talk  03:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC) I don't honestly remember what articles they were. It seems to me that times I run into Olive are when we both happen to respond to the same thread on the Fringe or NPOV noticeboards. I can't remember a time when we both just happened to end up editing the same article out of interest (not saying we never did, I just can't remember one). Now the only reason I mentioned your behavior at all was to point out how innocuous Olive's behavior has been on that page. No one's perfect, everyone makes occasional errors of judgement (I pointed out a couple of yours above; e.g. where you condemned Olive for not including the second source rather than simply adding in the second source yourself, or where you provided a diff of Olive's "problematic" edits but none of them actually seemed to be problematic at all). I think even you would agree that that kind of mis-presentation (unintentional and mild though it may be) is not the best way to address the issue: perfectly understandable, yes; generous, sympathetic and reasonable, no. Either way, I'm not here to condemn you for being subject to the ills that all human flesh is heir to. I'm really just trying to figure out how Olive (whose behavior appears to be well within a standard deviation of your own) is being singled out for fairly extreme sanctions, particularly when I have seen editors act in ways that make Olive look like Mother Teresa and yet have failed to have any sanctions levied against them at all. Trust me, we are not getting away from this fairness issue until it's resolved, so we might as well avoid the tangential discussions and get right down to business. Do you have any evidence which shows that Olive deserves this sanction, or not? --Ludwigs2 05:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC) second response to Will, per his 3 February post I'm not arguing that TM is is the epitome of rational thought (I'm an academic scientist myself, with very thorough training in the philosophy of science among other things, not that it matters any). I'm arguing two things: To my mind, articles of this sort should aim to give a clear and neutral description of the topic, moderated by scientific critiques sufficiently to prevent advocacy, but not so much that it becomes a 'critique' article. I don't have a problem with Cochrane as a source, but we cannot write the article from the perspective of Cochrane, because that would not give a clear and neutral description of TM. We do not have to argue that TM is factually wrong; we merely have to say what it is and point out that its claims are not accepted as scientific. Persistant reliance on the qualifications of editors is not the way wikipedia works - that is part of the problem that I've been complaining about here. there is an unfortunate focus on painting a picture of Olive as a bad editor, without real diffs or substantive material. In fact, you have yet to demonstrate that Olive has done anything more than argue over levels of attribution and weight for these sources - is she getting a three month topic ban because of a difference of opinion over proper attribution and weight? I get that you think she's a bad person with bad beliefs, I just don't think that should be a factor in administrative decisions of this sort. --Ludwigs2 03:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Response to DocJames' 1 February post With respect to your first paragraph of evidence: Clearly, Olive is not changing the results of anything; she is changing the attribution from a universal statement to a statement attributed to sources. With respect to your second paragraph of evidence: The first link point to the RfC, which (as I said before and anyone can clearly see) reached no consensus - there were (I think) four in favor and three against, and a whole lot of bickering. The second and third links shows you superciliously dismissing the input of three editors on the assertion that they all practice TM. and you say you've done this dozens of times? (I hope I'm misunderstanding that). The fact that someone might practice or have practiced TM does not make them unfit to edit this article, not does it give them a conflict of interest, and if you wanted to make either of those cases you have a much higher burden of proof than your simple off-the-cuff assertion. Honsetly, your statement shows a pronounced prejudice against TM and a decided lack of both wp:AGF and wpCIV that might render you unfit to be editing that article. With respect to your third paragraph of evidence: Your first two diffs are (again), the diffs that we are talking about above, that don't appear to have been removed from the page at any point since - I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Your third diff is just a pointer to the complaints about the mishandled RfC Your last point (reference to Fladrif): This is an edit war from 2009, over a different issue. I'm not sure why you're bringing it up here. Worse, if you look at what happen there, we have two editors popping suddenly onto the page to do reverts: Judyjoejoe (talk · contribs), who currently has only 43 edits over 3 years, most of them to to TCM related articles Rracecarr (talk · contribs), who suddenly stopped his sports and physics related editing make three reverts and a couple of talk page posts. The first of those looks awfully like a sock-puppet account used for wp:BAITing purposes (how much do you want to bet that most of those other edits were part of TM edit wars), and the second looks like a meat-puppet doing a favor for a friend. I can't prove either of those, of course, but I can say from my own experience that I expect (and usually plan for) random skeptical editors to appear out of thin air and make contentious reverts whenever I work on fringe articles. it's practically de rigueur. The fact that Olive isn't as jaded about it as I am (and thus is more vulnerable to that kind of gaming) shouldn't really be held against her. With respect to your last evidence - I'm sorry, but I can't find the admission that you're pointing to in that section. Where does olive admit to practicing TM? More to the point, who cares? As I said above, asserting COI takes more than that - or are you suggesting that all editors with physics training should be prohibited from editing physics articles? Assuming Olive does practice TM, you'd still have to show that she's trying to promote TM for some unfortunate reason, and I have seen absolutely no indication that that's the case (and you certainly have not presented any here, thus far). Finally, with respect to Cochrane: the Cochrane review's own web page [71] states unequivocally that they "advocate evidence-based [medical] decision-making". Now whatever you think about EBM (and I happen to think that EBM is a neologism with very little substance and no standing whatsoever in the philosophy of science), EBM clearly began as an effort to refute alternative medicines (it was called 'evidence-based' specifically to exclude medical practices which were not developed according to western scientific standards of evidence). That does not impact on the accuracy of Cochrane evidence, but it does impact on its reliability with respect to non-mainstream medicine, since it would have to be viewed as a biased source in those cases. I can go into more detail on this if you like, but I hope this suffices. --Ludwigs2 07:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Second response to DocJames: You are welcome to disagree with me, but you don't seem to have actually said anything in your response. you neglected to discuss all of my substantive points, and focused instead on my opinion about Cochrane (in the process displayed a fairly extensive lack of knowledge both of the history of the term 'evidence-based medicine' and of the philosophy of science in general). If you want to have a debate about Cochrane and EBM, I'm happy to oblige, but we should do that elsewhere. Now, why don't we get back to the fact that your evidence against Olive is thinner than a soufflé in a drum factory. --Ludwigs2 18:50, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Third response to DocJames: With respect to [72] this comment]... lol - yeah, since you can't support your position, please feel free to try attacking my reputation. I'm in the mood for a circus anyway. . --Ludwigs2 02:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Response to Fladrif Fladrif, point by point: Can you please source the assertion that Olive is employed by the TM organization (per your 'agree with her employers' comment). Will only claims she practices TM, and I haven't seen any diff which has Olive making any assertion about it one way or another Can you please provide a diff of the sanctions that Olive received? I have not seen the sanctions you're talking about, and I don't see it in the diffs you provided. if you want to discuss Cochrane, MEDRS, and the proper interpretation of policy, by all means lets do that. elsewhere... I find such converstations interesting, but it is not appropriate here. but, to be clear, please don't misrepresent me. I did not say (as you so ungraciously assert) that Cochrane is "just a biased POV-pushing source". I said that Cochrane has a distinct bias. Many reputable sources have distinct biases, and those biases need to be taken into account when the sources are used. Incidentally, that was your first misrepresentation of me, and so it's a freebie. I will be very gracious about the next time you offer such a drastic misrepresentation of what I say as well, but the third time you do it I will begin to accuse you of being uncivil, because by the third time it will become clear to all that you are intentionally misrepresenting my statements, which (as a general rule) makes me very angry. Just so we're on the same page. MEDRS is a guideline, not policy in the strict sense. And even as a guideline, MEDRS only applies to biophysical material, which probably doesn't cover TM in the strict sense. we could debate that further, however. Last point: I have no connection to TM whatsoever, and yet I am not unconvinced by Olive's position, and will probably start editing the page myself to work towards a decently neutral compromise. Therefore I don't really buy your POV-pushing argument and find your insistence on it (frankly) kind of rude. If you want to discuss problems with content with me, you will do better to discuss content and leave discussion of editors out of it. If you want to discuss problems with editors, then I would appreciate it if you would provide diffs that you consider to be clear and unambiguous, so that i can see that you're not just magnifying some trivial problem. Thanks. --Ludwigs2 01:25, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Littleolive oil (Procedural note) I have updated this request so that it complies with the prescribed format. AGK [•] 13:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC) As was opined in the initial Arbitration Enforcement thread, the right result was reached in relation to Littleolive oil (hence Olive), but for the wrong reasons. I disagree with NuclearWarfare (hence NW), the administrator who initially imposed the sanction, and agree with Olive, in the above argument that Olive did not initially file an AE thread in order to win a content dispute - but simply to ask "for a warning for an editor who had made 8 removals of reliably sourced content without prior discussion". Having said that, I argue that it would be undesirable to allow Littleolive oil to resume editing the Transcendental Meditation article. Having had peripheral experience in this topic area (as the Mediation Committee member who evaluated a recent request for formal mediation of this topic), and having re-examined the discussions that are ongoing between Olive, Will Beback, Doc James, et al, it is obvious that there is little support for the editorial positions that Olive is promulgating. In my view, Olive has became an unhelpful influence by protesting in support of those positions for so long and so vociferously. The main questions in this respect that need to be resolved are: whether other administrators agree that Olive's influence on the article has become unhelpful; and, if so, whether it is appropriate to use discretionary sanctions to eliminate from an article an editor whose behaviour is not acting in bad faith but who is still a damaging influence. My preliminary inclination is to decline this appeal on these bases. AGK [•] 14:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC) I agree with everything stated in the above analysis by AGK (talk · contribs). The above comment by AGK is indeed sound, logical, rational, and covers multiple aspects of assessment relating to the problematic behavior by the user in question. I support the preliminary inclination of AGK in this matter. -- Cirt (talk) 15:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Hmmm... I need to to look over the page more carefully, but I will say that on a superficial examination this looks like an unjustified ban. I don't see anything in Olive's behavior that is offensive, uncivil, or even outright POV-pushing, and I find the idea that a sysop might be imposing a ban because he does not like the editor's perspective on a topic to be extremely troubling. I'll look into the issue further, but I am tempted to support this appeal pro tem. --Ludwigs2 22:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Olive was sanctioned not because of their viewpoint in relation to the subject matter but because of the way they went about promulgating that viewpoint. This sanction was based on behavioural, not content, grounds. AGK [•] 22:54, 31 January 2011 (UTC) That is what would need to be said in order to legitimize the sanction, yes, but whether or not that is actually true is the matter under contention. I've just been reading through the talk page and last archive (particularly the 'Bone of Contention' threads, that seem to be the fulmination point) and what I'm seeing (frankly) is Olive getting a bit sandbagged by Will and Doc James. This whole problem seems to have occurred because DocJames made some edit that Olive objected to as POV (apparently without discussion or consensus), and then Will and James started digging in their heels when she tried to revert it back. I need to look a bit more deeply to see what the original change that Olive objected to was, but as far as I've read Olive is not looking like the unreasonable one here. I might not be quite as suspicious of it all if I hadn't seen (and been subject to) this kind of tactic in the past, but I have, so... --Ludwigs2 23:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Ok, I just went through every diff of the article from december 19th to the present, and what I see is Jim in particular and to a lesser extent Will trying to use page structure and attribution to portray TM as both a religious movement and a pseudoscience (this includes the addition of skeptical-POV sources like the Cochrane review, the removal of sources favorable to TM, efforts to hide attribution so that particular studies appear to be generalized scientific conclusions, and generally moving text around to highlight the movement as a religion). I do not see any evidence of Olive pushing a POV - the worst I can find has olive moderating the tone of skeptical statements without actually changing the meaning. So again, I'm at a loss as to why Olive is under sanction here. AGK, you say this sanction was based on behavioral grounds - can you please provide diffs of the behavior it is grounded in? Because I just can't find anything worthy of a ban. --Ludwigs2 23:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC) FYI, you should be aware that the dispute over this material dates back to June or July, not just to December. Here are two of the main threads started by Olive on the topic: NPOV_violation_of_lead Inaccuracy_in_the_lead As far as this material goes, I wouldn't characterize Olive's behavior as POV pushing. It's more a matter of tendentious editing and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. To the extent that a POV is being promoted, it's one that promotes relatively poor research which finds positive effects from TM while minimizing the highest quality research which does not find much special effect from the technique.   Will Beback  talk  01:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC) yeah, I read back that far. the IDIDNTHEARTHAT issue seems to be spread around among several editors, if you ask me. However, I don't really see that kind of promotion anywhere. What I see is Olive trying to minimize a number of overstatements about the ineffectiveness of TM, which is far different than trying to promote the practice. Further, I can't say I really agree with you on the quality of research like Cochrane. Cochrane is not an unbiased source - it's clearly and intentionally skeptical. It's useable and useful, mind you, but one cannot ignore the fact that they have a few sticks in the fire. More to the point, the question here is not whether Olive behaved like a perfect saint (she was certainly civil and communicative throughout, but we could debate the IDHT and tendentiousness issues), but whether she did anything worthy of a three-month ban. As far as I can tell, she didn't do all that much wrong and behaved no worse than anyone else on the page (and in some ways a bit better than DocJames, and certainly far better than editors on other pages who've never received so much as 24 hour block), she seemed to have some decent content points that ought to have been addressed, and yet she seems to have been singled out for a sanction. It doesn't seem justified in either absolute or relative terms. That needs explaining. and if it can't be explained, the ban needs to be lifted. --Ludwigs2 01:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Will opened the recent "Bone of Contention" discussion implying there was an unresolved issue, and Will deleted the contentious sentence replacing it with a summary again implying there were other ways of dealing with the research than this single sentence. Per the POV point above: I have suggested adjusting the sentence to make sure it summarized the content in the article, and suggested the studies were named in-line so as not to imply two studies spoke for an entire body of research as presented in the article. As well the sentence does not accurately describe what the studies say as far as I can tell, but I haven't argued that point. (olive (talk) 03:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)) Result of the appeal by Littleolive oil Finding myself in agreement with AGK and Cirt above, and seeing that nobody has so far expressed any views in support of Olive's appeal (after 48hrs), I suggest closing this as declined fairly soon, unless somebody still wishes to take up her case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Agree with this comment by Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs). Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Note: The impression that Future Perfect and Cirt are uninvolved administrators has been contested. AGK [•] 00:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Noting here that I'm aware of Ludwig's and Olive's comments and will respond later when I have time. I'm reconsidering my position on this appeal and would ask that we hold off on closing this appeal pending ongoing discussion and in light of there not yet, in my view, being a clear consensus. AGK [•] 13:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC) AGK, I think this statement by Fladrif is relevant, as are the quoted comments from two Arbitrators. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 15:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC) The rule governing this appeal, at WP:ARBTM#Discretionary sanctions, is: "Sanctions imposed under this provision may be appealed initially to the imposing administrator, and thereafter to the Administrators' noticeboard, or to Arbitration Enforcement, or to the Arbitration Committee. Administrators may not reverse without either (i) the agreement of the imposing administrator or (ii) community consensus or Arbitration Committee approval to do so." This appeal has now been discussed for a week, and it is clear that the discussion has not resulted in community consensus for vacating the ban. I am therefore closing the appeal as unsuccessful. Any subsequent appeals should be directed to the Arbitration Committee.  Sandstein  23:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

ZuluPapa5

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

Request concerning ZuluPapa5

User requesting enforcement

Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

ZuluPapa5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:ARBCC#ZuluPapa5's battlefield conduct and Wikipedia:ARBCC#ZuluPapa5_topic-banned

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

User:ZuluPapa5 maintains climate change-related material in his user space that arguably violates his sanctions in the Climate Change case. This material has been nominated for deletion (here and here). The concern is not so much the material itself, which is being considered through the usual process for such things, but ZuluPapa5's wholly inappropriate behavior toward those who have in good faith nominated the material for deletion. In response he has developed the concept of "deletion harassment" (here), which is admittedly difficult to fathom with its references to laws on stalking. A sample of problematic diffs include:

1. [73] Inappropriate continuation of "battlefield" (or worse) conduct in response to a routine and civilly-worded notification.
2. [74] Self-explanatory.
3. ...

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

1. This user talk thread shows User:Ronz trying but failing to get him to work cooperatively.

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Whatever it takes to either calm him down, or remove him from the field of battle. I do not think the usual short punitive block (few days to a week) would be effective. On the other hand I hope a siteban or similarly harsh measure is not needed. Perhaps something like an interaction ban would be appropriate.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This comment by User:MastCell is a good summary of the overall problem.

Addendum: Any action on the underlying conduct concerns? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Diff of notification. I waited a few days to see if he would calm down but the situation only became worse.

Discussion concerning ZuluPapa5

Statement by ZuluPapa5

see: User:ZuluPapa5/Deletion_Harassment for evidence. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 05:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning ZuluPapa5

• Remedy 4.6 specifically instructs participants to clear/delete their evidence subpages - so why is this still available? And this? This? It seems that the look into ZuluPapa5's apparent use or misuse of subpages is warranted, and there are more MFDs to come to decide this issue. I don't think a case can be made out for "deletion harassment". It is obvious, even to an user who is uninvolved with CC, that there are problems with the continued existence and/or maintenance of some such subpages; MFD is the last option to address those pages. What is also troubling is ZuluPapa5's recent insertion of "Florida laws" on stalking (and sentences for breaches of these laws) and his repeated references to other editors as "assholes".
• Given that he is already topic banned due to the battleground issue, it would be unacceptable to allow the continuation of such battleground behavior. Accordingly, should he continue to be unwilling to conduct himself appropriately during the MFDs or upon being notified of them, a block which enforces the topic ban appears to unfortunately be the only viable option left. The duration of such a block would be fixed and for the duration of the MFDs - until the Community has made its decision on them. Hopefully after that, there will be no further excuses for him to continue the battleground behavior, absent further violations of his topic ban. Ncmvocalist (talk) 02:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)Slightly modified this comment for clarity on duration. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
• Yes, it may be similar to the weed type issue I described at 03:41, 28 March 2010 (UTC). Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
• Okay, so I found this at MFD. His response in the MFD was to call a user "asshole" in the MFD, then make a "get off my talk page" comment in response to the MFD nomination — both blatant violations of WP:CIVIL. He's apparently been called out on his civility before (see User talk:ZuluPapa5#Talk:Civility), where a tl;dr discussion suggests that he's got some bad faith issues. He also made this lovely user subpage in which he slings mud at other users and falsely accuses them of stalking. It's clear that he's not even trying to be civil, and just wants to stir the pot. As Ncmvocalist points out, a block is pretty much the only other option at this point. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 02:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
• It appears that ZuluPapa5 is implicitly accusing other editors of engaging in criminal acts. User:ZuluPapa5/Deletion Harassment was recently expanded to include a summary of Florida laws on stalking, including maximum sentences. Aside from being a cut & paste copyvio from an external site (www.e how.com/list_6647727_florida-stalking-laws.html), this edit seems particularly ill-advised in light of both WP:NLT and WP:BLP. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:12, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
• I have nominated a similar page for speedy deletion: User:ZuluPapa5/WMC_RFE_Case_Index. He has no legitimate reason for keeping it. He claims to be taking a break, but he obviously hasn't learned anything. Since there isn't a shred of evidence that he's repentent or understands the problems he's created by his attitude, we know that when he returns we'll just see more of the same. I don't think he should be allowed to come back for some time. How about a three month block?
  Sometimes there are editors who rarely do anything constructive to aid Wikipedia's functioning or make any constructive article edits here, yet they are involved in all kinds of articles, discussions, attempts at policy changes, etc.. The majority of their activities involve very unconstructive edits, reverting and getting reverted, complaints, obstruction, stonewalling, endless circular arguments, ownership behavior, baiting, refusal to uncollaborate, refusal to respond constructively to reasonable communication, and generally create controversy. Sometimes this happens without directly violating any rules like NPA, but they often fail to AGF and are definitely disruptive. Sometimes they are so lacking in competence, maturity, cognitive abilities or language skills that they are a burden here. They serve as huge time sinks and need to be weeded out because they are just in the way and keep normally productive editors from doing constructive things. Topic bans or outright blocking may be necessary. In this case both are necessary. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• BullRangifer, do you have any strong personal feelings about Zulu's contributions to Wikipedia that are inhibiting collaboration, cooperation, and compromise between you two? For example, I see that you just nominated a page in Zulu's userspace for speedy deletion that was already blanked, with a very pejorative message. If you do have strong personal feelings towards Zulu, then this is the kind of situation that interaction bans are designed to resolve. Cla68 (talk) 05:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• My position on this is that he baited and goaded JPS and then treated MastCell's very civil and patient comments with disdain. He hasn't attacked me like that nor told me to leave him alone. My efforts have been directed toward defending those he has offended and trying to get him to stop such things and to get him to understand that others aren't harassing him. He has no right to be "left alone" from the normal business of running Wikipeida: MfDs are not harassment; warnings are not harassment; questions for clarification from admins is not harassment; deletion or changing of his contributions is not "deletion harassment". He thinks he owns his contributions and has a right to be an island, and allowed to do exactly as he pleases, without any interference. Well, things don't work that way here. He has treated several admins here like dirt and I've told him it must stop.
  His general attitude is best described with these words: uncollaborative, stonewalling, personal attacks, constantly assumes bad faith, makes false charges of hounding/"deletion harassment"/general harassment, acts like others don't have a right to touch his contributions, shows a strong ownership attitude, etc.. Even to the last he's gaming the system.
  Even his blanking (at your suggestion) of the subpage in question was so it would be protected so he could return to it (at your advice). (His edit summaries are very interesting reading.) You and I know he has no good purpose with that page. It's part of his battle with WMC which he'll return to. THAT'S where an interaction ban would be good. His "I'm sorry"s are obviously not sincere, as the context in which he says them, and his actions after them reveals.
  His replies turn things around and he treats those who are giving him good advice (I'm not even thinking of myself here) as if they were at fault and that they should leave him alone. When he called MastCell an "asshole" on his talk page and then wrote ASSHOLE elsewhere, he didn't seem to realize he had offended anyone. When he was first confronted with it he had the temerity to ask who he had offended.[75] When I told him that writing that "wasn't very smart",[76] he then made a so-called apology: "Sorry Wikipedia, I wasn't very smart. Please forgive me."[77] There was no apology to the ones he had offended, and no apology for doing it, just that he "wasn't very smart" (quoting me). If I hadn't said anything I doubt he would have said "I'm sorry" at all. He just doesn't seem to have the ability to have a clue, which is why I added that long paragaph about "timesink" editors. It fits him pretty well.
  It's simply not an attitude that inculcates much hope for him being a good editor. I still haven't seen him do anything constructive. Instead he tried to collect evidence of how he was being mistreated, when in fact it wasn't good evidence at all, and often showed him in a bad light. He never showed any real understanding of why everyone was criticizing him. Without repentence there is no real hope. IF there had been a glimmer of hope, I would have been overjoyed. I have no desire to block or ban anyone, but if someone acts like he does, I wouldn't hesitate a moment because editors like him are just not worth the grief they cause here. We have better things to do. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Personally, I'm not bothered by the name-calling here and here, which is well below the sticks-and-stones threshold. I don't really need to be defended in this case, although I appreciate the thought. Whether this particular incident is actionable (in the context of the climate-change probation) is a question I'll leave to the reviewing admins.

  I'm more bothered by the big picture. The combination of incoherence and aggression seems like a particularly poor fit for a collaborative project aimed at producing a reputable reference work. ZuluPapa5 responded to this site's standard, recommended deletion process by posting Florida criminal codes for cyberstalking (including maximum prison sentences), and then framing the MfD nomination in the language of those statutes, as a "malicious" and (by implication) criminal act. It should be obvious that there is something seriously wrong here, and it's much more fundamental than calling someone an asshole in a moment of frustration. MastCell ^Talk 07:36, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning ZuluPapa5

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

I agree that posting Florida laws on cyberstalking is a violation of WP:NLT, and have deleted the "Deletion Harassment" page, in lieu of blocking. Other admins may wish to take other actions. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Deleting the legal threat in no way retracts it. We need a block here, and his userspace needs a major culling per 4.6 of the ARBCC decision (Which does not allow blanking as a substitute for deletion). Courcelles 15:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I've blocked for the textbook NLT problem, not in any way an arb enforcement block. Any admin can unblock him when he unambiguously states he won't take any legal action, per standard procedure in this situation. Courcelles 15:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The Four Deuces

Request concerning The Four Deuces

User requesting enforcement

Martin (talk)

User against whom enforcement is requested

The Four Deuces (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Editors_warned, Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Discretionary_sanctions

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

1. Made a gratiously unhelpful and inflammatory comment attacking my editing record, was clearly referring to my person: "While I have sympathy for Martintg's ethnic nationalism, articles must be written from a neutral point of view, not a right wing extremist ethnic nationalist POV". TFD has no idea of my political beliefs and insinuating I hold an extreme right wing ethnic nationalist POV due to my membership of a particular ethnic group (which his assumes) is an egregious violation of the afore mentioned case.

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

1. TFD was previously warned formally [78] for making an inapproriate edit comment "Reverse pro-fascist edits". This latest incident confirms this unacceptable trend.
2. Formally placed on notice [79]
3. [80] Warning by 2over0 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

block or EE topic ban

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

It was suggested previously [81] it would be highly likely he will continue to characterise anyone he disagrees with as harbouring pro-fascist or extreme right wing sympathies. This is unacceptable that he continues to do so. --Martin (talk) 02:57, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• I think it is outrageous that in order to escape his culpability in his personal attack on me that he should go on to commit an egregious BLP violation by claiming his comment relates to the viewpoint of Professor Lauri Mälksoo, a scholar in international law from the University of Tartu, and linking sources that have nothing to do what so ever with his viewpoint. Apparently the only basis for TFD's slur is the ethnicity of Professor Mälksoo. --Martin (talk) 05:24, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
• @2overO, Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Editors_warned makes no distinction between wikipedia editors themselves or persons discussed by Wikipedia editors, it states "—in particular, by making generalized accusations that persons of a particular national or ethnic group are engaged in Holocaust denial or harbor Nazi sympathies—". This was one of the central findings of that case which resulted in a twelve month site ban for one of the participants for doing precisely that. Note that TFD's last point concerns the accusation of "double genocide". "Double genocide" is a form of Holocaust denial, as discussed in numerous sources such as this. TFD was explicitly warned about this previously, it seems incredulous that 2over0 should be suggesting yet another warning. TFD is not unaware of the heightened tensions within the EE topic area and the need to not associate people with certain ethnicity with far-right viewpoints. --Martin (talk) 08:13, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[82]

Discussion concerning The Four Deuces

Statement by The Four Deuces

My comments were about the POV of the quote that Martintg presented rather than his personal point of view. The far right in the former Communist states seeks to re-write history in order to villianize ethnic minorities within their borders, in particular Russians, whom they believe are within their countries illegally. The connection of this POV with the far right is well-documented. Not only do they argue that the annexation of the Baltic states was illegal, which is a mainstream view, but that (as Martintg presented) " - since it remained illegal - did not create any extra rights to the annexing power, the USSR". The implication is that Russian and other ethnic minorities are illegally in the Baltic states.

• "Territorial disputes in Eastern Europe have an impact not only on domestic politics, international relations and regional security in this area, but also on the European identity and cooperation of the extreme right at the transnational as well as European levels. The traditional geopolitical rule “your neighbor is your enemy – the neighbor of your neighbor is your partner”, when transformed into the extreme right-wing milieu, currently determines many relations within the European extreme right, mostly in the Eastern part of the continent." ("The Extreme Right in Eastern Europe and Territorial Issues")[83]
• "In fact, aspects of such a development can be witnessed in certain republics of the former Soviet Union where the transition to democratic rule has paradoxically been accompanied by a drive to create "ethnically pure" states. Proposals to grant citizenship on the basis of ethnic criteria have been advanced in Georgia as well as in the relatively more advanced Baltic republics."[84]
• "The far right nationalist myth is a use of history for political propaganda and to advance hatred and fear of Putin's "neo-Stalinist" Russia in order to promote an anti-Russian alliance of states, NATO and complete fealty to US policies, including the neoliberal policies that created so much poverty."[85]
• "The three Baltic states in the late 1990s set up state-sponsored commissions to study Nazi and Soviet crimes, but not in an open and democratic spirit. This was a project of ultra-nationalist revisionism with an active political agenda that meant much more to the politicians than this or that historical volume produced for minute readerships. That political agenda was in short, to rewrite the history of the second world war and the Holocaust by state diktat, into a model of "double genocide"." (The Guardian)[86]

Reply to Martintg's additional comments: Martin, just because you have found a source that calls the "double genocide" theory "comparative trivialization" (not btw "holocaust denial") does not mean that I called it that. The double genocide theory is merely the belief that the crimes of Stalin and the Nazis had equivalency. Here is a link to the discussion of the topic in the source your provided. It says, "Central to the notion of comparative trivialization is the so-called double genocide or symmetry approach to the Holocaust in post-Communist East Central Europe". The term "double genocide" does not imply comparative trivialization, although you have found a source attacking the double genocide theory as comparative trivialization. I notice that you googled "double genocide"+"holocaust denial". TFD (talk) 13:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning The Four Deuces

Comment by Sander Säde

Editors have been blocked for far, far less than the direct personal attack by TFD. Of course he commented directly on Martin and not "about the POV of the quote that Martintg presented", it is completely clear from the diff ([87]). This is not the first time he has directed comments on the editor and not content - in fact, this is his usual modus operandi. I would recommend an indefinite ban from all Eastern Europe and politics-related topics, which could be lifted only by appeal after six months.

Extended content

However, what is truly outrageous are his comments on this very arbitration page - basically, twisting the facts to suit his viewpoint, claiming some kind of "far right in the former Communist states seeks to re-write history in order to villianize ethnic minorities within their borders, in particular Russians" and "the connection of this POV with the far right is well-documented". Both claims are, of course, simply lies. He then brings quotes torn out of the context: "The Extreme Right in Eastern Europe and Territorial Issues" discusses extreme right-wing organizations in Hungary, Russia and Serbia, not Baltic states. Quote from "Nationalism, ethnicity and democracy: contemporary manifestations" is missing the key point about Baltic states - in neither Georgia nor Baltic states, ethnicity did not become into play on granting citizenship at all (I am not sure about other countries, but at least in Estonia, such a racist approach was never even mentioned). ""Double Genocide" and Lithuania" is simply a blog post, which seems to miss its target completely. "Why red is not brown in the Baltics" is a response to a book by Timothy Snyder. The latter replied here, pointing out the shortcomings in Katz' piece. However, the commissions that TDF's quote mentions - the commission was set up only in Estonia, Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity, with no Estonian members, only high-profile international politicians and scientists, with several Jews among them. The results of the Commission are so respected that they are used not only by professional historians worldwide but also, for example, European Court of Human Rights. No political agenda, no rewriting history, no state sponsorship, no national revisionism. This is also the usual TFD's way to deflect criticism. Google a couple of articles and use some brief quotes from them that seem to support his viewpoint, in hopes that no one bothers to analyze the articles.

Furthermore - as I just realized, I fell into his trap. The quotes he brings here are completely irrelevant. This is a case about direct personal attack, not "right-wing extremism", "rewriting history" or something else. This is a case where The Four Deuces smeared an another editor, something which he has often done and he sees nothing wrong in portraying his fellow editors as fascists or "ethnic nationalists". No quotes from anywhere will change that fact. Please don't be misled by his intentionally inflammatory comment, like I was.

--Sander Säde 08:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Off-topic, but as a food of thought. Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica (IRL) is considered to be the rightmost major Estonian party. We have elections coming in March. Two main election slogans for the IRL are free university education (something that already exists in Estonia) and mothers getting a pension increase in relation to the number of children. Their views are quite a bit left of U.S. Democratic Party.

Estonia also has an actual nationalist party, Estonian Independence Party. In 2007 elections they got 0.2% of votes, in 2011 they will probably get even less than that. Right-wing nationalism simply has no support in Estonia.

As for me, I consider myself to be somewhere between the center and a Social Democrat, although Social Democratic Party (Estonia) probably won't get my vote this time, as their behavior has been a pretty spineless lately.

--Sander Säde 09:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Biophys

Occupations by allied forces (the original article in question) were merely a political and military action. There was nothing like Armenian Genocide or Holocaust. Using "ethnic arguments" in a dispute and bringing even more such arguments here is extremely unhelpful. Biophys (talk) 18:47, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

As about civility issues, I would not comment about Martin, but TFD repeatedly removes comments made by other users at article talk page [88] and claims them to be sockpuppets (edit summary) [89] and meatpuppets [90] prior to completion of SPI investigation. That certainly does not help to reduce battlegrounds. Agree with Sandstein.Biophys (talk) 03:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment by BorisG=

Language used by TFD is very troubling and unacceptable. In the countries that have been oppressed for many decades the issue is very sensitive and requires care. I also disagree with the substance of his comment (including his comment on this thread) but this is not the point here. - BorisG (talk) 23:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Collect

Looking over the comments in question makes the situation all too clear as to TFD's attitude towards civility towards others. Collect (talk) 00:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning The Four Deuces

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

While TFD has made intemperate comments in the past, I do not find anything in the evidence presented or their recent contributions that would rise to the level of requiring a sanction here. The furthest I might go would be to point out that in topic areas where disputes often become heated (including anything covered by our several ethnic disputes discretionary sanctions), it might be best practice to avoid any comment that might be construed as reflecting on an editor rather than an edit, and that sources may be best rebutted with better sources, not personal analysis (howsoever obvious it may be). Recommend close without action. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:13, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• I disagree. Suggesting that another editor espouses a "right wing extremist ethnic nationalist POV" is inflammatory and a personal attack, especially if the comment is made without adequate evidence in the form of diffs. This is far removed from the measured, collegial tone that is expected of all editors, especially those editing in areas covered by discretionary sanctions. Sanctions may be appropriate here.  Sandstein  23:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Koakhtzvigad

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

Request concerning Koakhtzvigad

User requesting enforcement

— Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 02:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Koakhtzvigad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions, WP:ARBPIA#Editors reminded, WP:ARBPIA#Editors counseled

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

Talk:African-American – Jewish relations

1. [91] Expressing scorn for the sources in the article and the opinions expressed by two editors and suggesting he will edit war
2. [92] (diff combines two consecutive edits) Expressing disregard for WP:WESTBANK, the consensus which was developed pursuant to WP:ARBPIA2, and saying "There is no consensus on this since its a matter of fact that Israel, in the post-1967 period called the area 'Judea, and Samaria'"

B'Tselem

1. [93] (diff combines four consecutive edits) Adding unsourced information about how many staff members are "ethnic Jews" and "ethnic Arabs"
2. [94] (diff combines two consecutive edits) Reverting and restoring material, with a link to a list of B'Tselem staff members as a reference
3. [95] Reverting and restoring material again, explaining that he can tell who the ethnic Arabs are by their names

Talk:Israel and the apartheid analogy

1. Just look at the whole mess of a page

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

1. [96] Warned about 1RR on Israel and the apartheid analogy
2. [97] Warned about 3RR on B'Tselem
3. [98] Block for edit-warring and given ARBPIA warning

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Whatever action is deemed appropriate to effect a change in behavior

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Koakhtzvigad has a tendency to push his POV in articles related to Israel and Palestine, and he frequently filibusters, Wikilawyers, and exhibits IDHT behavior on the related Talk pages. These are but a few examples. See also WP:ANI#User:Koakhtzvigad. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 02:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[99]

Discussion concerning Koakhtzvigad

Statement by Koakhtzvigad

• In the first instance I would like to request an uninvolved editor to provide comment on the articles mentioned by Malik Shabazz.

• My purpose for editing in Wikipedia is to contribute to articles by improving them.

• I do not use Wikipedia mark-up to insert wikilinks into my written comments, particularly eschewing the prolific use of Wikipedia shortcuts as jargon.

• Of the three articles, though in the same controversial Arab-Israeli Conflict area, only two are related in subject matter, and are, when it comes down to it, subject to same general Wikipedia policies as any other article save for measures introduced by the Arbitration Committee to prevent editorial conflict. This includes neutrality, reliable and verifiable sources, but also common sense.

• My initial guilt was, that having never been subject to the 3RR or 1RR rules, I misunderstood how they work, which I tried to later clarify on relevant talk pages, but which seems futile. Commitments in the real life prevented me from undoing own reverts (which at the time I didn't know how to perform), and so, while I was given that option, I was unable to exercise it and therefore was blocked.

• Sanction or remedy that I'm accused of violating :

Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions - says "if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process." - A) I was warned about breach of 1RR, however, I misunderstood how they work because explanation given to me is not as it is written down in the relevant Wikipedia rule. If lack of understanding based on this confusion is "wikilawyering", then I certainly wouldn't make a good lawyer. B) There is no rule or even convention for respecting opinions of other editors (often cited as WP:OR). I explain the problem with the sources (below), but neither editors engaged in discussion. C) Even if what I said could be interpreted as "suggesting he will edit war", a suggestion is not an actual edit warring. D) The second of the two diffs on the Talk:African-American – Jewish relations is a bit of confusion on my part. I was referring to the identification of Palestine, as in the current text, referring to its post-1967 identity. To understand that, one has to go to the Palestine article where the reference is to an article "Palestine" and Other Territorial Concepts in the 17th Century Author(s): Haim Gerber Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Nov., 1998), pp. 563-572 Clearly the identification of the territory in the 17th century can not be used as a reference for the article dealing with the post-1967 events. This is why I said that the source is unreliable.

It seems to me that there is not even a guideline called WP:BEHAVIOR, or WP:DECORUM. I am not being accused of bad etiquette, nor disruptive editing although Malik would know what that is since he has blocked a few editors for that. However, the "normal editorial process" does include WP:BOLD and a discussion that should follow if my editing is unacceptable. This discussion didn't follow, despite at least two invitations. I did however get encouragement to do POV-pushing elsewhere from Malik in this editorial summary 05:31, 26 January 2011 Malik Shabazz (talk | contribs) (49,747 bytes) (Undid revision 410115320 by Koakhtzvigad (talk) find somewhere else to do your POV-pushing)

WP:ARBPIA#Editors reminded - In fact I did heed the reminders, about the reverting policy, though because the reverting happened in a short period of time there was little point to the reminders. I had not been in breach of reverting policy (as explained) since. This has little to do with Malik's complaint in the case of the African-American – Jewish relations editing.

WP:ARBPIA#Editors counseled - I don't remember being counselled, and I was only accused of NPOV once, by Malik. However, I voluntarily stepped away from articles twice! In fact the ARBPIA recommends that Sometimes, editors in this position may wish devote some of their knowledge, interest, and effort to creating or editing other articles that may relate to the same broad subject-matter as the dispute, but are less immediately contentious., and that is exactly what I have done without suggestion from anyone. Since then I have edited over a dozen articles, participated/participating in discussion of editing with others, and not seem to have cause so much grievance as Malik seems to have experienced.

• Regarding Additional comments by editor filing complaint, Koakhtzvigad has a tendency to push his POV in articles related to Israel and Palestine, and he frequently filibusters, Wikilawyers, and exhibits IDHT behavior on the related Talk pages. These are but a few examples. See also WP:ANI#User:Koakhtzvigad. - A) a tendency to push his POV has only been reflected by Malik's own POV-pusher comment in the revert! Hardly a tendency. B) frequently filibusters would mean that I frequently use discussion tactics to prevent others from editing. However, strangely I was not informed of this by anyone, including Malik, until the AN/I. In fact this entire arbitration/enforcement process is seemingly a strategy to prevent me editing! C) Wikilawyers, if I was such a great wikilawyer, I would have known the meaning of the 1RR/3RR rule! D) exhibits IDHT behavior, It seems this is the first and only time I was accused of this, at least when there was something being said that contributed to the discussion or better still, the article content. Most comments from other editors I expect to voice their displeasure with me here were mostly of the "I support what he/she said" variety. Malik on the other hand on one occasion simply said this [100] with a recommendation I familiarise myself with WP:LEAD, which I CLEARLY have already, having completed several new articles. E) Although Malik says These are but a few examples. See also WP:ANI#User:Koakhtzvigad., these are the same examples! Something tells me that if there were more examples, they would have been featured here.

• Never the less, I will address each of Malik Shabazz's allegations/accusations in detail, and in the order they occurred.

• The first of the three articles was

Talk:Israel and the apartheid analogy

I became involved because of past work in the field of international law

1. Just look at the whole mess of a page - The article is a mess, and this was acknowledged on the talk page by other editors. Some of this is being rectified now although I have not been involved in that article for a couple of weeks. At the time my reverting was over terminology used. Later I found that the references are also inappropriate. While regrettably I was blocked for reverting, as I said, more for lack of rule understanding, I decided to take time out and stopped editing that article.

• The second of the three articles was

B'Tselem

1. [101] (diff combines four consecutive edits) Adding unsourced information about how many staff members are "ethnic Jews" and "ethnic Arabs"
2. [102] (diff combines two consecutive edits) Reverting and restoring material, with a link to a list of B'Tselem staff members as a reference
3. [103] Reverting and restoring material again, explaining that he can tell who the ethnic Arabs are by their names

The importance of this article to the first article (Israel and the apartheid analogy) is literally, academic. There is a theory (analogy) that Israel was/is exhibiting apartheid-like policies towards residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although several human rights organisations are mentioned in the article, only two do field research that can substantiate this theory. Both happen to be based in Israel, and both employ residents of these areas to undertake field research.

The information I tried to introduce into the article was not unsourced, but was in fact sourced from the very websites of the two human rights organisations, the other being Association for Civil Rights in Israel. I can not imagine a better source about any organisation than its own website, and these are often used in all manner of Wikipedia articles. Wherever field research is undertaken in any discipline, on any subject, it is not only appropriate, but conventional to cite who carried out the research. Often researchers, particularly those working in the social sciences disciplines, will employ members of the local population to assist in the research (guides, translators, etc.). In this case the need is even more obvious because of the restriction on the entry of Israelis to the two areas. If the organisation (B'Tselem) is going to be cited in the article (Israel and the apartheid analogy) as one that provides substantiation to the theory through its field research, then I see nothing controversial in providing information on who is doing the relevant research. It is pure common sense that the researchers that are employed by these two Israel-based human rights organisations, are Arab since this is the representative majority of the population in the areas. The information was eventually included in the relevant section [104] by consensus.

In fact the other organisation details which researcher works in which community also.

The only qualm Malik Shabazz therefore has with me is that I am able to tell Jewish names from Arab names. However, he has failed to offer any proof that I'm wrong. I would be more than happy to contact the two organisations and ask them to confirm this, though it is unnecessary. It seems to me that it is disingenious of Malik, who has participated in the subject area and edited some articles, to claim that he can not tell Jewish names from Arabic names. I see nothing controversial in stating the ethnicity of researches since it is appropriate both in the context of the research they perform, and the articles where it is cited. The appropriateness of this has not been challenged it seems. It is confirmed by the B'Tselem executive director here [105] that Israeli Arabs were, after the second Intifada, replaced by Palestinian Arabs.

As can be seen from the dating on the provided diffs, once I realised this article had also become 'heated', I also stopped editing there for the time being to let emotions cool.

• The last article in question is the

Talk:African-American – Jewish relations

1. [106] Expressing scorn for the sources in the article and the opinions expressed by two editors and suggesting he will edit war
2. [107] (diff combines two consecutive edits) Expressing disregard for WP:WESTBANK, the consensus which was developed pursuant to WP:ARBPIA2, and saying "There is no consensus on this since its a matter of fact that Israel, in the post-1967 period called the area 'Judea, and Samaria'"

It seems to me that Malik Shabazz feels some emotional attachment to this article, because he completely failed to discuss the editing I did there, instead preferring administrative activity to article contributions. This enforcement request followed an AN/I he closed as resolved with a proviso of enforcement that was enacted as soon as I suggested returning to discuss the editing on talk page, the normal editorial process.

I stand by my statement in the first diff. I quote the sentence in question in full, with the reference supplied below:

After Israel occupied Palestinian territory following the 1967 Six-Day War, some American blacks supported the Palestinians and criticized Israel's actions, for example by publicly supporting Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.[29]Dollinger, p 4-5 Dollinger, Mark, "African American-Jewish Relations" in Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Vol 1, 2005. available here [108]

My editing of this sentence was After Israel occupied Judea and Samaria territory following the 1967 Six-Day War, some American blacks supported the Palestinian Arabs and criticized Israel's actions, for example by publicly supporting PLO leader Yassir Arafat and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Quite simply Marc Dollinger says nothing about Palestinian territories. There had not been Palestinian territories since the British Palestinian mandate territories because in the immediate wake of the 1948 war the West bank was a part of the Kingdom of Jordan. The term appears at earliest only in 1968, but really gained wide spread use in the 1970s, with the first use by the UN in the 1979 United Nations Security Council Resolution 446. At the earlier period they were Palestinian in the sense that they were a part of the earlier division of the Palestine mandate territories, of which there were two, Palestine and Transjordan.

Malik Shabazz refers to my disregard for WP:WESTBANK, the consensus which was developed pursuant to WP:ARBPIA2,. However, there it explicitly states (in italics) "The underlying naming issue is the use of the names "Judea", "Samaria" and "Judea and Samaria" for the southern, northern and entire West Bank respectively as general geographical identifiers or toponyms." The article in question though said, before my editing, After Israel occupied Palestinian territory following the 1967 Six-Day War, and I think everyone acknowledges that the occupation brought with it the military administration of the areas, in Israeli terms, Judea and Samaria. Since the subject of the sentence is Israel, and since the referenced article by Dollinger says "...Black Power advocates expressed public support for Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and called for the destruction of the Jewish state.", it seems appropriate to point the reader to the cause of this call, the military occupation, and administration of the area. Let us be clear, this is not a geographic, but a political article.

When Malik Shabazz calls attention to the WP:WESTBANK guideline, he seems to have neglected reading it himself. My "POV-pushing" seems to be in his eyes because I neglected to write "Judea and Samaria Area" instead of Judea and Samaria, as the convention recommends. This is my guess because Malik refused to discuss my edits in talk, telling me here [109] only what I just said above, but, contrary to the convention, "Judea and Samaria" is to be used only when referring to the Israeli administrative area." (rather than Area). It seems to me he could have told me this in talk discussion instead of raising AN/I.

Malik also objected by saying that "Changing "Palestinians" to "Palestinian Arabs" is gratuitous and smacks of POV. There have been no Palestinians but Palestinian Arabs since 1948." However, in the same paragraph there is a quote that says "Zionists conquered the Arab homes and land through terror, force, and massacres"! In fact this is a highly biased source to quote, particularly since there are several articles that detail histories of Jewish homes and land in the West Bank before Jordanian occupation.

Marc Dollinger calls Yasir Arafat a "Palestinian leader", and he remained the leader of the PLO until his death! However, Malik thinks that "Changing "Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat" to "PLO leader Yassir Arafat" is also gratuitous. If Arafat was a leader of a major Palestinian organization, he was a Palestinian leader." There are no shortages of references to Arafat being specifically a leader of the PLO, and not just a Palestinian organisation! More specifically, he was its leader in the period mentioned in the paragraph. The reason Black Power is quoted by Dollinger is because [110] "Often Black Power advocates are open to use violence as a means of achieving their aims,", something that it shared in 1967 with the PLO in desiring the destruction of the state of Israel. It seems to me very relevant to the content of that section to highlight that in post-1967 period Arafat was a leader of a very violent PLO, and not one that eventually signed the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Finally the charge of POV-pushing, which I find one of the most disgusting terms used in Wikipedia that somehow invites involuntary association with drug-pushing.

The examination of the 'offending' sentence in its mark-up form shows "After [[Israel]] occupied [[Palestine|Palestinian]] territory following the 1967 [[Six-Day War]]," representing the point of view that Palestinian territory is all of Palestine, the Mandate Palestine, and not the West Bank/the Gaza Strip. So I guess Malik could have added Gaza Strip to my editing, but he chose to revert, and call me a POV-pusher. So much for collaborative editing!

Instead Malik prefers to wikilink to the Palestine article that does refer to a geographic region contra the WP:ARBPIA2, and which excludes the state of Israel, referring only to the Land of Israel. It represents a point of view expressed by Arafat in 1967 that the state of Israel should not exists.

• Quite frankly I don't understand why Malik Shabazz chose to take this discussion to arbitration, unless to eliminate me as a contributing editor on the articles through enforcement of a block. However, since he initiated the AN/I, I realised this is an often-used strategy in general in Wikipedia, where the slightest "misbehaviour" is deemed a "blemish" to be rectified through "enforcement". All prior "misdeeds" are then cited to magnify the apparent "transgression". Wikipedia is no longer just an encyclopedia, but also an online behaviour modification service?
• During the AN/I, I was informed that I showed a pattern of behaviour that didn't comply with the decorum expected of me. Whatever happened to editing standards expected of everyone: use of correct terms, referencing statements, using verifiable and relevant sources, intellectual honesty? Whatever happened to using the other half of Wikipedia content, the talk pages? So Malik chooses to do AfD patrolling, and therefore lacks the time commit to a substantial discussion (using TL DR [111]), so he resorts to this sort of administrative "shortcut"? It seems to me this is neither the policy nor the spirit on which Wikiepdia was founded, and which keeps it going. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 15:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Koakhtzvigad

Comment by Sean.hoyland - Koakhtzvigad's B'Tselem related statement "The information was eventually included in the relevant section [112] by consensus." is not an accurate description. What happened is that I removed all of the information that was OR and left the information that wasn't OR in this edit. It was this action that was preserved by consensus if you want to call it that i.e. the number of staff was retained based on the source cited. It's a small point but I don't like to miss an opportunity to be pedantic. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Information regarding composition and work of the field staff added with a reference that better complies with reliable source policy

Koakhtzvigad (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning Koakhtzvigad

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

Twilight Chill

Twilight Chill topic-banned for a year, Vandorenfm blocked for 72 hours
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Request concerning User:Twilight Chill User requesting enforcement Vandorenfm (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2011 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Twilight Chill (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy that this user violated Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule Wikipedia:V User:Twilight Chill and its alternate account User:Brandmeister is a user with a long history of disruptive editing, racially-motivated battleground attitude, surreptitious removal of referenced and neutral information and its replacement with unverified POV texts taken from hate websites. User:Twilight Chill is in violation of Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule: [113] [114] [115] [116] The immediate concern is his editing of the article on Caucasian Albania, where User:Twilight Chill continues waging an edit war against 5 (five) other unrelated editors(Aram-van, Gorzaim, Vandorenfm, MarshallBagramyan, Xebulon), constantly reverting edits of the five editors, vandalizing the article and replacing NPOV assessments of internationally-recognized neutral academics and references from unadulterated primary sources with OR taken from hate websites (such as [117] and [118]). These websites, in addition to broadcasting hatred and calling to violence, distort texts of primary sources, in compliance with official requirements of the autocratic and nationalistic leadership of Azerbaijan, as per assessment by Robert Hewsen, a historian from Rowan College and the acknowledged authority in this field, wrote in his book Armenia: A Historical Atlas, published by no less a respectable a publisher as Chicago University Press: Scholars should be on guard when using Soviet and post-Soviet Azeri editions of Azeri, Persian, and even Russian and Western European sources printed in Baku. These have been edited to remove references to Armenians and have been distributed in large numbers in recent years. When utilizing such sources, the researchers should seek out pre-Soviet editions wherever possible. Armenia: A Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 291 User:Twilight Chill covers up his POV pushing referring to WP:CHERRY and WP:NPOV, meaning of which he evidently does not comprehend. In his opinion, state-sponsored hate websites are more NPOV than the collective opinion of accomplished Western academics from top schools and institutions, such as Thomas de Waal, Robert Hewsen, George Bournoutian, Victor Schnirelmann, etc. When challenged by User:Gorzaim to show references to works which could dispute the collective opinion of these academics, User:Twilight Chill failed to engage in adequate response and instead went back to vandalizing the page. User:Twilight Chill cannot communicate and engage with others, despite constant reminders of his inadequate conduct. Several months ago, User:Nishkid64, while supporting a block against User:Twilight Chill/Brandmeister, commented to him “You simply cannot say "per talk" when no consensus has been reached and you cannot invoke IAR to validate an edit war. Nishkid64 12:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC) [119]. Despite that, User:Twilight Chill’s attitude never changed, and he refuse to engage in meaningful discussion, continuing his “per talk” attitude [120]. Additional comments by editor filing complaint It transpired that User:Twilight Chill is the same User:Brandmeister. While mentioning on his page that he is “retired,” User:Brandmeister indicates that he and User:Twilight Chill are the same individual, and User:Twilight Chill still uses User:Brandmeister's sandbox. User:Brandmeister has been warned of misconduct, and the transition toward User:Twilight Chill account serves the purpose of hiding User:Brandmeister’s history of misconduct and abuse. Here is the history of sanctions against User:Twilight Chill/User:Brandmeister. Banned for 48 hours [121]. Notice: As a sanction pursuant to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement, Brandmeister is blocked for 48 hours. Further violations will lead to longer blocks and/or restrictions. Sandstein 21:48, 19 June 2009 (UTC) Banned for a week for continued violations, only six days after first sanction in June [122]. Note a comment for user, that User:Brandmeister ignores to this day: “Support block and topic ban. You simply cannot say "per talk" when no consensus has been reached and you cannot invoke IAR to validate an edit war. Nishkid64 12:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC) After being warned by be me [123], User: Twilight Chill filled a request for Sockpuppet investigation on a number of his disputants (including mw), while having unclean hands himself - [124] - apparently as a measure to intimidate his opponents and stop their participation in Wikipedia by means other than reverting their edits. When that failed, User: Twilight Chill moved to request protection on pages which he has been vandalizing, to prevent his opponents to challenge his disruptive edits; however, his requests were denied and he was advised to engage in dispute resolution [125]. Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) [126] Warning by Khodabandeh14 (talk · contribs) [127] Warning by MarshallBagramyan (talk · contribs) [128] Warning by Vandorenfm (talk · contribs) Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction) All in all, User: Twilight Chill has been disruptive for way too long. It is high time to put an end to his misuse of Wikipedia. Vandorenfm (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested [129] Discussion concerning User:Twilight Chill Statement by User:Twilight Chill Vandorenfm appears to be a single-purpose account. Being active solely in the Armenia-Azerbaijan topic area, he backed other accounts of Gorzaim (talk · contribs) and Aram-van (talk · contribs) to keep a blatant NPOV violation and contested claims in Caucasian Albania (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views): [130], [131]. The latter revert was made without any rationale and despite that Vandorenfm was asked to stop edit-warring. Previously Vandorenfm was warned for unilateral removal of maintenance templates from Culture of Nagorno-Karabakh (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Recently he received the AA2 warning. Regarding my account, it doesn't serve "the purpose of hiding User:Brandmeister’s history of misconduct and abuse": the transition occurred simply because of password loss, reported at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 19#Unique CU and Rename request. As for the alleged 3RR violation, there was none: the first rv in question was made on January 31, and the rest on February 1 and 2.Twilightchill t 18:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning User:Twilight Chill Comment by Biophys People who work in the area of AA conflict, some of you were recently sanctioned on ruwiki [132] [133]. Please do not edit war here. Biophys (talk) 18:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC) I can see from the remark by Biophys above that Brandmeister aka "Twilight Chill" has been part of a cabal led by User:Grandmaster in Russian Wiki that misused Wikipedia for organized POV pushing. I also noticed that Brandmeister similarly tightly coordinated his edits with User:Grandmaster also on English-based Wiki. User:Twilight Chill is now in an all-out war in the article Caucasian Albania, deleting entire chapters without explanation and replacing sources with POV edits from dubious and compromised references. In addition to violations described above, User:Twilight Chill seems to be in a serial violation on WP:Civility. Gorzaim (talk) 20:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC) Comment by Fedayee The user who filed this report has forgotten other restrictions placed against Brandmeister. For example, he was previously placed on 1RR for six months. This did not improve his behavior so he was topic banned for six months. [134] Important note to administrators: This did not change his behavior since he continued engaging in disruptive behavior. See the report filed against him here. Brandmaster/Twilight Chill got away with it because of a technical problem, the report closed with the following statement: Request suspended because of the unclear status of Brandmeister's account; may be resubmitted if editing resumes. Standstein wrote: It can be submitted again as soon as Brandmeister (under that or any other account or IP) resumes making controversial edits in the topic area; in that case the diffs submitted here should be considered as though they were recent edits. So to the evidence included here should be added with those from that report. Six months topic ban did not do any difference, perhaps a longer topic ban is required. - Fedayee (talk) 01:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Result concerning Twilight Chill This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. The request has merit. The evidence submitted supports the contention that Twilight Chill (talk · contribs), previously editing as Brandmeister (talk · contribs), has edit-warred at Caucasian Albania, no matter whether or not he also broke the three revert rule. As Brandmeister, he was already revert-restricted and then topic-banned for 6 months in 2009 because of edit-warring. There was also another episode of edit-warring in 2010 (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive65#Brandmeister). Considering that a six month topic ban did not deter Twilight Chill from edit-warring again, it is appropriate to escalate the sanction by doubling its duration. Consequently, in application and enforcement of WP:AA2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement, Twilight Chill is topic-banned for one year from Armenia and Azerbaijan, as defined at WP:TBAN. But the request is also disruptive. It includes personal attacks and sweeping claims of severe misconduct, including: "is a user with a long history of disruptive editing, racially-motivated battleground attitude, surreptitious removal of referenced and neutral information and its replacement with unverified POV texts taken from hate websites", "referring to WP:CHERRY and WP:NPOV, meaning of which he evidently does not comprehend", "failed to engage in adequate response and instead went back to vandalizing the page" and "cannot communicate and engage with others". Such claims may not be made, especially in a topic area subject to discretionary sanctions, unless accompanied by thoroughly convincing evidence in the form of diffs (see, e.g., Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/ChildofMidnight#Casting aspersions). Vandorenfm (talk · contribs) did not supply convincing evidence for his claims. Consequently, in application and enforcement of WP:AA2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement, Vandorenfm is blocked for 72 hours for personal attacks and inflammatory conduct in a topic area subject to discretionary sanctions.  Sandstein  22:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Twilight Chill

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found in this 2010 ArbCom motion. According to that motion, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

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

Appealing user

Twilight Chill (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Twilightchill t 00:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

1-year topic ban from the Armenia-Azerbaijan topic field, imposed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Twilight Chill

Administrator imposing the sanction

Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

[135]

Statement by Twilight Chill

In the light of the request's result and the sanction, imposed on me, I would like to clarify my editing at Caucasian Albania (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which became the page in question. On January 31 a single-purpose account of Gorzaim (talk · contribs) added without discussion a lengthy controversial section titled "Caucasian Albania and Azerbaijani historical revisionism", an obvious violation of WP:NPOV. Although I indicated that problem in the edit summary when reverting, the contested section has been repeatedly restored with groundless edit summaries, particularly by another single-purpose account, Vandorenfm. Aside from WP:ICANTHEARYOU, I believe that such actions fall under provocation as described in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Provocation (particularly, given the wording used in the aforementioned contested section, added by Gorzaim). As per WP:EW, "reverting to enforce certain overriding policies is not considered edit warring". I consider WP:NPOV, which is one of WP's three core content policies, to be among those overriding policies. Within that ramification and given that there was no 3RR violation from my side (which could be verified through Caucasian Albania page history), I believe that the sanction I was subjected to could be lifted or modified. Twilightchill t 00:45, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

TwilightChill (previously editing as Brandmeister (talk · contribs)) argues that because the content he edit-warred to remove, [136], violated WP:NPOV, his repeated removal of it was not edit-warring. I disagree. Insufficient neutrality is not among the limited exceptions, WP:EW#3RR exemptions, to the rule prohibiting edit warring. This is because reasonable people can disagree about what is neutral and what is not. Therefore, edit-warring is not an acceptable mode of resolving disputes about neutrality. This is particularly so in the instant case. While the content at issue may well be non-neutral (I know nothing about the subject matter and can't evaluate that), it is not non-neutral on its face, as would be a text in the vein of "All [Armenis/Azerbaijanis] are liars and manipulate history to suit their nefarious purposes." This makes it even less appropriate to resolve a dispute about its inclusion by edit-warring rather than by way of discussion, especially in a topic area and by a user subject to discretionary sanctions. I therefore recommend that this appeal be declined.  Sandstein  07:20, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Twilight Chill

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

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Hxseek

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found in this 2010 ArbCom motion. According to that motion, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

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

Appealing user

User:Hxseek

Sanction being appealed

In accordance with WP:ARBMAC#Discretionary sanctions, I am hereby banning you from reverting any edit for any reason (with the sole exception of blatant vandalism) on Ancient Macedonians (0RR) and restricting you to one revert per article per 24 hour period on all other articles within the scope of the case. This restriction is in place indefinitely

Administrator imposing the sanction

HJ Mitchell

Notification of that administrator

The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification.

Statement by Hxseek

This was set in place after I violated a 3RR. I was given a 72 hr block for this, which is fair enough. However, I think the further discretion above is far too steep. My violation of 3RR for that article was a one off. I have not engaged in any offensive conduct. In fact, my contribution to the article has been substantial. The process we are using requires pain-staking negotiations. At times, some editors will take unanimous action and change eentire sections of text. This will need to be monitored. The above action will severely curtail any monitoring of this to the detriment of the above article.

Responce to Athenean's statement

Firstly, Athenean is an involved editor, as he was whom I engaged in the Rv war with.

Secondly, Athenians actions not only show a lack of good will, but are in fact calculative. His hypocritical actions are shameful, and purely serve self-interest, under a guise of concern for the article.

This all began when I added some newly published references, they were well referenced, and came from some of the leading scholars in the field. His reveerts were blatant, and purely because they did not siut his personal views. He trumped up claims of 'editorializing' , etc, despite the fact I was quoting the scholar themselves, and not concocting my own statements or POV. nevertheless, I have spent hours writing on the talk page' creating drafts, referencing, etc so that we can all agree on a concensus version. By the way, my changes were seen as good improvements by other editors, certainly improving the article from what it was

In response, he took it upon himself to take advantage of the situation and went ahead making wide ranging changes, contra to the agreement, and self-contradicting his stance on not editorializing, and requiring for consensus.

Yes, I have got hot under the collar at times , what Athenean did not mention is that all those posts were responses to inflammatory statements.

Contrary to what Athenean said, I am not going to any length to have my way. The effort I have put in the talk page , engaging in civil dialogue and forging draft suggestions is a testament to this. What, rather is clear, is that Athenean's actions are hypocritical, self-serving and dishonest. And that's a shame because i thought we were finally making progress

Hxseek (talk) 05:31, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

it is no fault of mine if Athenean is disliked by some editors. That is rather a reflection of his affairs, one would presume. I was simply asking editors who I have worked with, and have commented specifically on my recent edits. Athenean's logic is that because I have been previously blocked for e/w in other articles, then I should be entriely excluded from this one. . . . clearly, this is a case of targeting and a calculated action to exclude an editor which has a different interpretation to that of his own. This should normally not be a problem, for both sides of a particular interpretation should be included

if I am the biased party, who is trying to take over the article, then why am I the one is trying to reach consensus on the discussion page, rather than doing single handed edits (which is u'r right, but contra to what u preach.) why are one editor's edits are fine to go straight in, but my quoting of credible and prolific author is "editorializing" and get blanketly reverted ?

but if Athenean is the moderate one, and I am the one with "strong" views, then why do my edits and suggestions included both " sides of the story" , whilst urs always push one particular interpretation. There seems to be a discrepancy here. My only "strong view " is that the article becomes more balanced, for it has been skewed for years.

to add, I do not have objection to the referenced material that Athenean added recently, nor to the nature of its writing. All I suggest is that my additions are accepted also, and beter still, the all worthy theories are presented with due weight as a well synthesized work.

and I ask for fairness. It is not my intention to edit war, as it can be clearly seen that I have been ceaselessly trying to accommodate and negotiate. However, having the privileges that other editors enjoy because of one specific transgression is unfair

Hxseek (talk) 06:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Athenean

The brazenness of this appeal is simply incredible. After Hxseek grossly violated his revert restriction on Ancient Macedonians with a MASSIVE, WP:OWN blanket revert [137], here he is appealing the sanction. Why? So that he can go on reverting? This is exactly the behavior that earned him the sanction in the first place, and he doesn't seem to understand that. In addition to being a clear cut violation of his revert parole, his blanket revert highly disruptive in isolation, as he undid multiple, perfectly neutral, and quality-enhancing intervening edits, such as ref formatting [138] and corrections of his own poor grammar (e.g. [139]). It is also highly hypocritical, lecturing me to propose my changes on the talkpage before making them, even though the original locus of the current dispute was a massive and controversial edit of his to the lede [140] a few days ago, a major edit which he implemented without any prior discussion or consensus.

Asking for the restriction to be lifted so that he can "monitor" the article (i.e. revert war over anything that he doesn't approve of) should set alarm bells ringing. I have every indication to believe that if the restriction is lifted, he will go back to revert-warring (and that's presumably why he is asking for the sanction to be lifted).

This is a user with a history of disruption on this topic, including inflammatory talkpage posts [141] [142] [143] [144] (and this is just a recent sample) and a certitude that he is neutral but that everyone that disagrees with him is part of a "coalition of the biased" [145]. This user clearly has very strong views on the topic and is willing to edit-war go any length to have his way. His claims that he hasn't engaged in any offensive conduct are nonsense per the diffs above, and the contention that the article needs to be "monitored" (by him) are a clear sign of WP:OWN and WP:TEND. The restriction should not be lifted. Athenean (talk) 05:07, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Response to Hxseek's response

I see that even when he is appealing the sanction and should know better, Hxseek is launching into personal attacks against me. He is even canvassing friendly [146] editors to come to his aid [147], including editors [148] with a history of overt, implacable hostility towards me [149]. It's also ironic that he claims that his edits are "well referenced, and came from some of the leading scholars in the field". And what are mine? OR? There is nothing controversial about my recent edits, all are impeccably sourced and improve the article, such as ref formatting [150] and corrections of his own poor grammar (e.g. [151]). Nor have I revert-warred or taken "advantage" of the situation. I did not revert any of the changes that were deemed good by other editors, in fact the only edit of mine that could be considered a revert during this whole time is the replacement of this piece of editorializing [152] ("What matters most....not as Greeks, but Macedonians") using cherry-picked sources (and a spurious "dubious" tag a to Britannica ref, which is anything but dubious). I also do not recall signing to any agreement prohibiting me from editing the article. And where is the editorializing on my part? Where do I use editorial language? And here at last Hxseek admits that he has no problems with my edits [153] (which I appreciate).

On the other hand, Hxseek made major edits with a heavy editorial tone [154] (the ones which started this dispute) without consulting anyone, and is now demanding that no one make any edits without obtaining consensus (i.e. his approval)! He repeatedly claims that he is "neutral", that he quotes reliable scholars and that I blanket-revert him, when in fact the exact opposite is true. He blanket-reverted me (before self-rving)! And no, his edits do not "show both sides" as is plain for everyone to see, but rather consistently and unmistakably push the Macedonians-are-anything-but-Greeks meme. As for his claims that he attempts to resolve things on the talkpage, the inflammatory, trolling comments in the diffs above speak for themselves. Hxseek has been blocked 5 times [155], all for editwarring, including twice in recent months. Enough. Athenean (talk) 05:48, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by <Hxseek>

Comment by Aigest

Being myself a participant in Albanian and Dacian projects, I've had several contacts with Hxseek. He is a contributor which is very civil and informative in his discussion not only with me but even with other contributors in this wikiprojects as you may see me, Zenarnah, Hxseek, Dazius and Hxseek, Codrin.B, Dazius, Hxseek, Codrin.B, me and Hxseek etc. In every discussion I've had with Hxseek, I've found that he is very well informed in the topics he engages and he tries to be as much as possible academic and NPOV on the matters and his edits are well sourced with the latest references on the field. I would like to say something more on the Ancient Macedonians topic before commenting his behavior there. I suppose other editors know the Macedonian issue, name, identity etc. There are two sides of the story which claim the "truth" on their side. Beside political consequences this situation has repercussions even in wikipedia related articles. There are heavily POV editors who in the name of a nationalistic agenda are more interested in propagating "their truth" than expressing the academic view on the matter. From what I can see from this specific situation Hxseek first edit were an improvement of the previous version as accepted by an admin here. Just look at the way how the problem is tackled by Hxseek in the previous diff, not from "they were Greeks" or "they were not Greeks" POV, but from the latest (more than 20 years now) trend in history and archeology regarding fluid and complex identities in past times. This generated much reverts in the article by anon IP with a clear nationalist agenda so the page was semiprotected. Hxseek expresses his intentions here and I also find his position very logical, based in RS thus giving a fresh air to the status of the article. We can see also that Hxseek proposed a new version for the language section in the talk page. It might have take him months to read and hours to write that proposal but the response sounds more like a false accusation than a collaborative behavior. While in Hxseek contribution it is stated clear that "That Macedonian which is available to us comes from surviving inscriptions and personal names (onosmatics)." and "Hammond’s conclusion has been criticised by Borza and Crossland." he is accused of POV because "position that states that the language is related to Greek is "criticized" and "zero mention of the epigraphic evidence," while there was nothing like that in his edit. I believe that we all here know how frustrating this kind of situation might be. The fact the other users ( user:A Macedonian, a Greek, so much for the NPOV of the article) without participating in the debate intervened with the false "(actually this is the version per talk page...)?! didn't help the situation. I am not saying that what Hxseek did was right, but under these circumstances it is comprehensible to loose control, as he himself admits. In the end its efforts did improve the article a little bit and as far as I see from this the things are calmed down. Hxseek is an excellent contributor and a good talker and most of all, admits his faults and is always opened for a consensus, a rare thing among Balkan contributors. For all these circumstances I think that a 72 hour ban is more than enough for the case. That indefinite ban is an extreme measure, Hxseek learned the lesson and he does not have and edit war mentality. Summarizing, his contributions are of excellent quality with latest references open-minded for consensus and accepting his faults. The extended ban will only lead to impoverishment and POV pushing of related articles (judging by numerous heavily POV anon IP interventions on that articles that we can see from history) and we need good contributors there. P.S. I would like to add something about my opinion here. I am recently working on the maps and although I knew the good reputation that Hxseek has regarding map creations I felt that I should have thanked Hxseek for his great efforts while his excellent maps are widely in use in Balkan related articles. I saw the block and I've already expressed my opinion in his talk page even before he made the appeal here. Regardless of others opinion, I don't need an invitation to express my opinion on him. I think that he is one of the best contributors I've seen on wikipedia both in articles and maps and he should be considered like a valuable asset of this project, cause he has given a lot and has much more to give. Aigest (talk) 15:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Hxseek

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

The administrator whose action ([156]) is being appealed has not been notified of this appeal. If this does not happen within 24 hours, and the corresponding diff is not logged in the appeal, the appeal may be summarily closed.  Sandstein  07:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Notification is here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Momento

Blocked for a week and one year topic ban reset.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Request concerning Momento User requesting enforcement   Will Beback  talk  05:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Momento (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy that this user violated Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat#Article probation, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive67#Momento. The topic ban covered "all related articles and discussions for one year". Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it [157] Starts thread about Prem Rawat which includes assuming bad faith on the part of user:Jimmy Wales [158] Second thread, on User talk:Jimmy Wales [159] another post about Prem Rawat [160] another post about Prem Rawat Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) [161] Notification of topic ban by T. Canens (talk · contribs) Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction) Site ban until August 29, 2011 Additional comments by editor filing complaint Momento's only edits following the imposition of a one year topic ban in August 2010 have been occasional posts directly or tangentially related to Prem Rawat. An account block will help him follow the topic ban without sacrificing any productive contributions. Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested [162] Discussion concerning Momento Statement by Momento Comments by others about the request concerning Momento I believe that Momento has indisputably violated his topic ban. Will's proposed remedy, however, of a seven-month site ban appears to be too severe. As I understand it, blocks should be imposed in an escalating manner to give editors a chance to correct their behavior. None of Momento's previous blocks were longer than 72 hours. Therefore, it appears that a two-week to one month site block would be appropriate in this case. Cla68 (talk) 06:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC) Result concerning Momento This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. This is a clear violation of the topic ban. In enforcement, Momento is blocked for a week, and the one year topic ban is reset to begin anew as of now. The "site ban" requested by Will Beback is not authorized, as an enforcement measure, by any applicable remedy. But subsequent topic ban violations may result in rapidly escalating blocks.  Sandstein  09:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC) That's fine. Thanks for seeing to it.   Will Beback  talk  10:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Iadrian yu

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

Request concerning Iadrian yu

User requesting enforcement

Hobartimus (talk) 18:23, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Iadrian yu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Discretionary_sanctions

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

1. [163] Most recent edit by Iadrian yu (log) where he made accusations of harassment, canvassing etc without supporting them by diffs. He also injected himself into a discussion uninvited where Nmate commented (relevance below)
2. [164] A previous arbitration enforcement request filed by Nmate on Iadrian showing among other things pattern of accusations without supporting them by diffs.
3. [165] recent instance calling non-vandal edit that reverts to long standing previous version, vandalism. On the same topic Iadrian yu claims"when an editor know about some rule and still violates it, it can be considered as vandalism." Further implying that he will call edits vandalism in case in his opinion they "violated some rule"
4. [166] accusation of bias against an admin in the topic area covered by Digwuren (unsupported by diffs, unfounded)
5. older accusations (unsupported by diffs) using terms such as "ultra-nationalist" this was said towards user:Squash Racket Note that this is an older diff, used to establish that this is a long term issue with more recent flare-ups.
6. [167] "your comments are biased" said towards an IP editor from the USA (in the same topic area)

• Going back to the previous request [168] for enforcement I won't copy the material here, but there are abundant examples of the same, such as saying for him Wikipedia is just a toll for expressing his irredentism feelings over this matter towards user:Rokarudi. It was unfortunately mostly ignored on procedural grounds, discussed in additional comments.

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

1. Arbitration sanctions warning Warning by Stifle (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

A sort of civility sanction if there is such a thing. When in the area covered by Digwuren, Iadrian yu should be banned from making any accusations in edit summaries, talk pages or user talk pages such as calling people biased, ultra-nationalist, canvassers without evidence. Or a sort of interaction ban that limits interaction with users or especially problematic article areas. Or anything that protects against future instances of the same.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is a request to review the situation since the last request was filed. While that request was ignored that time for lack of prior administrative warning. Now however I believe the conditions laid out in administrator EdJohnston's comment are met Otherwise the case will probably be dismissed, but if your edits merit attention in the future, it can be reopened. for the reopening of the case. With the above examples I think there is sufficient new evidence as well as the old case to consider. Because admin Edjohnston made the comment about reopening the case I linked the old case so it could be reviewed as well for discovering possible patterns in Iadrian yu's editing. Hobartimus (talk) 18:23, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Responding to Iadrian yu, there is no diff or other content, above older than 2010 so even the oldest stuff is less then a year and it is required to show there is a long standing issue. As such your statement about the material covering 2+ years is false [169]. Your other point about redacting comments I can reply to with WP:REDACT "It is best to avoid changing your own comments", still they were said at that time publicly. Hobartimus (talk) 19:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I see that Iadrian removed his answer while I was replying so my above comment doesn't make much sense now. Anyway it was clearly visible to me at the time I started writing my reply and could be better if comment deletions are handled like this. Otherwise I could change my original post too. Anyway it's still all visible in the history section and the diff above about the 2+ years is visible as well. Hobartimus (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding Iadrian yu's second answerhere. Seems he doubled down on exactly the same thing the report was about. He says he "corrected" his comment in (1) but in fact he did not it still said (and still says) harassment in that comment AND in his answer he repeats the same accusation doubles down on the "harassment" charge. Astounding. It was one of the main issues in the first place, accusations without proof. Initially I only requested civility sanctions so the constant problems stop. Now based on Iadrian Yu's answer I don't think it's sufficient. Yes even in (4) it is a perfect example of Iadrian's habit of accusing people without basis. It only proves that in case the accusation was so blatant so baseless so senseless so unfounded so unsupported by diffs that it was even realized by him. Yet at that point in an ongoing Afd it was seen and then removed or altered. It served it's purpuse in that discussion. Even if it's discounted there is more then enough evidence with the earlier report as well. Hobartimus (talk) 20:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick question. Iadrian yu provided this link saying the warning he recieved "was a mistake" but on that link we can read from administrator Stifle You accused someone of having ultra-nationalistic opinions regarding Romanian lands, with insufficient evidence. You should be aware... As we can see it's one of the exact same issues, accusing people with insufficient evidence of various things. And this link proved that it was a mistake????? Hobartimus (talk) 20:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[170]

Discussion concerning Iadrian yu

Statement by Iadrian yu

By all this, I could file the same report against Hobartimus... This is the "analysis" of my ALL contributions(2+ years) on wikipedia.... taken by that, every user could be banned, if analyzed from the begging like this. Therefore this report is nothing that further harassment by Hobartimus toward Romanian users (Iaaasi also)...

Looks like user Hobartimus does everything on wikipedia to ban users and not to be constructive with them which can be seen in many instances..

Analyzing the "evidence" (in order from the top):

• (1) First, this is taken out of the context, this is my final version of the comment 1, where I said in my edit summary "my mistake, it is not up to me to say what policies are violated here." and modified my comment to avoid any possible misinterpreterpatation from Hobartimus and Nmate. - I am surprised to see this as "evidence" , where I corrected myself.

• (2) This report, as such, proves nothing... especially not as Hobartimus says "pattern of accusations without supporting them by diffs" , this is from his POV. I proved that particular report to be false.

• (3) This is where user Nmate, in many instances, violates one same rule.. WP:PLACE. I explained further in my comment [171].

• (4) This is where I deleted my comment when I found it(myself) non-constructive). How can comments that are deleted by myself, to be used as evidence? Therefore, this is also the case (as in example 1)where I corrected myself.

• (5) This is strange, to represent this as "evidence" and to omit everything user Squash Racket said to me(where this user even had a Wikiquote report)... If this example is investigated , it can be easily seen what was the problem. Afterward we resolved our problems.

• (6) If this comment is taken into consideration, user Hobartimus should be banned [172], and confirming his rude attitude [173].

The last comment, I and user Rokarudi have a history, where he said many thing, I said many things.. But that is long behind me (and Rokarudi). As I said, this is the total analysis of all my 2+ years of wikipedia, all my conflicts, and for some of them I was punished (my block log) - and as it can be seen from my contributions, since my last block I was a constructive user. I am not sure how is it on wikipedia, but since I corrected my behavior, and was banned for that, I am in a possibility to be banned again(for things I was banned and never repeated them) just from my old conflicts?

As it can be seen, I and Rokarudi sorted our differences and even became friends [174]. Since we resolved our problems, why is this used as evidence against me here ?

About the warning issued by Admin Stifle, it can be seen that it was issued by a mistake[175].

It looks like user Hobartimus is offended by my recommandation to let it go [176], therefore this whole report can be seen as WP:BATTLEFIELD mentality.

Since this report is made in bad faith, if needed I will answer further questions. Thank you. Adrian (talk) 19:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

To answer latest accusations, please read my comment again, I said exactly "Therefore this report is nothing that further harassment by Hobartimus toward Romanian users (Iaaasi also)... ", about other (repeated accusations) for my comments (that served the purpose?) where I corrected myself as explained in my initial answer. Adrian (talk) 20:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

As requested, I will explain again the mistake, where I received the warning [177]. As it can be read the conversation from the link provided, the evidence for that user IP is provided in my last message in that conversation. However, I will repeat them here [178];[179];[180] and here threating me [181]. I hope this answers your question. Adrian (talk) 20:45, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning Iadrian yu

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