Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

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SMcCandlish

No action taken. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Request concerning SMcCandlish User who is submitting this request for enforcement SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2013 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested SMcCandlish (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy to be enforced Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#All parties reminded and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#Discretionary sanctions Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it 2013-02-08 Violates ARBATC's instruction not to personalize disputes Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) Warned on 2013-02-01 by Sandstein (talk · contribs) Additional comments by editor filing complaint Two of the violations in this diff include is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (perhaps among other more legitimate intents) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views and further fantasizes that MOS should have thought-policing, neither of which appears to be supported by the candidate's statements. Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested Done. Discussion concerning SMcCandlish Statement by SMcCandlish 1.  I have a right like any other editor in good standing to raise problems with a candidate's statements at, and behavior patterns relevant to, their RFA. The fact that in this case those of this candidate – as evidenced by not one but two anti-MOS introductory rants by the candidate! – involve MOS in disturbing ways does not magically mean that WP:ARBATC can be used to censor RFA, for me or anyone else. Such an idea is illogical, since RfAs are named on a per-candidate basis and entirely consist of reviews of the personal behavior of candidates and their espoused positions on Wikipedia editing and administration issues, and thus are already personalized, by definition. Thus raising issues about the behavior and statements of the candidate is not "personalizing" a style (or other) issue even as broadly construed under WP:ARBATC, the case that SarekOfVulcan is making. If SarekOfVulcan believes I am misinterpreting the RFA candidate's arguably extremist views expressed at the RFA with regard to WP:MOS (e.g. that WP:CONSENSUS and WP:BRD be "suspended" with regard to MOS and that control over MOS be turned over to lone censors, some kind of super-'crat or something!), and his/her history of tooth-gnashy debate about MOS, from talk page to talk page, then that is something SarekOfVulcan can seek clarification about at the RFA page. It's not an AE matter. I am also not the first or only RFA respondent to note that the anti-MOS (and anti-MOS-editors, bad-faith-assuming) rants by the candidate are alarming. 2.  Sandstein's warning is subject to an open dispute, yet this new AE by SarekOfVulcan depends on it . At WT:AE#Request for input by ArbCom members concerning an AE action (and at User talk:SMcCandlish and User talk:Sandstein before Sandstein opened the matter at WT:AE), I am disputing the validity of Sandstein's warning, which SarekOfVulcan is here relying on, because I have shown that it is based on false accusations and Sandstein himself admitting he was not aware of the background of the issue. Two other productive editors, Neotarf and Noetica. have already quit Wikipedia over the same Sandstein warning/threats they received for the same discussion. Sandstein refuses to retract the warnings (and even seems to suggest they "cannot" be retracted, for unclear reasons). I have to note that at WT:AE and at both relevant user talk pages, various editors, including other admins, have raised serious concerns about the propriety of Sandstein's "warning" actions and subsequent refusal to even reconsider (and they have done so on more than one basis). Sandstein himself started the thread at WT:AE in an effort to get Arb input to help resolve the issue (unsuccessfully so far, though various other admins and non-admins have responded), and notes that there's a procedural question of how one can even appeal such a warning and the basis for it at all. (This is a nontrivial issue, because a discretionary-sanctions warning under WP:ARBATC is not a normal warning one might discuss at WP:AN, but a special ARBCOM one that is very akin to an out-of-process topic ban). As none of this is resolved yet, the basis for SarekOfVulcan's new AE request is subject to multiple levels of dispute already, and it does nothing but muddy the water. It appears at this juncture that I will have to at least formally request clarification on the scope, applicability and intent of ARBATC and its overbroad and vague discretionary sanctions, and possibly also request an RFARB separately to get the false warning expunged. Or I may simply quit Wikipedia, too, because I am tiring rapidly of being followed around from page to page by SarekOfVulcan and a couple of others trying to find any excuse to abuse ARBATC to punitively block me. 3.  ARBATC sanctions are being misused unintentionally if not consciously abused, by two very involved admins, to get around a consensus against their proposal for censorious, punitive MOS-related administrative action. Sandstein previously sought to topic-ban Noetica in a related discussion, along with anyone else (insert SMcCandlish, Neotarf, whoever, on the basis of whatever whim) who raised related issues, but did not gain consensus to do so, being supported by essentially no one but SarekOfVulcan. This was in the "Mexican–American War" dashes-and-hyphens dispute. Post-ARBATC anti-dash tendentiousness by Apteva was what led Noetica to successfully have Apteva topic-banned at WP:AN. After that ban, Apteva filed a retaliatory, frivolous AE request against Noetica. When myself and others attempted to point out that Apteva was simply abusing AE as part of his established pattern of forum-shopping and disruption, Sandstein, with no knowledge of what had been going on, declared that we were personalizing a MOS dispute and issued bogus warnings for making "broad and unfounded allegations" and using AE as some kind of forum for random venting, when in fact our statements with regard to the posts of Apteva and other parties were narrow, relevant, and proven true at WP:AN already, where Apteva was then blocked for sockpuppetry, too. This baseless warning by Sandstein and its near-immediate abuse by SarekOfVulcan here to shut me up or hound me off the system right on the heels of Noetica and Neotarf, shows that ARBATC is simply being programmatically misapplied to thwart consensus against ham-fisted efforts to censor anything related to MOS disputes. This is a case of two admins deciding that a style matter should be perpetually off limits simply because they think it is "lame" (Sandstein's word), and trying to use ARBATC to accomplish what consensus already told them they can't have (shut-up-or-else punitive bans). That makes it both a content dispute and a dispute over administrative authority, not an editor wrongly claiming an admin is "involved" because they've argued about something with the editor. 4.  The illegitimate admin goal of personally censoring and character-assassinating me has escalated to the level of blatant harassment already. As noted toward the bottom of WT:AE and at User talk:Sandstein, I believe I am being subjected to a clear tag-team WP:HARASSMENT effort (particularly WP:WIKIHOUNDING), and this frivolous, "how dare you be critical at RFA" AE request by one of the admins directly involved in the ongoing dispute the resolution of which is still under discussion at WT:AE, is further evidence of this. Again, I am not the only one who has raised concerns about this at WT:AE and User_talk:Sandstein. 5.  This AE request is frivolous and vexatious, is based on "facts" that are disputed, and interferes with normal operation of RFA. It also amounts to a drawn-out case of WP:FORUMSHOPPING. It is asking the toher parent for new permission for Sandstein and SarekOfVulcan already-rejected proposal to issue blanket topic-bans to just forcibly shut up everyone in the dash vs. hyphen debate. It's a style dispute that later resolved itself in a poll that ArbCom endorsed. Yet here we are, with Sandstein and SarekOfVulcan (effectively even if not intentionally) tag-teaming to censor me, Noetica, et al., into oblivion for non-disruptive posts only tangentially related to the same discussion. What part of "no, you don't get to censor everyone because you don't think MOS discussions are important" didn't they understand? Sandstein's recent, bogus warnings to us were issued due to him severely misunderstanding our responses to Apteva's filing a vindictive AE request against Noetica. But SarekOfVulcan, perhaps because I supported Noetica's criticisms of Sarek's involvement in the discussion, is taking Sandstein's warnings as blanket license to follow me around and make WP:WIKILAWYERish trouble, like supposing that I can't be critical in a RFA if MOS issues are mentioned. I quite understandably, in my view, feel like a witness who has himself been falsely accused of being the criminal and threatened with prosecution, after testifying against someone who was actually found guilty already in part due to my good faith testimony. I defies reason and strongly suggests a personal, emotional motivation. The continuing campaign to personalize everything to do with MOS (even tangentially, like it being among the background concerns about someone's RFA) as an excuse to abuse process, like special warnings and AE filings, to go after me personally, is the real WP:ARBATC violation that's going on. Good editors are leaving Wikipedia in droves, and this sort or browbeating misuse of admin authority is one of the main reasons why. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC) SMcCandlish's response to Cailil's initial "Result" post SarekOfVulcan added me to the party list at ARBATC, but I did not post a statement there and no findings of fact or remedies addressed me, so I was not a party in any relevant sense. This is important as background to begin with, but note that Sarek said "I didn't dive far enough into [the issue he started the ARBATC case over] to figure out who was 'the problem' ... Remember, 'involved party' does not mean 'potential recipient of sanctions'..." So even Sarek knows that the basis for sanctioning me in particular is shaky to begin with. But the problems with this AE filing go far beyond this. The two pages at issue here (WP:AE itself, a post of mine to which Sandstein issued a confused warning about that was not cognizant of any of the salient facts that led to my post, and badly misconstrued it; and the RFA now at issue), do not have the ARBATC warnings Cailil refers to on them. Being process pages at which MOS issues can legitimately be discussed, including with particular reference to specific parties, no one would reasonably assume that ARBATC could possibly apply to them, pretty much by definition. They are pages in which the discussion are automatically "personalized" because they are by their nature about specific parties. (WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA of course still apply, but WP:ARBATC logically cannot.) I reiterate what I've said at my talk, Sandstein's talk and WT:AE: Sandstein's warning/threat in relation to my participation on WP:AE is blatantly procedurally invalid and necessarily void, and should be explicitly vacated as such, but whatever process there may be to do that. Partly resultantly and partly severably, SarekOfVulcan's new AE request is also procedurally invalid under ARBATC, both as an extension of Sandstein's warning, and individually as an attempt to enforce ARBATC beyond its scope. Sorry to sound kinda legalistic, but I didn't make ArbCom operate this way. Now, if I go to WT:AT or WT:MOS and call someone a poopie-head because I don't like their style ideas, then I expect to be AE'd legitimately. Until then, I have other stuff to do that's actually useful. PS: The idea Cailil raises, that Sandstein's warning could be moot due to my "being a party", supposedly, to ARBATC originally would actually resolve half of my WT:AE dispute with Sandstein on a technicality, [The new discussion at WP:ARCA supersedes all that entire. 04:06, 9 February 2013 (UTC)] but the false accusation issue would remain and I'm not going to let that go just because some admin buddies of his follow me around and harass me. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC) PS: I am not making ad hominem comments about SarekOfVulcan (and that was my talk page, not his) or Sandstein. Ad hominem is a logic fallacy, in which irrelevant facts or allegations about a debate opponent are raised in an effort to distract attention away from the actual point and from flaws in one's own argument. In this case, I am making an actual claim, under WP:POLICY, that WP:HARASSMENT policy is being violated with regard to me. I had already elaborated on this claim at WT:AE before this vexatious AE was opened by Sarek. If it doesn't stop, I will be seeking a remedy at WP:RFARB. I have also specifically stated and defended beyond any reasonable doubt that Sandstein made false accusations against me in the course of issuing and defending his warning; this previous discussion at WT:AE and our user talk pages is pertinent and summarizing that or referring to it also does not constitute any form of ad hominem attack. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC) PPS: Yes, I understand that I have been notified of ARBATC's outcome, that I have been warned whether legitimately or otherwise. It is not my intent to unduly "personalize" anything here, but I cannot be expected to respond to entirely personalized accusations with entirely impersonal responses that pretend that specific parties are not involved. That's not ARBATC's intent, and AE cannot actually operate that way. If you (Cailil or anyone) have concerns about any particular statement I've made, I'll be happy to address them. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 21:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC) SMcCandlish's statement in response to the two particular accusations by SarekOfVulcan Sarek writes "Two of the violations in this diff include is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (perhaps among other more legitimate intents) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views and further fantasizes that MOS should have thought-policing, neither of which appears to be supported by the candidate's statements." Candidate issued not just one but two rants in his RFA Q&A section indicating an extreme level of dissatisfaction with MOS, others editors of it whom he/she feels need to be administratively sanctioned under ARBATC, and an intent to see to it that WP:CONSENSUS and WP:BRD be "suspended" with regard to MOS. Candidate also outlined an imagined system whereby a special admin, whom he/she calls a "moderator", would have essentially unlimited authority to act as a benevolent dictator on MOS matters. So, um, I kinda have to stick to my criticism of this admin candidate's candidacy, exactly as I wrote it. Even if I were wrong about either of these points, the only two SarekOfVulcan makes, neither of them are WP:ARBATC violations, but normal criticism at a RfA. They also do not violate WP:NPA or any other policy. Being civil does not require being sweet or pretending to be happy about what someone is proposing. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:55, 8 February 2013 (UTC) In response to your later comment ("insane shit"? seriously?), I did not bring a MOS-related dispute to RFA and "personalize" it. I don't have any extant MOS or AT dispute with that editor. I did not need to bother digging up anything specific to quote from MOS talk that the candidate may have said, since addressing the alarming proposals the candidate made at the top of their own RFA, and noting their own admission of having been an MOS editwarrior, was enough to strongly oppose. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 23:59, 8 February 2013 (UTC) PS: Making an attribution error is not "making stuff up" (an accusation of bad faith), it's just an attribution error. This is twice in one discussion, which according to you and Sandstein is subject to ARBATC discretionary sanctions despite being only tenuously connected to MOS/AT issues, in which you've needlessly personalized the discussion against me. Care to continue?  :-) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:55, 12 February 2013 (UTC) SMcCandlish's response to NE Ent Your second point is interesting, and echoes something Cailil said. I reiterate that it would moot the procedural grounds for my dispute with Sandstein [The new discussion at WP:ARCA supersedes all that completely. 04:00, 9 February 2013 (UTC)], but not resolve the false accusation issue, nor make SarekOfVulcan's claim that [in my interpretation, not his exact words] ARBATC prevents an editor from raising "personal" concerns at RFA if they happen to mention MOS, since everything about RFA is personal by definition and ARBATC is intended to stop personalization of disputes about style and article title issues, which that wasn't anyway. Your third point isn't even one I would go so far as to make; I do consider the "big yellow box" up top of WT:MOS, WT:AT, etc. to be sufficient at those talk pages, but such templated warnings would not be appropriate or applicable to WP:AE or WP:RFC. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 21:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC) SMcCandlish's response to Bagumba Of course a response to your editing behavior at RFA (namely, following up someone else's comments with a declaration that you refuse to read them and a non sequitur statement that your concerns are satisfied, without addressing whether the concerns raised by the other editor were satisfied) is "personal" to you, since it's about your behavior. This has nothing to do with anything under discussion here. It is certainly unrelated to WP:ARBATC, which is about ah hominem personalization of style and article title disputes. Basically, I'm seeing now a pattern of misinterpretation of "personalize" and of what ARBATC covers, not just in Bagumba's post here, but more generally. Anyone who has not actually read the findings and remedies at ARBATC should do so before commenting here, or you're just muddying the water. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:04, 8 February 2013 (UTC) PS: I feel that blatantly labeling a candidate "incompetent", as you recommend, would be far more of an incivility or personal attack than suggesting that their double-barreled ranting about MOS and proposals for out-of-process dictatorial control over it indicates a desire to gain admin authority for purposes we don't give admin authority for. I did not need to cite anything that the candidate said at MOS, because the candidate already indicated regretting having said them, and meanwhile their own introductory Q&A material was far more damning. Others had alread quote MOS and one of its subpages and the user's own talk archives for MOS-related issues, anyway, so my doing so would have been redundant. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:11, 8 February 2013 (UTC) SMcCandlish's response to Cailil's later "Result" post Understood, and thanks for being both clear and reasonable about this. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 08:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC) SMcCandlish's response to Sandstein's "Result" post I don't think your response belongs in that section, because even some other admins here think you are involved. I believe I've demonstrated at WP:ARCA, WT:AE, and our mutual talk pages that you're involved in the issue generally on a non-administrative level, and have been for some time, e.g. proposing topic bans against Noetica and others in the Mexican-American War dispute (an editorial, not administrative action) that ultimately led to all of this via the various RFC/U, AN and AE cases involved Apteva. (Not having taken a content side in that dispute is irrelevant; you tried to shut the entire conversation down as "lame", and then a year+ later warned me in a sanctioning and accusatory way after I defended one of the editors you wanted by name to topic-ban, in an AE filing that ultimately derived from the same dashes-and-hyphens dispute as at that article; it's not the most common kind of connection and involvement, but it is there). Other than your assertion of non-involvement, I don't have any disagreement with what you've said below so far, including your critique of my post at RFA. While I maintain that it did not violate any policies by posting it, it could have been worded better. The outstanding issues I have with regard to issues between us have already been outlined at ARCA. I don't feel I need to clarify anything here further. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:43, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning SMcCandlish Statement by ErikHaugen This request is pretty far out in the weeds. ARBATC says DS are to be applied at "all pages related to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style and article titles policy, broadly construed." I think it's difficult to stretch this to RFA, but even if one does, the entire point of RFA is in some sense to discuss the editor, ie "personalize". Discussing the editor's conduct and/or intentions at WT:MOS or AT can not be considered in itself to be a violation of ARBATC. This obviously has to be done in as civil a manner as possible, so it might be worth examining SMC's comments there to see if they rise above acceptable standards per WP:NPA/etc. I think they do not. Additionally, whether or not the statements quoted by the filer here are supported by the candidate's statements doesn't seem relevant. Did SMC misunderstand the candidate? If so does that mean we block him for misunderstanding someone? That would be strange. @Calil—Regarding SMC's comments that you quoted (on SMC's talk page): that was in the context of responding to an accusation, and on a user talk page. This is not personalizing a MOS dispute. Please; this kind of clampdown on how people can defend themselves has gone too far. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:31, 8 February 2013 (UTC) @SarekOfVulcan—Yes, I noticed your quotes and in my statement I commented on your analysis of them. I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:58, 8 February 2013 (UTC) SoV, I still don't understand what point you're trying to make with these quotes. Are you trying to imply that SMC should be blocked for misreading a comment? Do you believe SMC is deliberately fabricating things that another editor said so that he can shoot that editor down for some unknown reason? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:26, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Statement by NE Ent This filing is ridiculous. If an Rfa candidate brings up MOS, an editor is entitled to express a related opinion related to MOS. The purpose of a DS warning is to ensure the editor is aware of DS and therefore can be pretty much be placed by any admin at any time. (Whether a non-admin can I think is an open question.) Therefore the claim that Sandstein's warning is "invalid" is as ridiculous as this filing. @Cailil: no, in general, the big yellow box is not sufficient in general because we have a not bureaucracy / bold policy around here, and editors can edit articles without reading the talk page. But clearly is this case it's moot point as SMC is aware of the sanctions. NE Ent 20:27, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Further comments by SarekOfVulcan @ErikHaugen: if SMcCandlish had said "I have grave questions about the candidate after reading his proposed 'solution' to MOS problems", this wouldn't have been an issue. His comments I quote above are what make this into an ARBATC vio, in my view. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:52, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Erik, I'm not sure how any reasonable "misunderstanding" can turn Dirtlawyer's comments into what SMcCandlish claimed. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Both Bagumba and I have specifically called out SMC's claim that Dirtlawyer is seeking adminship for the (possibly) sole purpose of having power in MOS disputes. Why do you keep insisting this is a "misreading"? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC) @SMcCandlish: SarekOfVulcan's claim that ARBATC prevents an editor from raising "personal" concerns at RFA -- never said any such thing. I just indicated that ARBATC prevents you from making insane shit up about people with whom you're having disputes about the MOS.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Speaking of making stuff up.... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:18, 9 February 2013 (UTC) To be clearer, I didn't add SMC to ARBATC - Noetica did. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:27, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Statement by Bagumba I am not involved with MOS, but interacted with SMcCandlish at the RfA in question before this AE request was opened. I had called SMC out for his charge that the RFA candidate "is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (perhaps among other more legitimate intents) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views, in ways that thwart WP:CONSENSUS policy." This is quite different from your usual "I oppose because he appears incompetent based on A, B, and C incidents at MOS". SMC followed in kind with a response to me, which appears personalized—but perhaps I'm too involved too judge.—Bagumba (talk) 21:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Statement by Hans Adler This report is in such incredibly poor taste that it absolutely needs to become a boomerang. Cailil, you are way out of line. There is nothing inappropriate in [1], and if you think otherwise you should look for something else to do that is more in keeping with your qualifications. A certain degree of sense, common and otherwise, is expected of admins using their privileges. This applies to you as well as to SoV and to Sandstein. Apart from the obvious ethical concerns, I don't think it is wise to play power games while Arbcom is looking at a matter. Hans Adler 22:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Statement by The Devil's Advocate I believe the tone of Sarek's notification was a bit provocative myself so SMc's response is somewhat understandable. Honestly, I feel SMc is going overboard at this point, but I think it is largely because of the fallout from the recent AE case against Noetica and the rather frivolous warnings given out at the end. Overall, Sarek's conduct in this topic area has been a big part of the problem as of late by my estimation. Review the recent AE cases in this topic area and you will see what I mean.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 23:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Statement by -sche I agree with the Statement by ErikHaugen, and I think this filing was an overreaction to SMC's comments. -sche (talk) 23:04, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Result concerning SMcCandlish This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. I'd like to hear SMcCandlish's response before commenting further. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:17, 8 February 2013 (UTC) I have a few thoughts after reading through the massive wall of text that's developed in this section over the past few hours. First, I don't think the RFA comment is actionable under the discretionary sanctions authorized by ARBATC. From a skim of the final decision, that was not at all contemplated as part of the scope of their remedies. Do I like the attitude/civility in the remark? No. But I think it's on the line to the extent that I wouldn't be comfortable imposing any sanction for it. Second, even if this remark was made in a discussion on the MOS pages (as some other links have shown) I don't feel they're enough to impose a block. It's a heated area, that can't be denied, but imposing sanctions for any and all signs of frustration would not help anyone. All parties need to calm down, but that's not something I feel we can force in any manner at this time. Third, and this isn't really related to the merits of this dispute, but I would advise SMcCandlish to shrink down his responses, if only because it's getting a bit too much. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 01:57, 9 February 2013 (UTC) The admins who have commented here all agree this request isn't actionable. If there's no objection, I'll close this with that result in a few hours. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 21:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC) Like Lord Roem I'd like to hear SMcCandlish's response. However WRT the diff presented by Sarek[2], whether this is acceptable conduct at RFA or whether it crosses the line into evidence of a battleground mentality is the question. It's also worth noting that the RFA candidate did raise the issue of their experiences on the MOS so SMC was not just jumping in with this out of the blue. Also as a technical note whether SMC was warned or not is not especially relevant, they were a party to WP:ARBATC and would need no warning before being sanctioned if it comes to that. Furthermore contributors to pages with a big yellow box alerting all to active sanctions have had sufficient constructive warning of sanctions anyway--Cailil talk 18:47, 8 February 2013 (UTC) Still going through this but I'd advise you SMC to stop making personalized or ad hominem comments about anyone anywhere, for your own sake. Your comments at SoV's your talk page[3] are not helpful to your case and your response above contains significant counter-productive personal commentary. Commenting about a candidate at RFA might be acceptable, but using other fora to cast aspersions about others is not. Also FYI, as above enforcement of the RFAR against named parties to the original Request for Arbitration do not rely on them having further warnings of discretionary sanctions. You've had sufficient warning by being involved in that RFAR and you were notified of its outcome--Cailil talk 20:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC) I'm in agreement with Lord Roem, I don't think we can issue a sanction for this remark. However, I do disagree that the RFAR does not cover areas beyond the specific MOS pages, if a dispute about them is brought elsewhere, (but that makes no difference in this particular instance). As I see it since the RFA candidate raised the issue of disputes around the MOS SMcCandlish was not brining an issue there out of the blue. Like LR I think SMC's comment is overly, and needlessly personal - it assumes bad faith and conjectures on the motives of another editor - but frankly ARBATC does not empower us to stop that at RFA. Like RL I'd ask SMcCandlish to please post more briefly and when upset please take a step back. I'd also remind all participants in discussions around this topic area to stop making personal remarks - such behaviour is forbidden by the RFAR--Cailil talk 19:13, 9 February 2013 (UTC) As the admin who issued the warning cited in the report (and contested by SMcCandlish), I've not yet commented here because I wanted to wait and see whether a recent clarification request results in anything immediately applicable to this case. That's not the case. Notably, arbitrators disagree as to whether warnings are subject to appeal. However, given that the warning has so far not been appealed, it is at least currently a valid basis for discretionary sanctions. If it is ever successfully appealed, it would be up to the authority hearing the appeal to decide what to do with any sanctions imposed based on it. This request is therefore actionable even without us having to decide whether, as Cailil argues, involvement in the underlying case is a sufficient warning for the purpose of discretionary sanctions. I agree with Lord Roem and Cailil that SMcCandlish's comment at issue is problematic, in that it reflects the kind of battleground attitude to MOS disputes that WP:ARBATC, to which he was a party (as were SarekOfVulcan, Tony1 and ErikHaugen), was intended to stop. In that decision, the Committee reminded editors "to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style". In the reported diff, SMcCandlish wrote that the administrator candidate "is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (...) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views", and that "we do not need another confused anti-MOS campaigner as an admin. I'd rather saw off my feet and eat them than have another of those running around censoring people" (in the edit summary). In doing so, SMcCandlish has cast his disagreements with the candidate about the MOS in terms of allegations of pernicious intent on the part of the candidate. This violates the Committee's instruction. It is also concerning that SMcCandlish's response reflects no understanding of this. However, as Lord Roem wrote, the comment can be seen as "on the line": SMcCandlish is correct in stating that in the context of an RfA (notably one where the candidate himself highlighted his involvement in MOS disputes and alleged misconduct on the part of unnamed others), the discussion is of necessity personalized, because it is specifically about the personal merits of the candidate – whereas the ARBATC case focused more on the parties' conduct on the MOS pages and talk pages. SMcCandlish also correctly highlights that his comments, however phrased, were directly related to the discussion's topic, namely the candidate's suitability as an administrator. SMcCandlish therefore had reasons to assume that he has more latitude of personally criticizing others in this venue (although not necessarily in terms that come close to personal attacks) than, say, on MOS talk pages. For these reasons, I suggest to give SMcCandlish the benefit of the doubt on this occasion and to close this request with a reminder that the instruction not to personalize MOS disputes applies to all pages on Wikipedia, and a warning that noncompliance may result in a sanction such as a topic ban. SMcCandlish's statement can be read as contending that I can't act as an uninvolved administrator here. However, I have interacted with him only in an administrative capacity, and any disagreement between us is limited to his contention that I shouldn't have warned him. As the policy WP:INVOLVED makes clear, "an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role (...) is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters, at length if necessary. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms (...) do not make an administrator 'involved'". I therefore refrain from recusing myself as regards this request.  Sandstein  10:30, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Hm, I didn't even remember until now that in 2011, I did propose at WP:AN to ban all editors (irrespective of their position) who where then participating in a hyphen-vs-dash edit war from changing the punctuation in the article at issue. Reviewing that discussion again, it appears to me that I attempted to find a perhaps too simple solution (it didn't find consensus) for an issue then causing noticeable community disruption and now subject to discretionary sanctions. Because I didn't take any position on the underlying style question, was not otherwise involved in the whole issue, and proposed to sanction all disputants (which didn't include SMcCandlish) in the same way, I'm not sure how that proposal (substantially made in an administrative capacity, because the edit war was discussed in several admin fora) could be an indication of any bias on my part in the instant case. However, bias is in the eye of the beholder – I'd welcome advice from uninvolved admins as to whether, because of this, I should recuse myself in future AE cases concerning either dashes or MOS issues generally.  Sandstein  23:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC) I'm not saying you are involved, but there are plenty of admins paying attention right now that you should just avoid the appearance of involved and let someone else handle it.--v/r - TP 19:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

E4024

E4024 (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned with respect to everything related to Turkey, Greece and Armenia, including but not limited to people or groups from or related to these countries, or these countries' historical or recent conflicts.  Sandstein  09:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Request concerning E4024 User who is submitting this request for enforcement Athenean (talk) 01:25, 10 February 2013 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested E4024 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy to be enforced WP:ARBMAC, Wikipedia:ARBAA2 Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it E4024 is a Turkish nationalist with a severe case of battleground mentality and a long history of disruption on Greek and Armenian-related topics [4]. He has been consistently engaging in tendentious editing, edit-warring, incivil and POINTy behavior, and several other forms of disruption, documented below. General Tendentious editing [5] tries to hide mention of the Armenian genocide, even though it is important for context [6] tendentiously removes a highly relevant See Also link with no explanation and with a hostile edit-summary [7] [8] removes Armenian name without proper explanation and with a hostile edit-summary, even though lahmacun is widely consumed in Armenia [9] tendentiously removes a highly relevant See Also link with no explanation and with a hostile edit-summary [10] adds an "autobiography" tag to an article about someone who died in the 19th century Aggressive, incivil behavior [11] [12] [13] [14] Using the talkpage solely for making personal attacks against another editor [15] [16] Another personal attack Removing or manipulating relevant, reliably sourced material with spurious edit summaries [17] claim is in the Pew Forum 2011 source - either he didn't bother checking or is outright lying [18] removes relevant reliably sourced material with no explanation [19] the source states exactly what was in the article, just changes it on a whim [20] Hovanisian is a perfectly reliable source [21] removes reliably sourced text with no proper explanation [22] the source clearly states Vehib was of Albanian origin - E4024 is trying to hide that [23] removes reliably sourced Greek etymology (from Perseus) with a spurious edit summary, attacking the author [24] removes reliably sourced, relevant info with ethnic baiting in the edit summary [25] again removes reliably sourced, relevant info with the ethnic baiting in the edit summary Bad faith assumptions [26] [27] [28] At the end of this interminable polemic rant, he goes on about how all the sources in the article are by "writers whose surnames end in "ian"" (i.e. ethnic Armenians), which is not even true [29]' again obsessing over the last names ending in -ian, with hostility in the talkpage [30] and again. [31] Assumes the admin (Deskana) who declined a checkuser request in an SPI he filed [32] is a sock of the user he assumed was socking (Proudbolsahye). This is absolutely incredible, I have never seen such paranoid (and clueless) bad faith assuming in five years of editing wikipedia False claims of source falsification [33] [34] Aggressive behavior in his own talkpage, making impossible to communicate with this user [35] removes warning with hostile edit-summary even though he is clearly edit-warring [36] [37] responds to my query by removing it and shouting in ALLCAPS [38] [39] [40] refers to my warning as gibberish, deliberate attempt to get under my skin [41] Aggressive, insulting edit summaries, these are self-explanatory. This is a major problem [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] Disruptive, drive-by POV tag bombing on articles he simply doesn't like [55] article doesn't say anything about "enslaved minorities" [56] Places a POV tag to a highly visible article just like that, without proper explanation [57] accompanied by edit-warring [58] [59] Tendentious cn tag placement for things that are well-known/obvious/already sourced in an attempt to undermine the articles in question [60] even though the article is filled with sources to that effect [61] even though it's already sourced and moreover well-known (it's not like this organization tries to hide the fact that it is ultranationalist [62] self-explanatory [63] self-explanatory [64] [65] [66], asking for cn tagfollowed by edit-warring [67] [68] Trolling - these are self-explanatory [69] [70] [71] [72] Trying to manipulate other users [73] After several failed AfDs, he is now trying to get others to do the nominating on his behalf [74] Requesting page protection right after edit-warring in other to make sure the page is stays is his preferred version [75] edit-warring then requests page protection within five minutes of his revert [76] WP:POINTy, retaliatory behavior [77] Requests speedy deletion when after he couldn't have his way regarding the Turkish spelling for "pastourma" and "soutzouki" [78] [79] in retaliation for this [80] He adds the Turkish name to Athens within minutes of me reverting his removal of the Armenian name of some city in Turkey [81] in retaliation for this [82] [83] added tag within minutes of being reverted on the talkpage, never mind the inanity of removing the tag itself Disruptive deletion nominations [84] right after users Dr. K. and Proudbolsahye worked particularly hard on making this an excellent article [85] requests speedy del for a neighborhood of Istanbul on the grounds that it is patent nonsense [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] Incredibly petty disruption [91] [92] Intellectual dishonesty [93] Conceals a revert of this edit [94] inside another edit, with a deliberately deceitful edit summary [95] nothing in the source about the demonstrators "violating" anything, misuses loaded words for effect Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) Warned on January 10 2013 by Dr.K. (talk · contribs) Warned on December 11 2012 by EdJohnston (talk · contribs) Warned on May 15 2012 by Qwyrxian (talk · contribs) His talkpage is in general a graveyard of warnings, blocks, and conflicts, but he takes great care to sanitize it. However, his talkpage history is quite illuminating. Additional comments by editor filing complaint I apologize for the length of the report, but the disruption caused by this user is massive, long-term, and across dozens of articles. I have only included diffs from the last month or so, which gives an idea of how intensive the disruption is. If I were to include diffs older than 1-2 months, there would be hundreds of them. E4024 is responsible for virtually every kind of disruption I can think of, or have experienced in my past 5 years of editing wikipedia. Incivility, edit-warring, POINTy retaliatory behavior, tendentious editing, ethnic baiting, it's all there. Communicating with this user is impossible, he instantly reverts any posts to his talkpage often with aggressive and insulting edit summaries (an example of many [96], there are dozens in his talkpage history). Armenian and Greek editors are enemies, not people to discuss things with. After extensive interaction with this user, it is my distinct impression that he is not here to build a neutral encyclopedia where Greek and Armenian-related topics are concerned, but to fight great battles and right great wrongs. For this, I propose that he be banned from all topics relating to Greeks and Armenians, per WP:ARBMAC and WP:ARBAA2. Athenean (talk) 02:19, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Update 1 I've gone ahead and bolded the diffs I consider the most egregious, although they are all pretty bad in my evaluation. I would also like to draw attention to this tl;dr rant by E4024 [97], specifically the part where he says "One of them is telling me "I don't like it". (The user is referring to me but in the end it means s/he does not like my idea but has no argument against.", when in fact what I said that we shouldn't remove the Greek etymology of Europe just because he doesn't like it (not because I don't like it). This more than anything proves my point that it is completely impossible to have any sort of rational, constructive discussion with this user. Regarding his "I am too ill to mount a proper defense" excuse, I would just like to point out that yesterday he was ill too apparently [98], but that didn't stop him from racking up 150+ edits in one day, or from posting the enormous tl;dr rant at Talk:Europe I just mentioned above, or even already making quite a few edits today. Athenean (talk) 20:37, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested [99] Discussion concerning E4024 Statement by Sprutt E4024 is a disruptive account which refuses to comply with WP's rules after the many formal and informal warnings. It defies advice about how to be a better editor. I am particularly disturbed by his endless edit warring and his removal of warning of Jan. 10, 2013. Sprutt (talk) 02:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Statement by Proudbolsahye I fully support Athenean's request of sanctioning the mentioned user under WP:ARBMAC, WP:ARBAA2 and be banned from editing all topics related to Greece and Armenia. Athenean has said all there needs to be said. However, I would like to add that when I first start editing and creating articles on Wikipedia, I have repeatedly tried to cooperate with the mentioned user (12) over the articles he had expressed his discontent with. On the other hand, he has repeatedly deleted my good faith requests for cooperation and has tried to delete my articles and ban me and other Armenian users through numerous SPI's. My TP is filled with his deletion proposals. The mentioned user has created 1 Wikipedia article in his entire career as a Wikipedia user yet he has attempted to destroy dozens of articles which have been created with the good faith efforts of Wikipedians such as myself. It is clear that E4024 is not here to construct but to destruct Wikipedia. Here are some of the deletion proposals E4024 has proposed on Armenian/Greek articles alone (all in a matter of 3 weeks): Hovnatanyan family Animal name changes in Turkey Harutyun Bezciyan Araksi Cetinyan Sarkis Antikajian Miss Globe Organisation (he is using this deletion proposal to ultimately delete Araksi Cetinyan) Armenians of Dersim (which has been successfully deleted because I just transferred the data of the article to the relevant Armenians of Turkey) Zahrad List of Cyprus islets Sarkis Torosyan List of regions of old Armenia Miran Pastourma There are a lot of speedy deletions as well. This excludes the many Armenian/Greek articles he has voted "delete" for. A good portion of all these articles are of my creation. As I mentioned earlier, my TP is filled with deletion proposals by the mentioned user but the point isn't whether these are my articles or whether they were successful deletion proposals or not, but this highlights the intent of mentioned user and his constant destruction of Greek/Armenian articles. In addition to this: He has implied that I am a racist and simultaneously deleted entire TP's per WP:IDONTLIKEIT Has consistently edit warred when I repeatedly told him to refer to the TP (123) He has said I am a destroyer of Wikipedia numerous times (Another example here where he also adds insult to injury by saying I act dishonest) He repeatedly made fun of my mentioning of making an honest mistake (Example 123456789 and many more.) He continuously follows and stalks me and has made disruptive edits on all articles I have created (I mean it when I say ALL). Athenean shows many of these examples. No need to go over it again. Manipulating other users There's just so much more. As I mentioned earlier, Athenean has laid it all out and I'm just trying to give my own input. E4024 is impossible to work with. Therefore, I firmly believe that he should be sanctioned under WP:ARBMAC, WP:ARBAA2 and be banned from editing all topics related to Greece and Armenia.Proudbolsahye (talk) 04:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Statement by E4024 Greetings to all. I see that I am seriously accused of many wrong doings. It is good for all of us that WP assumes innocence and does not execute users without duly judging them. Thanks for the opportunity to defend myself. It is also good for me to have a chance to see myself from other people's eyes and try to correct my wrongs. The charges are quite abundant. Therefore I hope I will be forgiven to give long explanations. Regrettably at the moment I am passing through a heavy grip of cold. Therefore I am not in the best conditions to put in writing all I have in mind. First of all I would like to thank all editors for their contributions and kindly request them and the uninvolved admins who could be willing to close this discussion to have some patience with me. This is only a "pre-statement". I realise I am under serious suspicion and accusations and would like to clear all shades over my presence in WP. So I propose the following: Please give me time to recover and only after that make my general statement. In the meantime I will try to focus on the individual inputs that are all around in this request, although depending on my health situation. I know that no-one really has time to read and really dwell upon each and every issue here; however, I am really not in a neutral position regarding these claims and feel I have an obligation -at least to myself- to try to clear as many as possible of those points; certainly some of which may be true, in the sense that I am a human being and recognise a priori that I may have made mistakes. However, it is important for me, although we are not under our real identities here, to -at least- leave behind a good name and my position well-recorded, as it is unavoidable that one day none of us will be here any more, naturally. To finish this long introduction and to state concretely what I am proposing, please leave this discussion open as long as possible as I may need -more than usual- time to respond to every point in here. In the meantime, I promise not to make controversial edits in these areas. That means WP will not be disrupted by me while this discussion is open. If the admins and others have no objection, I will leave it here for the moment. Thanks for your time and patience. --E4024 (talk) 16:22, 10 February 2013 (UTC) I understand from admin Sandstein's statement below that there is an emergency in closing this debate. I kindly request them to give me a quarter to explain one point which touches my honour. Thanks. --E4024 (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Only one point: Some users' statements here give a wrong impression about me. It is not true that I have a problem with Armenians or Greeks. The claim that I am trying to get deleted Armenian and Greek articles is not correct. The behavioural examples given here do not represent me exactly, and I will show that if I have enough time and health. I see that time is limited so I will limit myself to giving one example of each: Armenians and Greeks. Please see my conversation with User:Werldwayd, who is an Armenian, here: First I visit his TP and ask his opinion on proposing the deletion of an article related to an Armenian singer, one who is also a political activist, please see. Later Werldwayd comes to my TP and we have this dialogue, Here. Do I look like a Turkish nationalist who tries to delete every Armenian article? (Please note that the singer is an "Armenian nationalist".) We have a case of an article with a lot of AfD elements, but I tell my Wiki-colleague to take his time to look for sources, that there is no hurry. As regards Greeks, please look at this edit of mine on the TP of Turkish people. Here. Do you see a person who hates Greeks? Thanks for the 15 minutes. --E4024 (talk) 22:09, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by Dr.K. I fully support Athenean's request and I wish to add my reasons for doing so. I find that E4024 has a specific agenda which follows a longterm pattern along strong thematic lines. Although too numerous to detail exhaustively, I will include some examples of these patterns. There is a clear pattern of a need by this editor to taunt and attempt to humiliate his opponents. One of the vehicles used for the baiting and humiliation is the use of edit-summaries. The baiting and humiliation of his opponents takes one of two forms: 1. Personal attacks 2. Attacks and taunting about their country of origin, mainly related to calling Greece and Cyprus "bankrupt" or "destroyers of Europe". The behaviour is diachronic. Here are some examples: 1. Of the need to humiliate the country of origin and bait "the opponent" Revision as of 15:49, 12 May 2012 E4024 (The Republic of Cyprus Joined the Eurozone, about four years before Greece destroyed it.) Revision as of 06:54, 18 May 2012 E4024 (→‎User:E4024: I inform that I will complain about him to an admin and he rushes to cry and asks help against the barbarian Turk. Oh what a tangled web we weave! I hope pro-Greek edition of articles help Wikipedia not to go bankrupt like Europe...) Revision as of 11:04, 5 December 2012 E4024 (→‎Economy: TRNC has its own economy and own WP article, and not bankrupt BTW. Please better add Greek Cypriot leader Hristofias' recent confession of bankruptcy.) Revision as of 16:21, 6 December 2012 E4024 (→‎Economy: Economy bankrupt, masses protesting, WP more silent than ever.) Revision as of 12:12, 22 January 2013 (edit) (undo) E4024 (→‎Greeks: No need to sythetising. What about Cyprus events or EU accession (let us go to Greece and spend the money Germans spare) of Greece? Better write a blog.) Note his choice of words: let us go to Greece and spend the money Germans spare designed specifically to portray Greece as a financially beggar nation and thus attempt to bait and humiliate the Greek editors. It is obvious that this editor is not here to build an encyclopaedia and does not have the demeanour conducive to collaboration in a wiki environment. 2. Of the need to attack his opponents The example immediately below also involves Balkan onomatology: Revision as of 13:32, 11 January 2013 E4024 (User blinded by anti-Turkish euphoria: Where were those cities at the time and what were their names?) because the other editor used standard English names for some Balkan places on the Greece-related article of Georgios Zariphis. Replacing: Plovdiv, Bulgaria and Alexandroupolis, Greece with the Turkish names: Filibe and Dedeağaç. Revision as of 23:19, 18 January 2013 E4024 (→‎One more source falsification: Responded to disruptive POV user.) Attacking the same editor. Example of one of many unheeded warnings Revision as of 21:48, 11 January 2013 Dr.K. (Warning: Personal attack directed at a specific editor on Georgios Zariphis Where I specifically told him: Please stop this relentless exhibit of maligning other people through edit summaries based on the flimsiest of excuses and for simple naming disputes. Again, please try to assume good faith of your fellow editors and do not use the edit-summary function to shame and criticise other people and advertise it to others. Wikipedia is not a shaming party. Thank you This is one of many warnings about abuse of edit summaries because the edit-summary field should not be used for personal attacks because it cannot be erased and because the target editor cannot easily respond to an edit-summary attack. I explained that to him multiple times: Revision as of 21:11, 17 November 2012 Dr.K. (→‎WP:ARBAA2: new section), but to no avail. Editing targets His editing is performed in such a way as to attempt to minimise the position of Greece and Armenia-related topics in these broad areas: 1. Onomatologically 2. Politically 3. Economically While at the same time maximising the Turkish position in the exact same areas. Greek onomatological example attempt to add the Turkish name to the capital of Greece. Tagbombing Angelokastro Angelokastro's picture is on my user page and it is an article I created. It is fully referenced. Yet he tag-bombed it including WP:BLP tags for a medieval Byzantine castle: Revision as of 20:37, 28 August 2012 E4024 (Added BLP sources, POV, cleanup, more footnotes, original research and overcoverage tags (within multiple issues) to article (TW)) Edit-warring about a well-known fact about the economy of Greece That Greece is the largest economy in the Balkans: Revision as of 22:12, 7 February 2013 E4024 (→‎Introduction: I doubt that. Please find an RS.) Revision as of 22:57, 7 February 2013 (edit) (undo) E4024 (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 537126199 by Dr.K. Turkey is a Balkan state.) Insisting that Turkey is a Balkan state with a larger economy than that of Greece. Revision as of 13:41, 8 February 2013 E4024 (→‎Introduction: If it really is, sources must not be difficult to find; somehow I could not find any. It is a simple request per WP:NOR.) Arguing about "Ottoman Supremacy" On talk:Europe referring to the Byzantine conquest: Why do we have to look for a justification 250 years before? Is it so difficult to accept the Ottoman victory, simple because it was superior to the Byzantines? (This is not a queation, I mean remove all reference to the Fourth Crusade.) That is a POV not only against the Ottoman supremacy but also a subjective complaint "you see, you made us lose to those Turks" to some nations Edit-warring to remove the history of Greek onomatology from Europe Revision as of 22:32, 22 January 2013 E4024 (→‎Etymology: Rm unnecessary and irrelevant words) Revision as of 21:25, 9 February 2013 E4024 (→‎Etymology: Rm per my TP argument which only received an "I don't like it" reaction.) Open declaration of his POV against Greek onomatology Albeit in a slightly incoherent manner: Revision as of 19:45, 9 February 2013 E4024 The first paragraph of the Etymology section contributes nothing to the article and must be removed. It is only an unnecessary "filling" and serves to create an impression like every place name has to have a Greek origin and that we could not yet find it out in the case of Europe. As it is, it is not only irrelevant and unnecessarry but also POV. I am removing that part. Pertaining to Armenia specifically his edits tend to minimise and eliminate if possible any mention of the Armenian Genocide, however innocuous the occasion. For example at talk:Miran Pastourma: Revision as of 17:51, 3 February 2013 E4024 he refuses to even mention "Armenian Genocide" and instead calls it "Armenian deportation" in Turkish: According to the article, Miran came (escaped) to Athens allegedly (I added) due to something horrible which I will not write down here because I do not agree with the term used in the article; so let me write it in Turkish: 1915 "Ermeni tehciri". Another example during the AfD nomination of Miran Pastourma, which he initiated and which was closed as WP:SNOW Keep, he replies to a "Keep" !vote by DoctorKubla thus: Revision as of 18:52, 30 January 2013 E4024 (→‎Miran Pastourma: Or the Great Tragedy?) alluding that Proudbolsahye "invented" Miran Pastourma for the single purpose of mentioning the Armenian Genocide: DoctorKubla, even the Greek WP has not considered (I understand, as there is no interwiki) this "charcuterie" so notable. If you may kindly look at my last edit in the article maybe you can see the reason why the inventor of the article wanted to introduce it to WP. Maybe it is not about pastourmas and soudjukis. The "last edit" he mentions above was to eliminate the mention of the Armenian Genocide from the article while using the edit-summary field to attack his opponent for "inventing" the article just so he can mention the Armenian Genocide. Revision as of 18:46, 30 January 2013 E4024 (→‎History: Remove parts not related to the charcuterie. NPOV does not mean inventing references to a tragedy in every occasion.) where he erased the fully-referenced sentence: an Armenian refugee of the Armenian genocide, who managed to escape to Constantinople from his his native Kayseri From the reply to DoctorKubla quoted above it becomes fairly clear that his motive for proposing the article for deletion was his suspicion that ...the reason why the inventor of the article wanted to introduce it to WP [was to mention the Armenian Genocide, because the article] Maybe it is not about pastourmas and soudjukis. In his own words. So instead he proposed the article for deletion and then he erased the single mention of the Armenian Genocide from the article in back-to-back edits. Talking about two birds with one stone. Miscellaneous Asking Ed Johnston if, Ed, has a sock: BTW EdJohnston, do you happen to have another user name? Regards. And never replying to my follow-up question: You mean something like a WP:SOCK? Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 09:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC) This user seems to have the most complaints about me. Let me begin from the last, but not the least: I have not implied to admin User:EdJohnston that he has a sock. I was only speaking to Mr. Johnston in my TP and this user intervened in the talk. (Back then, my first days in WP, I did not even know the term TPS, nor the practice.) So I wanted to show my surprise of this interruption by asking "BTW EdJohnston, do you happen to have another user name? Regards." This is all. I never doubted -for months- that Mister Johnston could take any offense of this simple sentence. (Neither do I now.) As the same user reminded this case somewhere else in WP in December 2012, I wrote a mail to Mister Johnston and explained him the situation, in order to prevent a misunderstanding. My mail is dated 10 December 2012 and I will reproduce the whole related paragraph here, of course without revealing the e-mail addresses, if User:EdJohnston permits me. Comments by Yerevanci As you can clearly see from the user's long-time activity, he views Wikipedia as a battleground, not an encyclopedia. He prefers to use "Ermeni tehciri" instead of Armenian Genocide. This is simply unacceptable. He might wanna also deny the fact that the Holocaust happened. Maybe in Turkey this is very acceptable and even promoted by the state, but this is an encyclopedia, not Turkey. --Երևանցի talk 17:02, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Let me begin to respond to individual claims from the latest entry: Yerevanci, my only one-time (I hope I remember well) use of "Ermeni tehciri" (which means "Armenian displacements" in English, not voluntary of course) was in a TP, the one you indicated above. The "Armenian Genocide", from my POV, is not a term I would like to use. Therefore I personally avoid using it. I have no problem using the term Holocaust because it was sanctioned by the Nuremberg trials and accepted by Germany. If you need to refer to the "Armenian Genocide" article here, in the context of my WP participation, you must bring about my "disruptive" edits in the mentioned article. Are there any? I remember making only minor edits in that article. Thanks for your contribution. --E4024 (talk) 18:36, 10 February 2013 (UTC) My reference to your labeling of the Armenian Genocide as "Ermeni tehciri" is there to prove that you're not here to cooperate, but to humiliate Armenians and Greeks. The fact that Turkey doesn't recognize the events as genocide is their problem. Germans, at least, understood what they have done and apologized to the Jewish people. This is something Turks should look forward to. Your view on the genocide can also be seen in articles like Ardashes Harutunian (diff), Miran Pastourma (diff), Kim Kardashian (diff). Clearly, your views of the Armenian Genocide is not solely your own private opinion, but your edits show that you have instilled your personal POV throughout Wikipedia by deleting any mention of Armenian Genocide. At times you attempted to make this as innocent as possible by writing "trimmed" in the edit summary (see Ardashes Harutyunyan). Your disruptive edits can be found above, nicely presented by our fellow Greek users. Nominating articles that are clearly notable and very well-sourced is nothing but disruptive behavior. --Երևանցի talk 18:52, 10 February 2013 (UTC) You will have to excuse me, Yerevanci, but if I reply to replies this will never end; and we are just beginning. If my disruption "is nicely presented by our fellow Greek users" you could simply spare less time to this discussion and continue your contributions to WP articles instead. I noticed you were recently working on Turkish Diplomats Assassinated by Armenian Terrorists. --E4024 (talk) 19:19, 10 February 2013 (UTC) what does that have to do with your disruptive behavior? I work on hundreds of pages, if you wanna see the whole list, I can give it to you. --Երևանցի talk 19:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Yerevanci, we had an "edit conflict" above and I had to save my "reply to your reply" before you added the second paragraph to your "reply to my reply". I will have to leave answering your 3 claims to a later moment because it is unjust on the other users who are waiting for replies. (BTW the "pastirma" issue is there for the 3rd time, If I could follow well.) The other two edits talk for themselves; it is not me who is trying to eliminate "Armenian Genocide". There is an article for it. It is other users who are adding "Armenian Genocide" everywhere. I removed it from the Kardashian article and no-one among thousands of WP users re-installed it. What does this tell you? (To me it says: "Correct edit".) --E4024 (talk) 19:35, 10 February 2013 (UTC) What about the fact that you nominated 11 articles for deletion and only 2 got deleted? You know what it's called? It is called disruption. I have nothing else to say. --Երևանցի talk 19:39, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning E4024 Comments by Takabeg I couldn't find serious problem in his/her edits related with Greece (Although Miran Pastourma is a company in Greece, it is an Armenian topic.) and Greeks. It's very clear that his/her main "target" is Armenians and minority groups in Turkey. So I oppose to his/her "banned from editing all topics relating to Greece and Greek". I support his/her "banned from editing all topics related to 'Armenia, Armenians and all ethnic and religous minorities in Turkey". Takabeg (talk) 07:11, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by Mathsci I have only seen the edits to Europe and its talk page, which have been mildly disruptive and are fairly typical of those editing the article trying to push a nationalistic point of view (often concerning transcontinental countries). Problematic edits have involved questioning Armenia's status in a footnote and removing anodyne passages about Greek mythology; on the talk page they have argued unhelpfully about the Fourth Crusade and decline of the Byzantine empire. This apparently was just the tip of the iceberg. Mathsci (talk) 08:16, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Since adding the above E4024 has launched a tl;dr attack on me on Talk:Europe, here. On that page I made no comment about them, only one brief comment on their edits. However, they have effectively posted a reaction to my comments here on the talk page of the article. This seems to be a typical example of battleground conduct. Administrators should bear in mind that the content under discussion there involved the story of Europa and the bull, part of Greek mythology, relevant to the etymology of Europe. Hardly something to scream and shout about. Mathsci (talk) 10:05, 10 February 2013 (UTC) E42024 has responded to this report at Talk:Europe (see above) and at User talk:Deskana,[100] but so far not here. Mathsci (talk) 11:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by Folantin Really tendentious editor, the kind of guy who puts you off having to deal with anything Armenia/Azerbaijan/Georgia-related. Massive assumptions of bad faith towards me on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians: [101] and [102]. I attempt to solve the problems relating to that article by creating a fully sourced one under its more common name, Armenian National Congress (1917). He immediately disrupts it on ethnic lines (even though I'm not Armenian/Azeri/Georgian/Turkish etc.) [103]. Apparently, "this attitude is harming Wikipedia" [104]. I was about to report him, then I saw this AE request. He's the kind of editor AA2 was designed to combat. He can go and fight Armenians (or presumed Armenians) on another website. --Folantin (talk) 09:49, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Folantin I just met you on the above AfD. Your comment on me and the Georgian issues is really strange because I have made no edits (AFAICR of course) on the Georgia (country) article. I added it to my watchlist after your reference above, today. You have produced the "diff" to a "POV" tag I have added to an article I understand you would like to own as yours; however you forgot to refer that I explained in the TP of the article why I added the tag. So? BTW you also say "He immediately disrupts even though I am not Armenian, Azeri, Georgian, Turkish etc". What did I disrupt? Putting a POV tag and explaining the reason in the TP of the concerned article is disruption? What does your nationality have to do with all this? (Your contribution here almost helps me, thanks. :-) --E4024 (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2013 (UTC) In an area (the Transcaucasus) notorious on Wikipedia for its tendentious editing by Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Turkish, Russian, Iranian, Abkhazian, Ossetian etc. etc. users, I can honestly say you are one of the most blatant POV-pushers I've ever come across. This is quite an achievement considering the competition. It's a long time since I've bothered with this area and I had hoped Wikipedia might have improved, but sadly not...--Folantin (talk) 20:12, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Folantin, I just added a POV tag to an article and asked for its improvement, on the TP, so that we could have an NPOV text. What is wrong with that? --E4024 (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Because it was disruptive tag-bombing by a Turkish or Azerbaijani editor with a clear anti-Armenian bias. --Folantin (talk) 20:25, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by In ictu oculi I thought this would happen sooner rather than later. Although I've created various Turkish composer and Turkish opera stubs I don't really edit in "real" hardcore Greece/Turkey/Armenia article space, so this is a comment from the sideline. Based (1) on having to call an admin fireman in when trying to create an article on Talk:Pangaltı, and (2) based on every single possible Armenia article AfD for the last 2 weeks, I think a 3 month topic ban is in order on Armenia topics broadly construed. I haven't seen E4024 on Greece/Georgia topics so can't comment. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC) In ictu oculi, "Georgia (country)" was not even in my watchlist until today, FYI. I added it today to my watchlist after Folantin referred to my disruption on Georgia above. How may I disrupted Georgia if I don't even "read" the edits there? --E4024 (talk) 19:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Um, where did I refer to your disruption of Georgian articles? I was speaking generally about POV-warriors on Transcaucasian articles, of which you are one. OK, so you only disrupt Armenia/Azerbaijan-related stuff in the region. Happy? --Folantin (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2013 (UTC) According to your above talk, I am one of Transcaucasian articles; of WP? Please do not take this reaction as sarcastic; it is not. However, with all the fever I have got due to my sickness, I feel like my brain seems to shake inside the skull, trying to read all these comments. I am afraid that due to different levels of proficiency in English, we occasionaly misunderstand the edits of other users in WP. That is all I have got to say to you at this moment. --E4024 (talk) 20:16, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by Staberinde I have no comments about other issues, but frankly E4024 activity in AfD area is plain disruptive. 11 AfD nominations which led to only 2 deletions is ridiculous [105]. At minimum I would suggest banning him from nominating articles for AfD as he clearly can't understand that area properly.--Staberinde (talk) 19:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Staberinde, I am new to deletion requests; give me time to learn if not a helping hand. --E4024 (talk) 19:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comment by Lothar von Richtofen My marginal involvement here comes from encountering E4024 at this AfD nom. The nomination itself was highly problematic, and behavioural issues were pointed out by another user (User:Proudbolsahye) which were very concerning indeed. I stand by the characterisation I made there: "This is a best a sloppy and lazy nomination, and at worst an act of deliberate disruption on the part of E4024, especially when taking into account the troubling points raised by Proudbolsahye". ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 19:46, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Herr L. von Richtofen (or Richthofen?), the said deletion request does not look so problematic to me, because in my presentation of the "Hovnatanyan family" I have said "Not sourced enough to understand notability. As the artists are presented as a family we may not decide which member(s) give notability to the group. Maybe only the notable one(s) should have a WP article, not altogether." This means that, as opposed to what User:Proudbolsahye may claim, I have not had any intention to "remove" the family from WP. I only said we should better have separate articles on the notable members of the family. BTW I will return to User Proudbolsahye's claims; some of them look serious. I feel like they are accusing me to trying to wipe WP of Armenian topics. Now, returning to your point, if with "problematic" you only refer to my abilities in AfD cases; I already recognised somewhere in this discussion that I am new to that area. I need help from other users who know better and am open to co-operate with any user, in any area, except two-or three people who have continuously harassed me from my very first days in WP (and they know themselves).--E4024 (talk) 21:31, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Comment by 176.116.153.22 The user's disruptive behavior can also be seen at: [106] Here he changes the WP:COMMONNAME of a place in Cyprus (not under the control of the Republic of Cyprus) from Greek to Turkish with the excuse "It is in Northern Cyprus. TRNC's official language is Turkish and official name of the quarter is Marash from Greek to Turkish" only raising reactions and being reverted. 176.116.153.22 (talk) 20:39, 10 February 2013 (UTC) If you call another user's argument "an excuse" while editing, then we have no Free Encyclopedia. I mean I have a right to disagree with your position; sorry. --E4024 (talk) 20:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Perhaps an argument but changing the name of an article without discussing it in the talk page is disruptive editing. Especially for such controversial areas. Reactions for the move can be seen here: [107] [108] -- Here, he/she is offending another editor. 176.116.153.22 (talk) 20:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Sandstein, please go to Talk:Cyprus and search "Republic of Cyprus" (with the quotes) and see your self into how many times the user used scare quotes for Republic of Cyprus (to emphasize that he/she does not recognize it). This will explain his hostility for anything Greek more clearly.176.116.153.22 (talk) 21:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC) IP user, if Cyprus is Greek why do we have reunification talks on the island between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots? Should we delete Northern Cyprus article from WP? Neutral eyes could see more bias in your position than mine, which is totally legitimate. Never mind. --E4024 (talk) 22:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC) It is all about using scare quotes to humiliate the country you are referring to and not about whether Cyprus is Greek or not. Would your arguments be weaker if you didn't use the quotes to every reference of the Republic of Cyprus? Is it a coincidence that the country you were trying to humiliate has Greek population? Is it a coincidence you did the exact same thing with similar Armenian issues? You dislike both Greeks and Armenians and hence your disruptive edits. 176.116.153.22 (talk) 22:58, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Result concerning E4024 This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. This is difficult. First, I'm waiting for a statement by E4024. Second, the report contains far too many diffs to usefully review or discuss, and after a summary look at them, many could well be a reflection of good faith disagreements. Could you please highlight the, say, five most problematic ones and explain in more detail why they are problematic? But, third, a brief look at the edits gives the impression that E4024's edits are systematically in favor of a sort of nationalist Turkish point of view in the various real-world disputes at issue. My opinion is that any pattern of editing that systematically advances one particular point of view is a violation of WP:NPOV, even if there are defensible reasons for every individual edit, because such a pattern of editing is exceedingly unlikely to make Wikipedia as a whole more neutral. (That could be the case if Wikipedia were systematically biased in favor of the other point of view, but that is most improbable, particularly concerning a topic with many active editors.) For these reasons, such a pattern of editing could in and of itself be a reason for a topic ban. What do others think?  Sandstein  10:57, 10 February 2013 (UTC) I cannot agree that "a pattern of editing that systematically advances one particular point of view" is necessarily "a violation of WP:NPOV" because some articles, especially in contentious topic areas, can be blatantly one-sided depending on the editor dynamics. However, a pattern of editing that unduly advances a particular POV or which minimizes or excludes other POVs would certainly be actionable in my view. Having said that, I haven't found time to review the actual edits in this case yet, and won't be able to do so for the next day or two. Gatoclass (talk) 12:00, 10 February 2013 (UTC) I agree with Sandstein on the question of whether a pattern of editing that systematically advances one point of view violates WP:NPOV. Whether that is the case here is extraordinarily hard to investigate because of the mass number of diffs that have been posted. I'll try my best to look through as many as possible, but like Sandstein, I'd prefer a more limited grouping of the alleged most egregious examples. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 16:12, 10 February 2013 (UTC) After looking through some of the diffs in the first section (specifically some of the edit summary ones), I'm getting a strong sense that E4024 has a history of disruptive and tendentious editing in this area. I haven't seen enough to discern whether they're pushing a particular viewpoint, but at this stage I'm convinced that a topic ban is more than appropriate to impose. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC) Yes. After looking through the diffs in more detail, I'm of the opinion that this is a severe and persistent case of tendentious and disruptive editing motivated by nationalism. I'm appalled, for instance, by the completely spurious deletion requests concerning Greek or Armenian topics, and the various other examples of nastiness documented in many of Athenean's bolded diffs. E4024's statement on this page in response to Yerevanci – "The "Armenian Genocide", from my POV, is not a term I would like to use" – and his consistent use of scare quotes for the term indicates (like many other of the reported diffs) that E4024 is not here to write from a neutral point of view, as we all must, but his point of view. E4024 has been editing very actively today, and has therefore had both the time and the opportunity to make a statement in his defense. I don't see how anything else he might say can overcome the overwhelming evidence of his misconduct reported here. Therefore we do not need to honor his request to keep this thread open for an extended period of time. E4024 has been blocked five times for disruption in the topic area in 2012. In view of this, and his remarkably intensive disruptive conduct in the small span of time covered by the evidence, I believe that we must permanently prevent him from continuing in further such misconduct. If there are no administrator objections, I intend to impose an indefinite topic ban with respect to everything related to Turkey, Greece and Armenia, including but not limited to people or groups associated with these countries, or these countries' historical or recent conflicts.  Sandstein  21:30, 10 February 2013 (UTC) No objection from me. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC) That seems appropriate, Sandstein. Jclemens (talk) 07:17, 11 February 2013 (UTC) So closed then. Just to be clear, this sanction is of course not an endorsement of any misconduct that may have been committed by editors who have been in disagreements with E4024. Any such misconduct can also be reported here (though not by E4024, now.)  Sandstein  09:18, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

517design

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

Request concerning 517design

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Grandmaster 12:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

517design (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBAA2#Standard discretionary sanctions

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

1. February 4, 2013

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

1. Warned on January 26, 2010 by Ioeth (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This report is a follow up to discussion at talk of Sandstein: [109] I already provided the info about this violation in a previous thread, but since misconduct by each individual editor should be the subject of a separate AE request, I'm filing a new one. User:517design joined an edit war in the article Shusha and made an rv without leaivng any edit summary: [110] However 517design was placed on an editing restriction, which limits him to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism, and he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page: [111], but he left no comment at the talk page either. So 517design clearly violated his restriction. Grandmaster 12:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[112]

Discussion concerning 517design

Statement by 517design

I am now not a very regular editor, and, honestly speaking, I forgot about the restrictions that were imposed 3 years ago. Aren't these restrictions stale? Me not adding summary etc. was simply a mechanical mistake, not an edit war. I simply forgot. I think therefore this doesn't merit any a restriction or ban. I created many good quality articles [113] and never violated any rules since 2010. Now compare this with User:Grandmaster, who filed this request. He is repeatedly getting away with many violations of WP rules. He edits exclusively the most controversial articles in AA2 area [114], and just days ago he filed the second un-actionable AE request against User:Oliveriki [115]. Look at this acts of tendentious editing by User:Grandmaster and his intransigent WP:BATTLEGROUND spirit [116], [117], [118], [119]. With his Unclean hands, this should be WP:BOOMERANG. And yet he has never been sanctioned so far. 517design (talk) 05:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning 517design

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

• The revert without explanation plainly violates the editing restriction imposed on 517design. They've never been blocked before, on this or any other issue, so I think a one-week block is sufficient. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

• Agreed, but 517design edits only very intermittently (only 12 edits since 2011), which gives credence to the contention that the reported revert at Shusha (a page he has apparently not edited before) was canvassed offsite. In view of this editing pattern, a considerably longer block or a topic ban may be necessary to prevent continued noncompliance with the editing restriction.  Sandstein  21:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

• That's a fair point; I'd support something longer, perhaps 2 months? Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• OK. But in view of this editing pattern we should also give 517design a bit more time to make a statement in his defense - say a week. The following postdated timestamp (originally 09:15, 11 February 2013) is to make sure that this thread isn't archived until then:  Sandstein  09:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Violation seems to be plainly clear, but I'm awaiting a statement from 517design, though with the current inactivity level, I don't think we are going to get there in time for this to be closed. If there is no response within a reasonable time, maybe like Sandstein's week, I would be in support of something more preventative than a block, as they can just come back next time once the block is up and do the same thing. A topic based restriction would prevent any continued warring and would help work out the issue more. If we see violations of that, then we can step up to the longer blocks. I would suggest a topic ban at the very least for a month, again, if no reply. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• @DeltaQuad: What are your thoughts on both a 2 month block as well as something like a one-year topic ban? That should resolve any outstanding concerns about disruption in this area after the initial block expires. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• My thoughts are with KillerChihuahua, I've seen people blocked as little as 48 hours for violations of DS, so two month first block seems excessive. Nothing more than 2 weeks in my opinion since we are already sanctioning a ban for the year. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 11:25, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Violation is clear; and while I'd like to see a statement from 517 as well, I do have some thoughts. I think a 2 month block for a first block is a bit excessive. I support the 1 year topic ban, but would prefer to see a shorter block. Should the other admins here disagree, I will not quibble, but suggest they consider that without experience editing on other topics, we cannot expect 517 to return to editing with experience needed to work within a topic about which they apparently have an interest. As they edit so little, a shorter block would be indicated, so they can have sufficient time not blocked and while topic banned in which to gain the needed experience. I suggest a week block. KillerChihuahua 03:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• The statement by 517design shows a misunderstanding of WP:BATTLEGROUND, in my opinion. I don't see any evidence of battleground behaviour by Grandmaster in his diffs, but I think the way 517design tries to blame Grandmaster for what happened does show a battleground mentality on the part of 517design. However, I do find 517design's excuse - that he forgot about the sanctions - to be fairly plausible given his intermittent editing. The editing was a clear violation of the restrictions, so I think some kind of sanction is in order, but I think both the two-month block proposal and the year-long topic-ban proposal are both too strict given the fairly likely possibility that 517design is telling the truth. Myself, I would go for a two-week block and a six-month topic ban. A two-week block should at least be noticed, and six months seems like a long enough time to learn our standards of behaviour in venues outside of the Armenia-Azerbaijan topic area, but not so long as to make 517design give up hope of editing in the topic area at all. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:58, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
• The response by 517design does not alter my assessment that enforcement is warranted. That the sanction was imposed long ago and may have been forgotten does not change the fact that it is still binding. The complaints regarding Grandmaster do not strike me as immediately and clearly actionable, though there are indications of engaging in conflict-related advocacy (somewhat similar to Yerevanci's case below) that may warrant a closer look in a separate, broader AE review of that user's conduct. Either a one-week block and one-year topic ban, or a two-week block and six-months topic ban as variously proposed above are acceptable in my view. We should remain open to shortening the topic ban on request if 517design engages in active, unproblematic editing in other topic areas.  Sandstein  10:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Yerevanci

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, 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

Yerevanci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Երևանցի ^talk 23:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

topic-banned for one month from everything related to Armenia or Azerbaijan, broadly interpreted. The reason for this sanction is recorded in the administrators' noticeboard thread you started, specifically here.

Sandstein stated on his talk page that I was blocked, because [sic] "I tried to add quite pronouncedly non-neutral material, or by making statements about "Azerbaijani pseudo-scientists" or that "the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life"

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

notified

Statement by Yerevanci

I don't think I deserved getting banned because

• I was not the creator of the article (as claimed by Sandstein)
• I only advocated it to be recovered, as I believe it had numerous reliable sources, though it was far from perfect
• I provided alternatives to the article such as renaming it, because "falsification" seems to be POV and use more neutral language and provide more English third party sources, in addition to already existing ones.
• "pseudo-scientist" and "the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life" are my personal opinion and as I already said to Sandstein "my emotions and opinions do not reflect in my edits on articles"
• I have made no intention to add my POV to any article. Nevertheless, I always believed I am entitled to write my point of view in talk pages and noticeboards. My language doesn't and never reflected this in any of the articles I edited or created.
• You can see from my long-time activity on Wikipedia that my goal isn't to be disruptive, insult other users, or push my point of view. I always discuss with others. And in fact, in my 4 year activity in Wikipedia, I have been blocked twice. However, if there is anything I have said that might have offended someone, I am open to apologize.

P.S. : If I will not get unblocked, my only wish is to let me edit Armenian American, on which I have worked for months and it is now a Good Article nominee and if it gets reviewed I will not be able to respond and make any necessary changes to the article as I'm banned from Armenia-related articles. Thank you. --Երևանցի ^talk 23:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

I recommend that this appeal be declined as concerns the question of whether the conduct at issue is sanctionable, though I have no objections to any adjustments my colleagues may wish to make regarding the type, scope or length of the sanction.

I imposed the sanction – this is also in response to Lord Roem below – because Yerevanci sought to have undeleted a very obviously non-neutral article to which he had contributed, Falsification of history in Azerbaijan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (which assigns fault to one side of the conflict, with no mention of any opposing views), and also because he used the respective AN thread as a soapbox for his personal views about the underlying real-world conflict, writing inter alia that "The fact that the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life isn't my fault. Why you are advising me not to document their vandalism? What is Wikipedia for? There are numerous cases of Azerbaijani pseudo-scientists trying to present Armenian cultural monuments as Caucasian Albanian and even old Turkic". Although I've tried to convey to him at my talk page why in this particular topic area it is especially important to observe WP:NPOV and avoid using Wikipedia as a forum for re-fighting the underlying conflict, the statement of appeal reflects no understanding of this.  Sandstein  07:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Gatoclass: You make valid points. There may well be an academically notable subject matter at the core of the deleted article. If there are competent editors who are willing and capable of developing it neutrally, I think a userfication could be a good idea. That's not central to the conduct issues examined here, though. I am not sure that anyone who thinks that "Falsification of history in ..." could be a good title for a Wikipedia article should edit in highly contentious topic areas at all, and given the past problems in this area, as seen on the case page, I tend to err on the side of the banhammer in such cases. We should expect not only defensible, but exemplary conduct from anyone who wishes to edit in this area. However, if other admins prefer to apply a higher threshold of concern, I could understand that too, although it could lead to more trouble in the long run.  Sandstein  17:54, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Yerevanci

I would like to add my 2 cents. The history with this deleted article in some regards reminds me of what's going on in the article about Caucasian Albania, and also in 2 AFDs, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia. A while ago a number of sock accounts inserted in Caucasian Albania a strongly POV section which they called "Caucasian Albania and Azerbaijani historical revisionism" (now changed by others to more neutral "Caucasian Albania in Azerbaijani historiography"). At the first glance it looks like verifiable info, but that is until you look at the sources quoted. The fact is that every source quoted speaks about both Armenian and Azerbaijani historical "revisionism", or whatever it might be called, but the section only mentions Azerbaijani authors. I.e. this is a violation of WP:Cherry, when an editor takes a source and quotes only the parts that suite the purpose of denigrating one side, saying nothing about the other, while the source clearly mentions both sides. The reason why I mention Caucasian Albania is not because of socking, as it has nothing to do with the editors involved here, but because the POV section that was inserted there and the issues with it have never been addressed and it is now being made into a separate article, and the same WP:CHERRY is being violated. Now with regards to the articles Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia, one can see that we have 2 articles describing pretty much one side of the story leaving out the context. For instance, sources such as HRW make it clear that anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan is a result of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, while the article makes no mention of it. One can see at AFDs that uninvolved editors tend to support the merge of both articles into one dedicated to either to a particular ethnic group in a country, or general relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I think the community needs to look into the issue in a wider context and decide what to do with WP:CHERRY style articles and article sections which attempt to denigrate one side of the conflict and present the other in a better light, using selective quoting, etc. Otherwise articles like Falsification in ..., Anti-.... sentiment in ...., or similar kind of articles will continue to be created, and this will escalate tensions in AA area. Grandmaster 09:32, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Yerevanci

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

• @Sandstein: was there anything besides the creation of that article that triggered your topic ban? --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 01:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• After reading through Sandstein's reply, I think he made the right call. I see no reason to reverse or alter the topic ban he's imposed. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 15:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• If the AN thread had solely stuck to the topic of the deletion of the article and the process of that deletion, I feel we would not be here. But the issue is that the political conflict was not only played out on the noticeboard, but on Sandstein's talkpage. It was the biased non-neutrality that had to be dealt with, not backing up of "statements" in the article or the title. Yerevanci continued to try and make a point by asking for another user to be banned also. I therefore agree that the appeal should be declined. I won't speak as to the length of the topic ban, as I'm not completely familiar with them, but the ban does seem appropriate. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm probably not going to make any friends by saying this, but I am somewhat uncomfortable both with the original deletion of the article and the topic ban of Yerevanci. A preliminary review of the article in question suggests to me that it is based on mostly academic sources, and while the academics seem to be mostly Armenian or with likely Armenian sympathies, that does not necessarily disqualify them as reliable sources. It would of course be better if the article included some Azerbaijani sources but for a topic of this nature, they may well not exist. The article title is of course POV but the addition of the word Alleged might arguably be sufficient to address that problem. Certainly there are also some POV statements in the article but these could be modified according to the usual BRD cycle. My overall impression is that "falsification of history in Azerbaijan" is a topic of genuine academic interest. In accordance with Froggerlaura's suggestion on Fut. Perf's talk page, perhaps a DRV would be justified in this case?

With regard to the ban on Yerevanci, though I think it is true his comments at AN were somewhat hyperbolic, it seemed to me that the general thrust of his comments were attempting to address the question of the validity of the topic rather than an example of WP:SOAPBOXing per se, though again I think a more suitable venue for his concern would have been DRV. As for the overall quality of Y.'s contributions to the topic area, I am unable to make a definitive judgement at this time but note that he has managed to get quite a number of articles past the DYK process, indicating that he is at least capable of NPOV editing. Gatoclass (talk) 13:53, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response Sandstein. I am currently re-reviewing the evidence in order to make a more considered comment, which I hope to provide either later today or tomorrow. Gatoclass (talk) 08:43, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Brews ohare

Brews ohare (talk · contribs) is blocked for a week.  Sandstein  17:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Request concerning Brews ohare User who is submitting this request for enforcement NE Ent 02:52, 14 February 2013 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Brews ohare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy to be enforced Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed_of_light#Motions Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it [120] Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) [121] Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested [122] Discussion concerning Brews ohare Statement by Brews ohare Comments by JohnBlackburne Here are the diffs I added to the Admin Noticeboard thread, with the relevant physics content [123], includes 'a concept only relevant to the mathematical models of physics and other physical sciences' [124]; 'That limitation leaves open the question whether there is a physical "theory of everything".' [125]; 'In different words, physical determinism holds that all physical events occur as described by physical laws.' These all add physics to the article Physical determinism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). In fact the first edit is the edit that creates the article and Brews ohare was the only substantive contributor to this article up to this 3 Feb revision. The above diffs and the content of the article at this point are all breaches of the topic ban from physics, WP:ARBSL#Motions #7.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 08:35, 14 February 2013 (UTC) Comment by Beyond My Ken Just a note to remind all that Brews ohare's sanction was the topic of this enforcement request in December, which was closed with this closing statement by Seraphimblade: Brews ohare will be issued a final warning, logged to WP:ARBSL, that the topic ban covers all material reasonably and closely related to physics, regardless of what page such material is on. Brews ohare is further urged to request clarification from an uninvolved administrator (preferably one familiar with the case) or here at AE prior to beginning editing any material where its relation to the topic ban may be in question. Such clarification requests made in good faith will not be considered a violation of the ban. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:03, 14 February 2013 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning Brews ohare Result concerning Brews ohare This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. Waiting for diffs and a brief explanation of how the edits violate. KillerChihuahua 03:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC) The request (as now complemented by JohnBlackburne) is actionable. Motion 7 provides that "the Committee topic-bans Brews ohare indefinitely from all pages of whatever nature about physics and physics-related mathematics, broadly construed". The creation and editing of the article Physical determinism by Brews ohare violates this topic ban by virtue of its subject matter alone. The motion provides by way of enforcement that "Should Brews ohare violate this topic ban he may be blocked, initially for up to one week, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year". This seems to be the first topic ban violation resulting in a sanction, and we may therefore impose a block of up to one week. Considering the very lengthy log of blocks and arbitration sanctions applying to Brews ohare, and the long duration over which he repeatedly violated the topic ban (26 January 2013‎ to 13 February 2013), I am of the opinion that a one-week block is appropriate.  Sandstein  09:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC) I concur with Sandstein. This is a clear topic ban violation, and Brews ohare's warning at Arbitration Enforcement in December, plus the record of previous blocks and sanctions, points towards imposing the maximum initial block length of one week. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC) Clear violation, I support the one week block proposed above. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 13:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC) Agree with Sandstein, DQ & Mr. Stradivarius this is a very clear (perhaps even blatant) violation of the ban. A week-long block is appropriate--Cailil talk 13:36, 14 February 2013 (UTC) Agree that there was a violation. Given the history of Brews ohare, I'm not sure had I been the first to respond I would not have suggested longer, and I certainly can support a week. KillerChihuahua 14:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC) So closed, then. Just for the record, Brews ohare has been actively editing between his notification of this thread and this closure, including on the talk page of the article at issue, so I assume that he has voluntarily chosen not to make a statement here.  Sandstein  17:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)