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request administrative action against editors violating a remedy (not merely a principle) or an injunction in an Arbitration Committee decision, or a contentious topic restriction imposed by an administrator,
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- the restriction was imposed by a single administrator, or
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On community review

Uninvolved administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") and uninvolved editors at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN") should revoke or modify a contentious topic restriction on appeal if:

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the action is no longer reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption.

On Arbitration Committee review

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the action was inconsistent with the contentious topics procedure or applicable policy (i.e. the action was out of process),
the action represents an unreasonable exercise of administrative enforcement discretion, or
compelling circumstances warrant the full Committee's action.

^ The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.
^ This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.

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ask the enforcing administrator to reconsider their original decision;
request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators’ noticeboard ("AN"); and
submit a request for amendment at the amendment requests page ("ARCA"). If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email through Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-enwikimedia.org).

Modifications by administrators

No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:

the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or
prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" below).

Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped.

Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied.

Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions.

Important notes:

For a request to succeed, either

(i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or

(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA

is required. If consensus at AE or AN is unclear, the status quo prevails.

While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.
These provisions apply only to contentious topic restrictions placed by administrators and to blocks placed by administrators to enforce arbitration case decisions. They do not apply to sanctions directly authorized by the committee, and enacted either by arbitrators or by arbitration clerks, or to special functionary blocks of whatever nature.
All actions designated as arbitration enforcement actions, including those alleged to be out of process or against existing policy, must first be appealed following arbitration enforcement procedures to establish if such enforcement is inappropriate before the action may be reversed or formally discussed at another venue.

Information for administrators processing requests

Thank you for participating in this area. AE works best if there are a variety of admins bringing their expertise to each case. There is no expectation to comment on every case, and the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) thanks all admins for whatever time they can give.

A couple of reminders:

Before commenting, please familiarise yourself with the referenced ArbCom case. Please also read all the evidence (including diffs) presented in the AE request.
When a request widens to include editors beyond the initial request, these editors must be notified and the notifications recorded in the same way as for the initial editor against whom sanctions were requested. Where some part of the outcome is clear, a partial close may be implemented and noted as "Result concerning X".
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Thucydides411

Thucydides411 is banned from all edits and pages related to US-Russia relations for three months. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes matters related to the question of Russian interference in US elections. GoldenRing (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Thucydides411

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: MrX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 19:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Thucydides411 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBAPDS :

Wikipedia editors are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other editors; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.
All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view. Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarized sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view.
When there is a good-faith dispute, editors are expected to participate in the consensus-building process and to carefully consider other editors' views, rather than simply edit-warring back-and-forth between competing versions.

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

November 12, 2017 Restoring blatant personal attack after it was removed by another editor. (Edit warring)
November 12, 2017 Restoring blatant personal attack after it was removed by another editor. (Edit warring)

November 12, 2017 Restoring blatant personal attack after it was removed by another editor. (Edit warring)

November 12, 2017 Blatant personal attack and personalizing disputes.
November 12, 2017 Assumption of bad faith: "This just looks like an attempt to hide the mainstream view of the JAR from readers. Given the discussion above about "purging" the article, the intent of this RfC is quite clear."
November 12, 2017 Assumption of bad faith
November 12, 2017 Assumption of bad faith
October 11, 2017 Personalizing content disputes
July 4, 2017 Refusal to accept consensus

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

February 18, 2017 Blocked for violation of discretionary sanctions restrictions
May 7, 2017 Given a discretionary sanction by Lord Roem (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on February 18, 2017 by Coffee (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).
Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on January 23, 2017
Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on February 25, 2017.
Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on May 7, 2017 by Lord Roem (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Thucydides411 has persistently made assumptions of bad faith, personal attacks, edit warring, refusal to abide by consensus] and general tendentious editing at Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections for nearly a year as part of his campaign to inject his fringe POV [1], that election interference by Russia didn't happen, into the article. He has been warned several times at several venues to stop but he continues to exhibit a pattern of behavior that is disruptive and a drain on everyone's patience. These last personal attacks on Volunteer Marek are way over the line.

@James J. Lambden: That's news to me. Please list the diffs corresponding to my examples above that show Thucydides411 being attacked. And no, let's not close this. We all know that ANI is useless for resolving these types of issues which is why there were two Arbcom cases for American politics, and why there are discretionary sanction which I am asking to be enforced.- Mr X 00:39, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[2]

Discussion concerning Thucydides411

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Thucydides411

I'm not going to comment here further than to say this: I think this report is part of a campaign of intimidation and harassment. I really don't have the time to respond - getting down in the mud over the insane situation on American Politics articles isn't worth it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by slatersateven)

There is an ongoing ANI [3] launched by me. We should close this (or that) and only have one running.Slatersteven (talk) 19:59, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please close this, statements are being made here I feel I should respond to, but have no wish to be accused of forum shopping.Slatersteven (talk) 10:48, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As this is obviously not going to be closed I have asked for the ANI to be closed. I note that he has never informed anyone of DS, but was informed in the last 12 months.Slatersteven (talk) 14:45, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

At ANI I asked for a topic ban after the user rejected the simple request by another edd to just step away for 48 hours. I fell that if the user is not given some kind of sanction they will in fact continue to be disruptive and provocative. As to the comments about him being provoked. In the last interaction the first "about a user statement" made by anyone was this [4], whilst not aimed at A user it is an attack on anyone who disagrees with him as being politically motivated. Maybe I am missing where he was provoked into making that statement, As far as I can see he was the one deliberately trying to provoke people.Slatersteven (talk) 14:54, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also not only was he not hated alone, but he attempted to move his comment out of the hat (whilst keeping others hated) [5].Slatersteven (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There was nothing stopping Thucydides411 from removing PA's, that would have been well within policy, edit warring to include his is against policy in a number of ways. It was this fact that led to my ANI, not the PA's themselves.Slatersteven (talk) 18:20, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by James J. Lambden

Thucydides411 has been the target of a harassment campaign. It follows the pattern of:

Attack him
Wait for in-kind response
Option A: use his response as evidence of hostility
Option B: remove or hat his response alone, to annoy

Regardless, Slatersteven is right. One complaint is enough. Close this. James J. Lambden (talk) 00:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@MrX: I did not mean to suggest every editor is a witting participant but the pattern is predictable and repeating. See the comments above this diff November 12, 2017 which you linked in your complaint and subsequent removals. I will leave it to Thucydides411 to present previous examples if he chooses to respond here. I believe WP:FORUMSHOP precludes two open complaints. James J. Lambden (talk) 00:49, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Seraphim System

If this is enough for ARBCOM to get involved, there are at least three complaints I want to make - anyone else? Seraphim System ^(talk) 10:57, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Anythingyouwant

~~I advise any further comments to be put at ANI, pursuant to this comment by an administrator. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)~~[reply]

Statement by SPECIFICO

I'm copying some of the evidence I presented at the ANI thread:

Admins have sanctioned Thucydides411 twice already for violating DS on ARBAP2. first sanction and then the second sanction Whenever this is mentioned, he responds with a personal theory as to why one or both of these did not really happen, citing among other things his unsuccessful appeal. He's done that several times, and it demonstrates that the sanctions have not caused him to reconsider his behavior. Recent example: [6].

He routinely mischaracterizes good faith content disagreements as POV-pushing by the majority of editors on the Politics articles who are collaborating to reflect mainstream description of facts and events. He accuses editors of following their personal opinions and engages with disparagement and denigration rather than discussion of content, sources, and policy. This behavior is not only at the Russian Interference article; it's on other related articles as well. For those who are not familiar with his conduct, here are some threads that demonstrate his personalized battleground style:

[7]

ANI

[8]

And meanwhile he’s been going after Marek on a long list of pages for a long time and has been politely asked over and over to stop.:[9]

What's particularly weird, to me, is why Thuc would think that these years-old irrelevant ad hominems against Marek would hold any sway over the current editors Thuc is presumably trying to win to his POV? It seems to me he is so invested in personalizing routine editing communications that he doesn't even realize that the overwhelming majority of editors thinks these ad hominems are pointless and offensive. SPECIFICO talk 18:28, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent incident v. Marek may have precipitated this complaint, but it is only the most recent incident for Thucydides411. His participation on article and user talk pages and Noticeboards has consistently devolved into accusations of personal POV bias and then the further accusation that Admins and the entire WP project overlook policy violations and POV editing that fits a certain political stance. I linked three threads above that give a glimpse of this behavior. I know, TLDR, but you can read any 6-12 inches of it and it all comes in focus. This is a WP:NOTHERE account fighting a crusade against the bias of WP for relying on the weight of mainstream sources. SPECIFICO talk 19:01, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Darouet forgot to post Thucydides' next move after that thread he excerpted. The follow-up was that, because I later referred to Russian psy-ops in trying to ingratiate themselves to members of the Trump team, Thucydides started a complaint about me at BLPN, claiming that my mention of the term psy-ops was a BLP violation.[10].

Here he is disparaging the motives of editors who disagree with his POV. [11] Here he goes after patience-of-a-saint MelanieN [12] SPECIFICO talk 01:21, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's not right for Darouet to cast aspersions on me and Marek and call each of us hypocrites, citing as his justification the fact that MrX filed this complaint. SPECIFICO talk 01:26, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Volunteer Marek

I was not going to comment here but since User:GoldenRing can't drop this and continues to try and get me for some reason I feel compelled to respond. GR references this comment of mine and says that I am "casting aspersions and personalising this dispute". Nonsense. First, this is AN/I NOT an article talk page. On AN/I we discuss EDITOR'S BEHAVIOR and not content. There's no "personalizing the dispute" here. I mean, if I'm "personalizing the dispute" so is everybody else who's ever commented on ANI including GoldenRing himself. As for "casting aspersions" - again, this is AN/I. We discuss editor's behavior. And yes, if you look at edits by Thucydides411 since mid-December 2016, it's something like 90% on this one article on Russian interference in the US election. Hold up, I can actually give you a more precise number... ... (excel loading) ...

Between Dec 20 and Feb 16, Thucydides made 383 edits. Of those, all but ... FOURTEEN, were related to the article Russian Interference in US election. So that's actually 96.3% of edits related to this one article (that does include edits which are to related articles like Julian Assange but even those are a small % of his over all edits). I mean, if you click on his edit history it freakin' looks like this ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

For the next 500 edits, between Feb 16 and June 88, he did a little better in terms of diversifying his interest with "only" 88% of his edits on Russian interference or related. I can calculate the % for the rest of the edits since then but I'm pretty sure you get the picture.

To claim that "it doesn't take much of a look through Thucydides411's edit history to make the SPA characterisation look pretty thin" is absurd. It means that the person "looking" is, well, NOT looking or that they are pretending something is true when it's not.

I'd really appreciate it if GoldenRing started bothering to actually look at the diffs and the evidence before opinin' or administratin' in the future. So far their words and action suggest a very cavalier attitude towards both. Volunteer Marek 17:46, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My statement quoted below quoted by Darouet (16:33) is most certainly NOT a personal attack. "Clearly" or otherwise. It's simply a statement describing why Thucydides411 actions on the article have been disruptive and why he has never managed to get a consensus for any of their edits. This is a user who rejects the idea of the article itself full stop. And correspondingly they reject what virtually all reliable sources have to say on the subject. Unsurprisingly then, whenever reliable sources are presented, he simply rejects them. That is not my problem. That is Thucydides411 problem.

Note also that Darouet disingenuously omitted the first part of my statement which discusses the content under discourse directly. This is a straight up attempt at misrepresentation and constitutes WP:ASPERSIONS

I also don't appreciate Darouet making this false accusation. Accusing others of making personal attacks when they're clearly not, is itself a personal attack.

All that Darouet's statement shows is that there have been multiple editors (several more could easily be added) who have gotten extremely frustrated with Thucydides WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior on the talk page. This also addresses the point raised below by MASEM - yes, the talk page is for discussing. But when you keep discussing, and discussing, and discussing, and discussing and can never get anywhere... well, there's obviously a problem. And dollars to Deutschemarks say that it's the one guy who keeps bringing up the same stuff over and over and over and over again, well after everyone else has moved on. And that'd be Thucidedes411. Volunteer Marek 04:44, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also look at Darouet's claim that " Also note that MrX accused Thucydides411 of WP:TE, when in the course of the RfC, a majority of editors on the page would agree with Thucydides, and not MrX". This is also completely FALSE. At the time the comment was written there were TWO "Supports". There was one "ironic" Support (a violation of WP:POINT in fact). There was one editor (Slatersteven) who was on the fence. Then there was myself and Mr.X who both expressed support although neither one of us had yet to !vote. Then there was Thucydides411, a lone "oppose". That is most definetly not a situation where "a majority of editors on the page would agree with Thucydides, and not MrX". Quite the opposite in fact. Given the blatant falsehood of this claim, and the previous one, I don't know if ANYTHING Darouet claims in his comment should be taken at face value. Volunteer Marek 04:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Darouet

At the end of August, MrX stated that they had begun a case against Thucydides411. That was on the same day MrX launched an RfC, asking if communications between Felix Sater, a Putin aid, and a Trump lawyer should be in in the article [13]. Thucydides411 voted to oppose inclusion and ultimately, Sandstein closed the RfC noting that there was no consensus to include the communication.

I think the discussion that occurred at that RfC is fairly representative of the vitriol Thucydides411 has faced by a few editors on the page (notably by the complainants here). James J. Lambden writes that Thucydides411 is repeatedly the target of harassment by 1) a personal attack, 2) Thucydides’ response, which is then 3) removed or 4) used against them in an enforcement proceeding. Every one of those events occurs in the RfC. The RfC discussion also demonstrates that what GoldenRing and Masem write is spot on about how this issue is not one-sided.

On the same day MrX launched the RfC, Thucydides411 described the Sater communication in the “Threaded discussion” section of the RfC,

16:19, Thucydides411 [14]: “It also doesn't seem to involve any actions taken by the Russian government. Russian actions are, after all, the topic this article purports to cover.”

This is the response by Volunteer Marek, MrX, and SPECIFICO:

16:33, Volunteer Marek [15]: “…The problem here for you is that you reject the idea of Russian interference a priori. So to YOU whenever a source tries to explain the WHY and HOW Russian interference happened, of course you're going to think it's not irrelevant because you don't such a thing happened in the first place. But that is YOUR own POV, that is YOU trying to impose your personal opinions on the article, that is YOU refusing to follow the policy of reliable sources. That is YOU breaking Wikipedia policy and now, edit warring in contravention of it. Not clear why we should put up with this.”

VM’s comment is clearly a personal attack. It’s not horrible in the context of American Politics, but it personalizes the dispute and is clearly disruptive.

17:01, Thucydides411 [16]: "Capitalizing random words doesn't make your point any clearer. This material isn't relevant, but you're trying to coatrack it into the article. And really, you're the last person who should be throwing around accusations of POV-pushing or policy violation."

(SPECIFICO removes Thucydides411’s comment as a personal attack but not Volunteer Marek’s [17]; Thucydides411 restores their comment [18])

Demonstrating exactly what Lambden describes: removing Thucydides' response defending themself, but not the attack on them.

21:13, Volunteer Marek [19]: "They're not "random". The capitalization stress the "YOU", as in Thucydides411, for a reason - to emphasize that YOU are trying to cram your own personal opinions down everyone's throat here, rather than relying on reliable sources per WP:RS. It's gone on long enough."

17:25, MrX [20]: "Volunteer Marek is exactly right. Thucydides411 is engaged in long-term tendentious editing on this article. His conduct should be reviewed at WP:AE. I began documenting a case three months ago, but unfortunately, I've been too busy to complete and file it."

Note that MrX created this sandbox page dedicated to Thucydides411 in May 2017 (the initial documentation included zero diffs), promising some kind of future enforcement action without evidence. MrX left that creepy page, User:MrX/T, in their sandbox for 5+ months (it’s still there). Also note that MrX accused Thucydides411 of WP:TE, when in the course of the RfC, a majority of editors on the page would agree with Thucydides, and not MrX.

23:08, SPECIFICO [21]: "Thuc, please keep your "personal opinions" off this page. WP editing is not about anybody's opinions. It's about conveying the weight of RS discourse on the subject. And by "subject" we mean the subject of this article, which -- as you know -- is not "alleged Russian interference..." RS tell us in some detail that psy-ops to create chatter among folks in Trump's circle is Russian interference. I'm not going to repeat the details here, because the current discussion is more limited in scope. All these Russian-Trumpan connections are understood by RS accounts to be elements of the extensive and wildly successful psy-ops campaign."

This isn’t easy to parse, but it’s a totally unconstructive response to Thucydides411’s comment.

The full exchange (including comments made on other days) can be viewed here.

In brief, all of these editors — those making a case here against Thucydides411 — have been quick to turn content conversations into personal attacks in the past, have failed to assume good faith, and this conduct has helped produce a toxic environment on the page. In that context this complaint comes across as hypocritical, and an effort to force Thucydides411 to stop interacting at the page when plenty of editors there (and the editorial board of the BBC) agree that allegations of Russian interference, whatever their merit or whatever the extent of interference, be described as such. -Darouet (talk) 00:02, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Objective3000

I fear I won’t be a useful contributor to this complaint – but wanted to add my one penny. Thucydides411 has spent just shy of a year attempting to weaken the article Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections by suggesting that there is little evidence of such and that those that will not accept their view are biased. The editor has consistently claimed that RS use the word ‘’alleged’’. Only, one by one, RS have dropped use of that word. I think we’re down to one out of the six sources that the editor has continued to claim use the word. And yet, they still claim it is in general use. The editor has also spent this time attempting to add a criticism from a writer against one of the pieces of evidence. All of these attempts have failed to gain consensus. But, we are drawn into the exact same debate time and time again. The original report is now just a tiny fraction of the evidence, and yet the editor continues to argue this one point. I’d give diffs; but this is difficult considering the 622 edits the editor has made to this articles talk. This represents a time-sink that doesn’t appear to have aided the article in nearly a year. O3000 (talk) 01:48, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Thucydides411

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

This thread was temporarily closed between 18:12, 14 November 2017‎ UTC and 14:31, 17 November 2017 UTC. In the meantime, the related AN/I thread was closed without action. I have not read it because most everything at AN/I is a mess. The conduct reported here is in and of itself not terribly bad, but the user has two previous related sanctions. Their personal attacks and edit-warring about them constitute sanctionable misconduct. I recommend a three-month topic ban from Russia-US relations including election-related matters. Sandstein 16:08, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree sanctions are appropriate here, though I'm less convinced it's one-sided. VM's comment Thucydides411 was responding to in the edit warring linked above is perhaps a borderline case, but comments like the last paragraph of this are pretty clear that VM is casting aspersions and personalising this dispute (it doesn't take much of a look through Thucydides411's edit history to make the SPA characterisation look pretty thin).
VM is already subject to a one-month topic ban from everything Trump-related and I think that is sufficient as topic bans go for now; I'd also be in favour of an IBAN between Volunteer Marek and Thucydides411 for a bit longer than the topic bans, to make them ease back into the topic without immediately rubbing against each other. GoldenRing (talk) 17:14, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As I mentioned at the AN/I thread, while Thucydides411 should not be edit warring on talk pages in this manner, there are concerns that the removed comments made by Thucydides (which are clearly PAs) had been made in response to other clear PAs by VM and others, which those admins monitoring the page did not remove along with Thucydides. This creates understandable frustration which leads to the EWing behavior if one is singularly being picked out. The actions of several editors all around created a bad situation that it is hard to singularly take Thucydides' actions alone as the problem, hence trouts all around and warnings to all that PAs need to be avoided, period.

I will also note particularly in comment to VM's point that Thucydides' has overwhelming spent a lot of time at the talk page for the article, that's exactly what a talk page is for. I know exactly the situation that Thucydides is in from my own experience with GG where I was being criticized for using the talk page as a talk page, primarily because I was not arguing along the lines of the majority of users on the page and required some significant review of the circumstances to present the topic. That's the whole purpose of talk pages to try to resolve issues and not just simply a !vote or who can shout the loudest. Now, there is the WP:TE issue, I agree Thucydides' is clearly engaging in that type of behavior and per my own experience strongly recommend taking a voluntary break from that topic, if a topic ban/block is not otherwise engaged. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the admin comments above, there seems to be little interest in sanctioning Thucydides411 alone, even though their editing is considered problematic. I don't think that we have the basis, in the form of a well-presented case, for sanctions against others at this time. Accordingly, unless admins object, I'll close this as no action soon. Sandstein 10:00, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Sandstein: I do object. I think your proposed topic ban of Thucydides411 is good and necessary for this topic at this time. I don't think it would be helpful for this to just be closed with no action. Others who are part of the same general dispute have recently been T-banned for one month so maybe you might argue proportionality urges a similar duration, but I don't think no action is the right outcome here.
  Speaking of others who are part of the same general dispute, unless I'm very much mistaken, Volunteer Marek is subject to a one-month topic ban from all edits and articles related to Donald Trump and as far as I can see his edits here are a blatant violation of it. He hasn't even made an attempt to claim that they are covered by BANEX, and anyway they are not. As I proposed an IBAN we might eek out a small exemption for discussing that, but any more general discussion of Tnucydides411's actions should result in a short block (48 hours?) to enforce the ban. GoldenRing (talk) 10:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll add as well that I'm not very impressed with VM cherry-picking another editor's history in an attempt to substantiate a personal attack. Curiously enough, I had looked at Thucydides411's edit history before making that remark; what I didn't do was go back to January to find the worst-looking bit of it. What I looked at was this. Yes, he edits AP2 articles quite a bit; so do lots of editors. That doesn't make them SPAs. GoldenRing (talk) 10:59, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - @GoldenRing: Then as far as I'm concerned you're free to close this with any sanctions concerning Thucydides411 you deem appropriate. As to Volunteer Marek, they are banned "from all edits and articles related to Donald Trump". As far as I can tell, their edits here are not related to Trump, but to Thucydides411. Sandstein 11:16, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - I also object to closing with no action, and support the three-month topic ban from Russia-US relations including election-related matters which Sandstein originally proposed. I don't see Volunteer Marek's comments here as warranting a sanction; it's far-fetched to suggest they violate his topic ban from Donald Trump. Bishonen | talk 11:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]

Groupuscule

Groupuscule is indefinitely topic-banned from from genetically modified organisms. They are invited to appeal the ban after three months and explain how they intend to change their approach to editing in this topic area. Sandstein 08:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Groupuscule

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Kingofaces43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 23:30, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Groupuscule (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#Casting_aspersions

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#Discretionary_Sanctions

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#1RR_imposed

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

Oct. 2 The evidence strongly suggests that Monsanto has not abandoned its practice of using sockpuppet identities (and paid shills) online to promote their point of view. Unfortunately, then, this is not only an important topic for an article, but an existential threat to Wikipedia itself . . .
Oct. 10 More aspersions of Monsanto shills: Do they suppose that Monsanto's notorious public relations operatives are inactive on Wikipedia?
Oct. 13 Industry influence on GMO articles: I suppose you know that Monsanto historically uses a sophisticated system of internet sockpuppets to control public discourse on topics of interest? and two replies regarding glyphosate and apparent industry influence on genetic engineering articles
Nov. 18 Edit warring (initial addition by Groupuscule, I reverted with explanation, Groupuscule reverts it back in with no attempt at discussion. This note during Arbcom stated the combo of DS and 1RR were supposed to prevent exactly this type of gaming.
Nov. 18 Battleground mentality directed at editors: Your actions here lead me to suspect that you simply don't want this noteworthy and verifiable information included on Wikipedia. . .

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.[22]

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This editor, who has somewhat recently re-entered the topic, has had long-term problems with WP:ADVOCACY in the GMO/pesticide topic as noted in a recent AfD made by Groupuscule (pinging jps, Capeo, and Delta13C since your posts are being mentioned at AE). The AFD is essentially a WP:SNOW keep in part due to editors noting the POV issues by the editor in the nomination, which shows we're getting some wider community frustration with this editor's behavior.

Special note should be taken of the WP:ASPERSIONS principle we wrote at the GMO ArbCom because we were having problems with editors engaging in the shill gambit, a common problem with fringe advocacy in this topic, and also because editors with that mentality also tend to be otherwise disruptive. SageRad[23], David Tornheim[24], EllenCT[25], and Cathry[26] are good examples of editors topic-banned or eventually site-banned under the aspersions principle or related to this kind of mentality.

In the diffs and edit summaries above, there is a lot of mention by Groupuscule of Monsanto controlling articles, etc. As a reminder, David Tornheim was topic-banned for doing exactly the above while purposely avoiding mentioning editor names to try to game the aspersions principle. This diff also shows they consider the scientific consensus on GMO safety "mythical" (establishing part of the editor POV problem). Given that we're getting this acute of issues now that Groupuscule is editing in the topic again, I would suggest a standard topic-ban (worded the same as the DS notice topics) to prevent further disruption. We've seen this behavior unfold many times already in the topic, and the DS and aspersions principle were meant to tamp down hard on the disruption and POV editing caused by this. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:30, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein, Bishonen, GoldenRing, and other admins, two things I'd ask to consider about a potential 3-month topic-ban:

One is that Groupuscule has more of a sporadic but acute editing history in the topic. 3 months wouldn't really be outside the range of breaks they normally take from the topic.

The other is whether we can realistically expect the behavior to improve in the topic after 3 months? Your conversation so far has to some degree paralleled the admin discussion at the David Tornheim case[27] where lesser sanctions were at first considered for similar behavior until admins realized the problem was too likely to just resurface later given the editor mentality.

Maybe to address those issues if a 3-month time period is ultimately the consensus is to require an active appeal at 3-months showing the editor is actually recognizant of the behavior issues rather than passively letting it expire? That would seem to balance behavior concerns with this being a first sanction. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:33, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[28]

Discussion concerning Groupuscule

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Groupuscule

Readers can judge for themselves who indeed has cast aspersions. All the best, groupuscule (talk) 00:54, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, please allow me to clarify a few things and give my perspective on some of these new allegations.

1. The decision on "casting aspersions" says "an editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence". I have done nothing of the sort. I have commented in general—not even in the course of content discussions, but on user talk pages where the discussion came up— that I think the biotech industry's PR apparatus probably extends to Wikipedia. This is not the same as avoiding or poisoning discussion by calling one's interlocutor a shill.
2. Jps accuses me of misrepresenting the sources about Monsanto's online sockpuppets. Three articles and a book. I take such an accusation very seriously, and I would encourage people to read the articles and the passage in the book. Monbiot wrote that "the Bivings Group, a PR company contracted to Monsanto, had invented fake citizens to post messages on internet listservers". He also traced one of the accounts to the Monsanto domain itself. "Here's a link to the book on Google Books; see what you think. If I didn't represent this source falsely, I think that casts the situation in a different light, especially considering Kingofaces and jps's insistence on deleting this information. Notice that they deleted it wholesale rather than trying to clarify something they thought was inaccurate.
- Notice that Kingofaces followed, one might say stalked, me to the page on sockpuppets specifically to revert me. And now jps has done the same.
- Notice also that during this process both the above users have cast some rather more pointed aspersions at me, for example accusing me of making a "shill gambit" (which I did not do, as part of any argument over content) and linking to an outside page with a crazy-looking Alex Jones riding on a magic carpet. I find this insulting and inappropriate.
3. I didn't create the article on Monsanto's public relations activities in response to the discussion at "GMO conspiracy theories". I have been planning to do it for a while, as I wrote in the October 2 quoted by Kingofaces above! So in this case the accusation is not only baseless but demonstrably false.
4. The userpage on scientific consensus was created four years ago as part of a discussion over the well-known "scientific consensus" statement on genetic engineering articles. It was deleted from a talk page so I moved it to userspace and expanded it. It represents research and argumentation concerning how Wikipedia should deal with this topic. It's not a manifesto. It's not my personal opinion on the subject. It was nominated for deletion back then and survived.

So, I really think I am not guilty of breaking any policy, and furthermore, that anyone examining my edits as a whole will find that I have been polite, diplomatic, and generally undisruptive throughout. Thanks for taking the time to examine this issue closely. groupuscule (talk) 20:01, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Capeo

Just to clarify why I felt the AFD nomination was pointy at best: a quick perusal of Groupsicle's editing in the GMO area, including the large section currently on their talk page, make's their POV on the subject is clear. Having a POV is not an issue of course. Editing solely from that POV is though. Nominating a long-standing article for deletion, without even an attempt to first suggest improvements on the talk page, is pointy. When it's clear it's going to be a SNOW keep then proceeding to instead make a POV-fork article is even pointier. A topic ban from GMO's is probably warranted here. Capeo (talk) 17:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The edits to Sockpuppet (Internet) have now really fell into pointy-as-all-hell territory. As an aside, when it comes to GMO related articles now, I'll always defer to the opinion of Tryptofish. After the Arbcom case, the RFC, I've lost all taste for dealing with same arguments over and over, the same accusations, the same bad sources. I still watch the pages, and may revert obvious bad edits, but what watching those pages has really shown me is that Trypto has the patience of a saint. Trypto is pretty much always trying to find some area of conciliation, some area where common ground can be met and a beneficial edit can be made, to a degree I couldn't. I'd be likely be an asshole in my frustration of dealing with same thing over an over. Point being, Tryptofish's suggestion of a topic ban here, to me, just solidifies my opinion that it's warranted. Capeo (talk) 03:06, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The edit that JPS points out has moved into the realm of pure fabrication. There is nothing in those sources, which are not great to begin with, that support the accusatory edit made. Capeo (talk) 04:08, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by jps

If you want to learn about the user's WP:ACTIVIST agenda, read no further than this manifesto written by the user:User:Groupuscule/GMO. It's an obsession to skew Wikipedia with respect to this subject... seems clear to me. I find it particularly interesting that the sources cited are very poor (many are to journals that are predatory, and references to discredited research abound). It's a real waste of time. jps (talk) 19:04, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I just removed this addition by Groupuscule to the Monsanto page which was sourced to articles that never made the full accusations as was put in plain text. I'm not a big fan of people trying to mislead readers like this. Is this an attempt to flame out before the banhammer comes down? jps (talk) 03:51, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tryptofish

I'm inclined to cut editors a lot of slack as to what they say in user talk, so the question for me is whether personal opinions have spilled over into content in a disruptive way. And what that comes down to is (1) making an AfD nomination that was snow-rejected by the community, (2) creating a sort of tit-for-tat article as an obvious rebuttal to the not-deleted page, and (3) making the edits at Sockpuppet (Internet), which, while not violating 1RR, also disregard WP:BRD under DS conditions. The first two have been time-wasters for other editors, and the third, although a single incident that by itself probably doesn't warrant sanctions, is not encouraging. I can see an argument for letting this go with a stern warning, and I can also see an argument, given the statements of intention in user space, including an obvious belief that other editors are "shills" as well as an obvious disdain for the ArbCom decision, that a topic ban now will avoid an inevitable topic ban later. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:23, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Capeo: thank you very much for the kind words, much appreciated. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Admins: I think that Sandstein correctly describes the situation as weighing conduct so far, that really hasn't been that bad, against a high probability that future conduct would likely just end up back here at AE. I feel too involved to be able to tell you how to balance that. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:28, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by dialectric

Kingofaces’ filing seeks to associate Groupuscule with other editors who have been topic banned from the GMO area since the 2015 arbcom case. This attempt at association ignores significant differences between this case and past cases in the area.

1. 4 of 5 diffs in the filing are from Groupuscule’s talk page. User talk pages are generally given more freedom than WP pages, and this editor’s very general comments on their own talk page about possible Monsanto promotional activity are not equivalent to SageRad or David Tornheim’s comments which were (A) on article talk pages and dispute resolution forums, and (B) called out specific editors and edits.

2. Groupuscule has long been inactive from the GMO area, and may have been unaware of the arbcom case; the 1st diff in this filing predates the Discretionary Sanctions notice by 8 days. Groupuscule’s single revert on Sockpuppet (Internet) does not violate 1RR, and in that instance Kingofaces43 did not provide a coherent, policy-based rationale for his revert, or an explanation on the talk page. Nominating a single page for deletion is not disruptive behavior, even if the result is a snow-keep. If there is a pattern of pointed afd's, that could be actionable.

Groupuscule is a valuable contributor with 3000+ edits over 10+ years. This user at least deserves a warning prior to a subject block, when the call for that block has been drawn largely from comments posted to that user's own user space.Dialectric (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Groupuscule

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

In and of themselves, the edits aren't terribly problematic, but as a group and together with the other evidence in the complaint I do get the impression that Groupuscule is here primarily to promote their own view of the issue, often in a confrontational manner and by insinuating that other editors with a different view are paid sockpuppets. This conduct is not compatible with editing in a high-tension topic area subject to discretionary sanctions. I am therefore considering a 3-month topic ban. Sandstein 10:06, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Persistent shill aspersions in this area are unacceptable, and there's obviously tendentious editing generally. I support a topic ban of at least three months. Bishonen | talk 12:03, 20 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]
- Following Kingofaces43's new comment above, I would now like to propose an indefinite topic ban from genetically modified organisms, broadly construed, with an ~~option~~ invitation to appeal here after three months. (I crossed out "option" because appealing is always an option.) Bishonen | talk 16:57, 20 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]
I agree with Sandstein and Bishonen; a TBAN is appropriate here. If this were not a first sanction I'd argue for longer than three months, but it is their first so I think they should be given a chance to learn from it; two to three months seems appropriate. I also think we should delete User:Groupuscule/GMO; it is at least skirting NOTWEBHOST and it's unlikely to be helpful in the context of a topic ban (though I note it hasn't been edited in more than two years). GoldenRing (talk) 12:53, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Taking into consideration the above, Groupuscule is indefinitely topic-banned from from genetically modified organisms. They are invited to appeal the ban after three months and explain how they intend to change their approach to editing in this topic area. Sandstein 08:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anythingyouwant

Since Sandstein has asked that I handle this, and there does seem to be agreement that this was not BLP exempt and that Anythingyouwant knew what they are doing, I'll go ahead and resolve this: Anythingyouwant is placed on 0RR for 1 month on Roy Moore and any topic related to the United States Senate special election in Alabama, 2017, broadly construed. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:14, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Anythingyouwant

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 04:02, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Anythingyouwant (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2 : [29]. Discretionary sanctions, including a 1RR restriction and the "consensus required" provision added to the article on 0:31 November 11 2017 [30] by User:TonyBallioni. Note that below Tony indicates that the addition of the "consensus required" provision was very much intentional.

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

[31] 22:20 November 26 2017
[32] 1:03 November 26 November. Restoring text challenged by reversion [33]

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

[34] Previously banned from post 1935 American politics

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 10:46, 27 October 2016 by Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I'm not sure if this is a 1RR violation, but it is obviously a violation of the "consensus required" provision which is in effect on the page and which it seems admins have decided needs enforcing. The edit was obviously challenged by reversion. The claim that this was a BLP issue is spurious. See also the edit summaries by User:MrX [35] and User:MelanieN [36]. See also discussion on talk page. In particular see comments by MrX, MelanieN and User:Artw in that discussion. Also this comment claims the text says something it doesn't actually say. Also [37]. Also see this comment which brings up WP:TRUTH and WP:GREATWRONGS. Volunteer Marek 04:02, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When an editor (me) does what two other editors request - I did not request for you to make that edit and afaict, neither did MrX. I think that was pretty clear from both our comments. Volunteer Marek 09:36, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing:: " VM says this is "spurious" but other editors here agree with Anythingyouwant" - no, they don't. What page are you reading??? Your comment was made at 16:30. At the time you wrote this FOUR editors (in addition to myself), including TWO administrators said that this clearly is NOT a BLP violation. Those would be Specifico, MelanieN and MrX. TWO editors, Atsme and DHeyward said it was a BLP violation. Two or three didn't address the BLP issue. Since you made your comment TWO additional editors have said it wasn't a BLP violation. If you're gonna participate at WP:AE in an administrative capacity can you please at least read the statements before "summarizing" them? Volunteer Marek 18:50, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As to the question of whether it's a BLP violation - it's not. The info is well sourced. The text is straight from the source. Anythingyouwant is pretending on the talk page that the text is something other than what it really is as a pretext for removing it. This is not a BLP vio, this is WP:GAMEing, like User:MrX points out. Just like Anythingyouwant falsely claiming that either I or MrX "requested" he make the edit is WP:GAMEing. Volunteer Marek 18:52, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And this comment " The second is that MrX reverted the removal of material that was clearly challenged on good-faith BLP grounds" - is completely ass backwards. Anythingyouwant is edit warring, repeatedly inserting challenged content in violation of the discretionary sanction which just recently YOU insisted MUST be enforced, yet here for some reason you want to... sanction the editor making the challenge rather than the one violating DS. What gives? Volunteer Marek 18:55, 26 November 2017 (UTC) either @Anythingyouwant: - regarding this claim (quote: "You might also take a look at the adjectives used to describe me at this page, and personally I prefer to be called lots of nasty adjectives than to be..."), can you point out any of these "nasty adjectives" which are being "used to describe" you, "at this page"? Cuz I just read the whole thing again and I don't see a single adjective being used to describe you, nasty or otherwise (I skipped Atsme and DHayward's statements for obvious reasons). Volunteer Marek 23:21, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Anythingyouwant: - " I'd rather not get bogged down making such a list for you." - in other words, nobody called you any adjectives, nasty or otherwise, and you just made that up. Here, I'll make this list for you: {empty set}. Volunteer Marek 06:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Anythingyouwant: - yes, the diff does contain the adjective "nasty" but it is not being used to describe you, but rather to describe something else. You claimed, quote: "You might also take a look at the adjectives used to describe me at this page, and personally I prefer to be called lots of nasty adjectives than to be...". This isn't difficult. Why do you insist on completely misrepresenting something which is easy to check? This is very similar to your insistence on the false claim that either I or MrX "requested" you make the edit. Volunteer Marek 06:59, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Vanamonde93: That first edit is indeed a revert, of this edit. Anythingyouwant just waited a few days to sneak that revert in. Don't let him bamboozle you. Closely verify every claim he makes. Volunteer Marek 06:59, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While you're at it you might want to look at this statement by Anythingyouwant right here at WP:AE for another example of WP:WEASELLY misrepresentation of other editors and sources: " I am glad that MrX has finally today agreed that this BLP lead ought to mention Moore has denied dating underage females.[38]. So my statement above about being dishonest is happily no longer applicable". Note how he tries to pretend that it was another user who was at fault, not him, and acts as if he's graciously "forgiving" the other user their error. Which is baloney. Keep in mind that this is after Anythingyouwant was criticized below by an administrator for falsely accusing MrX of dishonesty - so he comes back and tries to make it seem like the other person's fault. @MrX:, have you "finally" agreed to anything? Was there actually disagreement on this in the first place or was the dispute over something else (inserting the "age of consent" stuff in there)? This is actually a straight up false misrepresentation of MrX's position, and a fairly obnoxious way to rewrite the nature of the dispute in a "I'm glad you finally stopped beating your wife" kind of way. Honestly, sketchy tactics like these merit a sanction all on their own. Volunteer Marek 07:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing: - Re [38]. I didn't misread anything. Perhaps you miswrote. Your comment about "others disagree" was clearly meant to insinuate, falsely, that the majority of opinion was against me, when actually the opposite was the case. If you wanted to say "some editors disagreed, others agreed" then that's what you should have written. And frankly, you can always count on ideological supporters - on both sides - to show up and back the editor who matches with their POV. That's why more experienced AE admins usually ignore "the peanut gallery". The difference here is that even editors who can't be accused of being on one side or the other (MelanieN, EvergreenFir, Vanamonde - two admins in there) disagreed with you and Anythingyouwant. Anythingyouwant DID NOT get support or agreement from anyone who's political views are not immediately obvious.

And you're trying to twist the situation up on its head again: "the principle that edits done to address good-faith BLP objections shouldn't be reverted without consensus is a good one". Again, it was Anythingyouwant who was violating the DS sanction, not the person who challenged their edits. Why do you keep trying to make this out to be something it's not? Just a few days ago you were adamant that the "consensus required" provision needs to be enforced. Yet here you're flippin' 180 degrees. Volunteer Marek 09:36, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein: added dates, remedy, edt. Volunteer Marek 14:51, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[39]

Discussion concerning Anythingyouwant

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Anythingyouwant

I was indeed banned from post-1932 politics; it was for less than two weeks, from 27 October 2016 to 9 November 2016. The present article is controversial, and my effort here was simply to conform it to reliable sources like any article should be. There is no allegation of a 1RR violation here, and I didn't violate 1RR. The issue here is whether I reinstated an edit that was challenged by User:MrX. I did not.

My edit #1, at 22:20 on 25 November 2017 (with my added language in bold) said that the BLP subject:

did not deny approaching or dating teenagers above the age of consent.^[1]

References

^ Borchers, Callum. “Roy Moore’s open letter to Sean Hannity, annotated”, Washington Post (November 16, 2017): “I adamantly deny the allegations of Leigh Corfman and Beverly Nelson, did not date underage girls, and have taken steps to begin a civil action for defamation.”

The edit summary of User:MrX at 22:59 on 25 November 2017 said, “The source does not say that, and this would be too much detail for the lead anyway.” To address his primary objection, I more closely tracked the language of the source (which is quoted in the footnote), so there would be no way anyone could dispute that I was adhering closely to the source.

So, my edit #2 at 01:03 on 26 November 2017(with my added language in bold) said that the BLP subject:

did not deny approaching or dating teenagers who were not underage.^[1]

References

^ Borchers, Callum. “Roy Moore’s open letter to Sean Hannity, annotated”, Washington Post (November 16, 2017): “I adamantly deny the allegations of Leigh Corfman and Beverly Nelson, did not date underage girls, and have taken steps to begin a civil action for defamation.”

I did not reinstate any edit of mine, but rather the second edit of mine used not a single word that my first edit used, and the second edit much more closely tracked the source using verbatim language ("underage") from the source, to meet MrX's previous objection that "the source does not say that", as well as to meet User:Volunteer Marek's apparent preference for explicitly saying "underage". See VM's edit at 00:56, 26 November 2017. When an editor (me) does what two other editors request, it kind of seems like a game of gotcha for one of them to file a complaint about it. Incidentally, my second edit used 20% fewer words (four instead of five), given that MrX had said the first edit was too long.

I will add a paragraph below in reply to Melanie. If this thing turns into a typical Wikipedia pile-on, so be it, but I am not inclined to participate much more. I feel that the complaint is frivolous, and shouldn't be used as a back door for all kinds of separate old complaints about separate old matters. Anyway, feel free to visit my user talk to request or advise further participation or response from me. Thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:14, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:MelanieN, I did not visit the user talk page of User:MrX about this matter and haven't visited his user talk in many months (if not years) despite frequent disagreements with him. None of the diffs or edits discussed above were by MelanieN, but she is correct that I visited her user talk today, because I did not think that what I had to say would be appropriate for article talk (if you want to read what we discussed, see the last section). The lead of this BLP presently says the BLP subject "did not deny approaching or dating teenagers." However, in the reference I already quoted above, the BLP subject partly denied that exact thing. So I was trying to make the lead conform better to the sources, and it had nothing to do with righting great wrongs, unless perhaps you consider violating Wikipedia policy a "great wrong". I choose not to rely upon WP:BLP at this time, in responding to the present complaint, because I do not want to be seen as using the BLP policy as some kind of habitual excuse, though I think such a view would be mistaken. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:14, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Vanamonde93, I also would not support a sentence of the form "[hypothetical person X was accused of sexually assaulting (but not of raping) women aged sixteen and above (who were legally able to give consent)". I said at ~~user~~ article talk that "I haven’t advocated for any particular change to that part of the lead yet", and am not sure that I will advocate any change in the language regarding sexual assault, so it's all hypothetical. If we're talking about something like a butt grab in (e.g.) 1985, and the sources characterize the butt grab as sexual assault, then I am happy for this BLP to say that the BLP subject committed sexual assault in 1985, so long as we are clear that the sexual assault was a butt grab rather than rape. Okay? If you want to give me 0RR for that, I will accept it very proudly. If we don't use our language carefully, then readers will be more likely to interpret "sexual assaul" as something either more serious or less serious than the offense discussed by the source. “While sexual assault is usually seen as rape, state statutes generally include any unwanted sexual contact...." See also Black's Law Dictionary, 10th ed. (”sexual assault. 1. Sexual intercourse with another person who does not consent. 2. Offensive sexual contact with another person, exclusive of rape.") But all this is unrelated to the present complaint, no? And unrelated to any edit I have made or proposed? Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:26, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Vanamonde93, you write "So your insistence on including 'but not rape' troubles me." I have insisted upon no such thing. Those words you attribute to me ("but not rape") were never said by me, so please don't attribute them to me anymore, thanks. They were words of User:MelanieN, not me, and I have insisted upon no such language at the Roy Moore article.[40] I have not tried to change the language in that BLP regarding "sexual assault" one iota, either by proposing a specific change at the article's talk page, or by making an actual edit. Let me tell you why. One of the accusations is that the BLP subject shoved the head of an underage girl toward his crotch, and I have no problem characterizing that as an allegation of sexual assault without elaboration, because it's attempted rape. But if we were instead talking about a butt grab being characterized as "sexual assault" by a reliable source, then we absolutely would need to say in the BLP that it's an allegation of sexual assault while also saying what kind of sexual assault. Don't you think people often construe the term "sexual assault" to be something more heinous than a butt grab? Again, this is all hypothetical, because I have not so far objected to the language in the BLP about "sexual assault", it's not part of the present complaint, and you're quoting someone while incorrectly attributing it to me. In the case of the butt grab, I would never (ever, ever) say "but it wasn't rape" and instead might say something like "committed sexual assault by grabbing a woman's posterior" without mentioning rape at all. Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Vanamonde93, you say “Anything's claim that 1RR was not violated because the two edits he made had different texts is specious”. I never said that. What I said is that the first edit wasn’t a revert, because I was not undoing any previous edit. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:22, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Vanamonde93, thanks for amending your comment. It would be really, really appreciated if you or another uninvolved admin would please answer a fairly straightforward question: assuming arguendo that the second of my two edits was a good faith attempt to change the first edit to meet objections to it, was it “reinstating an edit”? It seems like a reasonable question that I’m asking, and I thought the answer was “no”. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:47, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:EvergreenFir, since 1RR was not part of the complaint, I did not explain above why there was no 1RR violation. The reason is that the first of my two edits was not a revert, even if you consider the second one to be. The second edit did not have one word in common with the first edit, unless you count the footnote, which I guess makes the second one a revert, but still the first one isn't. Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:EvergreenFir, regarding the first of my two edits at issue here, and whether that first edit of mine was a revert, it did not mention 16 or being older than 16, but rather referred to the age of consent as numerous reliable sources do. I did not recall the edit three days earlier that deleted "16" when I made my first edit, and my first edit was sourced by including a footnote. Anyway, as for me using the word “dishonest” to describe how this BLP lead is right this second, I have just now struck through that word below because you think it might be sanctionable, but I continue to believe the lead right now is a blatant BLP violation because it inaccurately says the BLP subject did not deny something that he very very very clearly did partly deny. Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:MrX, you say that the first of my two edits that are the basis of this complaint was a revert. That’s incorrect. It’s true that the sentence in the lead was previously edited three days earlier to modify “but did not deny approaching or dating teenagers 16 or older.“ The first of my two edits did not mention 16 or being older than 16, but rather referred to the age of consent as numerous reliable sources do (incidentally, I did not recall the edit three days earlier when I made my edit, and my edit was sourced by including a footnote). Anyway, it continues to amaze me that you apparently continue this effort to make readers think Moore never denied dating teenagers under the age of consent, which would have been illegal. ~~You are deliberately attempting to make our lead be dishonest.~~ I don’t believe your rationalizations one bit. Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:MrX, credit where credit is due, I am glad that MrX has finally today agreed that this BLP lead ought to mention Moore has denied dating underage females.[41]. So my statement above about being dishonest is happily no longer applicable. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:56, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:MrX, I have given you credit where credit is due, but that does not change the fact that you have been fighting tooth and nail for quite a long while that this BLP lead should not give any readers any clue that there is an age of consent in Alabama separating legal from illegal actions. You now say, "'above the age of consent' appears nowhere in the source that you cited". I don't know what edit by me you're referring to, but I have been citing plenty of reliable sources, as I did in the two edits that VM is exercised about. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:16, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

sources re. "age of consent"

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Walsh, Deidre. “Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne says he'll vote for Roy Moore”, CNN (November 16, 2017): “Alabama's legal age of consent, then and now, is 16.”

Brown, Melissa. “Roy Moore accuser says he groped her in law office; 2 more women accuse him of unwanted advances”, Montgomery Advertiser via USA Today (November 15, 2017): “The age of consent in Alabama, then and now, is 16.”

Blake, Aaron. “The GOP’s Problematic Decision to Believe Roy Moore’s Accusers but not Trump’s”, Washington Post (November 15, 2017): “the legal age of consent in Alabama, then and now, is 16”.

Bethea, Charles. “Locals Were Troubled by Roy Moore’s Interactions with Teen Girls at the Gadsden Mall”, The New Yorker (November 13, 2017): “The legal age of consent in Alabama is sixteen, so it would not be illegal there for a man in his early thirties to date a girl who was, say, a senior in high school.”

Gore, Leada. “Roy Moore: Could Alabama Senate candidate face criminal charges?”, The Birmingham News (November 14, 2017): “As it was in 1979, the legal age of consent in Alabama is 16. “

Shabad, Rebecca. “GOP Senate candidate accused of sexual encounter with minor”, CBS News (November 9, 2017): “The legal age of consent in Alabama is 16 years of age, and sexual contact between someone who is 19 years of age or older and a person who is 12 to 16 years of age is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year.”

Miller, Hayley. “Advertisers Ditch Sean Hannity Over His Coverage Of Roy Moore’s Alleged Pursuit of Teens”, Huffington Post (November 12, 2017): “the age of consent in Alabama is 16”

@User:GoldenRing, you’re correct that both of the two edits of mine cited by VM mentioned WP:BLP in the edit summaries. But I do not need to rely on WP:BLP to defend myself here. The second of my two edits did not “reinstate” the first, but rather was a good faith attempt to change the first edit to meet objections to it. I understand the word “reinstate” the same way as it’s commonly used at Wikipedia, for example at WP:Reverting which says “if you make an edit which is good-faith reverted, do not simply reinstate your edit – leave the status quo up, or try an alternative way to make the change that includes feedback from the other editor.” Reinstating is not the same as trying an alternative way to make the change that includes feedback from the other editor, IMHO. But I think you’re right that WP:BLP is applicable too. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:13, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:My very best wishes, at the sub-article you are referring to, I self-reverted the edit you are objecting to. It was my mistake. The reason I got confused is because the warning template at that article's talk page is BLP-based and therefore much smaller and insignificant-looking than the politics-based template at Talk:Roy Moore, even though they involve the exact same level of sanctions. That sort of mistake by me won't happen again, and I also plan on requesting a redesign so that the two templates do not look so different from each other. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:24, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:My very best wishes, the objection to the term "age of consent" that MrX gave in his edit summary was "The source does not say that". So, I switched to the term "underage" which the source does explicitly use (i.e. the source says "did not date underage girls", emphasis added). I believe MrX's edit summary was frivolous, but I (valiantly) tried in good faith to include his feedback in my second edit, by more closely tracking the cited source as he requested. Anyway, saying in a BLP lead that a BLP subject did not deny something that he did partly deny is a gross BLP violation if there ever was one. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:20, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:My very best wishes, my first of two edits was reverted, with an edit summary claiming the edit was not supported by the cited source. Have you looked to see whether you think my first edit was supported by the cited source? I assume the edit summary meant that the cited source did not specifically use the term “age of consent”. So in my second edit I switched to the term that the cited source did use, which was “underage”. Do you think the second edit was supported by the cited source? You have addressed none of this, and instead make accusations about gaming. ~~Do you ever edit articles? Have I done something offensive to you that causes you to make these accusations?~~ Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:18, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Bishonen, you think it’s fine and dandy for a BLP lead to say the BLP subject has not denied something, even though uncontradicted reliable sources say he has partly denied it? Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:24, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Neutrality, I commented previously at this page: “my statement above about being dishonest is happily no longer applicable.” If you have been aware of that comment by me, but have chosen to ignore and omit it, then I very sharply disagree with your tactics. You might also take a look at the adjectives used to describe me at this page, and personally I prefer to be called lots of nasty adjectives than to be subjected to such a flawed proceeding as this one. I’ve said many times that Wikipedia needs a jury system to apply clear rules applicable to everyone equally rather than adhoc centralized proceedings that are deeply colored by political beliefs. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC) supplemented23:17, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Volunteer Marek, you write above "can you point out any of these 'nasty adjectives' which are being 'used to describe' you, 'at this page'?" I'd rather not get bogged down making such a list for you. But I will say that the word "nasty" qualifies as a nasty adjective.[42] Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:33, 26 November 2017 (UTC)amended23:41, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Volunteer Marek, see the diff I just provided to you for the word “nasty”. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:50, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Volunteer Marek you’re mistaken, and anyone who’s interested can look at the diffs themselves. Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:05, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Dennis Brown, yes I could try to be more patient, do RFCs, stuff like that. But honestly, I am not relying upon BLP policy here, because I haven’t seen a need to. Are you folks really saying that it’s “reinstating an edit” to make a similar edit that attempts in good faith to meet the objections to the initial edit? If that’s really the rule, then IMHO you ought to just slap 0RR on the article and be done with it. Anyway, if you folks think I was really reinstating an edit, then I will stop doing it and be more patient. Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC) expanded00:11, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Drmies, your statement “this was no BLP violation--this was just POV edit warring which deserves a sanction” is conclusory. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:31, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Drmies writes about DHeyward: "It seems to me you want me to support the notion...that since the judge allegedly didn't rape any of the women it was OK, or more OK--and so your colleague is off the hook...." I'm no more a colleague of DHeyward than I am of you Drmies, which you ought to acknowledge instead of balkanizing this dispute, so please don't try to connect me as a "colleague" with your notion or DHeyward's notion that "the judge allegedly didn't rape any of the women it was OK". Personally, I think that is a horrible notion, almost as horrible as the notion that we should feel free to exaggerate and fabricate flaws and transgressions of extremely obnoxious people in their BLP leads prior to elections. Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SPECIFICO

At the time of Anythingyouwant's previous short-term TBAN from American Politics (specified to end after the election) I was skeptical that the behavior would get any better after the election. Sure enough it has not. If anything it's gotten worse. As I said at the time we discussed that 2016 complaint, this behavior appears to be an extension of this editor's disruptive behavior relating to Abortion, for which Arbcom imposed a permanent TBAN.[43] As is widely reported, there are many diehard supporters of the Trump Administration and the Republican congressional majority who are motivated largely or entirely by the expectation that Trump and the Republican senate will appoint judges and pursue policies to promote "pro-life" policies and judicial rulings. Anythingyouwant is banned from pages having to do with "Abortion, broadly construed" and given Anythingyouwant's demonstrably extreme and egregious POV editing in that topic, I think that this should have been interpreted to include any aspect of American Politics that relates to POV-pushing that might favor limiting womens' health care. This would include anything related to the Trump Admininstration, the Congress, the Judiciary, or US elections. Also note that, per ARBAP2, repeated violations are to be met with escalating remedies. A mere warning here would mean the escalator is going down. SPECIFICO talk 04:19, 26 November 2017 (UTC) Updated, clarified. 15:48, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anythingyouwant has a long history of disruption, POV-pushing, and personal attacks at American Politics articles. I also find the BLP thing really disingenuous, because one of Anythingyouwant's most egregious battles this year was to insist on a nasty political-POV BLP smear at Murder of Seth Rich long after this narrative was debunked and demonstrated to be fake news promoted by various political operatives and Fox News. Also long after the victim's family had pleaded with the promoters of these predatory conspiracy theories to cease and desist. See [44] and Anything's appeal, in which the Admin affirms Anything's bad behavior, is full of promises to behave better. Not much sign of that. There are more recent examples, but not in such a compact, easily presented form. SPECIFICO talk 18:33, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for the Arbcom cases, two of them, and the DS regime, is that these politics articles are full of difficult issues that require particularly careful and extensive collaboration among the editors. When POV editors push these things to or beyond the limit, it's very disheartening to see Admins at AE bending over backwards to find reasons not to enforce DS. Meanwhile the topic area is bleeding good editors, and the ones who are left there are largely self-selected warriors or political activists or editors who deny WP's core sourcing policy to reflect the weight of mainstream sources. SPECIFICO talk 00:03, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by involved MelanieN

Regarding these edits, I chided Anythingyouwant in two places - the article talk page and my own talk page - for unilaterally inserting new language into a disputed section of the article without proposing it first at the talk page, where that very issue is under active discussion. I considered this to be against Wikipedia's tradition of consensus. I reverted his addition and told him to get agreement on the talk page first. I did not consider this action of his to be a technical AE violation, but I am WP:INVOLVED at that article so this should not be regarded as administrator opinion. I note that he displayed here two longstanding habits of his: claiming that his edits are necessary to correct "blatant BLP violations", and going to the other person's user talk page to continue the argument privately. --MelanieN (talk) 04:40, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Atsme

I reviewed the edits, and Anything's first edit was an add-on not a revert. He probably should've reverted it from the lede, and moved it into the body after rewriting it to make it compliant with BLP and NPOV. I'm dismayed and somewhat surprised that Volunteer Marek and SPECIFICO are even here after recently being warned in another AE case "to edit collegially and assume good faith." It doesn't appear either have AGF in this situation. The problem I see at the article is a rather serious BLP coatrack issue which justifies what Anything attempted to do. Allegations involving such a serious matter certainly do not belong in the lede of a BLP, and cannot be viewed as anything but BLP coatrack and POV considering the political aspects and upcoming elections. WP:LABEL states that value laden labels may, and in this case did express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. The 1st cited source doesn't fully support what was written in the article, and in fact, it appears WP:SYNTH was used because 3 different sources were used and statements cherrypicked to create the allegation that is written in the lede. That is noncompliance with NPOV; therefore, it is also a violation of BLP - you cannot separate the two because BLP requires strict adherence to NPOV. We're also dealing with WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS and analytical speculation by journalists. WP:BLP policy requires that we take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity, and strict adherence to Wikipedia's three core content policies WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:OR, all of which are inseparable from BLP policy; therefore, in instances when material is challenged as noncompliant as what Anything did here, it was the right thing to do. ^{Atsme📞📧} 05:34, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the article does prove to be ~~a WP:POVFORK or WP:ATTACKPAGE which makes it~~ noncompliant with BLP, focusing on Anything's two edits seems rather trivial. The article section is nothing but allegation after allegation, and since none of the allegations can be/have been proven, this situation gives off the smell of a politician being tried in the court of public opinion while WP is laying down the scaffolding. The man has denied the allegations, yet weight was given to a single comment he made in an exclusive interview on Hannity (primary source) - and the pundits went wild with their analytical speculation - hardly what I consider fact-based material. The timing of these allegations comes at a time just prior to an important election in that state - there are articles on WP about Trump that attempt to make the entire focus about the timing - so where is our "editorial discretion" now? Where is the "high degree of sensitivity" we're supposed to apply when it comes to such issues? The article section even includes the names of alleged victims (see WP:BLPNAME) who purportedly were under age at the time. How is that not a BLP vio? The way the story is being handled by MSM smells a lot like a newsy political hit piece that focuses on alleged incidents purportedly that took place decades ago. Oh, and ~~since there is no such article about Al Franken considering he admitted to the conduct,~~ how can we deny political motivation behind any of the Moore activity? Based on my understanding of NPOV and BLP, this case should be about restoring the BLP issues after they were challenged. I am truly disappointed over the way this case is being handled. ^{Atsme📞📧} 15:58, 26 November 2017 (UTC)^{strikes and underline additions made at 17:39, 26 November 2017 (UTC)}[reply]

MrX - who do you think determines whether there's a BLP violation or not? Anything did attempt to "address concerns" after challenging the material as a BLP vio. We are discussing allegations in the lead that disparage a living person and imply Child molestation using weasel words such as "claims surfaced" without in-text attribution, and then part of the statement, pursued numerous teenage girls and sexually assaulted some of them was linked (per my example here) to another WP article that is unambiguously a POVFORK that was recently nominated for deletion and resulted in a non-admin close and the following closing statement: No prejudice against re-nomination after the election is done. What?!! Perhaps GoldenRing can advise as to the acceptability of such a close, and the link at the BLP to a highly controversial POVFORK closed under questionable circumstances. The material chosen and the way it was presented fails the BLP requirements of a high degree of sensitivity and strict adherence to NPOV. The onus is on the editor(s) restoring challenged material without obtaining consensus first, and based on the edit history there were 3 editors involved in restoring challenged material after the BLP concerns were addressed. ^{Atsme📞📧} 18:42, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, MrX, I'm not surprised by your response. Happy editing! ^{Atsme📞📧} 22:45, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

comment - In the diffs VM provided, the first diff is Anythingyouwant adding content. That edit was reverted by MrX Nov 25 16:59 with a summary of The source does not say that, and this would be too much detail for the lead anyway. Then A. modified the phrase and joined in the TP discussion. All totaled in that sequence of edits, he made 2 edits total, only 1 of which was a revert. It's my understanding the sanction is 1RR. So why is MrX allowed to make 4 reverts in one day: Nov 24 12:18, Nov 24 12:23, Nov 24, 12:28, and Nov 24, 15:17 and nothing is said about it? ^{Atsme📞📧} 14:40, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DHeyward

This is a specious filing. This edit [45], offered as a "violation" is arguably a necessary edit to avoid the implication of criminal activity. Having a relationship with a nineteen-year-old is legally much different than having a relationship with a fifteen-year-old. The edit clearly clarified that "teen" isn't the boundary for consent. Opposing that edit should be a BLP violation and the editor reverting that edit should be sanctioned for a BLP violation. That edit was not a politically motivated or biased edit. The original text was "but did not deny approaching or dating teenagers." and the text added was "but did not deny approaching or dating teenagers above the age of consent." Teenagers that are 18 or 19 are not "girls" and the distinction is necessary and proper given that the construct is around "girls." It did not defend Moore against any impropriety that may have occurred or put any other living person in a negative light. The person reverting or opposing that edit should at least be warned and Anythingyouwant commended for clarifying a comment that implied criminal activity. --DHeyward (talk) 06:27, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Vanamonde your statement is confusing. Are you making a nuanced distinction between "sexual assault" and "rape" of underage girls? Under what context would you make that distinction and how does it not have BLP implications? I am not aware of the distinctions you and your peers seem to be making. There are distinctions regarding consent however. A teenage girl cannot consent to sexual contact and all such contact is sexual assault. A teenage woman can consent to sexual contact and consensual contact is not sexual assault. Isn't "teenager" too vague a term to use given that it broadly encompasses acts that can interpreted as statutorily illegal if the impression is that "teenager" is being used to describe both women and girls? --DHeyward (talk) 07:29, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Vanamonde93 please change your signature to match your username. Admins in particular should not be difficult to ping because there is a mismatch in what is displayed. What's the point? --DHeyward (talk) 07:34, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Drmies, you start of as if you at least viscerally understand the problem, but then fall short. From our article, of the 4 woman mentioned, how many allege improper or illegal sexual contact while dating? How many allege sexual contact while dating? (hint: WaPo[46]Of the four women, the youngest at the time was Corfman (14 y/o at the time), who is the only one who says she had sexual contact with Moore that went beyond kissing. She says they did not have intercourse. Would you think it is NPOV and in the spirit of BLP to mix a sexual assault of an underage 14 y/o teenager in with consensual, non-sexual dating of 17-18 y/o? Would you not balk at language that lumps those together as "pursued numerous teenage girls and sexually assaulted some of them?" I think both of the things he is accused of are repulsive but there's a bright line difference between consensual dinner/movie dating 17 y/o and sexually assaulting a 14 y/o. --DHeyward (talk) 11:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Drmies This isn't a distinction of whether sexual contact with a 15 y/o is bad while sexual contact with a 17 y/o is okay. It is a distinction between lumping accusations of sexual assault of a 15 y/o with non-sexual, consensual dating of a 17 y/o. There is a bright line difference as the other teenagers denied there was sexual contact. You seem to be implying sexual activity that the 17y/o and 18 y/o teens said never happened. I have no idea where your "body development" comment has any relevance. There is nothing remotely similar between the allegations of sexual assault and the "we dated but there was no sexual contact." Put yourself in the position: imagine you met a college freshman for lunch she says \ "it was a lunch date but nothing sexual occurred." Would you be happy if your boss reported it as sexual misconduct or even lumped it in with reports of sexual misconduct with students? Or would you be hedging on the meaning of "lunch date" and pointing out that no one said there was sexual contact at all? --DHeyward (talk) 16:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay Drmies, lets start from beginning. When Moore talks about dating, he means "dating" not "fucking" or "trying to fuck" which apparently how society views "dating." When he talks about consent, he's talkihg about dating, not fucking. These are not just his comments, they are the 17 and 18 y/o that have come forward and say that he didn't try to coerce them or touch them against their will and it was "dating" with consent even if its creepy. This is starkly different from the two 15 and 16 year olds that did accuse him of sexual assault. Those two accounts are surely enough to disqualify him and it's not a nuanced view of consensual sex as you imply, it's the statements by the other woman that there was no sexual contact at all. It's overreach to lump them together as if they were all under the same umbrella. The fact that you were viscerally angry at lumping a lunch date in with sexual assault highlights the BLP problem with doing the same to Moore. --DHeyward (talk) 16:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved EvergreenFir

Saw this in my watchlist and thought I'd comment while trying to fall asleep.

This appears to be a 1RR violation to me. Anythinguyouwant suggests that because the material was not restored verbatim it does not constitute restoration/reversion. However, from WP:EW, "A "revert" means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material" (emphasis added). The meaning of the material remained the same and the same reference was used. The third edit further violates the "consensus required" part of the active remedy.

Unless someone can demonstrate this is a persistent problem (an incident a year ago doesn't make this persistent but does show this an issue in this topic), I'm inclined to think a formal warning would be best. EvergreenFir (talk) 07:49, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

AYW, VM brings up 1RR in the first sentence of this report. MrX's diffs below make it clear to me that this was both a 1RR violation and a failure to establish consensus. That so many attempts were made to insert the same material, as well as the comments about MrX, perhaps a warning alone is insufficient. EvergreenFir (talk) 07:49, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment to say I appreciate the strikethrough. Like others, I personally am torn regarding any sanction (CRYBLP vs actual BLP concerns; other borderline behavior regarding the active remedies). EvergreenFir (talk) 16:52, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dervorguilla

@Vanamonde93: Yes, it may be true that a neutral sentence would not be "[hypothetical person X was accused of sexually assaulting (but not of raping) women aged sixteen and above (who were legally able to give consent)". But it may also be an example of strawpersoning. Also, <wit>your friends may not be pleased that you've cited them as persons no better than average in literacy...</wit> To put an authoritative end to this terminology dispute, though, here’s what Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed.) has to say: "sexual assault. 1. See assault. 2. See rape." --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kingsindian

I have no comment on the complaint, but a comment about TonyBallioni's statement that the "consensus required" provision is a tool to enforce WP:ONUS and WP:BLP, a claim which does not make any sense. WP:ONUS is a much older and well-established policy and is applicable site-wide. One does not need any further rules to "enforce" it. And most areas on Wikipedia seem to work fine without this extra rule.

The main problem with the "consensus required" provision is that most of the time on Wikipedia, consensus is, by explicit policy, silent and implicit, and is not always a bright line. For instance, someone WP:BOLDly adds content to the page, someone else objects, the first person rephrases, and so on. Sometimes this is hashed out on the talk page and someone else tries a phrasing which is acceptable to all. This is normal and desirable. The effect of this provision will be more of these kinds of complaints, nothing more. And, from my experience in ARBPIA, when one "side" gets sanctioned, there will be retaliatory complaints from the "other side".

The version of 1RR used in ARBPIA is a clear, bright line: if an edit is reverted, the editor shouldn't reinstate the material within 24 hours. That is all that is required. The extra bureaucracy is needless and harmful. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:48, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is unfortunate but not surprising that TonyBallioni does not see, or indeed even acknowledge any of the issues I raised. By all means, proceed to burn your fingers before learning to fear the flame. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:01, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have opened an ARCA request here. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:41, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrX

On the talk page, I said that Anythingyouwant has repeatedly inserted the age of consent material (into the lead) without obtaining consensus. I want to back that up with evidence:

This should clear up any doubt that his first edit yesterday was a reversion, of this edit by Nick845 made three days earlier. Obviously, the last four of these are also reinstating challenged edits without obtaining firm consensus on the talk page.

A couple of editors seem intent on whitewashing the allegations against Moore. I'm particularly unimpressed with DHeyward's first ever edit to the article here.- Mr X 14:25, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing: Something has to actually be a BLP violation before restoring it becomes a problem. That is unambiguously not the case here, and your statement serves only to perpetuates the myth that if any editor removes content while claiming a BLP violation, it's automatically true. In fact, this type of WP:GAMING of our policies was a major factor in the American Politics Arbcom case that resulted in an editor being topic banned.- MrX 17:45, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Anythingyouwant: You're way out of line attacking my integrity with spurious accusations like "You are deliberately attempting to make our lead be dishonest." It's particularly troublesome given that I specifically removed content that you added to a BLP that appeared nowhere in the cited source. "above the age of consent" appears nowhere in the source that you cited [47] for your edit. I'm the one who should be crying BLP. I removed unsourced content from a BLP per WP:BLPSOURCE.

As far the diffs above are concerned, they speak for themselves.-MrX 18:06, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, Atsme. Just no. All the wikibabble in the world isn't going to convince me that you actually understand WP:BLP.- MrX 19:01, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Volunteer Marek: To answer your question: @MrX:, have you "finally" agreed to anything? Was there actually disagreement on this in the first place or was the dispute over something else (inserting the "age of consent" stuff in there)? No, of course I have agreed to no such thing. I assume that most admins reviewing this are smart enough to see through such revisionism. Your assessment that Anythingyouwant's blatantly misrepresented of my position is exactly correct.

This is not the first time he has used personal attacks as a defense. Here he called Volunteer Marek a liar ("VM only confirms here that he is a liar"), then here tries to justify it with a pseudo-retraction ("I retract "liar" now that you've been caught at it..."). Then he throws me squarely under the bus:[48] Does anyone see a pattern here?

I decided to disregard most of Anythingyouwant's personal attacks after this gem: "What kind of drugs are you taking? Are you "Debbie Wasserman Schultz"?]"[49] I assume at some point he will end up at Arbcom.- MrX 15:02, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing: Your view that any reversion on BLP grounds should stand, as long as its done in good faith, is overly simplistic and contrary to the spirit of the policy. I doubt this what Arbcom intended and I know it's not what the community expects, having participated in many BLP/N discussions. I also note that you have not acknowledged the evidence (now highlighted in red) that I provided 5 paragraphs above that shows that Anythingyouwant's edit violated WP:BLPSOURCE.- MrX 15:02, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MarkBernstein

The proposition that the invocation of BLP was is “in good faith” is preposterous and insupportable. MarkBernstein (talk) 16:46, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by My very best wishes

First of all, there were several obvious violations of the "consensus required" restriction. One of them was demonstrated in diffs initially brought by VM. Another one was this edit by A. where he reinserted yet another content challenged through reversion here [50]. This is not related to BLP, and this is something A. agreed about [51].

@Anythingyouwant. Yes, I see [52] - you self-reverted 6 minutes after my comment on your talk page. Acknowledged. But honestly, your argument that "above the age of consent" and "who were not underage" (both linked to the same page, Age of consent) are different does not look convincing to me. Perhaps it looks convincing for admins? I do not know. My very best wishes (talk) 19:00, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Anythingyouwant. I think that changing a couple of words (but leaving exactly the same meaning and linking to the same wikipage), only to claim this is not reinsertion of the same content, is a typical example of gaming the rules. My very best wishes (talk) 05:07, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Second, I think admins should determine if the edits by A. were actually fixing any obvious BLP violation. I think the content which existed prior to the edits by A. was already well sourced and discussed numerous times by other contributors. That was only a slight rewording by A. If it was not fixing an obvious BLP violation by A., then it only makes things worse. Claiming non-existent BLP violation to POV-push is a common "strategy" that should not be endorsed by admins.

As before, my suggestion would be to never use this complex editing restriction and remove it from all pages. However, if admins want to be consistent, there is probably no any other logical approach, but to enforce the editing restriction. My very best wishes (talk) 18:12, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Probably the worst possible decision would be to keep these sanctions on pages and selectively sanction some contributors, but do not sanction others on the basis of obviously bogus BLP claims, as in this case. My very best wishes (talk) 04:52, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Neutrality

I have edited the Moore pages in the past, but am not part of the specific dispute at issue. Leaving aside the revert issue: I want to express alarm at Anythingyouwant's remarks about MrX ("You are deliberately attempting to make our lead be dishonest."). I find this remark untrue, uncivil, and reflective of a battleground approach to editing that is unproductive. Neutrality^talk 22:52, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by power~enwiki

Due to the extremely contentious nature of this topic and the many editors/disputes involved, I regretfully suggest that full-protection may be necessary at Roy Moore (and possibly other closely-related topics) until after the election. It's probably less time consuming overall than adjudicating this mess. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:48, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Anythingyouwant

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

Took a look at this since I was pinged. Had I just seen that revert, I might have excused it; but I have to say I'm not impressed by some of the commentary on the talk page. In particular, a neutral sentence on Wikipedia might be "[hypothetical person X was accused of sexually assaulting women aged sixteen and above". A neutral sentence would not be "[hypothetical person X was accused of sexually assaulting (but not of raping) women aged sixteen and above (who were legally able to give consent)". The first is an accurate representation of the sources; the second is coatracking with POV intent, and I am rather unhappy that Anything is not able to see the problem with it. I have recently been dealing with similar tunnel-vision issues in Indian politics, and such behavior ultimately just undermines our ability to present a biography compliant with WP:DUE. I'm not keen on a block, because I do not think edit-warring is a problem here. I would be willing to consider a 0-revert restriction, or a article-ban (allowing discussion on the talk, but not edits to the article). Vanamonde (talk) 05:36, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Anything, to be clear, I'm not terribly happy with the apparent attempts to use "teenagers" (which includes underage people) rather than a more precise category. But I do not see how that excuses what you have been trying to do. I am far from convinced that the general public sees rape and sexual assault to mean the same thing (I personally cannot think of any conversation I have had among my peers where somebody has had that misconception). So your insistence on including "but not rape" troubles me. To expand on what I have said above: a common pattern on articles about controversial political figures is that when a statement along the lines of "person X did this bad thing" is inserted, it is followed by "but they didn't do this other thing, which is worse". That, by its very nature, is coatracking, and not neutral. Vanamonde (talk) 07:05, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tl;DR The BLP exemption does not apply in this situation, because the the edits in question were not removing BLP violating content, but were adding commentary to a statement which was certainly not a clear-cut BLP vio. Also, Anything's claim that 1RR was not violated because the two edits he made had different texts is specious: the revert restrictions very clearly apply to all reverts, not to a specific edit, and the two additions were not fundamentally different in any case. Vanamonde (talk) 04:16, 27 November 2017 (UTC) I misread. 1RR may not have been violated; the issue with not obtaining consensus remains. Vanamonde (talk) 04:31, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No comment on the merits of the case, but confirming before I get asked by the regulars here that I did intentionally place the article under consensus required restrictions, and that should it be determined that they were violated, I think sanctions would be appropriate. Consensus required is simply giving admins the tools to enforce WP:ONUS, which is especially important on American politics and BLP articles. This is both, so enforcing that policy is especially important. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:20, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Kingsindian: consensus required is a bright line to enforce ONUS and prevent edit warring just as 1RR is a bright line to enforce the edit warring policy. Having a policy predate a specific sanctions regime does not somehow mean that the sanctions aren’t a way of enforcing the policy. TonyBallioni (talk) 12:43, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Bishonen, to our shame ONUS is one of the most frequently ignored policies on this website (which I get isn't always a huge deal, per IAR), but in cases involving living people or involving highly visible pages where the public might be using us as their first source of information on a person or topic, it becomes probably the single most important policy we have. 1RR without a consensus required requirement sets up gaming reverts even more than the complaints of gaming consensus required: take this scenario: Editor X inserts a controversial passage that is sourced. Editor Y reverts him. Editor X has not reverted yet so it is restored as his one revert and he threatens to take anyone who removes it again to ANI or AE for edit warring. Cases like this do happen, and the consensus required provision prevents it and protects both living people and the public who are reading our articles. Discretionary sanctions, like every policy on this site first and foremost exist to serve the reader: in the case of the consensus required restriction by making sure any information presented is agreed upon. In this case there was a BLP argument, but I do not think that the article at the time was a BLP violation that required ignoring page level sanctions. I still don't have an opinion on the specifics of this case, but I think as Coffee pointed out at the last case, there has never been a consensus to remove that restriction, even if there are vocal opponents of it. It is a restriction that works and helps our readers. I stand behind it, but think that others should decide if it was violated here, as I would for any page I applied restrictions to. (Also, I courtesy pinged since he is always discussed when these come here). TonyBallioni (talk) 22:37, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - TL;DR without the philosophy: 1RR doesn't work on contentious topics without consensus required and is subject to gaming. That is bad for our readers and the living subjects of our articles. I don't do much AE or discretionary sanctions intentionally, but I stand behind these page level restrictions. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:21, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There are two issues I can see here: Anythingyouwant appears to have violated the consensus required provision in force on this page but claimed the BLP exemption. VM says this is "spurious" but other editors here agree with Anythingyouwant. I'm generally reluctant to sanction editors for complying with the BLP policy in good faith, even if consensus turns out to be against them. Anythingyouwant would have been well advised to report this to BLPN, perhaps, but I'm reluctant to sanction for this. The second is that MrX reverted the removal of material that was clearly challenged on good-faith BLP grounds. This would ordinarily be sanctionable under the DS in force for BLPs. I'm still undecided whether either of these warrants sanctions. GoldenRing (talk) 16:30, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Volunteer Marek: And a month before that I was here arguing that the same restriction shouldn't be enforced against you, remember? I'm not here arguing that this restriction should never be enforced, merely that it is not the only rule to consider when deciding whether sanctions are appropriate (and, in your case, I argued for leniency anyway, and you got it). As for what I insinuated, I suppose if you are determined to read it that way then you'll read it that way; my point, as I've reiterated, is that edits made to address BLP concerns should not be reverted without consensus; since other editors in good standing agree that there is a BLP concern - alright, some other editors, since you insist on it - the concern should not be dismissed as CRYBLP but should be discussed and a consensus reached. GoldenRing (talk) 09:53, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @MrX: Are you reading the same web page I am? The page you link in your red-text quote - [53] - includes the quote Note that Moore says he did not date “underage” girls – meaning under the age of consent in Alabama, which is 16. He does not say that he did not date teenage girls. In fact, he suggested in a radio interview with Hannity on Friday that he might have done so. The sentence this was used to support is Moore denied the initial allegations of sexual assault, but did not deny approaching or dating teenagers above the age of consent. I don't see a problem with that use of that source - but feel free to explain it to me. GoldenRing (talk) 16:41, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm unhappy about sanctioning anybody for technical "consensus required" violations. For some time now, there has been little appetite among admins for doing so, even though placing the restriction and enforcing it still has a supporter in Tony, and even though the creator of it, Coffee, made a parachuting-in appearance in another recent AE discussion (here's a link to the discussion just before GoldenRing closed it), sensationally stating that the provision "is to stay" [sic], and that ArbCom has said so (not in my world they haven't). Am I missing something, Tony? Because you obviously feel strongly about it — you made a similar comment in the earlier discussion — whereas I for my part tend to agree with Kingsindian, above, that WP:ONUS stands on its own feet as well-established policy, and can be enforced well enough without any special provision. That said, I disagree with GoldenRing that Anything "clearly" challenged the material he removed "on good-faith BLP grounds"; IMO Anything cried BLP unreasonably. That's just my opinion (but then your belief that he did it out of BLP concerns is just your opinion, GoldenRing). GoldenRing's statement that "other editors here agree with Anythingyouwant" about the BLP concerns is misleading, however, and not mere opinion, as most editors here have not agreed with Anythingyouwant. Compare Volunteer Marek's timeline for agreement and disagreement. I'm not sure about any sanctions here. But if anybody's to be sanctioned, it's Anythingyouwant, and I wouldn't object or oppose if he was. Sanctioning MrX for reverting Anything's removals, which GoldenRing offers as "ordinarily.. sanctionable under the DS in force for BLPs", would just be wild, and I'd object strongly. Bishonen | talk 22:17, 26 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]

Reply to Anythingyouwant's question: Yes, I do disagree that the current wording, "Moore denied the initial allegations of sexual assault, but did not deny approaching or dating teenagers", which Melanie restored after you amplified it into "but did not deny approaching or dating teenagers who were not underage", is a BLP violation. Details go in the article; the lead shouldn't be so awkwardly double-negatived nor so hard to understand, and that's why the wording is being discussed on talk. I thought I was done here, but since you've called me back, I'll mention that I'm unimpressed by your recent post stating that "I did not recall the edit three days earlier that deleted '16' when I made my first edit", and altogether by the way you elect to speak only of the two of your own edits you call "at issue", or "edits that VM is exercised about." This after Mr X has posted diffs for your five edits concerning age of consent in the lead, from 12 October onwards (what you refer to as your first edit is n:o 4 of those). Those edits show both the edits VM lists to be reverts IMO, whether or not you happened to recollect the specific removal of your material that somebody else made three days ago. Bishonen | talk 16:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]

@Bishonen: I thought Volunteer Marek's misreading of my comments was so outrageous that it didn't need commenting on, but since you seem to be picking up on it, I'll state the obvious: that there are "other editors who agree with" Anythingyouwant is not inconsistent with VM's ability to list those other editors and my remarks mean exactly what they say; they are certainly not intended to be misleading. My point is that this is not Anythingyouwant pleading BLP against the whole world; there are other editors in good standing who agree with him and so we should AGF and not dismiss the BLP claim out of hand. I said that the removal was clearly on BLP grounds because the edit summary said "per WP:NPOV and WP:BLP" - it doesn't get a lot clearer. And while the BLP policy speaks specifically about material deleted to address BLP concerns not being restored without consensus, the principle that edits done to address good-faith BLP objections shouldn't be reverted without consensus is a good one that we shouldn't attempt to weaken here.
My personal opinion of the BLP claim chimes with that of Dennis Brown and I won't reiterate what he has said; but we should not be in the business of sanctioning editors for clarifying that someone has not confessed to a crime. GoldenRing (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it might be a technical violation, but there were some BLP consideration. Honestly, this straddles the fence between WP:CRYBLP and genuine BLP concerns, but if it erred, it erred on the side of protecting the individual, the lesser of the two available evils here. Anythingyouwant, it would probably be good if you didn't push these borderline cases so hard and used a little patience instead. While I personally do not recommend anything stronger than an admonishment, I don't expect to protest if stronger sanctions are given. This was avoidable on your part, and my gut says you knew the risk when you made the edits. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:22, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not entirely with Dennis Brown, but our guts seem to agree: I also think that Anythingyouwant knew what they were doing. I have defended the BLP in Judge Moore-related articles a few times, and I wish that the "accusations" article didn't exist, but this was no BLP violation--this was just POV edit warring which deserves a sanction. Drmies (talk) 03:14, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- DHeyward, I'm not sure what you want. It seems to me you want me to support the notion that between 14 and 16 something fundamentally changes in young women, that biological or calendar age works exactly the same way for every body, that since the judge allegedly didn't rape any of the women it was OK, or more OK--and so your colleague is off the hook. So your leading/rhetorical questions fall on deaf ears, I'm afraid, viscerally and otherwise. Besides, we are not here to find the appropriate semantic excuses for the behavior of a grown man (or to judge as if we were a court of law, and legal language was the only language that mattered); we're here to judge of someone's edit warring was done for the proper reasons. Drmies (talk) 13:05, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- DHeyward, keep me and my lunch dates out of this: that's revolting, and you are well outside of normal, collegiate norms here. Maybe you should ask yourself how much "consent" a 17-yr old can give when a local celebrity, a white man at least fifteen years older and with great power in a position where he is close to law enforcement, starts hitting on her. But all of that is neither here nor there. The question is whether there was a BLP violation that was correctly identified, or at least in good faith, and more than a few of us deny the former, while some of us deny the latter. This isn't a court of law; I see nothing in the BLP that requires a. that Moore should be given the space for a claim of legal retaliation in the lead or b. that "above the age of consent" is somehow mandated here. It seems to me that some want this case to be about legal minutia: it is not. Drmies (talk) 16:32, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would take no action here on formal grounds. The complaint does not identify a specific Arbitration Committee decision, in the form of a remedy, or a specific discretionary sanction, in the form of the diff by an admin imposing the sanction, that is to be enforced. Moreover, the complaint does not date its diffs, contrary to what is suggested in the submission form, and it does not explain what is supposed to be wrong with the first diff. I've not read all the rest of this drama, but I expect complaints to be submitted such that they contain all information required for action. Sandstein 13:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer Marek, thanks for amending the complaint. Because this concerns a sanction made by TonyBallioni, I think that he should decide what to do. Sandstein 17:02, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that Anythingyouwant did properly identify that this was definitely in the realm of possibly being a BLP violation (more specifically, the lack of mention of "of age" in Moore's statement changes its meaning and context greatly in a very negative way), and thus the initial insertion is absolutely fine - but that then should have followed up with discussion under the terms that article was under to actually discuss if it was a BLP violation and if/how to fix it once it was removed/reverted. We encourage editors to be bold to make one change to eliminate things they believe are contentious BLP violations though then encourage them to discuss that further before reverting again. Anythingyouwant seems to be aware they know they should not be edit warring and I fully agree the second change that inserted new text but essentially the same language violated the 1RR principle here. But given the number of other editors that are involved that seem to dismiss that there's any possible BLP violation to talk about is further troubling. This is a case of trouts all around, warning to Anythingyouwant to know what constitutes an 1RR, and a reminder to the other involved editors that we do side with being very cautious with BLP concerns. (eg in line with Dennis Brown's statement) --MASEM (t) 15:01, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- To comment on the red point MrX highlighted, the source (Moore's letter) has the language "did not date underage girls", which clearly implies "age of consent" in context. There was probably a better way to phrase that sentence added, and perhaps use the direct quote instead, but the material was validly sourced. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Favonian

Fails to state a case for arbitration enforcement. GoldenRing (talk) 16:16, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Favonian

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Me choose (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 14:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Favonian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

I received an insulting email. I wanted to check my account for unblock. I think they got me wrong with someone. But my User-Agent is different from that person. I sent my request from here. otrs kept silent, And they did not give me a ticket.--Me choose (talk) 14:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/CASENAME#SECTION :

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Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.
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Statement by USERNAME

Statement by (username)

Result concerning USERNAME

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

[1] The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.

[2] This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.

[3] Borchers, Callum. “Roy Moore’s open letter to Sean Hannity, annotated”, Washington Post (November 16, 2017): “I adamantly deny the allegations of Leigh Corfman and Beverly Nelson, did not date underage girls, and have taken steps to begin a civil action for defamation.”

[4] Borchers, Callum. “Roy Moore’s open letter to Sean Hannity, annotated”, Washington Post (November 16, 2017): “I adamantly deny the allegations of Leigh Corfman and Beverly Nelson, did not date underage girls, and have taken steps to begin a civil action for defamation.”

[a]

[b]

[1]

[1]

@@ Line 301: / Line 301: @@
 ==Anythingyouwant==
+{{hat|Since Sandstein has asked that I handle this, and there does seem to be agreement that this was not BLP exempt and that Anythingyouwant knew what they are doing, I'll go ahead and resolve this: Anythingyouwant is placed on 0RR for 1 month on [[Roy Moore]] and any topic related to the [[United States Senate special election in Alabama, 2017]], broadly construed. [[User:TonyBallioni|TonyBallioni]] ([[User talk:TonyBallioni|talk]]) 17:14, 27 November 2017 (UTC)}}
 <small>''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. <br>Requests may not exceed 500 [[Word count#Software|words]] and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''</small>
@@ Line 551: / Line 552: @@
 *I think that Anythingyouwant did properly identify that this was definitely in the realm of possibly being a BLP violation (more specifically, the lack of mention of "of age" in Moore's statement changes its meaning and context greatly in a very negative way), and thus the initial insertion is absolutely fine - but that then should have followed up with discussion under the terms that article was under to actually discuss if it was a BLP violation and if/how to fix it once it was removed/reverted. We encourage editors to be bold to make ''one'' change to eliminate things they believe are contentious BLP violations though then encourage them to discuss that further before reverting again. Anythingyouwant seems to be aware they know they should not be edit warring and I fully agree the second change that inserted new text but essentially the same language violated the 1RR principle here. But given the number of other editors that are involved that seem to dismiss that there's any possible BLP violation to talk about is further troubling. This is a case of trouts all around, warning to Anythingyouwant to know what constitutes an 1RR, and a reminder to the other involved editors that we do side with being very cautious with BLP concerns. (eg in line with Dennis Brown's statement) --[[User:Masem|M<font size="-3">ASEM</font>]] ([[User Talk:Masem|t]]) 15:01, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 ** To comment on the red point MrX highlighted, the source (Moore's letter) has the language "did not date underage girls", which clearly implies "age of consent" in context. There was probably a better way to phrase that sentence added, and perhaps use the direct quote instead, but the material was validly sourced. --[[User:Masem|M<font size="-3">ASEM</font>]] ([[User Talk:Masem|t]]) 15:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
+{{hab}}
 ==Favonian==

v t e Noticeboards
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General	Administrators Main Incidents Bots Bureaucrats Centralized discussion Closure requests Education Interface admins Main Page errors Open proxies VRT Oversight User permissions
Articles and content	Biographies of living persons Copyrights Questions on media Problems Dispute resolution External links Fringe theories Neutral point of view Original research Pending changes Reliable sources Resource requests Scalable vector graphics Spam Blacklist Whitelist Style Titleblacklist Translation
Page handling	History merges Mergers Splits Moves Protection Importation XfD Articles Redirects Categories Templates Files Miscellany Undeletion
User conduct	Conflict of interest Contributor copyright Edit warring and 3RR Sanctions Personal restrictions General sanctions Contentious topics Sockpuppets Usernames (Requests for comment) Vandalism
Other	Arbitration Committee noticeboard Requests Enforcement Edit filters Requested False positives Questions Help desk Teahouse Reference desk New articles Requests for comment Village pump Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous WikiProject proposals Discussions for discussion
Category:Wikipedia noticeboards