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Request to amend prior case: EEML

Initiated by Skäpperöd (talk) at 09:07, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

Eastern European mailing list arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy 10: Radeksz (talk · contribs) is topic banned from articles about Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about same, widely construed, for one year. This topic ban is consecutive with any editing ban. Rescinded by motion on 21 June 2010.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Skäpperöd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Radeksz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• [1]

Amendment 1

• Link to principle, finding of fact, or remedy to which this amendment is requested: Wikipedia:EEML#Radeksz topic banned
• Details of desired modification: Motion 3 is rescinded, the original topic ban is reinstated and/or extended.

Statement by Skäpperöd

In his request to have his topic ban lifted 1, Radeksz said that he planned to edit non-controversially, primarily in areas of Polish economics, Poland-related unreferenced BLPs and current events. He listed several articles he planned to work on (all but one are still redlinks), and said: "I don't anticipate that any of them should prove controversial - of course, if any disputes arise in the future, I will be careful to observe high standards of conduct"[2]. I advised against lifting the ban [3].

Some two months have passed. The evidence provided below confirms that Radeksz has not kept the promises made and instead returned to aggressive editing and battleground behaviour, including

• incivility
• move warring and disregard for BRD
• attacking his former targets, including disruption of DYK noms

...to the point where he got blocked.

Example 1 - Johann Dzierzon

On 25 April, Mamalala, a sockpuppet of topic-ban evading EEML-member Jacurek complained about the article's name [4]. Discussion died down on the same day, but two months later, Radeksz re-activated the section [5], a discussion emerged that was joined by EEML-member Molobo aka Mymoloboaccount [6] and resulted in an unsuccessful RM. During the RM,

• Radeksz attacked former EEML-target Varsovian [7] and former EEML-target Dr. Dan [8], and put their comments into a "bickering section" [9] (all 24 July). Dan responded calmly [10] only to be again mocked by Radeksz [11] until another editor intervened [12].
• I joined the discussion on 31 July [13]. Radeksz called me "stubborn", my request to redact that [14] was to no avail.
• When I moved a bunch of Communist era sources, added to the article by Molobo, to the talk page for discussion on 3 August (section link), Radeksz attacked me again: "shenanigans", "against-policy-removal of sourced material", "disruptive forum shopping by Skapperod, combined with insinuations that amount to personal attacks", "based on his IDONTLIKEIT", "bully" etc. The "against-policy removal of sourced material" was actually my strict adherence to WP:BRD - move controversial material to talk for discussion. The "disruptive forum shopping" allegation relates to this RS/N thread I started in May 2009.

Example 2 - Jewish Community of Danzig

Jewish Community of Danzig was created by former EEML target HerkusMonte on 3 August, and subsequently nominated for DYK [15]. As shown by the diff, the article was ticked, then the tick was retracted due to a "move war", and the discussion was taken over by Radeksz and Molobo until Rlevse put an end to it.

• Radeksz moved the article [16] (no e/s).
• HerkusMonte moved the article back [17] (e/s: "rv undiscussed move")
• Radeksz moved the article again [18] (no e/s)
• after discussion, the article was moved back by another user [19]

Example 3 - Johannes von Baysen

The article Johannes von Baysen was stable at this title since its creation four years ago.

• Radeksz moved it on 16 August [20]
• I moved it back on 17 August at 9:00 [21] , providing the rationale in the e/s
• Radeksz again moved it on 9:40 [22]

Despite numerous pleas to move it back and start an RM, Radeksz insisted on his title. After five days of discussion, I moved the article back according to consensus [23].

Example 4 - Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg

On 7 September, I created the article Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg about the treaties of Merseburg (1002, 1013 and 1033) and Bautzen (1018 and 1031) [24], which I had finished and nominated for DYK in this version of 8 September. Note that every single sentence has a quality source. Radeksz tagged the article as violating NPOV and SYNTH and with a split-tag and rewrote the lead [25], before he turned the article into a dab page [26] and copied the part about Bautzen (1029) and Merseburg (1033) to Treaty of Merseburg [27], and merged the part about Merseburg (1002 and 1013) and Bautzen (1018) with about 50 consecutive edits into a re-created unsourced stub at Peace of Bautzen which I previously redirected [28].

• I undid the removal of all of the content from Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg [29], e/s: "rv bold split and move of the article, no discussion"
• Radeksz reverted within minutes [30], e/s: "there was no discussion when Peace of Bautzen was "deleted" either". Again, Peace of Bautzen had been an unsourced stub, tagged since 2009, when I redirected (not "deleted") it [31].
• I restored the article [32], provided my rationale on talk and started an RfC on whether the article should be split.
• I then redirected Peace of Bautzen and Treaty of Merseburg to the article again, linking the RfC in the edit summaries [33] [34]. Radeksz reverted for the second time [35] [36]

Regardless of the outcome of the RfC, Radeksz proved to be unable to follow BRD and instead uses the revert button. He also torpedoed the DYK nomination by enormeously enlarging the article's entry with his views [37], despite me having linked the RfC there prominently already. Just one week before, something similar happened to a previous DYK nom of mine, which was torpedoed by Molobo [38].

• Radeksz then created a third, unsourced content fork, where he again reverted me in disregard of BRD and called me “disruptive” when I redirected it and pointed to the ongoing RfC [39]

Other examples

• On Talk:Zemuzil, Duke of Pomerania, Radeksz repeatedly referred to my talk page posts as OR [40] [41]. He then posted a comment on talk reading “that most of the original research by Skapperod was done on the talk page but little of it was placed into the article itself”, which is ridiculous since every sentence I put on the article is sourced and referenced. He then linked that post as a “compliment” on my talk [42].
• This outburst/PA in defense of EEML-member Biophys (warning [43])
• Radeksz tried to get EEML target Dr. Dan sanctioned, just 5 days after his topic ban was lifted [44]
• Radeksz attacks a sysop for sanctioning his associate Loosmark [45]
• With a revert [46], Radeksz joins a Czech/German naming dispute [47]
• Radeksz attacks a Lithuanian editor as nationalist [48] and during a naming dispute commets on the Lithuanian government as if it were an apartheid regime [49]
• With an unsuccessful 3RR report [50] and an attack against Dr. Dan [51], Radeksz joins a naming dispute where he, in contrast to Loosmark, was not involved before [52] [53]
• Radeksz on his user page attacks Varsovian with this "parody" [54] on this 7 March comment of Varsovian [55].
• Radeksz joined a discussion unrelated to him on my talk page with a comment making me look like Gollum [56]
• Radeksz also followed me to an SPI I opened [57]
• On 10 August, Radeksz violated his interaction ban with EEML target Russavia with an unfounded AE request and was blocked accordingly [58]

Response to Radeksz

Re "warning"

Radeksz's opening comment: "Skapperod, regularly, when he finds himself in a content dispute with others resorts to attempts to have those who disagree with him banned rather than working on resolving the dispute. He has been warned about using AE before to that effect (give me a sec to dig out the diff)."

The warning I got resulted from this AE report I filed against Radeksz on 11 July 2009. This report resulted from the Kołobrzeg dispute, which was revealed as a concerted attack on me by Radeksz and others during the EEML arbitration. Radeksz's disruption in that particlular case has even been presented in his EEML FoFs as an example for Radeksz's "abuse of dispute resolution processes ([20090606-1316] [diffs])" [59].

But Sandstein could not know that when he closed that AE and issued me the warning. EEML member Radeksz on the other hand knew it all the time, naturally, as he participated in planning and exercising the attack on me. It is absolutely ridiculous that Radeksz is opening his defense by presenting that warning as if it really was an indication of an unfounded request. And even repeats that below!

Re "content dispute" and "block shopping"

No. The long list of diffs above, all from the last two months, are not about content disputes, but about the handling of those, and other behavioural evidence. And I will not go into re-opening any discussion here that belongs to article talk pages.

It is however worth pointing out Radeksz's cherry-picking of quotes here, by which he suggests that I had acted against consensus. E.g. for the Baysen dispute, he picked only part of a quote of a user who provided a 3O, the whole 3O thread is here and others commented, too. Another example is the ongoing Bautzen and Merseburg RfC, where he provided only one user's oppinion here. Completely irrelevant, the diffs deal with Radeksz's disruption that already happened, no matter how the RfC goes.

Throwing in the MAGIC_WORD "content dispute" may usually work to scare sysops away, but I hope that the arbs are above that and analyze the behavioural evidence I provided. The sentence "Skapperod, regularly, when he finds himself in a content dispute with others resorts to attempts to have those who disagree with him banned" and the repeated "block shopping" allegation are the core of Radeksz's defense.

It is of course unsubstantiated by evidence, as it is just not true.

Statement by Radeksz

Short version

Skapperod, regularly, when he finds himself in a content dispute with others resorts to attempts to have those who disagree with him banned rather than working on resolving the dispute. He has been warned about using AE before to that effect ([60]). This is just another instance of this mentality of trying to get people blocked by slandering them rather than working on dispute resolution and achieving consensus.

The basis for this request is the disagreement over at Treaties_of_Bautzen_and_Merseburg. There was an article on Peace of Bautzen which Skapperod "deleted" by making it into a redirect. He then created the "Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg" article which violates WP:SYNTH. After some discussion he made a RfC request, [61]. So far so good and that was commendable. Unfortunately for him, the response by an outside uninvolved editor to his RfC has been that indeed, the article violated SYNTH and should be split into two [62]. At that point Skapperod began badgering the outside commentator which provoked an irked response by him [63].

Additionally, I would very much like for Skapperod to explain why he is redirecting an article ABOUT a conflict to an article about the treaty which ENDED the conflict [64]. It's as if someone redirected the article on World War I to the article on Treaty of Versailles. This kind of edit goes beyond any kind of BRD notion of being "bold" to simply being a vindictive "I'm gonna get you" kind of edit; it just doesn't make sense otherwise.

So the RfC is not going as he had hoped, he is determined to ignore outside opinion and the result is that he is trying to get me banned to get his way. To do this he distorts and misrepresents my actions.

I have not done anything against Wikipedia policy and nothing that Skapperod writes above shows that. In fact, if I had broken Wikipedia policy, then why is this request not at Arbitration Enforcement? The obvious answer is that you can get in serious trouble (including blocks) for filing spurious reports and Skapperod knows this (as he's almost been blocked for this in the past). But you can't get blocked for presenting spurious cases to the Arb Com (at least I don't think so). So this is the "safer" venue for block-shopping.

I have in fact worked on uncontroversial material on Poland related current events ([65]), sourced Poland related unreferenced BLPs ([66]), Bund related topics ([67]), economics ([68], [69]) and fielding requests at WikiProject Poland [70]). This too would be uncontroversial if Skapperod didn't make controversy where none should exist, apparently out of some kind of a belief that any kind of criticism of his actions is somehow against Wikipedia policy.

Long version addressing individual attacks

Example 1 - Johann Dzierzon

Yes, I opened a RM for the article, because the previous RM had only two support votes, both by users who have since been topic banned from Eastern European topics. There was bickering at the RM, typical of this topic area and in fact the designation of such behavior as "bickering" is not mine but rather User:Sandstein's. It's quite appropriate too. Anyway, the RM was closed by Future Perfect at Sunrise with the statement ""no consensus, hence no move". There are some reasonable arguments on both sides" which at very least indicates that requesting an RM was not an unreasonable thing to do. So... what kind of policy was exactly broken here?

As an aside I have no idea who User:Mamalala is, and I've never seen a SPI on the user and I don't think there ever was one.

Hence this is an example where Skapperod is trying to get somebody who simply disagrees with him in regard to content banned.

Example 2 - Jewish Community of Danzig

The article very clearly violated the Gdansk/Danzig vote, but nm that. In this example by Skapperod he is actually being blatantly dishonest. He characterizes my actions as follows: Radeksz moved the article [16] (no e/s). - meaning that I did not use an edit summary and Radeksz moved the article again [18] (no e/s) - again trying to make me look bad because I did not use an edit summary.

Basically Skapperod is trying to portray my actions here as if I moved the article without any kind of discussion. This is completely false. In the first instance, I actually DID use an edit summary as can be clearly seen here [71] (hence this part of his statement is straight up false). And then I explained the edit on the talk page [72], as a quick click on the talk of the article clearly shows (hence this is an attempt at a sneaky misrepresentation).

The only comment by an uninvolved user, Malik Shabazz stated: It seems to me the name should be Jewish community of Gdańsk because the article covers a period that spans the Danzig period. Similar to History of Gdańsk. . So the only outside person participating in the discussion actually agreed with me.

The article still violates the Gdansk/Danzig vote. It still should be moved back to Jewish Community of Gdansk, but frankly, faced with this kind of tendentious nationalist editing and battleground mentality I basically said "screw it", let them have it, and left it where it was. I did nothing wrong here and I resent Skapperod's slander.

Example 3 - Johannes von Baysen

The article was under "Johannes von Baysen", originally created by a user (Matthead) now banned from Eastern European topics. There are ZERO English language sources which use that name [73] (there actually is one, but it's to a self-published novel of "alternate history"). There are a number of English language sources which use "Jan Bazynski" [74]. So I moved it to the title that is actually used by English language sources. This prompted belligerent bullying demands that I move the article back by Skapperod, and attempts by him to try to portray German language sources as being "English" [75].

There was some discussion and it was brought up that in fact "Hans" is sometimes used in English language sources (essentially, there are two of these). I indicated my willingness to consider it. But rather than discussing the matter further, Skapperod continued with his ultimatums. In the meantime Herkus asked for a third opinion [76], which was commendable. The third opinion arrived and it said:

You'll notice that I have not dismissed your (i.e. mine; the recommendation was basically for more discussion - Radeksz) edit out-of-hand. Are your sources more indicative of the name you changed the article to? Also, are they reliable sources? If the answer to both is yes, then in my opinion it is up to the opposing debaters (i.e. Skapperod) to offer evidence in support of their own position. If there is no such evidence, a simple personal disagreement is not sufficient grounds to reverse the change. (i.e. to move back the article to the name not used in sources)

and

If there is still ambiguity, you should ask for more input from more editors (through perhaps, WP:RFC), but I do encourage you to reach a compromise - I notice you have already started discussing this.

So basically, the 3O indicated that there was nothing wrong with the original move but that editors should work to achieve consensus. Rather than doing this, Skapperod moved the article back without any kind of discussion.

Please note that I've asked Skapperod why he moved the article back to the one particular name which is used by ZERO sources but he has refused to reply [77]. He has also refused to provide any kind of quotation from non-English language sources which he is using in the article [78].

This is another example where I just gave up hope on any kind of reasonable discussion and left the article alone, particularly since Skapperod seemed intent on completely ignoring the Third Opinion that had been provided. Again, I did not in any way break any Wikipedia policies, in letter or in spirit and there is simply no basis for a complaint here except bad faith.

Example 4 - Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg

This is basically the heart of the matter and the real reason for Skapperod's block-shopping. There used to be an article on Peace of Bautzen. Skapperod "deleted" it by making it into a redirect. He then created a POV SYNTH article on Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg. The SYNTHed article covers two different topics but Skapperod combined them into two, basically for nationalistic reasons (to end a series of treaties with one that made Germany look GREAT!). No reliable sources, by German historians included (or even, especially by German historians, who are generally a lot less radical than some Wikipedia users), do this.

I created separate articles for the two different topics and initiated discussion on talk page. Discussion ensued. I asked for outside help at WikiProject Military History. Skapperod asked for an RfC. That in itself was commendable. What was NOT commendable however, was completely ignoring the comments that were provided as a result of this request by uninvolved User:Variable [79] and then badgering him on his talk page about his opinion [80], which provoked a response from him [81].

In the meantime I also created an article on the military conflict that one of these treaties ended. Skapperod tried to "delete" this article as well through the use of redirects [82] (the article was a unsourced stub because it was newly created work in progress, as I clearly indicated here. This prompted an inquiry by myself at WP:Deletion policy [83] where discussion is still ongoing.

So basically, Skapperod asked for an RfC. The comments provided by uninvolved editor disagreed with his synthesis and agreed with my proposal to split the article into two. So the RfC is not going the way Skapperod would like, so he is determined to ignore it (after himself requesting the comment!) and the only way he can do that is to block shop a ban for me.

This is a textbook example of how NOT to behave on Wikipedia. It is a textbook example of how Wikipedia dispute resolution processes are abused and gamed (Ask for RfC. If it agrees with you great! If it disagrees with you ignore it and get the person you disagree with banned!) and it is a clear cut evidence for Skapperod's own battleground mentality.

Other examples - really quickly

• On Talk:Zemuzil, Duke of Pomerania, Radeksz repeatedly referred to my talk page posts as OR - they were OR. Skapperod seems to be under the impression that any kind of criticism of his actions is against Wikipedia policies. As far as I'm aware no such Wikipedia policy exists yet.

• He then linked that post as a “compliment” on my talk. - Here's the whole discussion [84]. Yes, I made the mistake of trying to thank Skapperod and say something nice to him. He quickly began making personal attacks against me. Ok. Now WHO has the battleground mentality here?

• This outburst/PA in defense of EEML-member [[User:Biophys|Biophys] (warning [43]) - yeah I admit it, I get upset when I see somebody bully and badger others. I think I have pretty thick skin when it comes to personal attacks directed at myself, and I routinely ignore them. But I DO get upset when I see somebody try to publicly humiliate another person. I hate bullies, have zero tolerance for them, and very strongly believe they have no place on Wikipedia. When I see it happen, yeah, ok, some of the usual civility gets put aside. Note that this supposed "warning" says that the other user's comments were "unjustifiable"

• Radeksz tried to get EEML target Dr. Dan sanctioned, just 5 days after his topic ban was lifted - Dr. Dan an EEML target? Don't be ridiculous. The only way he was a "target" was that people mentioned was that it was best to "just ignore him". Anyway, Sandstein's comment here was the reference may well have been intentional, but it's too indirect to be sanctionable in my opinion

• Radeksz attacks a sysop for sanctioning his associate Loosmark [45] - Loosmark is not my "associate" (whatever that is), though he is an occasional chess partner on Wiki. Anyway - that's a wrong diff I think.

• Radeksz attacks a Lithuanian editor as nationalist [48] - this is a self-revert I made after once again giving up in the face of tendentious editing. Apparently it was appreciated by the user involved (Lokyz) [85]. I responded back in similar friendly vein [86] and it actually began to look like real progress on resolving long standing disputes could be made [87]. Lokyz appears not to have the same problem as Skapperod with receiving compliments and thanks and hopefully this dialogue will continue..... but I forgot, what exactly is Skapperod alleging I did wrong here? Self-revert? Initiate friendly conversation?

• With an unsuccessful 3RR report - false, the report was successful. The page was protected which prevented edit warring (which I was not involved in) from continuing. Actually, this phrasing by Skapperod is quite revealing of the mindset here. For him, a report is not a "success" unless it results in someone getting blocked or banned. For myself, I'm quite happy if disputes are resolved and edit warring ceases.

• Radeksz joined a discussion unrelated to him on my talk page with a comment making me look like Gollum - I'll leave that one without comment, except to say that Skapperod appears to be completely misinterpreting (intentionally or not) my remark.

• Radeksz also followed me to an SPI I opened - nope, I saw the SPI after I noticed that Skapperod has managed to harass a productive editor into leaving Wikipedia [88]. This editor had just made several changes to a number of articles on my watchlist. Unfortunately, Skapperod is employing the exact same tactics here. The scary thing is, these tactics may be working.

As to my AE block [89] - apparently, in reporting an interaction ban violation, I made the mistake of taking this statement by Shell Kinney [90] seriously; Sandstein saw it differently. Shrug.

Bottom line

Basically what we have here is a series of content disputes. And Skapperod, rather than working to resolve content disputes, tries to "solve" them by having those he disagrees with banned. If that's how Wikipedia dispute resolution works... why stick around anyway?

As an aside, I've mostly worked on non controversial material since July, have had several articles DYKed ([91], [92], [93], [94], [95], [96], [97], [98], [99], [100], [101], [102]), and have tried to avoid controversy. But with editors like Skapperod around - controversy is created, even where there should be none.radek (talk) 11:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Skapperod 2

The AE case didn't have anything to do with some "concerned attack". It had to do with the fact that I said Skapperod was engaging in disruptive forum shopping (he was - he was asking for a discussion on the same topic for the fourth time, despite three previous occasions of consensus by uninvolved editors going against him). Since Skapperod appears to believe that any kind of criticism of his actions is against Wikipedia policy he filed a spurious AE report against me. Here's what Sandstein had to say on the occasion [103]:

This looks like a misuse of WP:AE in order to win the upper hand in a content dispute. The edits cited in the request are not objectionable; rather, they reflect routine disagreements about content. In particular, it is not disruptive to state one's opinion that "Removing a large chunk of text without discussing it first is generally seen as "disruptive"". Unless other administrators disagree, I will close this thread with a warning to Skäpperöd that AE is not a substitute for, or part of, proper dispute resolution, and that he may face sanctions if he files more unfounded enforcement requests.

This is exactly what's going on here as well

None of my edits Skapperod links to are objectionable. They are all routine disagreement about content. It is not disruptive to state one's opinion that Skapperod is engaging in OR, or making SYNTH, or to ask him for sources, or even to call him "stubborn". Hence this whole request by Skapperod is a misuse of Wikipedia dispute resolution process, in order to win the upper hand in a content dispute.

Skapperod, Arbitration Enforcement is over here. If you really had evidence that any of those edits you link to were objectionable or violated Wikipedia guidelines, why don't you/didn't you, file a proper AE Request for them? Of course, if you don't have any evidence and such reports are judged to be spurious, you risk getting blocked yourself. So put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.radek (talk) 12:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Skapperod's mischaracterization of BRD

Skapperod has a very peculiar understanding of the Bold, Revert, Discuss policy. If he makes a controversial edit or reverts you, that's being "bold". If someone else makes an edit Skapperod disagrees with or reverts him that's... well, gosh darn it! That's just bad!

Despite Skapperod's notion this essay (neither policy nor guideline) does not say that "Skapperod is allowed to revert others but others may not revert or even criticize Skapperod". Rather what the essay says is:

• BRD is not a justification for imposing one's own view, or tendentious editing without consensus. - in particular it is not a justification for ignoring third opinions and RfC comments after these have been provided.
• BRD is not a process that you can require other editors to follow. - in particular, it is not a process which makes it ok for one editor to revert but not for others to respond to such reverts.
• BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes. - this goes to the heart of the matter. BRD is no justification for reverting editors simply because you don't like them. It is even less of a justification for trying to get them blocked.
• Don't invoke BRD as your reason for reverting someone else's work...provide a reason that is based on policies, guidelines, or common sense' - Skapperod repeatedly cites BRD as an excuse for reverting others [104]

And that's just on this one article.

Statement by Malik Shabazz

I agree with Radeksz that this is at bottom a series of content disputes, and I don't see any behavior that warrants a restoration of his topic ban.

I would like to recommend, however, that he and Skäpperöd consider mediation to resolve some of the difficulties they are having working together. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:04, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Petri Krohn

It is interesting that my name is brought up here, but not at all surprising considering the fascination EEML participants have with my name.

Update: Radecsz removed the following text from his statement: "In the ensuing discussion Petri Krohn all of sudden became involved, in a situation which the Arb Com probably already knows more about than I want to go into here. While Petri has behaved himself somewhat better as of late, he is/was clearly not an uninvolved user here."

Radeksz is making accusations against me trough innuendo. The arbitrators have seen the EEML evidence. If they have, they should be fully aware that the EE mailing list was primarily targeted at my user account and someone in real life they thought was me.

As to the mystical meaning of whatever “Arb Com probably already knows more about” I can only guess. I would not be surprised, if some kind of secret email campaign against me was going on at this very moment conducted by former EEML members, as I have already seen some alarming signs of hanky-panky. All this has hardly anything to do with my edits on Wikipedia, but are more related to real world politics.

Jewish Community of Danzig

In this case of Jewish Community of Danzig Radeksz's actions were most distractive, as they almost prevented a high-quality article from appearing in the DYK section.

I was first alerted to a related issue when an interwiki bot made this strange edit to an article on the Finnish Wikipedia which I had created two years ago. Entering the English language Wikipedia I discovered a major controversy surrounding the undiscussed moves of articles on historical provinces. I then commented on the issue here , here , here , here, here and even here .

In preparing my argument I went looking for the most irrational move, I checked this log of reverted page moves and came across the "Jewish Community of Gdańsk". I was surprised the see that the move was unrelated to the provinces dispute and was in fact done by Radecsz. Knowing how willingly EEML participants make accusations against me, I entered the talk page referring to the dispute that had brought be there. I was responded to by hostile accusations of stalking.

A week later I reverted a controversial naming change in Prince-Bishop citing the Gdańsk (Danzig) vote in my edit summary. I first edited the article in February 2006 while Radecsz has never edited it before. Ten minutes later he reverts my edits, sparking this long discussion on the article talk page. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:05, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Request to amend prior case: Race and intelligence

Initiated by Wapondaponda (talk) at 06:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

Race and intelligence arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Proposed decision#Captain_Occam_topic-banned

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Muntuwandi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Captain Occam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ferahgo the Assassin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Captain Occam
• Ferahgo the Assassin

Amendment 1

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Proposed decision#Captain_Occam_topic-banned
• The extension of the topic ban to include Ferahgo the Assassin who appears to be either a proxy account or a Sockpuppet account of Captain Occam.

Statement by your Muntuwandi

This is a follow up to a request for enforcement found in this archive. According to the result two uninvolved administrators, Stifle and Slp1 stated that administrators who monitor the enforcement noticeboard were not in the position to make a decision concerning the request (Stifle suggested a request for amendment).

Immediately after Captain Occam's topic ban was confirmed, Ferahgo the Assassin, a user who apparently is known to Captain Occam, took an interest in editing race and intelligence articles. According to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Captain Occam/Archive, the closing admin recommended that the two accounts should be treated as one per WP:SHARE. However no ruling was made concerning this matter from the enforcement noticeboard.

Since no ruling was made, Ferahgo the Assassin has continued to be involved in race and intelligence matters. The user's pattern of editing on race and intelligence matters is similar to that of Captain Occam. Much of the evidence is found at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive68. More recent events include further canvassing. Captain Occam has on occasion tried to seek help from Dbachmann [105], [106], [107]. Recently Ferahgo the Assassin also tried to get help from Dbachmann, though it is the user's 'first time' communicating with Dbachmann, the user is already familiar with Dab stating. "You seem to be more active and responsive than him, so I figured I'd ask you" [108].

Others have argued that Ferahgo the Assassin should be treated as independent editor. I find this argument untenable. In the four years since Ferahgo the Assassin has been a registered user, all his or her edits prior to the arbitration were to support Captain Occam or his suggestions. I therefore see no evidence both post and pre-Arbitration of independent editing.

In summary Captain Occam appears to be gaming his topic ban, either by being a sockpuppet or by getting another editor to make edits on his behalf. I consider this a violation of his topic ban.

Wapondaponda (talk) 06:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Ferahgo

"I've made a number of productive contributions to them".Forgive me in advance but my reservoir of good faith has been somewhat depleted by recent events. I am of the opinion that many of your so called "productive edits" are really token edits to muddy up the issue. I believe that you are Captain Occam and that you are trying your best to be disruptive and at the same time trying your best to not get discovered. The current trajectory of your edits is clearly in the direction of more disruption. These edits [109], [110], and [111] are clearly confrontational and reminiscent of Captain Occam. :Wapondaponda (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Kirill

I respectfully disagree that there is little evidence suggesting that Ferahgo the Assassin and Captain Occam are not independent. Two administrators have advised Ferahgo the Assassin that given her connection with Captain Occam, it wasn't a good idea for the user to be involved in race and intelligence matters immediately after Captain Occam's topic ban. According to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Captain_Occam/Archive#Clerk.2C_patrolling_admin_and_checkuser_comments two uninvolved admins felt there was evidence. A checkuser was not carried out, as Captain Occam preempted it by admitting that he and Ferahgo the Assassin use the same Network/Computer when working on Wikipedia. As Stifle mentioned here , some declaratory relief would be helpful ie either Captain Occam and Ferahgo the Assassin are meatpuppets or they are not. I do think they are, I do not yet know what the broader community's opinion about this is, which is why have I filed this request. I will live with whatever is decided.

Wapondaponda (talk) 18:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Vecrumba

"I've already commented that this sort of painful prolonging of the arbitration (now seeming more like insistence) is unhelpful". I think the editors prolonging the arbitration are Captain Occam and his proxy account. If Captain Occam had been observing his topic ban like Mathsci or David.Kane, I wouldn't have filed this request. I don't enjoy filing these requests and I am doing so reluctantly and after some thought and consideration. Until today, Ferahgo the Assassin had never edited the race and genetics article. The user's very first edit to race and genetics is to revert to the use of an image related to the image which Captain Occam had been edit warring over [112]. Is this just a coincidence? I can't help but think not. :Wapondaponda (talk) 16:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Tim Song

I understand what you are saying. Basically even if F is a sock or meat of CO, as long as F is conducting themselves reasonably, then there are no problems. I have been thinking about that which was why I initially stated that I wasn't going to file another request after the enforcement request. The principle is found at Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, which would imply that even if Occam is violating his topic ban by proxy or sock editing, if his edits are not hurting the encyclopedia, then it shouldn't matter. Others will argue that for a community to function effectively, rules should be observed. It's a philosophical issue that is beyond the scope of this debate.

You state "Once again we focus too much on the users and not the conduct." This is also fair, but I would like to give some context. The current dispute is close to one year old. For several months there was a lot of bickering over content issues with no peaceful resolution in sight. The dispute was escalated to Arbcom for the precise purpose of investigating user conduct issues. As the saying goes, Arbcom doesn't deal with content problems. In short, based on the circumstances of this dispute, some focus on users is justified.

Wapondaponda (talk) 17:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Occam

"One effect of his doing this was to once again remove a chart from this article that he edit warred to remove a year ago (described in my arbitration evidence here), which resulted in him being placed under a month of 1RR on this article". Once again you are cherry picking sanctions, as GWH chose not to take sides and slapped a 0RR restriction on the both of us. See his comment here. I suggest that you refactor your statement to reflect this. The issue of the image has not been resolved. The subject is quite technical so I will make it as simple as possible. Captain Occam inserted an image into the race and genetics article. On his talk page he provides a link to his blog where he discusses the image [113] in which he writes that the image proves the unpopular theory that there is a biological basis for race. Captain Occam admits on his blog that he hasn't read the book where the image was originally sourced from, that is Cavalli Sforza's History and Geography of Human Genes. Captain Occam learned of the image from reading Arthur Jensen's book, The G factor, a book that is concerned with race and intelligence, the topic which Occam is fixated on. My conclusion, Captain Occam is advocating a race and intelligence POV in a separate article race and genetics. In fact I consider this the worst form of POV pushing because Occam was edit warring over an image from a book which he admitted he hadn't read. A book which explicitly states that readers shouldn't attach a racial meaning to the image, when Captain Occam was in fact attaching a racial meaning to the image. I started editing the race and genetics article after I read Cavalli-Sforza's books, so I hope others can understand my frustration that someone else was edit warring over content from a book which they had not read and showed no intention of reading. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Ferahgo the Assassin

In the few weeks that I've been participating on these articles, I've made a number of productive contributions to them, including suggesting new sources, rewording unclear sentences, seeking to achieve consensus on the talk pages, pointing out things I'd noticed, and striving to achieve neutrality. I have been using much of my free time recently to read and research this topic outside of Wikipedia in order to better contribute here. I had been under the impression that my presence here has been constructive and beneficial overall, and the other editors involved have been treating me like any other editor. Even editors like WeijiBaikeBianji and Aprock, who tend to disagree with me from time to time, have been willing to work with me to exchange ideas and improve the article. Of the currently involved editors, Muntuwandi - who is barely involved at all right now - is the only one who appears to think that I'm a sock or meatpuppet.

I have not violated a single policy since beginning to edit here: no tag-teaming, no edit warring, no false claims of consensus - nothing that Occam got in trouble for doing. The assertion that I was "canvassing" by asking DBachmann a question is ridiculous. I was specifically told by GWH [114] that I should ask an admin if I'm afraid there might be a policy violation on an article with discretionary sanctions, and that's exactly what I did. And yes, I'm familiar with DBachmann from watching these articles for a long time now, and his pattern of responsiveness is easy to see from his contributions. Other editors involved in these articles have contacted him for help recently: [115] It's also obvious that he's familiar with these articles in general: [116] There are very few admins who pay attention to R&I articles without being involved and are also very responsive, so it shouldn't be a surprise that there's some overlap in the admins Occam and I have contacted.

Muntuwandi's assertion that "In the four years since Ferahgo the Assassin has been a registered user, all his or her edits prior to the arbitration were to support Captain Occam or his suggestions" is downright ridiculous and demonstrably false. Take a look at my most edited articles: [117] Both before and after I became involved in these articles, most of my contributions have been to completely different types of articles from what Occam has been involved in, which does not fit the definition of Meatpuppetry given at Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppetry: “A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose.”

I suspect that Muntuwandi chose to bring this arbcom case back from the dead today because I undid his revert on the Race and Genetics article. The reason I did this was because he reverted the article back to a version from over a year ago, undoing over a hundred edits in one revert without discussing it with anyone first. [118] Every time I've seen someone do this - which isn't many - it's always been regarded as disruptive.

Before I got involved in these articles, several people were worried my behavior and editing pattern would be too similar to Occam's. But I think it's unnecessary to be worried about this now that after being involved for a few weeks, all of my contributions to the articles have been constructive, and I have not engaged in any of the behavior Occam was sanctioned for. Sanctions are meant to be preventative, not punitive. Therefore I don't think it's reasonable to be topic-banned based on the fear that I might cause the same problems Occam did, when my actual contributions show otherwise. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 08:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Muntuwandi

Muntuwandi, all of the edits you've linked to were discussed on the talk pages and everyone except Weijibaikebianji agreed they were improvements. What you regard as confrontational almost everyone else sees as constructive. Your assumption of bad faith seems to be extending to twisting reality to make me look bad, when I haven't done anything wrong. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 11:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Shell

Shell: I know that Occam and I could be considered closely-connected users via Wikipedia:SHARE. It says: "“Closely connected users may be considered a single user for Wikipedia's purposes if they edit with the same objectives.” Occam and I might have had similar objectives before the arbcom case, and at that point it didn't matter if we did. When he didn't have sanctions against him it only mattered that we observed policies like 3RR as though we were the same account, and we were careful to do so.

Things are totally different now. Occam is topic-banned and that means it's important that I don't edit these articles with the same objectives he did. Wikipedia:SHARE is very clear about this: if I edit the articles with the same objectives as him, then he and I can be considered the same account. If I don’t, then we can’t. That's why I've recently gone to so much trouble developing my own independent style and personality in editing these articles, researching outside of Wikipedia, reading a great deal on this topic, etc. Every other involved editor besides Muntuwandi seems to acknowledge this.

I don't feel that there's anything to indicate that my current editing style or objectives are more similar to Occam's than they are to many other editors. For example, my undo of Muntuwandi's revert of a year's worth of edits with no discussion. Even if this is something Occam would have done (and I don't even know if it is!) it's also something that loads of other editors would have done, since it was pretty obviously disruptive. You might as well accuse me of being Occam because I revert vandalism, since that's probably something he would do too! During the time since Occam's topic ban, is there anything about my edits that indicate they're more similar to Occam than they are to, say, Victor Chmara and Maunus? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:23, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Maunus

Maunus: As far as I know, the only pov I've been taking on these articles is a neutral one. That seems consistent with the fact that others like you and aprock have agreed that each of my edits has been beneficial. If there's something non-neutral about my editing patterns, it'd be nice if someone had pointed this out to me on the talk pages.

I honestly feel that avoiding repeating Occam's mistakes will be a pretty simple task. From my understanding he came to these articles before getting much experience with anything else at Wikipedia, and at a time when the editing environment on them was pretty terrible. He had no editing experience elsewhere and ended up copying and contributing to the same problematic behavior that was the norm there at that point. I'm coming here with a fair amount of experience, both from editing unrelated topics and from watching these articles for quite a while. I also obviously watched the arbcom case and I know exactly what everyone got sanctioned for. It shouldn't be hard to figure out how I can avoid doing the same things, especially with the improved editing environment.

Also I pointed out somewhere before (might have been the arb enforcement thread) that the reason I'm editing these articles now is because I've always been interested in this topic, but for ages have been afraid to get involved because of the editing atmosphere. As I stated in my evidence for the arbcom case, I've tried getting involved before and other editors were unwilling to respond to me with anything other than ad hominem attacks. Likely because of the discretionary sanctions, these problems have mostly gone away. I'd have begun editing here sooner if they'd gone away before the arbcom case. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 01:28, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Prof Marginalia

Prof Marginalia: Everything in your comment I've already addressed at length. I'd like to point out something else I've noticed, though. Of the people commenting here who are actually editing with me on these articles, every one of them is arguing against a topic ban. And these are the people with experience to know whether I'm being disruptive or not. The only people for the topic ban (so far just you and Muntuwandi) are people who haven't been participating in these articles since the end of the arb case.

I see two groups of people here. People who just care about the quality of the articles, and the people who want to continue petty drama leftover from the arb case. The active editors don't always agree with me on content, but we're willing to get along and make actual improvements when people like you and Muntuwandi aren't interfering. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 21:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

@Prof M: There wouldn't be any drama if not for these threads, since I've made nothing but constructive edits since the arb case and have not engaged in disruptive behavior. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to aprock

Aprock, I'm not sure if you think this is a problem, but I'll address it as though you do: Jensen's Clocking the Mind is the only book specifically about mental chronometry that's been published in the last 20 years. And it doesn't even mention race differences. From this book I added only historical information relating to early RT testing. You're expecting too much if you want a balanced and informative article on mental chronometry that doesn't mention Jensen, since regardless of your opinion on him, he's the most prolific modern researcher that there is on MC. I have several older books and papers in possession currently that I'm hoping to use to improve this article soon, like stuff by Carroll, but unfortunately this current case is eating up a lot of my time and energy.

I honestly can't believe that even my edits about the history of MC are being nitpicked now. People can't assume good faith about even this? Maybe things haven't improved here as much as I thought. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 00:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Vecrumba

I've already commented that this sort of painful prolonging of the arbitration (now seeming more like insistence) is unhelpful. Were this two or three months down the line and Ferahgo were employing disruptive tactics or questionable sources—regardless of likeness to Occam—then if that's the case it can simply be dealt with. Until then I am content to allow Ferahgo to establish their own edit history. As someone who, myself, was attacked simply for showing up at R&I and related and had derision, aspersions and innuendo heaped on my head, whether for no good reason or based on unrelated prior Wikipedia conflicts, this on the face of it looks, smells, and tastes too familiar for my comfort, regardless of anyone's best intentions here. I have already stated pretty much the same at Muntuwandi's talk. (Please leave that section in place for the duration of the proceedings here, thank you!) PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

P.S. To Ferahgo's above, I respect WeijiBaikeBianji's editorial opinion as informed and non-extremist; "everyone except WeijiBaikeBianji agreed" is not an optimal representation of consensus, but that is a discussion not for here. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

@Muntuwandi ("If Captain Occam had been observing his topic ban like Mathsci or David.Kane, I wouldn't have filed this request."): Guilty until proven innocent is premature at this point is my only point. The only problem I've seen at the topic is that editors are still a bit on edge given the recent and ugly conflict; even if I accept that you may be completely correct, you are only honing that edge at the moment as there's not enough edit history to do much of anything else. If there isn't sufficient edit history, you can make someone out to be anyone you want them to be. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tim Song

Once again we focus too much on the users and not the conduct. So what if F. is editing on Occam's behalf? If there is disruption, it can be dealt with under the discretionary sanctions; if there is no disruption, what is there to complain about? We are spending a lot of time and energy here, and what will we gain from this? The ability to avoid the initial disruption needed for imposition of discretionary sanctions - if the disruption ever happens? Doesn't sound like a good deal to me, at all. T. Canens (talk) 16:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other aprock

To the extent that Ferahgo sticks to content issues, and is willing to read and quote sources her activity is productive. To the extent that she takes a revert first, then discuss non-content issues, her activity is counter-productive. Currently, there is a little of both, but not enough of either to make any strong conclusions. The biggest potential disruption is that Ferahgo will take on the role of gate keeper, forcing everyone to route all edits through her. This isn't a problem at the moment. aprock (talk) 17:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll just note here that Feragho has taken some time to rework Mental chronometry primarily to add Arthur Jensen related content. aprock (talk) 23:12, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Captain Occam

There are two important points here, both of which have already been made by other editors. The first is what Ferahgo pointed out in her response to Shell: Ferahgo’s current editing on these articles is no more similar to mine than it is to numerous other editors. Her editing style was much more similar to mine in the past, when I wasn’t topic banned and it therefore didn’t matter whether we edited these articles with the same objectives. But I think she’s made it abundantly clear by this point that she’s capable of editing these articles independently of me, now that my topic ban requires this from her if she’s going to participate.

And the other important point is the one made by Tim Song. The purpose of my topic ban was in order to prevent me from continuing to disrupt these articles by edit warring, tag-teaming, and making false claims of consensus. Ferahgo has done none of these things, and none of the other editors involved in these articles have had any problem with her behavior. At the same time, she’s been making a large number of constructive edits to articles in this topic area, particularly the Mental chronometry article. If she is to be topic banned on the suspicion that she’s a sockpuppet or meatpuppet, this will be an example of enforcing the letter of the law (if she actually is violating the letter of the law) in a way that completely contradicts the spirit of it. Although the purpose of my topic ban was to prevent me from continuing to cause disruption on these articles, the only effect that extending it to Ferahgo will have is to lose a constructive and civil contributor to these articles, who has not been accused of disruption by anyone other than Muntuwandi.

I think everyone who’s actively involved in these articles wants to put the arbitration behind them. I also want to put it behind myself, but Muntuwandi’s constant harping on it is making this very difficult. Other than his three recent attempts to get Ferahgo banned, Muntuwandi’s only involvement in these articles since the end of the arbitration case is his recent revert of a year’s worth of edits on the Race and genetics article with no prior discussion. One effect of his doing this was to once again remove a chart from this article that he edit warred to remove a year ago (described in my arbitration evidence here), which resulted in him being placed under a month of 0RR on this article. When the only thing Muntuwandi is currently doing on these articles is repeating the behavior for which he was previously sanctioned, his seeking of sanctions against a constructive editor who happens to disagree with him seems completely disingenuous. The problem here is not anything that Ferahgo is doing; it’s Muntuwandi’s repeated drama-mongering. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Muntuwandi

GWH placed me under a month 0RR on Race and genetics for going straight to AN/I about a conflict that I should have first tried to resolve somewhere like WQA, and I’ve avoided making this mistake again after being sanctioned for it. Your own 0RR was due to your continued removing of the image based not on anything about the image itself, but based on what you perceived as my motives for adding it, which in turn was based on something I’d written outside of Wikipedia. You continued trying to remove it regardless of how I changed it to address your objections, including when I read the relevant part of Cavalli-Sforza’s book and modified the image to closely match the original source, as well as after Varoon Arya created a new version of the image in an attempt to satisfy you. Yet despite being given a clear message from GWH that your doing this was not acceptable, you’re continuing to claim that “The issue of the image has not been resolved”, reverting the article back a year in order to remove the image yet again, and now are once again repeating the same justification for removing it that resulted in your original sanction.

Do you not see how bizarre this is? Your obsession with removing any and every form of this image has now lasted approximately a year, and since the end of the arbitration case this has been the entire extent of your involvement in these articles. And now, it’s resulting in an amendment request because someone felt that your reverting the article back a year in order to restore a version without the image was not a reasonable thing to do. Recidivism, article ownership, assuming bad faith… there are too many problems with what you’re doing here for me to cover them all. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's nothing you can say here at the moment that will diffuse matters, unfortunately. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 04:59, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Maunus

The only thing I find weird is that while Ferahgo claims that she is painfully aware that according to WP:SHARE she can be considered the same account as CaptainOccam is she edits with the same objectives as he did, and that she therefore should avoid editing patterns similar to his, but she has chosen to manifest this awareness by entering into the same debate in which Occam is topic banned, arguing from the same pov as he did. This seems contradictory to me. Now, I didn't advocate a topicban for Occam and will not advocate one for Ferahgo untill such a point that she might demonstrate that she is not interested in collaborative editing. However the discrepancy between her stated awarenes of WP:SHARE and her actions jars in my ears, and I would like her to elaborate on how, now that she has chosen to emulate Occams choice of editing topics, she is going to avoid repeating his mistakes.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Professor marginalia

I've been too busy in the last few weeks to edit or follow the latest developments closely, but these assurances that Feragho and Captain Occam can be viewed as two distinct and independent accounts are not credible. They are partners in real life, and the only involvement of Feragho's in these involved articles prior to arbitration was to show up out of nowhere to "vote" or otherwise lend support to Captain Occam in various disputes, with he himself showing up right behind her to pointedly underscore her support to lend weight to his position. This edit, for example, was made to Ferahgo at a time when she'd only eight edits total in the entire encyclopedia, 5 of them minor edits--none of the edits were yet in the field of race or intelligence. Prior to arbitration, Ferahgo's only editing related to the involved articles followed Captain Occam's addressing her as an involved editor on her talk page. Then for the next 6 months her only involvement was over the course of about 10 edits to lend him backup in a single article (Race and intelligence) and in dispute resolutions on various other boards. But during, and now following, the arbitration in which Captain Occam was ultimately banned, Ferahgo was taken brand-new interest in at least seven more race/intelligence related articles. One of them is Race and genetics, never before edited by Ferahgo, yet she writes, here of content that she "remembers being there last October" -- uncanny the déjà vu to one of Captain Occam's disputes there then. I'd have hoped that with the degree of disruptive gaming going on over the past year that arbitration would bring an end to it. Professor marginalia (talk) 19:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Response to Ferahgo-the fact that often I have other demands on my time does not render me an "inactive" editor who doesn't "care about the quality of the articles" or that I am concerned only about "continuing the petty drama" of the arb comm case. The arb comm was as much about ending "petty drama" as anything else. And I steer as far clear of "petty drama" as I can, but to justify spending time on the arbitration means I won't watch idly by when its outcomes completely unravel via gaming. This means I won't go without commenting should spouses, roommates, partners, parents, children, siblings, friends, co-workers and other "stand-ins" assume a curious and intense new interest for editing just as article bans go into effect. It's not me who is the source of the drama here. My efforts are focused here on ending it. Professor marginalia (talk) 23:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Further discussion

Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I see little evidence that Ferahgo is a sockpuppet or otherwise acting in violation of policy; as has been pointed out, Ferahgo's primary editing interests to date seem to have revolved around obscure dinosaurs. If their presence becomes disruptive in the future, they can be dealt with by discretionary sanctions; I see no reason for us to presume wrongdoing at this point. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 12:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• The recent SPI case confirmed that Ferahgo and Captain Occam were related in a way that made the two technically indistinguishable and Ferahgo was advised that she should respect the topic ban; she ignored this conclusion. Given that Wikipedia:SHARE advises editors in this situation to treat edit warring and other restrictions as if they were a single account when they edit with the same objective (especially in controversial areas), I don't see why there is any question here. Of further concern is Ferahgo's contribution history, or frankly, the lack thereof. Of her 314 edits since she registered in 2006, more than 50 were comments to support Captain Occam in some dispute or against some sanction. Before the sanction, she only edited in the topic area to support Captain Occam on talk pages. Since the ban she's continued his arguments and in just the past three days has reverted material she (and Captain Occam) didn't agree with 3 times. Stick to the dinosaurs. Shell ^babelfish 19:32, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Request to amend prior case: Speed of light

Initiated by Georgewilliamherbert (talk) at 05:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

Speed of light arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Motion 4 - Brews ohare advocacy restrictions
2. Motion 5 - Restriction expiration

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Georgewilliamherbert (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Count Iblis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• David Tombe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Likebox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Hell in a Bucket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Count Iblis
• David Tombe
• Likebox
• Hell in a Bucket

Amendment 1

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light#Motions Motion 4
• Proposed: Motion 4 ("Count Iblis, David Tombe, Likebox, and Hell in a Bucket are indefinitely restricted from advocacy for or commenting on Brews ohare, broadly construed. Should any of these editors violate this restriction, they may be blocked for up to 24 hours by any uninvolved administrator. After three blocks, the maximum block length shall rise to one week.") is reinstated, to run concurrently with and expiring simultaneously with Motion 6's 12-month topic ban on Brews Ohare.

Statement by Georgewilliamherbert

As evidenced by discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light immediately following the Committee's reimposition of Brews' topic ban, for a 12 month new duration, the additional parties who were previously (now expired by motion) enjoined from advocacy on Brews' account have resumed disruptive advocacy on the exact same terms and approach as before. Requests to stop have been rejected, and as discretionary sanctions are not in place on the article admins evidently can't reimpose them on individual authority at this time.

I believe that reimposing them is appropriate under the circumstances. This case has been decided, no matter what the party and supporters feel. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Replying writ large to several parties, Carcharoth, and other commenters...

Focusing more narrowly would certainly potentially be appropriate.

Regarding asking / suggesting / prodding people to change directions into things they can be productive in, that was done by several in the thread which started this, including myself. It went so stunningly well that I ended up doing this amendment... The discussion included outright refusal by some of the people previously enjoined to admit that the prior advocacy ban had been in effect, and that such behavior by them was obviously not just OK but righteous and necessary.

Perhaps with the amendment proposed the message is getting across that more productive pursuits would be preferable for everyone. I certainly don't see this as a good solution. But it looked for a couple of days like the bad old days of incessant advocacy were back, and if that was going to happen, there's no reason not to haul out the big gun again and point it.

If not firing it is ok now, then let's not fire it. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

To explicitly say something I should have been more explicit about last night - David Tombe's behavior now does not seem to be problematic, and I am happy to drop him off the proposed restrictions list. I cut and pasted the proposal from the prior amendment, when I should have been more selective. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Hell in a Bucket -

The four of you were previously indefinitely enjoined from advocacy of this nature. There was obviously at that time a problem severe enough that you convinced Arbcom that there needed to be a specific restriction on the four of you continuing that advocacy.

That has since been amended to expire, but you seem to be missing the message. The message is, Arbcom and the community do have the right to act if disruptive behavior persists; that Arbcom and the community previously found this behavior by the then-four of you to be sufficiently disruptive to intervene; and that you and Count Iblis were at it again.

Persistent misbehavior after prior sanctions has a lower threshold and a stronger response, in general on Wikipedia. Someone who's been blocked for edit warring or disruption may find 3RR now effectively a 2RR restriction on them and then 1RR, and a first block of 24 hrs goes to 48 then a week then a month.

In the context of you and Count Iblis going back to the same behavior you previously were enjoined from doing, and are now defending again, perhaps I was somewhat premature in this amendment. But if you feel entitled to keep it up much longer then you're wrong.

The restriction I'm proposing has already been found necessary and applied to you. Reimposing it for repeat offenses is not a big deal.

If the repeat offenses have stopped and it's not worth any more preventive measures then great. If you can live by Carcharoth's comments below, great.

If you feel that it's simply a gross imposition on your WikiRights - again, it's been imposed against you before.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

• What? One is not allowed to express dissent with the disgraceful measures against Brews? Or what? This is just going to lead to more and more contributors being banned. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 08:04, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• Likebox is permabanned of his own choice, David Tombe has done nothing in the recent cases involving Brews and Hell in a Bucket just commented on the outcome. Count Iblis's AN/I thread on this was perhaps ill advised but that's already over with. So I really don't think this is at all necessary now.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 08:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• The claim that I have been advised to fight ArbCom “tooth and nail”, and that the named editors should therefore be subjected to sanction is wrong. First, no diffs support the claim. Second, suppression of comment on the basis that it is disruptive advocacy is disingenuous. It is really an example of killing the messenger. Third, I don't have to take any advice offered, even were it offered. Fourth, the only disruption that could result from my taking bad advice (were it offered) is that I would become sanctioned. On that basis, bring action against Stifle for his advice, and AGK for his poor advocacy, which led to very clear harm. ArbCom has demonstrated again and again that they will sanction me under virtually any possible pretext, so claiming some concern for my welfare is, well, worth a rueful smile. Brews ohare (talk) 17:04, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
• Carcharoth has taken this venue as an opportunity to make various suggestions as to how Brews_ohare could attempt to “redeem” himself, penance for his sins that “might” be looked upon with favor, but no guarantees. This advice belongs on my Talk page, not here. Suggesting that there is a lot of WP that is open to me lying outside of my areas of expertise hardly mitigates castration, if that is what is intended. As for redemption: ArbCom has been extremely selective in evaluating my activities, ignoring myriads of helpful contributions I have made to instead value complaints in a few instances by a few editors with a history of altercation, and blow them up into a huge topic ban. ArbCom's one-sided view of matters and overreaction to complaints appears to be an idée fixe, unlikely to change. Brews ohare (talk) 15:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

• This motion is unfortunately partly my fault, since I made the snarky comment[119] (a countersnark to Count Iblis's snarky comment[120]) that triggered the exchange leading to GWH's request. Count Iblis et al had been pretty well behaved in the amendment discussion earlier, as far as I noticed (I admittedly wasn't paying close attention) so I want to clarify that my suggestion for the involved parties to stay away from each other wasn't especially directed at the "advocates". Rather, I commented because in these past couple of actions, Brews's opponents, while technically "right", seemed way too eager to rush to AE when Brews messed up, rather than (say) first leaving Brews a talk message asking him to undo the problematic edit. Or better yet, try to disengage from Brews completely and let other users deal with it if problems occur. When we restrict an editor, the idea is not that we actually want to ban them and pounce on every possible slip. We're instead trying to channel their editing energy away from past problem areas, in the hope of getting good editing from them in other areas.

Collapsed general suggestions about Brews not directed at immediate amendment request (self-edit)

As for Brews, I think he is capable of good editing, I hope the broad physics topic ban doesn't last a whole year, and I agree with Cool Hand Luke that Brews's physics editing problems have mostly been in some fairly narrow areas in physics and that most of his other physics editing has been fine and that the restriction can be narrowed to allow more of that. One thing Brews should really do is stop testing boundaries. That's a typical behavior of stubborn topic-banned editors and it never ever works. (Captain Occam is up to the same thing in another thread). Mostly though I wish that Brews would get some better friends. In the original Speed of Light arbitration, Brews refused to enter a mentorship with another editor, but maybe he could reconsider that. Mattisse (an editor who I liked) was in an arbcom-approved mentorship and I think it helped, even though it didn't work out in the end and she got banned. I would not extrapolate from her final outcome to Brews's, since she did far crazier things than Brews has ever done, so in Brews's case we can still hope to get just the positive parts of the setup. One aspect of Mattisse's mentorship was that when anyone thought she broke a restriction, they were advised to complain to her mentor instead of AE, and the mentor could then often get things straightened out. This was a benefit to her since it protected her from her enemies pouncing on things as people are now pouncing on Brews. I think Brews would be better off with a deal like that, than with the situation we have now. Even without an official mentorship, it would be great if Brews could seek and listen to informal advice from more sensible editors than the ones formerly under the advocacy restriction.

Regarding the current motion, given my role in it I can't bring myself to suggest anything other than that Arbcom let the thing slide this time, and just advise the targets to put a sock in it in rather strong terms. I supported the original restriction[121][122] and I think it was the right thing at the time and that it helped, and that the rationale I gave back then still seems ok to me in retrospect. Arbcom should indeed be open to reinstating it if it again becomes necessary. But as before, a restriction like that is a fairly drastic step, to be reserved for really persistent disruption or bad influence. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 04:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Hell in a bucket--there are areas where Brews is a real expert, and we want his contributions in those areas. There are other areas where he only thinks he is an expert, and that has caused a lot of trouble. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 06:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Count Iblis

There never has been much of an advocacy for Brews from my side. I did utter my strong disagreements with the topic ban when it was imposed in late 2009. But in later discussions I tried to propose pragmatic solutions. It isn't much different now. JohnBlackburne is perhaps right when he says that I perhaps shouldn't have started that AN/I thread. A constructive discussion with Jehochman, Brews and me followed here, it would have been better had that discussion started straightaway, of course.

Note that this time, I haven't even said that I disagree with the topic ban. Sure, I do disagree, but before I wrote this sentence right now, I hadn't even said it here on Wikipedia explicitely. While you can read my long discussions with Brews on my talk page and guess this, a completely neutral Wikipedian who hadn't heard of Count Iblis before, couldn't have concluded this. I do after all suggest that Brews make the contributions he likes to make here, on Wikiversity or Wikibooks instead. I already explained my arguments in detail on my talk page, so there is no need to explain everything here. It suffices to say that Brews, Likebox and me share the same view about educational articles that the wider Wikipedia community does not agree with. Count Iblis (talk) 15:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Very long reply to Georgewilliamherbert which is necessary in order to take away suggestions of past misconduct on my part.

Georgewilliamherbert: "The message is, Arbcom and the community do have the right to act if disruptive behavior persists"

I agree 100%

Georgewilliamherbert: "that Arbcom and the community previously found this behavior by the then-four of you to be sufficiently disruptive to intervene"

Wrong, certainly as far as my behavior goes. It is true that a motion was passed, but without any valid grounds as far I was concerned. The motion could not be contested and I chose not to object to it, as I explained in detail on my talk page. The fact that you now intent to use the past motion as an argument without presenting any facts, shows that behaving in a reasonable way in that case (i.e. agreeing to disagree and moving on), may be problematic in the future as it can be seen as admitting guilt. Some Admin may dig up old dirt and use it against you in an unreasonable way. I find this very problematic.

Georgewilliamherbert: "and that you and Count Iblis were at it again."

This partially builds on the previous mistaken assumption and is thus wrong. What I do find troubling, though, is that you seem to see in something that I wrote on that Notification page that is problematic. But I don't have a clue what that could be. I.m.o., if someone makes a statement that is seen to be problematic, one should notify the editor on his/her talk page and ask for clarification and then settle the matter there. Adminstrative intervention should follow if it is clear that there is disruption and that this is going to continue without intervention.

I think I have made it clear already 3 or 4 times what my opinion of Brews is right now. Note that Jehochman supported my advice to Brews to make his physics contributions to Wikibooks and Wikiversity. So, I'm not sure how I'm advocating for Brews in a problematic way, let alone in a disruptive way.

If I do my best to WP:AGF and think hard at what is going on here, I can only come to this conclusion. You as an experienced Wikipedian and an Admin know that mere advocacy shouldn't get you in trouble. You may have seen cases of problematic advocacy and even in these cases people typically are not sanctioned (I've seen quite a few of such cases). Then you see that there was a motion passed against us, so you draw the conclusion that we must have done something enormously outrageous for this to have happened. So, in your eyes, we are extremely dangerous persons. The slightest hint of advocacy on our part must thus be fought with all possible means.

Then, how can we prevent this from happening? Clearly, not by staying silent. While we should agree to not do anything that others object to on rational grounds, what we should not do is let mistaken perceptions of past bad behavior pass unchallenged. This is a public Wiki-board read by many people, so your suggestions of misconduct on my part may be picked up by others, leading to further trouble in the future. Therefore, this very long reply belongs here. Count Iblis (talk) 21:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

I would again ask for proof in the forms of diffs that Iblis or myself have engaged in disruptive or otherwise broke policy. I've asked several times but no one seems willing or able to do so. I see this motion as a retailatory response for disagreeing appropriately and not being willing to be lead around blindly. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 15:10, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

@67.119.3.248, my question to you is what are we advocating? I've not been involved in Brews dispute until somone, I believe Sandstein had made a overstep on the Arbcom enforcement and he asked for clarification. After that it degenerated into accusations of bad advocacy. No one is telling Brews to do anything. My only concern was overstepping admin authority and the fact that while there is a vocal group of people that defend some of the things that happen for Brews there is a whole different group that howls for his head. I'm getting sick of it frankly on both sides. I was happy to see that some of those editors did come here and say this was a poorly thought motion. I do agree in principal that there should be someone who can govern these disputes that will be able to fairly look at both sides without making a full trial of it every time we go through stuff like this. Sometimes I think that wikipedia scorns experts, it's a love hate relationship though. We need experts to help with their expertise but the encyclopedia is also open to everyone so it doesn't always mix, inferiority complexes maybe? I'm not directing that at anyone just a general observation of possible issues here.

Reply to Georgewilliamherbert What message are you trying to send? To not disagree or that you will silence people? I take offense to your threats of a block and refusal to back up any of your claims that this was nec. Have you considered that while you may have been trying to help things there was no need to threaten or posture? All this does is make things worse, Iblis has been civil during this entire thing, I have not but I have made a hard effort to moderate my tone to focus on the issues I perceive, but comments like "there's no reason not to haul out the big gun again and point it" is not helpful in the slightest because it's clearly meant and insinuated as a means of intimidation imho. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 07:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

General Comment, It's not entirely helpful to say that the first was entirely not needed but it didn't go the entire way that was needed to fully resolve the problem. For my part I made several references that were not always civil. However the opposite side has a sense of right and sense of duty that does not help tone down the fire. I'm sorry but I really think is a problem here is the perception that everything we do and have done have always been wrong however I'm more concerned with this incident and show whether or not wrongs perceived or not can be brought to the light of day within this conversation and incidents scope. The finger pointing back and forth is really getting old and is entirely not working for either side. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 21:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Headbomb

I don't see why this is needed. The advocacy ban was needed a few months ago because of the constant appeal, re-appeal, wikilawyering, etc... Tombe hasn't said thing about a thing here, Likebox is indef banned, Ohare kept to the enforcement request and participate in the "discuss the motion" after the closure as asked some people some clarification (which is again fine and normal), and I don't see what Iblis did that kept pouring oil on the fire. Threads like this however, does pour oil on the fire. There was an AE, and some people were unhappy with the result, and discussed and protested, as is usual. IMO, there's no sign that the advocacy problem is resurfacing, so there is no need to "nip it in the bud" or whatever. In other words, what JohnBlackburne said. Close this thread and let's be done with it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:55, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Dr.K.

I am disappointed with GWH whom I consider a thoughtful and capable admin. But in this case HiaB and Count Iblis have done nothing to merit such a drastic proposal, in fact they have been constructive in their comments and overall approach. The worst mistake in bringing this proposal here however is the case of David Tombe. As Headbomb and John Blackburne already mentioned, David Tombe has done absolutely nothing to merit this. He has fastidiously stayed away from Brews as if Brews did not exist. David Tombe complied with the advocacy sanctions and continued complying even after they were lifted. He has conformed in every possible way to these sanctions and then some. He actually fell silent. By going after him what message do we send to those who reform? That we'll get them anyway? Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 03:47, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment by David Tombe

I would agree with what Count Iblis says above. There was no behaviour in the first place that remotely warranted the original advocacy ban. It seemed rather like an attempt to give a free run to those who wanted to advocate adversely against Brews ohare by silencing those who had been speaking out in his defence. On my own part, I was very little involved in the period leading up to the original advocacy motion back in March 2010, and I was quite surprised that my name had even appeared on the original advocacy motion. I seem to recall that when I saw my name on the original motion back in March, that I said that I would support the motion if Brews's opponents were also named. But my perfectly reasonable compromise was completely brushed aside.

I think it's important, in order to prevent any distortion of history in the minds of readers, to remind readers that the original advocacy restriction was unprecendented and without any justification whatsoever, and in fact it was a matter of great shame for ARBCOM which I'm sure that they would all like to quickly forget about. It's time for everybody to move on from this unfortunate episode. David Tombe (talk) 10:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion

Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

Collapsing to provide a shorter response. Carcharoth (talk) 19:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the frustration Georgewilliamherbert feels, but I think a different approach is needed here. I suggest that: (1) Brews tells those named above to stop commenting on the merits or otherwise of his topic ban or anything to do with his case; (2) Those who have commented this time around actually really try and help Brews by finding other (completely unrelated) areas he is willing to work in so he can come back to ArbCom in a few months with some quiet and productive work behind him to justify modifying the topic ban (I would go so far as to say if they were genuinely concerned with helping Brews, they would have done this in the first place); (3) Georgewilliamherbert and others also try and help turn things around here. Having said that, I agree absolutely that advocacy of the "this is a terrible decision, you must fight it tooth and nail" sort is deeply unhelpful, but advice (not advocacy) of the "why not work on this article here", directed at Brews, not at ArbCom, would actually be helpful. I should also note that responses to this suggestion along the lines of "no, we won't do this and we will advocate for whoever we see fit" will end with me supporting Georgewilliamherbert's initial suggestion. Finally, I am not going to suggest any articles myself, or pre-approve any articles, as Brews is quite capable himself of selecting articles to work on that have nothing to do with physics, but I would say be wary of sciences or disciplines that have a large overlap with physics. There are plenty of sciences that have little to do with physics, but have articles that would benefit from the attention of someone with a background in science. And there are also plenty of articles that have nothing to do with science. I would also point out that Brews (or those wanting to give him advice) could voluntarily impose on him(self) the talk page restriction he suggested (for all talk page whatever the topic), and come back in several months and say "look, it worked in other topic areas, can we try using this restriction on the talk pages of physics articles as well?". Creative solutions like this are good, but they all need to be done away from the area of the current topic ban. Provide concrete evidence that such restrictions on Brews work elsewhere, and we may then consider them for Brews for physics articles. Carcharoth (talk) 11:32, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• I've collapsed the above as I don't wish to be patronising to Brews. Both the above and the comments at the noticeboard talk page were a genuine attempt to advise him on his options here. Clearly the time is not right for this, but I hope he may consider it at some point in the future. Getting back to the topic here, my view is that nothing needs doing here, though GWH filing this can be seen as more of a warning than anything else. Not intimidation, though I can understand how it can be seen that way. Administrators need to be able to warn without being accused of intimidation, though equally they should be sensitive to being seen as acting in an intimidating manner. Carcharoth (talk) 19:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
• Agree in general with Carcharoth, don't think it's necessary at this time to reimpose the advocacy restriction. SirFozzie (talk) 01:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Request to amend prior case: ChildofMidnight

Initiated by Beeblebrox (talk) at 19:36, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Case affected

ChildofMidnight arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

ChildofMidnight banned

1) ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs) is banned from Wikipedia for one year.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Beeblebrox (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• [123] (diff of notification of this thread on Username2's talk page)

Amendment 1

Due to continued sockpuppetry and repeated resetting of the one year ban, ChildofMidnight is now indefinitely banned from editing Wikipedia.

Statement by Beeblebrox

Due to multiple incidents of sockpuppetry it seems clear that merely re-setting CoM's ban each time is not an effective remedy. I therefore suggest that the ban be extended to an indefinite full site ban. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply to NW: I suppose it could, but I thought it best if there was no disconnect between the block and the ban. Otherwise when the current year of banning was over it might be expected that the block would simply be lifted. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

• Replies to several of the below remarks: There was quite a stack of behavioral evidence presented at the SPI case. No, there is not a "smoking gun" a single piece of evidence that trumps any argument to the contrary, but I firmly believe the various pieces of evidence taken as a whole add up to another CoM sock. I don't appreciate the accusations of vindictiveness or doing something just because I don't like somebody, and I'll thank you to either quantify such statements with evidence of your own or stop making them. In actuality I kind of liked CoM and I thought it was a shame he ended up banned, but he brought it upon himself because he didn't know when to quit. And since he apparently still hasn't figured out when to quit I don't see any logic in assuming resetting the ban timer yet again will suffice to get the message across. Sometimes even a user with as many great content contributions as CoM simply can't function within the minimum standards of civility required by this project and we have no choice but show them the door. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: He was in fact given a chance to comment at the SPI, he was unblocked for part of the period that it was opened and made numerous edits to articles but ignored the SPI until after I blocked him as a sock. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

"accusations of vindictiveness" In my case, I'd see the actions here as far less suspicious if it hadn't been for the CU. Why call for a CU if you're going to block anyway, no matter what the CU reports? If the DUCK evidence was overwhelming, there's no need for a CU (AIUI (admittedly poorly), CU is discouraged in such cases on privacy grounds). If the CU will have no influence on the outcome, then again, why have a CU? This looks too much like a CU that wasn't for investigative purposes, but for extra justification to a pre-judged decision. That's not a behaviour that I believe to be how we're supposed to work. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:15, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought I'd clarified this sufficiently, but I guess not. I requested the CU (not Beeblebrox) on the basis of enough evidence to persuade a respected checkuser to do it. For various reasons the checkuser took fully five days to conclude, in which time I collated rather more evidence - ultimately enough that I wouldn't have asked for CU in the first place if I'd had it all originally. Rd232 ^talk 09:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• I opened this request today because the situation came to a head today, but this will likely be my last opportunity to comment on the matter until at least next Tuesday. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

OK everyone, I am literally on my way out the door for the next four days, but if you would all have a look at my last posting to FSN talk page [124] you will find he has accidently given us the smoking gun we were looking for. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, looks like there has been an awful lot of discussion while I was gone, and CoM's "ban timer" has been reset once again, but no decision on my proposal. I'd like to clarify that I am seeking a modification because the one-year ban is not being respected and is therefore an ineffective remedy. An indefinite ban does not really solve that problem, but it would streamline things when these socks are detected in that they are generally disruptive users anyway so we wouldn't need to worry so much about whether they really are CoM or not as there would not be a clock to reset every time. In short, it would enable us to take a WP:RBI approach, reducing the drama level. Of course if the arbs are unconvinced despite the cumulative merit of all the various pieces of evidence then we are back to square one. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

@Risker's latest remarks: It was never my intention for this to be about determining if FSN was really CoM or not. As far as I am concerned that was determined before I ever came here. My intent was actually to reduce the level of drama around this by simply banning CoM outright so that it didn't really matter next time he socked as the ban timer would no longer be in play. Clearly, this conversation has not gone as I had intended but I must say I am somewhat surprised at the attitude coming from the arbs, which basically seems to be that we ignore the behavioral evidence but don't overturn the block of FSN or the reset of the ban on CoM, and basically ignore the idea of extending the ban to indefinite, which would be a fairly normal and appropriate response to socking by a banned user. This ambiguity leaves everyone involved wondering what is supposed to happen now. If CoM was socking again, which I am obviously convinced of, he should at the very least be blocked indefinitely, as we would do to any other serial sockpuppeteer. If he wasn't, which seems unlikely, then the ban timer needs to be set back to where it was before this latest incident, and I suppose my block of FSN needs to be reconsidered as well. I never intended this to be a rerun of the SPI case, but it has turned into that instead of a discussion amending CoM's ban. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• I know you guys have a lot on your plate, but would it be possible to get some sort of unambiguous statement that represents an actual decision by the committee? A point that seems to have been missed by some is that I did in fact block FSN for being a sockpuppet of CoM. That is the logged reason the account is currently blocked. Yes, they were generally a disruptive user otherwise (just like CoM) and were particularly nasty and resorted to personal attacks when confronted or blocked (just like CoM) but I explicitly blocked them for being a sock. Right now another user is on FSNs talk page basically preparing to edit-by-proxy on FSN's behalf. If he is a ban evading sockpuppet, that needs to be stopped. If he isn't, then my block was invalid. Since no admin has seen fit to accept any of his unblock requests it seems the burden is on ArbCom to make that determination, whether you want to or not. Sorry guys, as I said this was never what I intended to this conversation to be about, but it is now and it appears the onus is on you to resolve it. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by NuclearWarfare

Could this not be accomplished just as easily with an indef block? NW (Talk) 19:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion

Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Statement by Andy Dingley

This appears to have arisen in response to sock allegations for Freakshownerd (talk · contribs), as described at SPI/ChildofMidnight

Behavioural similarities were sufficient to justify use of CU, which didn't report any visible connection between the two accounts. Despite this, the instigating admin Beeblebrox has proceeded to indef block the alleged sock and is now seeking an indef ban extension for CoM. At least two editors have expressed concern over this action, in the absence of strong evidence to support the sock allegation. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:18, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

[The following was intended for the SPI page, but I note an extremely rapid close and archiving of that page]

By "FSN has given up challenging", don't you mean "FSN has now been silenced by an indef block"?

It's all too easy to use phrases like "kangaroo court", but how about some evidence to back up these actions? As pointed out just above, WP:AGF still applies, particularly if contrary evidence isn't forthcoming. This is how we're supposed to work. Neither of these accounts are even vandals - "blocks are protective, not punitive", etc., etc. If either of these editors is secretly conspiring to undermine the foundations of the wikistate, then I'm sure their future actions will make that evident and we can get round to tarring and feathering them tomorrow, when it's obvious. In the meantime, a coincidental interest in obscure chocolate is no evidence for an indef ban! Andy Dingley (talk) 23:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

@Heimstern"FSN most likely is a sock of CoM" I agree. But "most likely is" just isn't good enough when we're throwing around indef bans - particularly an indef ban of someone who, if we're wrong, wasn't even involved! Letting FSN run for longer isn't harmful - they're not one of our real annoyances of vandals and trolls. If they really are block-worthy / ban-worthy / CoM socking, then this will surely become very clear with time and we can act on them then, when it's unambiguous. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Rd232

The behavioural evidence at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/ChildofMidnight/Archive#Evidence_submitted_by_Rd232 proves beyond reasonable doubt that user:Freakshownerd is (a) a sock and (b) specifically, another sock of User:ChildofMidnight. Beyond that, a number of users commented on how familiar FSN's responses to a recent block were (reminiscent of CoM). FSN barely denied the socking allegation and made no serious attempt to critique the evidence, and appears to have given up. It appears likely that having had two socks discovered, CoM saw little mileage in challenging this instance, and is instead heading for further socking. Rd232 ^talk 23:48, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: FSN has user talk access as well as email possibilities to challenge the evidence. So there is no question of him being "silenced". In addition, if you're going to pursue the same "ignore and downplay the evidence" tactic as FSN, you're just going to make me wonder who the hell you are (I don't know you from Adam, or why you'd defend FSN when he won't do so himself). Rd232 ^talk 23:48, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're accusing me of being a sock, please come out and say so. You might note that I've also been critical of how RAN has been treated lately, so I'm clearly a sock! I very much do not appreciate your insinuation that anyone who does not support your actions is a useful idiot and dupe of Eastasia. 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 00:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

On the subject of RAN, it appears clear that FSN shares CoM's interest in drama. As the most exciting show on channel-wiki this season, RAN is a magnet to anyone so inclined. In other news, WMC sometimes talks about the weather. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

If I was accusing somebody of something, they would know it. "wonder" was a precisely chosen word not implying any knowledge; and it would cover friendship or shared views as easily as socking, if I was inclined to pursue the thought, which I'm decidedly not. Rd232 ^talk 00:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

@Iridescent: well I'm disappointed you would say that. Would you address point 5 of my evidence, which I think is the single most damning point? (And incidentally, it is silly to say the negative CU was grounds for the block; it was held to be overridden by the strength of the behavioural evidence.) Rd232 ^talk 23:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

You don't find an 8-day old account jumping to RAN's defence on his user talk page and at ANI, with no apparent reason [not having previously visited either], at all strange - especially given the type of CoM-reminiscent remarks? You don't find it too coincidental that after CoM's sock creates a Pasco County nature reserve, FSN does so some time later? There are 3000+ counties in the US - what are the odds not only on creating a nature reserve article (let's say that's high, for a prolific user, though I dare say many prolific users haven't) but on the exact same county? At 3000:1 I find it highly unlikely that this is co-incidence. Rd232 ^talk 00:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I find it hugely suspicious, but suspicion alone doesn't justify an indef ban. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Any one of the points listed in my SPI evidence looks suspicious. Added up, they are conclusive. You cannot treat each one in isolation as "not conclusive"; the evidence is additive and taken as a whole, conclusive. Rd232 ^talk 01:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

And we've barely even mentioned the "voice" evidence (cf CoM RFCU). Tarc indicated he might be willing to do a sort of linguistic comparison if necessary; I guess it's necessary. (Though for those most familiar with CoM, it doesn't seem to be.) Rd232 ^talk 01:05, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

@Iridescent: I find it odd that you mention the number of wikistalk overlapping pages when the SPI evidence does not. The SPI evidence is qualitative, not quantitative. Rd232 ^talk 09:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

@Iridescent:

• fine, then forget the wikistalk part of point 5; it was a lazy way of showing that CoM was aware of RAN's existence, and had some interest overlaps. I should have just relied on CoM's well-known tendency to stick his nose in absolutely everywhere at ANI without obvious need to do so, with the same chorus of "abusive admins". FSN did just that within a few days of account creation, jumping in unprompted to support RAN [125] and Giacomo [126] 2 days later, neither of whom the account had any prior connection with I can see. And the similarity of tone and content (check the diffs) speaks for itself, for those familiar with CoM.
• on the milagros thing - "pretty clearly just ran a search and created links" - hardly, not least since he added a link to just one article. Looking at the contribs, FSN had no obvious reason to be searching "milagros" at the time, and it's hardly a typical topic for him. I find it far more likely that he went to Todos (which is a typical topic, just a very obscure page), saw something that needed wikilinking, [127] searched for the appropriate wikilink, and found the need for a hatnote. What particularly clinches this sequence over yours (I hadn't wanted to point out this detail, it's more help for future socking!) is that Todos Santos had its first edit since January (when it was last edited by CoM) on 13 June (3 days before the FSN edit), when an anon removed the wikilink to milagros [128]. In consequence, the page would have appeared on CoM's watchlist as a recently edited page, which I have no doubt CoM was continuing to log in to check. Rd232 ^talk 15:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
• any particular reason you ignored the Pasco County evidence? Rd232 ^talk 15:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

@Iridescent: I'm increasingly astounded at this attitude coming from a fellow admin. Not only have you ignored my expansion on the Todos Santos Chocolates point, but you misread the Pasco County evidence completely. I made no claim that the users were in Pasco County (I said "connection to / interest in", which I guess was a clumsy way of putting it) rather I pointed out that the previous sock (Electroshoxcure) create a Pasco County nature reserve as one of his 7 article creations, and the very first nature reserve article FSN creates is in Pasco County. This is roughly a 3000:1 coincidence even if you assume that all users create nature reserve articles! (Which is clearly untrue, but the probability attached to that is much harder to say anything about.) Basically, Electroshoxcure started the job of expanding coverage of Pasco County nature reserve articles and some weeks later FSN continued it. The likelihood of the Pasco connection being mere coincidence ("I'm gonna create a nature reserve article, don't care where, how about ... there") is further decreased by the creation of several local school article redirects and a geo stub. (Also probability of coincidence can be contextualised by noting that no Pasco nature reserve articles were created between 2006 and 2010, when Electroshoxcure and FSN, plus what is now declared to be a friend of FSN's, contribute.) Rd232 ^talk 16:12, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

re CoM socking: unless I'm way off base, CoM has given up on the idea of rescuing the FSN account, and is enjoying some disruptive socking. [ Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of ChildofMidnight. I find this particularly nice (though downplaying contributions here from Bigtimepeace seems a mite unfair). Rd232 ^talk 01:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

@Heimstern: It seems likely to me that FSN has already socked disruptively. User:Overturn_and_censure_Tarc (29 July) and User:Overturn_deletion_to_censure_Tarc! (29 Aug) are both SPAs for challenging an FSN DRV and attacking Tarc using (in the first instance) language directed by Tarc at FSN at that DRV. [129] FSN listed the same page at DRV twice - with the SPA appearing soon after in each case. Rd232 ^talk 12:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

@Risker: unless someone wants to argue that these abusive socks mentioned just above (plus this one who notably did this) are not in fact FSN (one preceding any blocking of FSN), then there is clear evidence that FSN was heading down a ban path anyway. Rd232 ^talk 17:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

@Coren: "Whether or not that account was under the control of — or associated with — ChildofMidnight is not especially relevant, so I don't think it is useful or necessary to attempt to tie them explicitly at this point." - ?? I think at this point Arbcom needs to make up its mind. Either it collectively thinks (a) FSN=CoM, and such socking, including previous socking and disruptive socking additional to FSN, is sufficient to extend CoM ban to indefinite to minimise cost of dealing with future CoM socking (b) FSN=CoM, but not worth extending the ban other than resetting the clock, which already done (c) FSN is in fact not CoM (or not conclusively so), and some kind of action relating to that conclusion be taken (be it requesting a re-opening of the SPI, taking it to WP:AN, or something else). If Arbcom basically thinks option c is the case but does nothing at all, that is not just. Rd232 ^talk 18:57, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Iridescent

This absolutely reeks of an "I don't like you" block, and this request to extend CoM's ban on this weak foundation just looks like petty vindictiveness. I have looked over all the evidence here, and I see no smoking gun at all. Yes, they edited in similar areas, but "food" and "US politics" are hardly obscure fields, and the Wikistalk tool is generally virtually meaningless when one of the editors has a high edit count, as CoM did (I believe I have 20,000 pages in common with J.delanoy). I see no pattern of problematic edits from the Freakshownerd account—those blocks were all dubious and quickly overturned. While it may be CoM sneaking under the wire, he's not causing any problems if it is, and there's at least a reasonable chance that this is a legitimate new user being hounded off on "edits in a similar way" grounds. Filing a request for checkuser and using the fact that it came back negative as grounds for a block, which certainly appears to be what's happened here, is ABF in the extreme. – iridescent 23:38, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

@Rd232: I really don't see anything there to link CoM and FSN. I've had numerous issues with User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) myself in the past (albeit none recently) and am certainly not going to jump to his defense; however, from my previous interactions with him, I know that he does have something of a "fan club" of talkpage watchers (126 of them), and don't find it at all unusual that two different users will jump in to argue his case. I think there's good evidence that FSN isn't a new user, but very little to suggest either that he's COM or that he's anything other than a former user making a clean start or an IP creating an account for the first time. Yes, he may be COM, but it's equally possible that he's not. As I've previously stated, MZMcBride's tool is not a useful tool for sockpuppet investigations (8 pages in common between Freakshownerd and ChildofMidnight; 31 pages in common between Freakshownerd and myself; 647 pages in common between you and me). If he is COM, then leave him until he's either actually caused a problem, or has done something to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they're the same person. If he isn't, then you've just hounded off a legitimate user, and are now lobbying to extend COM's block for something he didn't do.

@Rd232: re "I find it odd that you mention the number of wikistalk overlapping pages when the SPI evidence does not"—the first sentence of point 5 in your evidence—which is supposed to be the clincher, according to your statement above—is "CoM has a high wikistalk overlap (showing strong onwiki relationship) with User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )". The overlap between them is 102 articles, which for two users with high edit counts is utterly unconvincing. Comparing CoM with two random users having a similar number of total edits to Richard's (according to WP:WBE), shows CoM as having about the same overlap with Magioladitis and three times as much overlap with Can't sleep, clown will eat me. To put that in perspective, my overlap with CoM is 359 pages.

Regarding "There is a very notable wikistalk overlap between Freakshownerd and CoM at a very hard to reach page, outside the main political-interest arena they share: Todos Santos Chocolates was created by CoM", if you look at FSN's editing history for that day, shortly before his sole edit to that page, adding a link to Milagro (votive), he'd made this edit, so had pretty clearly just ran a search and created links. Honestly, this is all utterly unconvincing; you've decided that the accounts are linked, and are grabbing at any piece of 'evidence', however tenuous, to back it up. It's certainly possible that these accounts are socks, but if this is all you have, there's not even a balance of probabilities, let alone beyond reasonable doubt. – iridescent 12:48, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

@Rd232: Re "any particular reason you ignored the Pasco County evidence?"—yes, because it's ridiculous. Not only is St Petersburg a major metropolitan area (and home, incidentally, to two of our most prolific long-term sockmasters, neither of which is CoM), the idea that "created articles on a place" indicates a connection with the place is ludicrous. In the last couple of months, I've created eight articles on rural Buckinghamshire, but I don't live anywhere near the place, while I've a grand total of zero articles about either the place I do live or the place I'm originally from. "Both accounts worked on Florida-related articles" is right up there with "speaks German in a similar way". – iridescent 15:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tarc

Well, coming back from a weekend bender, I find it a bit bewildering to see this degree of skepticism over the FSN-CoM connections. Read the comment left at User talk:ChildofMidnight#Sockpuppetry case by him; one giant thumbing of the nose at all of us, masquerading as golly-gee-whiz "It's not really me!" innocence. Seriously.

Don't know if I have the time to tonight, but many, many diffs can easily be dug the archives for this page, Arb enforcement, and AN/I of CoM savaging every admin who dares to lift a finger to sanction or block him, or voice support of other admins doing same. Many bad editors do this of course, but there are peculiarities in the tone and the delivery of these tirades, how the circle ever-widens to include more and more people that are "against him". Anyone with a even a passing familiarity with CoM's brand of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT-flavored aggression, especially when dealing with unblock requests, should be painfully obvious in FSN's talk page when he's dealing with same. Tarc (talk) 21:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Heimstern

I'm afraid I must agree with Tarc. It's not really the common editing areas that constitute a smoking gun here, though they are useful as circumstantial evidence to abet the case. It's the discussion comments taking admins to task that really suggest that this is none other than ChildofMidnight. These diffs fit his style like hand in glove. His response on CoM's talk after the accusation was made, in which he addresses (and congratulates!) ChildofMidnight, an editor who was banned before the FSN account was created, rather than addressing the evidence or his accusers, isn't really the sort of behaviour I'd expect from an innocent party, either. Thus, contra Risker and Shell, I must conclude that FSN most likely is a sock of CoM. And do note that I'm not the type to go out trying to get CoM elimated: after his confirmed socking incident in May, I chose not to reset his block (someone else did) and tried to convince him not to sock again. I'm afraid my attempt failed. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 23:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• I must echo Bigtimepeace here and ask why the general lack of useful responses on the part of the arbs. The evidence he has presented is compelling, and yet we still have a rather incomprehensible skepticism on the part of some arbs and even less comprehensible apathy from others. The implication seems to be "so it looks like probably he socked. Meh. Let's not worry about it." Heimstern Läufer (talk) 14:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Vaguely Involved, but Mostly Just Entertained, PhGustaf

We're not talking about capital punishment here; the criterion is not "beyond a reasonable doubt" but "by a preponderance of the evidence", and I think Judge Wapner would find against CoM, in whatever guise, in a New York minute. All the same, I see no difference in utility between an updated 1-year block and an indef. PhGustaf (talk) 00:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement from Bigtimepeace

I'm not very active right now but Tarc directed me to this situation, I guess because I know as much as anyone about ChildofMidnight's "style" through frequent interaction and even more so through looking at many, many diffs when preparing his user conduct RfC. Given some of the evidence already presented and looking at a few things myself, I would bet a significant amount of money that Freakshownerd is ChildofMidnight. Of course I could be wrong, but I would be pretty astonished if these were different people. The IP information is different--which could have multiple explanations--but all of the "duck" type evidence looks and sounds like C of M. Let me just mention two specific things in some detail.

• One example of language similarity, already mentioned above. This is really a textbook ChildofMidnight type statement, and no other editor comes to mind who writes quite like this. First, it uses the "shame on so and so" phrasing (as in [130] and [131]) which was a common tactic of C of M. Also the reference to "abuse" was incredibly common for C of M and not, I think, so much for the rest of us (e.g. [132] and [133], but there are dozens of similar examples). The comment demonstrates an affinity for the uncommon term "grotesque," which seems to be seldom used the way C of M uses it, i.e describing the behavior of other editors as "grotesque" (see here--two instances, and it also includes the regularly used C of M term "outrageous"--plus [134] [135] [136]). C of M had a very unique "voice" when he was angry and the traits included listing out names of "offenders" and using a canned set of terms to indicate outrage and injustice (abuse, vile, outrageous, grotesque, harassment, sick, bullying, etc.). I'm quite certain that if I had read the linked comment from Freakshownerd cold without having any idea who wrote it and with the user info removed, I would have quickly said, "that's ChildofMidnight." I know this is impressionistic "evidence," but I am pretty familiar with how this editor writes, and I just don't have the time or inclination to do a full blown linguistic analysis.

• One other point I stumbled across because I remembered an earlier reference to it. Freakshownerd made a small edit to Jonnycake, an article which is neither particularly heavily edited nor viewed. A lot of work was done on this article by User:Drmies, a Wiki friend of C of M's (I should point out that I've never seen anything problematic from Drmies, seems to be an excellent editor). Drmies actually told C of M about this work, saying "Come on over for some Jonnycakes tomorrow. With Tedder's help I'm trying to turn it into a GA." This was one of the few messages posted on C of M's talk page after the ArbCom case concluded to which he responded, so he was one of the few Wikipedians (and possibly one of the few humans) who had Johnnycakes on the mind at some point in the last few months. It's telling, to me at least, that one of C of M's closest Wiki friends would improve an obscure food article, tell C of M about it while the latter was banned, and that a few months later a fairly new account who sounds and edits like C of M would show up to edit there.

Along with the other common interests between the two accounts (and, yes, a strong interest in quirky food topics and hot button American political issues, from the perspective of a conservative, is not a common profile among prolific content contributors), the overall stylistic similarity points strongly to ChildofMidnight and no one else I can think of (this is clearly a returning editor, I assume we can all agree on that). It's surprising to me that Shell could suggest that it's "rather unlikely that this user is CoM." At the very least, it's pretty likely—there are just too many similarities here.

That said I have no brilliant suggestions about what to do, assuming I'm correct. While I found C of M's editing pattern atrocious, I argued pretty strongly against blocking him for a year, preferring a lesser remedy. In part this was because I thought it was worth trying but also because I thought there was a good chance C of M would sock and would be harder to keep track of once he did. That's happened at least once and quite likely twice now. Banning indefinitely and/or resetting the block again won't do much to change that. Assuming Freakshownerd is C of M, he's willing to have a lot of us waste time by failing to 'fess up, so I don't think the future looks very encouraging. Maybe we should just leave things as they are unless the committee or a discussion on a noticeboard determines that Freakshownerd should not have been blocked as a sock. I think the block was warranted, though probably the SPI case should have stayed open longer. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

A couple of other things which to me almost add up to "case closed." First, Freakshownerd shows the same tendency to run over to Jimbo that ChildofMidnight did (I could find evidence of this tendency by C of M, but he did it over and over again which is I think is well known). Freakshownerd also recently engaged in heated argument on Jimbo's page (also like C of M). As you can see from FSN's 18:55 August 9th comment there the issue that was brought up was climate change, not really related to the topic, when FSN says "Has Arbcom acted yet to rein in the POV pushing fanatics of the Climate Cabal, who have clear COIs and hold Wikipedia's NPOV policy in disdain and want only their personal views represented?" That is again textbook C of M speak for his problems with the climate articles and with certain editors there (some context for that is here from the Arb case, but I'm sure that phrasing sounds familiar to everyone on the committee).

And one other specific point I noticed, again after a very cursory inspection of some edits. ChildofMidnight would sometimes create what I could only describe as "oddly general" or maybe "vaguely unencyclopedic" articles—the kind of thing that both seemed like a topic but not exactly, and which could not be expanded much. Examples would include Immediacy (philosophy), Religious values, and User:ChildofMidnight/vegetarian diet (the last was redirected to vegetarianism apparently). Upon registering FSN promptly created similar articles (now redirects) with Common language and Right (ethics). They also edited the articles Conscience, Moral compass, and Ethics. If you look at C of M's last 50 edits you'll notice a string of edits (actually the last article edits excepting one to Häagen-Dazs) to the Morality article. So C of M finished with some edits about morality, and within a day or two of creating an account FSN is editing the article on conscience and creating one on "right" in the ethical sense. To say that this is mere coincidence beggars belief.

Overall this passes the duck test, if we still use the duck test. C of M and Freakshownerd share all of the following attributes: pretty heavy editing; interest in contemporary political controversies in the U.S. from a conservative perspective (this Barack Obama talk page diff is also highly reminiscent of C of M); interest in more obscure food-related topics; a tendency to make general edits related to morality or ethics; a tendency to create what could be described as "very general" articles; a tendency to create a lot of articles period; an interest in nature preserves in one particular part of Florida (iridescent is completely wrong about this point in my view—it's a significant piece of data taken along with everything else); edit made on Todos Santos Chocolates; intense anger over the global warming articles; a tendency to "appeal to Jimbo" and to argue at length with others on Jimbo's talk page (really, most people don't do that); a tendency to get angry with people who disagree with them and not listen to what they have to say very well (see User_talk:Freakshownerd#Civility_reminder for an FSN example); a tendency to lash out in a personal fashion when they do get angry and, more importantly, a tendency to use certain words and phrasings that are quite unique when they do so. Add to that that "Jonnycakes" bit mentioned above, and the simple fact that the FSN account was created two weeks after C of M's previous sock was blocked and I think we can be about 98% sure what is going on here.

And it does matter whether this is a C of M sock or not, because given the Checkuser data he's either moved or is spoofing an IP or something (or whatever the hell it's called). I'm open to contrary evidence to that which has already been provided, but I think further digging would only strengthen the case, because I've seen nothing to suggest that these are not the same two editors, and numerous items which indicate they are. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:47, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

In reply to Carcharoth: sorry for crossing WP:BEANS, which I certainly thought about, but I'm not sure what else you would have had me to do (and bringing up WP:BEANS in the specific way you do is actually a good example of WP:BEANS on two fronts, ironically, as you actually made direct allusions to possible behavior). The socking was pretty obvious, I think, and a good amount of evidence had already been provided, but you and several other Arbs were not really buying it, frankly because I don't think you are as familiar with C of M as the people who worked on the SPI case. I considered e-mailing some of what I found to the committee, but I don't think that's fair because folks should not be "convicted" behind closed doors without understanding the evidence against them, even if that does reveal "investigative methods" and the like. You said you agreed with Risker when she found "the circumstantial evidence borderline at best," but when more was provided it was suddenly too much. Hard to know what you were looking for, and since the committee seemed on the verge of calling to undo the block of what seemed to me to be an obviously abusive sockpuppet I laid out a more detailed case. Had the Arb comments roughly followed Rlevse's initial response I would not mentioned any specific details.

As to your suggestions for how to proceed, they don't really make sense to me, though it may just be the wording. You say it's better "to wait for more evidence and to act on sanctionable conduct by the account independent of socking accusations." Well, Freakshownerd is blocked indefinitely, are you saying they should be unblocked, and then wait and see what happens, or just that that is what should have happened? Surely you noticed that the FSN account already was behaving in a not-so-great, sanctionable manner (e.g. this blog log, not to mention a slew of personal attacks). Also you make reference to ChildofMidnight appealing an indefinite block, but that editor is not blocked indefinitely, the block was merely reset. I think we should just leave things as they are now, but maybe you don't disagree.

It seems to me it was a mistake to bring this to the committee to consider an indefinite block/ban, because what was basically dealt with suddenly became un-dealt with. Color me confused by the reluctance to say, "this is clearly a sock of C of M" and by the suggestion that we shouldn't even worry about the socking per say but just the behavior of the new account. ChildofMidnight was enormously disruptive and has already socked before. We have a pretty strong interest in sussing out any C of M socks before they spend weeks disrupting multiple parts of the project the way C of M did. To respond, "well, I don't know if it's a sock or not, but let's just wait and see if something bad happens" seems foolish to me—the disruption already occurred, the socking evidence is quite strong, and here we are wasting time talking about it. Part of why I didn't care for the ban remedy for ChildofMidnight is that I felt it would likely encourage sockpuppetry, which it indeed has, as opposed to a restriction that would make it easier to see what C of M was doing on the account we knew while severely constraining his ability to edit. We ended up with problematic socking (which no doubt will continue—ChildofMidnight cannot quit editing apparently), and now the committee seems almost blase about it. In a way I'm sorry I even bothered to weigh in here, but y'all can deal with this going forward. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by / question from Bongomatic

The arbitrators who have opined so far certainly do not indicate that there is a consensus to indef or reset the clock. However, SchuminWeb did just thatunilaterally (as far as I know) reset the clock. On what authority does an individual admin have to—contrary to CU results and consensus, and in the absence of AC conclusions—undertake such an action? ^Bongo_matic 04:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Carcharoth—thanks for pointing out the ambiguity. Hope the above will assure others don't get the wrong impression. ^Bongo_matic 02:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Fences and windows

The connection between CoM and Freakshownerd is blindingly obvious, especially after all the behavioural evidence has been laid out on a plate. I wonder at the analytical abilities of the arbitrators who aren't seeing it. Fences&Windows 00:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, please give the arbitrators who commented earlier on time to review the evidence added after they made their comments. I was convinced by the later evidence, perhaps they will be too. Carcharoth (talk) 00:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by FanOfBackyard

What if...FSO is an impostor? Someone who is playing games with the Amateur Detective Squad. It is not very difficult to mimic COM's behavior. As I see it, the more eccentric the editor, the easier it is to impersonate. Guaranteed: FSO is A) a sock or B) an impostor trolling COM's foes. Leave the FSO account blocked and end it. Worst that can happen is that COM was socking and got away with a some edits, no harm done. On the other hand, punish COM for something he might not have done...and you have a serious injustice. An expert on the whole affair is Baseball Bugs, unfortunately his knowledge of COM and impostors is sidelined by a topic ban. Oh, and the "Beans" thing, bad move. If COM was socking, he is now taking notes. Think about it, I have to go now. FanOfBackyard (talk) 02:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by LadyofShalott

I'm not sure if this is the best way to raise this, but... FSN has a question regarding these proceedings and his/her block. As I think it is probably best addressed by the Arbitrators, I said I would point people to the question: User talk:Freakshownerd#Question regarding Arbcom and block. LadyofShalott 22:19, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• Note that the ban was reset in May, when the last sock was identified. NW (Talk) 00:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Support indef. Feel free to indef COM as far as I'm concerned. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:04, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
• I am quite unimpressed that Freakshownerd (talk · contribs) has been blocked as a sock of ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs). The checkuser evidence contradicts such a finding, and I find the circumstantial evidence borderline at best, to the point that I would say if you don't have grounds to block Freakshownerd independent of the alleged sockpuppetry, then you don't have grounds to block him. I don't mind the idea of resetting CoM's block to a year from the last confirmed sock, which I believe is Electroshoxcure, but I'm not convinced Freakshownerd is a CoM sock so I cannot support a change to indefinite ban based on what is presented here. Risker (talk) 00:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• Just to return to this: Checkuser data cannot prove that two accounts are *not* operated by the same person, but can raise a level of doubt that is sometimes almost impossible to overcome, and this is one of those situations. There is no checkuser similarity between Freakshownerd and CoM, and very significant differences are present. As to the issue of "behavioural evidence", simply put I can build an equally strong case for at least four other accounts being CoM socks (they aren't), and for this account to be a sock of at least two other indefinitely blocked accounts (it isn't).

  It is time to get back to what this project is about. Editing should be done with the sole intent of creating and improving content, not to provoke other editors or to try and draw out "socks". The enormous amount of time and energy that's been devoted to trying to link Freakshownerd and CoM indicates to me that once again we are seeing far too much attention paid to "social" issues that do not have a genuine effect on the growth and improvement of the project. Consider this a wake-up call, folks; this sort of administrative behaviour in the past led to at least as much disruption to the project as did the socking it was supposed to be addressing. If an account is consistently behaving outside of the behavioural rules of this project, it should be addressed in the usual manner; if it is not, then spending days and weeks to build a "case" against it can be every bit as harmful as anything that account is doing. Risker (talk) 15:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with Risker, though I would actually like to hear from Freakshownerd (who should have been given a chance to comment at the SPI page as well). But that is not really a matter for this page. I suggest resetting the ban for CoM from the last confirmed sock, and continuing discussion elsewhere as to whether Freakshownerd is actually a sock of CoM. Carcharoth (talk) 00:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Updating here to say that Bigtimepeace's evidence is more convincing, but it should be pointed out that going into such detail allows: (a) others to imitate CoM if they wanted to do so; (b) allows CoM to avoid such behaviourisms in future. This is why going into such detail is not best practice (per WP:BEANS), but too late for that now. It is better, if there is no abuse from the suspected socking account, to wait for more evidence and to act on sanctionable conduct by the account independent of socking accusations (as Coren has also said below). Regarding the indefinite block placed, CoM may appeal that to the arbitration committee. Indeed, Freakshownerd is also welcome to appeal any block to the arbitration committee. In such cases, being honest about what has happened will help. Carcharoth (talk) 19:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Further update, in response to Bigtimepeace: I was indeed talking about what should (maybe) have happened (i.e. block for the poor behaviour without even needing to bring up a sock case - sometimes people focus too much on difficult-to-prove socking and not on pulling up accounts on other conduct issues), but what is done is done. The danger of convicting on too-thin behavioural evidence is very real. In general, people do hold different standards for what passes a behavioural (or "duck") test, and it would be better if the generalities of such criteria were standardised. It does no good for such matters to become arcane arts with only a few experienced people willing to dig deep in difficult cases, and neither does it do any good if standards drop and anyone can be accused (and convicted) of WP:DUCK-like behaviour on a whim (none of this is directed at you, Bigtimepeace, but is a more general comment). How to balance proper discussion of WP:DUCK cases with WP:BEANS, I'm not sure. It is normally done off-wiki in complex cases, but, as Bigtimepeace says, there are good reasons for transparency as well. About the CoM block, I assumed from what Bongomatic said ("SchuminWeb did just that") that it had been set to indefinite. But I should have checked, and I see I was wrong and Bongomatic's statement could be interpreted in either of two ways and I interpreted it the wrong way. I've struck what I said, but as I said, any blocked accounts are always free to appeal to ArbCom. Carcharoth (talk) 23:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
• Reviewing evidence; awaiting any potential response to the request I just made on Freakshownerd's talkpage. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I know that I need to return to this and review the new evidence; I've been focusing on the Climate change case with my arb time this week, but will carve out time to look at this shortly. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• As a procedural matter, the Committee does not normally issue indefinite bans under such circumstances. If a banned user violates their ban, the normal course of action is simply to reset their ban; there is no need to have us modify the original remedy. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 19:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
• From my review, it appears rather unlikely that this user is CoM. Waiting to see if there's a response to Brad's comments though. Shell ^babelfish 20:10, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
• I admit I'm not convinced either way. Some of the behavioral evidence is convincing (Bigtimepeace's in particular makes me pause), but some of it is a little off and not that convincing. Given that the technical side of things gives us no help, would it not be simpler to handle the Freakshownerd account on its own merit and simply not bother trying to link it to CoM? If he's socking, it will become obvious in time; either way there is no need for a specific account to be tied to him now. — Coren ^(talk) 02:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

  The Freakshownerd account has been dealt with through the normal community process. Whether or not that account was under the control of — or associated with — ChildofMidnight is not especially relevant, so I don't think it is useful or necessary to attempt to tie them explicitly at this point. — Coren ^(talk) 18:33, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Edith Sirius Lee

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

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

Appealing user

Edith Sirius Lee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Edith Sirius Lee (talk) 18:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

A collective 1RR limitation [137] [138].

Administrator imposing the sanction

Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

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

Statement by Edith Sirius Lee

The sanction statement [139] refered to Tag Team and use of Wikipedia for propaganda. From a general standpoint, I want to say that I am against Tag Team and I object to any use of Wikipedia for propaganda. For example see [140], which I wrote when I was still anonymous before I created my account. I made an informal appeal [141], but received no response at all. In the following, I present my formal appeal to that sanction.

The warning. The "warning" [142] that is mentioned in the Arb request reinforcement was about a content dispute and has been presented to me by an editor that was involved in that dispute. We had a disagreement about what are the main findings and conclusions of a meta-analysis. My understanding progressed in that discussion, for example see [143]. At the end, my edits were basically taken from the summary of results in the source and reflected my honest understanding [144] of this source. In any case, there were no mention of any thing closely related to Tag Team and collective restriction in that warning.

The edit. The specific edit for which I am sanctioned is [145]. This was a revert to material [146] [147] that I wrote alone. Except for a possible and natural overlaps in the views (on sources) of editors, it was not material advanced by a team. It did not violate the Wikipedia policy. Even if it did, there were no warning specific to whatever rule would have been violated (e.g. Tag Team). I hope that the sanction I received based on that revert will be reconsidered.

Consensus in a Rfc. Part of the argument presented to support the sanction is that I would not have accepted a concensus in a Rfc [148]. The Rfc was presented as a vote between two options. I did not realize that other editors could perhaps see this Rfc as a definitive survey. If editors sees a Rfc as a survey, policy about survey [149] should apply. I was interested in all the comments expressed by outside editors in the talk page, especially when a comment came after what could be interpreted as a vote. No definitive conclusion could be drawn from the comments. For example see [150] where Yobol is one of the two external editors. After the Arbitration Request Reinforcement started, at the request of Doc James [151] [152], Yobol made additional comments (e.g. [153]), but they came after the sanction was closed [154] and are thus irrelevant to determine whether I accepted consensus or not.

Result of the appeal by Edith Sirius Lee

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