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See also: Logged AE sanctions

Important information

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Please use this page only to:

request administrative action against editors violating a remedy (not merely a principle) or an injunction in an Arbitration Committee decision, or a contentious topic restriction imposed by an administrator,
request contentious topic restrictions against previously alerted editors who engage in misconduct in a topic area designated as a contentious topic,
request page restrictions (e.g. revert restrictions) on pages that are being disrupted in topic areas designated as contentious topics, or
appeal arbitration enforcement actions (including contentious topic restrictions) to uninvolved administrators.

For all other problems, including content disagreements or the enforcement of community-imposed sanctions, please use the other fora described in the dispute resolution process. To appeal Arbitration Committee decisions, please use the clarification and amendment noticeboard.

Only autoconfirmed users may file enforcement requests here; requests filed by IPs or accounts less than four days old or with less than 10 edits will be removed. All users are welcome to comment on requests except where doing so would violate an active restriction (such as an extended-confirmed restriction). If you make an enforcement request or comment on a request, your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it. Enforcement requests and statements in response to them may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. (Word Count Tool) Statements must be made in separate sections. Non-compliant contributions may be removed or shortened by administrators. Disruptive contributions such as personal attacks, or groundless or vexatious complaints, may result in blocks or other sanctions.

To make an enforcement request, click on the link above this box and supply all required information. Incomplete requests may be ignored. Requests reporting diffs older than one week may be declined as stale. To appeal a contentious topic restriction or other enforcement decision, please create a new section and use the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}.

Appeals and administrator modifications of contentious topics restrictions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications of contentious topic restrictions state the following:

All contentious topic restrictions (and logged warnings) may be appealed. Only the restricted editor may appeal an editor restriction. Any editor may appeal a page restriction.

The appeal process has three possible stages. An editor appealing a restriction may:

ask the administrator who first made the contentious topic restrictions (the "enforcing administrator") to reconsider their original decision;
request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN"); and
submit a request for amendment ("ARCA"). If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email.

Appeals submitted at AE or AN must be submitted using the applicable template.

A rough consensus of administrators at AE or editors at AN may specify a period of up to one year during which no appeals (other than an appeal to ARCA) may be submitted.

Changing or revoking a contentious topic restriction

An administrator may only modify or revoke a contentious topic restriction if a formal appeal is successful or if one of the following exceptions applies:

The administrator who originally imposed the contentious topic restriction (the "enforcing administrator") affirmatively consents to the change,^[a] or is no longer an administrator;^[b] or
The contentious topic restriction was imposed (or last renewed) more than a year ago and:
- the restriction was imposed by a single administrator, or
- the restriction was an indefinite block.

A formal appeal is successful only if one of the following agrees with revoking or changing the contentious topic restriction:

a clear consensus of uninvolved administrators at AE,
a clear consensus of uninvolved editors at AN,
a majority of the Arbitration Committee, acting through a motion at ARCA.

Any administrator who revokes or changes a contentious topic restriction out of process (i.e. without the above conditions being met) may, at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped.

Standard of review
On community review

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

the action was inconsistent with the contentious topics procedure or applicable policy (i.e. the action was out of process),
the action was not reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption when first imposed, or
the action is no longer reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption.

On Arbitration Committee review

Arbitrators hearing an appeal at a request for amendment ("ARCA") will generally overturn a contentious topic restriction only if:

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

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

Appeals and administrator modifications of non-contentious topics sanctions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications and appeals state:

Appeals by sanctioned editors

Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:

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

Modifications by administrators

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

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

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

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

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

Important notes:

For a request to succeed, either

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

(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA

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

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

Information for administrators processing requests

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

A couple of reminders:

Before commenting, please familiarise yourself with the referenced ArbCom case. Please also read all the evidence (including diffs) presented in the AE request.
When a request widens to include editors beyond the initial request, these editors must be notified and the notifications recorded in the same way as for the initial editor against whom sanctions were requested. Where some part of the outcome is clear, a partial close may be implemented and noted as "Result concerning X".
Enforcement measures in arbitration cases should be construed liberally to protect Wikipedia and keep it running efficiently. Some of the behaviour described in an enforcement request might not be restricted by ArbCom. However, it may violate other Wikipedia policies and guidelines; you may use administrative discretion to resolve it.
More than one side in a dispute may have ArbCom conduct rulings applicable to them. Please ensure these are investigated.

Closing a thread:

Once an issue is resolved, enclose it between {{hat}} and {{hab}} tags. A bot should archive it in 7 days.
Please consider referring the case to ARCA if the outcome is a recommendation to do so or the issue regards administrator conduct.
You can use the templates {{uw-aeblock}} (for blocks) or {{AE sanction}} (for other contentious topic restrictions) to give notice of sanctions on user talk pages.
Please log sanctions in the Arbitration enforcement log.

Thanks again for helping. If you have any questions, please post on the talk page.

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Doc9871

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

Request concerning Doc9871

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 04:59, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Doc9871 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2 :

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

11/22 Telling other editors (in particular me) to "shut up" (misspelling it doesn't make it better). Compare it to this diff which is what led to Doc's original topic ban, and this statement by Bishonen (talk · contribs)
11/22 Discussing other editors instead of content, speculating about other editors motives and making groundless accusations. Making some kind of threat. Note that this is *exactly* the kind of comment that led to Doc9871's initial topic ban. He is just repeating it.
11/22 Discussing other editors instead of content. Doc seems to be more interested in insulting other editors than actually discussing article improvements. Note the edit summary.
11/22 More insults and incivility. Completely pointless and gratuitous too. Like, what's the point of this?

More minor, but indicative of the fact that the editor is WP:NOTHERE

11/22 Taunting other editors in edit summary
11/22 Taunting other editors (wasn't aware I lost any elections)

And for good measure

"Fuck off now". It's on his talk page, so by itself wouldn't be a big deal. But part of a pattern.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

8/1 Doc9871 was topic banned for 1 month from all pages related to Donald Trump. Furthermore, the closing admin, User:The Blade of the Northern Lights stated, reflecting admin consensus on that report, "(Doc9871) is further warned that any disruption in the topic areas covered under Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2 will lead to an extension and/or broadening of the ban". The diffs above show that such an extension and broadening are needed.

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

Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 8/1 by The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) [1] which was originally imposed by Bishonen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) [2].

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Exactly the same problem as the one which led to his original topic ban. Almost like reading from a script. Doc9871 is incapable of discussing this topic without immediately resorting to insults and abusive language. This behavior derails productive discussion. It's also completely pointless as it offers no suggestions for article improvements. It's just gratuitous insults made for their own sake.

@Lankiveil - what "plea bargain" are you talking about? I just left a message on his talk page asking him to remove the personal attacks (like telling me to "shut up"). I actually dislike having to report people to WP:AE and try to give them plenty of opportunity to correct/revise/strike/undo. Is there something wrong with that? Hell, I get messages like that on my talk from admins once in awhile too ("you might want to reword that") Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:29, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[3]

Discussion concerning Doc9871

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

Statement by Doc9871

It's not a "personal attack" to say that Volunteer Marek (VM) is heavily biased against the subject. There is absolutely no question about his anti-Trump bias. So how is it a personal attack to point this out? It's just a simple fact.
Statements like this[4] show how VM, a very ardent anti-Trump editor, has been holding the article hostage for months, and abusing the process quite severely. It's not a "personal attack" to point this out. He claims that only things "central to the life of Donald Trump" can be included[5], yet when challenged on what is "central"[6] he not only can't explain what that means, but instead suggests more, only negative, info that should be included.[7] Please read VM's very pointed response more than once for traces of "incivility".
His assertion in the diff above that adding very reliably sourced material in the bios of the "goofy" celebrities who took to the media to announce they were leaving the U.S. would somehow automatically violate BLP should be of grave concern to every responsible editor here.
VM offered to let certain "personal attacks"... "slide" if I removed some statements (that were not personal attacks) to his satisfaction. Specifically: "All the insults and personal attacks"[8]. Nothing specific was mentioned that could have been reasonably stricken were there a concrete issue. As a reward, I would not be reported here. I don't do "plea bargains" when they are not warranted.
There's been absolutely no "disruption"; rather just a bruised ego. I've done some good work on the article recently; decent enough that I have been thanked for those edits by multiple editors, including admins.[9] It's all there in the article history. This is a meritless, spiteful report. VM's claim that I am NOTHERE after nearly 9 years and 23,000 edits is similarly meritless.
Future Perfect at Sunrise: I did not come up with the "goofy" thing. That's why I keep putting it in "scare quotes". "The answer is that this is an article about Donald Trump. Not about some goofy celebrities."[10] Those were his words, not mine. First he tried to dismiss it all as "textbook trivia", then we discredit the sources, then the celebrities themselves.
An indefinite ban as recommended by EdJohnston seems heavy-handed, as bans are to prevent disruption and not meant to be punitive. The last ban was for a month, and there's been no "disruption" until I dared to question VM's iron-clad notion of exactly what is UNDUE and "allowed" at the article. This has morphed from allegations of personal attacks into something else. I haven't done anything to any of the "goofy" celebrities' articles, gleefully or otherwise. The true disruption is that I'm a little too sarcastic for some at times, and I am supporting an unpopular subject. I admit I am biased for Trump, as that's obvious. I've not broken the rules here, but I expect to be punished for it anyway.
My very best wishes - I wouldn't exactly say that we "talked". It was more like you jumped in and took over a conversation to deliver several scathing lectures on a page that had absolutely nothing to do with you at all. You, who are not an admin and have never made an edit to that talk page before, decided to "set me straight". Any length of sanction is appropriate, yes? Doc talk 09:24, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My very best wishes - I’m surprised and extremely disappointed at the theory that I am basically incorrigible, needing a permanent ban on all things Trump because I had a little argument with a user on the talk page. I’ve been very insulted being told here that I’m a dishonest, unreasonable, irrational editor. That my "political sensibilities” have clouded my judgement so severely that I must be banned; that I am incapable of editing peacefully; and, most insultingly, that I am incapable of avoiding disruption in this topic area "even if they want to". We’ve gone straight from “Take back the insults, or else!” to excommunication for disruption. I expected a little better faith, for certain. Doc talk 08:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My very best wishes - I definitely do not “dislike” VM, or anyone else commenting here. We all must agree to disagree. If we didn’t disagree on things there’d only be one “correct” political party or religion. The only editors I dislike are the trolls and the socks and the vandals. I’ve had various disagreements with many editors over the years, including more than a few watching this page. It’s all business, nothing personal. Doc talk 09:43, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Laser brain - What is editing "peacefully"? Doc talk 12:55, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Laser brain - I'm incapable of editing peacefully... but only in this area, correct? Doc talk 14:37, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:EEng

(Just happened to stumble on this thread since, ahem, this page recently came onto my watchlist...) I think it's important to bear in mind that editors need not be neutral, and it's OK -- even desirable, when you think about it -- that they reveal any biases in discussions. It's only their edits that need to be neutral.

If we only allowed editors free of bias, we'd have no editors at all, literally. E Eng 08:24, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beyond My Ken

Regarding the above: "If we only allowed editors free of bias, we'd have no editors at all, literally." It's not that we expect our editors not to carry any personal bias, since, with the exception of the bots, they're all human. What we expect is for editors to contribute to the encyclopedia in such a way that doesn't promote their biases, or skew facts and information because of them. Not necessarily an easy thing to do, and we all, I think, slip up on occasion, so the question becomes "How often and how badly." Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:00, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (uninvolved) Calton

Doc needs to read WP:NOTTHEM at some point. --Calton | Talk 10:57, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question by Cas Liber

@Doc9871:, why did you change sources here? From reading it, both sources can support the statement, but (a) why swap and (b) the edit summary? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:28, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I can comment in this section, right? That diff, I believe, I was already punished for. I'm sure it was because the Breitbart source was unilaterally declared to be a non-RS, despite lengthy discussions on the RSN that didn't fully conclude that it is a non-RS that must be removed. I'll note that the actual reliability of the source doesn't always apply.[11] Doc talk 11:19, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My question was, why did you replace the source with the Breitbart one in the first place? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Breitbart source already was there - I didn't insert it. I re-inserted it because it was declared a non-RS. It actually was inserted back on July 17[12] by MelanieN. VM tried to declare it a non-RS here[13], and I reverted him. Doc talk 12:22, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Both sources support the sentence. Hence the edit summary was wrong. And you'd have to agree that a definite RS is better than an arguable one. So it was a real WP:BATTLEGROUND edit, wasn't it? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:55, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe it was a real battleground edit on my part. An admin put that source in in good faith. One user gets to declare it a non-RS all on their own? On what basis? Doc talk 13:01, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No-one is declaring Breitbart a non-RS all on their own. There is a hierarchy of sources, some better than others. Easier to use more widely accepted ones rather than pushing it borderline ones. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:07, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

VM's edit summary is unambiguous: "replace non-RS with RS".[14] It occurred to me that removing Breitbart sources in favor of more widely accepted sources was a factor in the swap, but the reason for the swap from Breitbart to CBS was due to it being declared to be a non-RS by VM in that edit summary. Doc talk 11:21, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by John

I see enough here to concern me, and I was taken aback to discover this was the behaviour of someone coming back from a shorter ban.

Removes a perfectly valid and referenced statement from the article, with the edit summary ""Non-scientist". Not a word. Do better, please."
Chides me at my talk for using the term "non-scientist":
Sarcastically posits that different standards apply to descriptions of people with different political views.
This is either consciously dishonest or the user has allowed his political sensibilities to cloud his judgement. As has been pointed out, this could not reasonably be characterized as an attempt to plea bargain.
This statement just above contains the highly disingenuous "I admit I am biased for Trump, as that's obvious. I've not broken the rules here, but I expect to be punished for it anyway" (my emphasis) Given the problematic behaviours preceding this complaint I would have been more reassured to see a more insightful and self-reflective statement than this.

There is enough here to make User:EdJohnston's suggestion of an indefinite topic ban seem like a reasonable one. This user seems to have been overwhelmed by his political zeal in this one area and to therefore be unable to edit objectively. --John (talk) 11:23, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I pointed out, I'm involved in 3 additional currently active threads on the very same talk page.[15],[16],[17] I'm not surprised at seeing the same old enemies pile on here. I guess I'm just completely out of control and must be stopped. Doc talk 11:29, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And the "disingenuous" statement? I said I am biased for Trump! How is that highly disingenuous?! It would be disingenuous to say I am not biased for Trump when I am. I don't let that bias get in the way of NPOV. Big difference there. Doc talk 11:33, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by My very best wishes

I talked with Doc9871 here. Based on their responses, he does not see his behavior as problematic and will continue doing exactly the same. Therefore, the sanctions are warranted. My very best wishes (talk) 14:11, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc9871. Let's be rational. You have been banned already for making very similar comments. What else can you possibly expect this time? My very best wishes (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc9871. I am only telling that your recent comments are exactly of the same kind as comments which led to your previous t-ban. Therefore, they are not OK, and you know it. You do not behave rationally, even though you are definitely a rational person. Why? I do not really know, but my best guess is that you do not like people who disagree with you and therefore want to make their life on-wiki miserable. My very best wishes (talk) 13:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc9871. You tell: this is strictly business, nothing personal. OK. But your comments were not about improvement of content, but negative remarks about other contributors made on article talk pages. So, that is your business? OK. But I do not think that business is profitable, or serves any useful purpose. My very best wishes (talk) 15:25, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JFG

I have had moderate interaction with Doc on contentious political pages, and I don't understand the pile-on against him. OK, he's a bit sarcastic and rough around the edges, but so are many many many editors (especially those willing to engage into editing such topics, you do need nerves of steel and a good dose of humour); it's no problem at all. Our friend VM reporting Doc today can be quite abrasive himself, but has never been sanctioned for that. I see Doc as a good-faith contributor who shouldn't be t-banned for such peccadillas as reported here. This sounds more like a personal vendetta than a genuine attempt to quell disruptive behaviour. I would personally let him go with an admonishment to smoothen his talk page comments, that's all there is to it. That being said, let the wisdom of the admins fall where it may… — JFG ^talk 19:04, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Doc9871

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

If it doesn't sound too pretentious, I'll "recuse" from this complaint, since I was deeply involved in the previous complaint against and sanction of Doc in August.[18] Bishonen | talk 16:46, 24 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]
I'm looking less at the diffs about Doc's talk interactions with VM, but more at Doc's initial posting on the talkpage [19] that sparked this latest altercation. His tone in gleefully proposing to stamp several BLP subjects ("bigtime celebrities") as "liars" (for not immediately following through with their declared intention of leaving the US if Trump won), combined with the way he's been speaking about them here ("goofy celebrities"), shows that his interest is not in creating fair coverage of the Trump campaign but in systematically discrediting his opponents. I'm not particularly impressed with VM's tit-for-tat counter-proposal of adding more coverage of Trump's misuse of Twitter either, but maybe that's another issue. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:33, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
After reviewing the last AE as linked by Bishonen, seeing the new complaint and noting the warnings issued by the other admins last time (User:Laser brain, User:Seraphimblade, User:The Blade of the Northern Lights and User:Lord Roem), I propose an indef ban of User:Doc9871 from the domain of WP:ARBAP2. It seems that Doc9871 behaves quite badly on talk pages and that behavior hasn't changed since the last time around. EdJohnston (talk) 17:54, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:Doc9871, do you have any diffs or other evidence that VM tried to make a "plea bargain" with you? If these events took place as you described them, I'd consider that a very serious matter indeed. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:46, 25 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]

If I'm reading the diffs right, this is supposed to be the evidence for the "plea bargain" claim. I don't remotely read that as an attempted plea bargain, nor do I see how any reasonable observer could do so; it's clearly a notification by VM that if matters aren't resolved he's going to consider requesting formal action, not an attempt at a bargain. ‑ Iridescent 18:59, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll AGF that VM didn't mean it that way, but I can definitely see how that would be interpreted as a threat, especially in a charged atmosphere. Bravo for giving them a chance, just be a bit more mindful of the chosen wording next time. On the other hand, Doc9871's behaviour is problematic and most worryingly I don't see that they understand why it is a problem; without understanding the issue I don't see how they can improve even if they want to. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 01:56, 2 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

I don't see any reason not to permanently remove Doc9871 from this topic area, as they have proven repeatedly they cannot edit in it peacefully. Endorse an indefinite topic ban from ARBAP2. --Laser brain (talk) 12:49, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc9871: Broadly, I'd say focusing on content and not personalizing issues, focusing on being civil and professional rather than making posts dripping with sarcasm and invective, and focusing on logic rather than behavior coming from an emotional response and designed to produce an emotional response. It's been well-documented in this filing that you are incapable of editing peacefully. --Laser brain (talk) 14:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is pretty evident that an indef TBAN of Doc9871 from ARBAP2 is exactly what is needed here, and this is exactly what discretionary sanctions are for. Their behaviour hasn't changed despite previous warnings. This is long-term and ongoing behaviour that deserves appropriate action. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:58, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Peacemaker67, Laser brain, Future Perfect at Sunrise, and EdJohnston: This has gone awhile without any further comments, so let me stick my neck out and propose that the admins commenting here seem to have a rough consensus that Doc9871 ought to be permanently banned from this topic area. If there's no administrative dissent from this in the next 24 hours I'll enact the ban. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:10, 10 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Agree. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:13, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, sounds okay. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:16, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

TheTimesAreAChanging

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

Request concerning TheTimesAreAChanging

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: MelanieN (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 02:44, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2

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

Nov. 21 Added a sentence to the article Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations.
Nov. 23, 00:14 Re-added the sentence after it was deleted as controversial. They quickly reverted themselves, but then
Nov. 23 00:16 added it back, describing the removal as "vandalism". This violated the prohibition against restoring controversial material.
Nov 21 removed longstanding material from Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016 as a "hoax"; not supposed to remove longstanding material without consensus.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

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

Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Oct. 17

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

See their talk page for recent previous incidents/warnings:

User talk:TheTimesAreAChanging#Be careful about your editing at articles under Discretionary Sanctions from Nov. 5-7
User talk:TheTimesAreAChanging#Friendly Reminder (which refers to this edit of Nov. 22)

Reply to User:Soham321: You argue that it is better to warn a person than to threaten sanctions, and that a warning can allow the situation to be "easily resolved". I agree, and that is what I do, for a first offense. See the link just above in this section, where I did just that. The reason for this report is that the problematic behavior recurred after that warning. --MelanieN (talk) 16:59, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Soham321, I hadn't noticed previously your "clarification" of items #1-3, which you seem to feel exonerates TheTimes. It was not necessary to cite here, although it may have been necessary at the time to clear things up for BullRangifer. Your explanation of what happened tallies exactly with mine. #1, he added something to the article: good faith, no violation. #2, he re-added it but immediately self-reverted, so again, no violation. #3, he then re-added it knowing it was controversial, and for good measure he described the previous removal of it as "vandalism", even though there had been a content-based edit summary with the deletion. Restoring content which had been challenged was a violation; arguably so was calling the removal "vandalism". Only after restoring the material (Nov 23, 00:16) did he start a talk-page discussion (Nov. 23, 00:55). (That discussion in itself is a piece of work, misquoting/distorting the edit summary that had been given for the deletion, and adding that the whole article would not exist "If it were not for the fact that women are extraordinarily privileged in modern American society."[20] ) --MelanieN (talk) 23:11, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comment: I deliberately kept my report here focused on technical violations of the DS by TheTimes, and so far I have not explicitly commented on the very strong partisan bias in his editing. But that bias is affecting his whole outlook toward Wikipedia. I bring this up because I just noticed a comment[21] by TheTimes on Hidden Tempo's talk page. In expounding on his theory that AE sanctions are enforced in a discriminatory and partisan manner (or to use his words, "the exercise of administrative power in the area of American Politics is likely to be extraordinarily arbitrary and capricious"), TheTimes asserted that "Mighty close to 100% of the admins that voted almost certainly voted for Clinton." Another user then pointed out that most of the involved admins are not American, but TheTimes did not retract his characterization of the admins and their motivation, or his conclusion that "the fix is in for both of us." It appears that TheTimes is still interpreting everything through a partisan filter, even when that approach has no basis in fact. --MelanieN (talk) 20:47, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Kingsindian: A minor correction, but since you have now brought this up twice: You say "did you notice that TTAAC had indeed started a section on the talkpage, as you suggested he should have done?" As I noted above, TheTimes actually started that talk page discussion only AFTER they restored the controversial content. --MelanieN (talk) 20:19, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[22]

Discussion concerning TheTimesAreAChanging

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

Statement by TheTimesAreAChanging

I will respond to Melanie's statements in reverse. The child rape lawsuit against a living person was indeed a hoax and dropped prior to the election, hence why it was largely ignored by the media and not currently included (for lack of consensus) in the main Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations article. Clearly, the mention of that lawsuit in Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016 (which is already far too long and COATRACKY) reflected no "longstanding" consensus, but was merely an oversight. With regard to the "contentious" material I twice added to Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations: If it had lasted longer than one day before being removed, would it then have gained the presumption of "consensus"? At least with regard to the "Miss Teen USA" content, it is quite clear that SPECIFICO and BullRangifer are gaming the system: Every single source on the topic notes that of the fifteen girls to comment on the matter, eleven—the clear majority—"were doubtful or dismissed the possibility that Trump violated their changing room privacy" because, e.g., they were surrounded by chaperones at all times. By declaring it uncontroversial to quote the four girls that accused Trump, but "contentious" to mention the other eleven from the same source, SPECIFICO, BullRangifer, and now Melanie are in effect arguing that Wikipedia policy actually requires us to intentionally misrepresent our own sources and mislead readers. That is an absurd and untenable position: If "consensus" dictates that the former recollections are within the scope of the article, by definition the same must be true of the latter. Moreover, if that is not the case—if there is no reasonable limit to obstructionism—then why can't I simply refuse to assent to the very existence of an article on Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations, per WP:RECENTISM/WP:NOTNEWS/ect.—or blanket delete the "Miss Teen USA" subsection, given that no sources describe Trump's alleged actions as "sexual misconduct" and the whole paragraph thus contravenes WP:SYNTH and WP:COATRACK? (If I were to do so, would the WP:ONUS then switch to my opponents, or would I be immediately reverted?) In sum, if a source or claim is included in an article, then I don't see how it could possibly violate the spirit of any Wikipedia policy to accurately quote the source and disclose all of the viewpoints it deems credible; in fact, that is exactly what WP:NPOV demands.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:41, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Prior to her latest collection of accusations, SPECIFICO reported me directly to two admins and filed this ANI report urging that I be topic banned (which failed to gain any traction with the community because it was obviously retaliation for an ANI report I filed against one of her comrades, since indeffed): She should really stop forum shopping. SPECIFICO purports to monitor and police every aspect of my behavior, including the ideas I express on my userpage, but she still tends to leap to conclusions unsupported by the diffs in question. For example, the "battle cry" in which I supposedly "boasted" about "besting" my "opponents" actually read: "I take my responsibility to edit in a neutral manner seriously, and believe I do a better job of it than many of my opponents." In the same way, Doug Weller warned me not to refer to another editor as a "Nazi," but when I pointed out that the editor in question was an actual unironic Nazi with a userpage devoted to Holocaust denial, he conceded: "Ok, I see why but there were better options that would have led to attention paid to that editor's userpage." Ect. Ect. Ect. Of special interest is SPECIFICO's version of the Dinesh D'Souza conflict documented in the ANI report: "He tries to enlist @Oshwah to assist him in continuing his edit war ... supposedly because 'his' version was 'stable'." (Why is "his" in quotes?) The notion that I advocated restoration to "my" version is simply an absurd caricature of my request; in fact, I urged Oshwah to consider reverting back to a version predating any edits by yours truly! SPECIFICO should be very careful before she accuses anyone of "straw man arguments" or "misrepresentation of other editors."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:53, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Soham321: Yes, I am aware that my penchant for colorful, even vituperative language has gone too far and gotten me into trouble on occasion. Sometimes I have treated Wikipedia talk pages more like an online forum; now and then, I have even apologized. I have always tried to draw a sharp distinction between talk page rhetoric (or edit summaries, or my userpage—which SPECIFICO has mined for oppo-research) and edits to actual articles—hence the "I take my responsibility to edit in a neutral manner seriously" message SPECIFICO cites as evidence of the opposite—but I can see how my combative persona can be more of a liability than an asset, particularly when editing articles related to American Politics (where, I have now learned, content disputes are usually resolved by gaming and drama boards rather than substantive discussion). As a character witness, I point to the following comment by Guccisamsclub—an editor with politics well to the Left of my own, and whose opinion of me has fluctuated over time and may well continue to fluctuate, but with whom I have been able to collaborate constructively despite our disagreements: "You might want to stop throwing around terms like 'far-left', 'activist' and 'communist' ... it makes you sound like a shrill regular from Free Republic, Little Green Footballs or worse. Now I've had enough contact with you to know that's not true, but you could easily give the wrong impression to someone else and thus derail the conversation. You had me fooled for some time." (In my defense, Pol Pot considered Elizabeth Becker sufficiently Left-wing to invite her on a guided tour of Democratic Kampuchea, so referring to her as a "far-Left author" on my talk page—while poor form—is not much worse than SPECIFICO's recent attempts to smear Stefan Molyneux as a Nazi, possibly in violation of her Mises Institute topic ban.) @Bishonen: Edit summaries are necessarily snappy and may not include room for nuanced discussion. See here for my detailed thoughts on the "Founder of ISIS" soundbite:

"To be fair to the peoples of the Middle East, there have been many real conspiracies by Western powers in that part of the world (see, e.g., 1953 Iranian coup d'état), and there is obviously some element of truth underlying even the more outlandish allegations (such as the claim that Baghdadi is secretly an Israeli actor named Simon Elliot). Israel, after all, has a well-known policy of providing medical aid to any Syrian rebels that request it, in return for quiet along the Syria-Israel border; there may also be some military assistance and intelligence-sharing—and there is no doubt jihadists have benefited from Israeli largess. Meanwhile, there is far more evidence that "moderate" rebels backed by the United States and its partners tolerated the rise of Islamic State than there is to support the theory that Assad is somehow to blame for the Syrian uprising turning Islamist. When we include ridiculous claims such as John Kerry's assertion that Assad "purposely ced[ed] some territory to them [ISIL] in order to make them more of a problem so he can make the argument that he is somehow the protector against them," it's worth considering that the Western press may be more sophisticated than the Arab press but both can be guilty of propaganda."

Why did I allude to Trump's inflammatory quote? Because, despite all of the "fact checkers" that tow the government line with one voice, nothing I wrote above is controversial to experts on Syria: I urge those laughing at Trump's crude rhetoric (or all the "backward Arabs" that think ISIS is a CIA-Mossad conspiracy) to consider first whether the official U.S. government position they are defending has any more factual merit.

I never suggested SPECIFICO is "a paid Democratic party shill"—don't put words in my mouth. I have profound problems with the way SPECIFICO conducted herself during a recent edit war at Dinesh D'Souza, and my description of her as a "hack" cannot be divorced from conduct such as the following:

Case in point: SPECIFICO's "good faith" ally User:Oneshotofwhiskey leaves comments such as "Your excuses and spins about D'Souza's scam-artisty, journalistic fraud, and unfounded conspiracy theories betray your political agenda. It has no place here. Nor did your failed attempt at a SPI witch hunt that went no where, and was clearly in service of your agenda" and "You claimed oh so arrogantly that you 'know a sock when you see it' and then tried to use that in service of an agenda to silence another editor. Apparently you/ew shouldn't trust your eyes and your credibility has suffered as a result of your penchance for false accusations"; SPECIFICO does nothing. I write "Oneshotofwhiskey's blatant vandalism continues. Compare the old, accepted "Personal life" section with the Oneshotofwhiskey version, complete with a brand-new "Marriage scandal" subsection. Is there any other BLP written in this manner? Of course not; Oneshotofwhiskey is simply making a mockery of Wikipedia policy. Arbitration is now necessary, and probably a topic ban to end the disruption"—and SPECIFICO partially redacts it as a "personal attack." Can you say double standard?

This should tell you two things: 1. I don't attack editors because I am "angry," but because when I am attacked I have found it expedient to hit back twice as hard. (Given that that's no longer true with SPECIFICO stalking my contributions, I promise to cut it out.) 2. SPECIFICO is not a neutral arbiter. More importantly, SPECIFICO already brought these same diffs to another forum in a failed effort to topic ban me from Dinesh D'Souza; this thread has devolved from analyzing a specific DS violation that caused minor disruption into a witchhunt and personal attack on me, based on every unpopular idea I so much as expressed on my userpage. (Of course, my userpage also makes clear that I would be considered Left-of-center on issues like gay marriage, abortion, ect., but that's neither here nor there.) No editor would hold up perfectly under such scrutiny by a dedicated stalker and forum shopper.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:11, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm absolutely floored by SPECIFICO's behavior, to the point where I have no idea how to respond. As documented above, SPECIFICO brought her list of diffs directly to two admins before trying her luck at ANI and now AE—yet she accuses me of "stalking" her? It's simply surreal! I made a mistake and called her a "hack" because she wouldn't leave me alone on my own talk page, mostly out of frustration because I don't know how to deal with such an unpleasant editor. I wish I could take it back, but compare that to her vicious personal attacks just here at AE: In full view of the community, SPECIFICO has accused me of "lack(ing) ... emotional maturity," "mansplaining," promoting "paranoid conspiracy theories" (over an SPI, of all things!) and "being obsessed with animus and revenge." (She has made far worse personal attacks elsewhere, such as accusing me of "grotesque OR" ... (for) the insinuation that it's OK to punch a woman in the face"—of course, I never suggested "that it's OK to punch a woman in the face," and am deeply offended that SPECIFICO would portray me in such terms!) Combined with the BLP violations and threats against other editors noted by Soham321, I submit that while I am guilty of violating DS one time with the revert mentioned by Melanie, SPECIFICO's conduct here should WP:BOOMERANG. I now realize just what an enormous mistake it was to allow her to bait me with a seemingly never-ending series of drama boards and personal attacks, and will do my best to avoid her.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:42, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SPECIFICO recently tried to walk back her "paranoid conspiracy theories" personal attack; rather than admitting error, she added a link to this conversation in which she claims I admitted to being "paranoid," as if that makes me an open target for abuse. Of course, this is very misleading: User:Oneshotofwhiskey was indeffed as a result of the socking I exposed, so it obviously wasn't a figment of my imagination. The conversation in question involved me pointing out a suspicious IP to an admin, then deciding based on the evidence that it wasn't another Oneshot sock: If SPECIFICO wishes to imply that I file SPIs lightly, this is actually very strong evidence of the reverse. Finally, my self-deprecating comment "All the socking has made me paranoid" was clearly not meant to be taken seriously, nor did I admit to promulgating "conspiracies theories." (Does one person abusing multiple accounts even constitute a "conspiracy"?) Context matters; SPECIFICO's personal attacks are uncalled for.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:41, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And BTW, for the record: Did none of you notice that, in the the very next edit following my now-infamous "vandalism" quote, I was reverted by BullRangifer, who in turn implied I was guilty of vandalism?: "Whatever games are being played, just stop it." It's not exactly unheard of to refer to large deletions of content with vague edit summaries as "vandalism," though the term should be reserved for the clear-cut cases. But is that really more serious than SPECIFICO baselessly accusing Soham321 of violating DS, then refusing to explain how Soham had done so and moving on to "the butler's bias and apparent senility" when she failed to elicit the desired self-revert by means of threats alone?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:18, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If the innumerable personal attacks above aren't bad enough, SPECIFICO's assertion that I am "canvassing" merely because I responded to anonymous allegations against me here is way over the line. WP:CANVAS has a specific meaning; accusing someone of "canvassing" is accusing them of a serious violation of WP policy—it's not just an insult to throw around indiscriminately at editors you personally dislike.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:51, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SPECIFICO: We've clearly gone beyond the realm of legitimate criticism into blatant misrepresentation. There are technical reasons why CU could not be performed. In the SPI, however, DoRD confirmed that the IPs "are also likely this user (i.e., Oneshot)." So I was right! Maybe you've never filed an SPI before, but this was no "battleground taunt" (in fact, I have no reason to suspect Oneshot ever saw it): If you file an SPI against a user, you must notify them on their talk page. I've provided similar notifications to everyone I've ever accused of socking, and no-one has ever suggested it was somehow inappropriate until now. Moreover, I would not have bothered commenting on the talk page of an indeffed user who would likely never see the message if it were not for the fact that I was required to do so. Between this and your continued insistence that "I take my responsibility to edit in a neutral manner seriously, and believe I do a better job of it than many of my opponents" should be read as a POV battle cry, it is apparent that you are not honestly representing my edits. Maybe you should take a step back and ask why that is.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:03, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've just been informed that unlike ANI, there is no rule saying you must notify someone of an SPI. In fact, "it is often counterproductive to give such notices." I thought it was courteous to give those accused a chance to defend themselves, but if an admin feels it is "counterproductive," who am I to argue?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:59, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Later in the same userpage, I refer to "Guccisamsclub—a Leftie that not infrequently gets the better of our exchanges." Allow me to break that down, so I'm not misrepresented again: While I do call Gucci a "Leftie," there is no implication that I'm "obsessed with animus and revenge" against him; to the contrary, I acknowledge areas where he has corrected me, noting that he "not infrequently gets the better of our exchanges." Sorry—that's just how I talk! (Although not how I write articles.) Now, I can fully understand how an editor digging through my userpage for dirt with which to indiscriminately attack me might latch onto that and say it is "uncivil" to call another editor a "Leftie." To that I ask: Have we lost our collective mind?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:22, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Before I persuaded SPECIFICO to create an account, she edited as an IP. One of her first edits was to ask me "TIMES: What is your relationship to Schiff?" because I disagreed with an edit she made to Peter Schiff. That was a bad first impression; I am terribly disappointed that after four years editing under a named account, she is still resorting to these kinds of personal attacks—only on a much larger scale, as documented above.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@MelanieN: I'm glad you brought that up, even if you didn't quite do my argument justice. I do suspect that the vast majority of admins supported Clinton rather than Trump, although I have no way of proving this. Crucially, if American Politics is being policed primarily by non-Americans that is unlikely to reduce the problem of bias; to the contrary, I would speculate that a more "international" (or—let's be honest here—Eurocentric) perspective on Trump would be more Left-leaning and negative, perhaps seeing Trump as the ultimate distillation of every "Ugly American" stereotype. (As an example, you're an American, and yet—despite our differences!—I consider you to be easily the fairest and most level-headed admin I've encountered in the area. Maybe it's in part because you are upfront about any biases you might have.) Idle speculation aside, the data compiled by James J. Lambden doesn't lie: Not only are editors perceived as "pro-Trump" more likely to be reported to AE than editors perceived as "pro-Clinton" (by a factor of 3:1), but there is also a very different rate of conviction. By my count, 100% of "pro-Clinton" editors avoided any form of sanction, whereas 94% (17 of 18, not counting Anythingyouwant twice) of pro-Trump editors were sanctioned (only Marteau narrowly avoided punishment). If you believe this is because admins are infallible and "pro-Trump" editors are just vastly more disruptive, then I would have to ask why there is such a disparity between the admin comments and the comments of regular users both in the request against me (5:1 regular users against sanctions; 3:0 admins leaning towards sanctions) and Hidden Tempo's appeal (regular users split 5:4 against topic ban; admins supporting it 3:1)—and why no admin overruled Boing! said Zebedee's ridiculous decision to block Hidden Tempo for accurately describing Hilary Clinton's "trustworthiness" numbers as "feeble" (Cf. Merriam-Webster: "Business is suffering because of the feeble economy"). As for "the fix is in": To me, that 94% is a sobering harbinger of things to come.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@TParis: I did respond to Bishonen; you can see my full response above. In brief: Two of the three diffs concerned uncivil edit summaries I made in reference to SPECIFICO. I previously documented a much longer list of personal attacks SPECIFICO levied against me, but obviously two wrongs don't make a right, so I can't defend those remarks. The fact that SPECIFICO and I strongly dislike one another might be reason for an IBAN—although I am not advocating for that solution since I believe it would only cause more drama—but the edits in question were on my own talk page and only tangentially related to American Politics. With regard to my misappropriate of the President-elect's "Founder of ISIS" soundbite, that was just supposed to be a snappy edit summary. Of course I don't literally think Obama founded ISIS, but—as I explained—U.S. policy towards Syria may have inadvertently helped created the power vacuum that allowed the terror group to expand in size and influence. The source I cited, Seymour Hersh, may be controversial but he's notable and certainly not WP:FRINGE; indeed, he's previously been considered a hero to the American Left for his role exposing, e.g., the My Lai Massacre.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:18, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Peacemaker67: So you're saying I should be topic banned for one revert without consensus? No-one here was suggesting anything like a topic ban until SPECIFICO—who has been following me around with a dogged persistence—attempted to caricature me as a POV warrior with a long series of diffs that largely failed to support her highly creative interpretation (as TParis noted). In particular, an edit summary in which I sarcastically referenced Trump's "Founder of ISIS" meme with full quotation marks is considered so shocking and inflammatory that TParis recommends a formal apology in addition to my repeated statements clarifying my intent—as well as a request that the edit summary itself be stricken from the record—in the hope that this might spare me. If this is just about the one revert—where I have admitted making a mistake and would have self-reverted had it not been quickly undone—then I would like to know why a full topic ban is a proportionate response to the disruption that one revert caused.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AlexEng

I am entirely uninvolved in this matter, but I am the author of the Friendly Reminder banner on TheTimesAreAChanging's talk page. I just want to be clear that this was in fact a friendly reminder and not an indictment of the user's behavior. AlexEng^(TALK) 03:59, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kingsindian

I don't see why this is at AE. There's little or no disruption and plainly looks like a content dispute.

FWIW, I think TTAAC is making a good case here and on the talkpage for their edits. However, "vandalism" has a specific meaning on Wikipedia: good-faith but wrong-headed edits aren't vandalism - so the term should be avoided. "Hoax" is also imprecisely used; there are questions about the case, but it has not been definitely ruled a hoax AFAIK. We all have opinions about political matters, but it's usually best to make arguments and keep the normative opinions out of discussions. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:29, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am rather surprised by the reaction in the admin section. The focus should be on disruption; apparently, one revert is now considered sufficiently disruptive to take action now? If such standards were applied uniformly, I wonder how many of the people working in politics areas will remain? I only give the example of another case on this very page, concerning My very best wishes (here). Please tell me what would have been the result if one re-insertion before clear consensus means that admins should take action.

I know this: I certainly won't be able to work in the I/P area using these standards. There has been no refusal to discuss the matter on the talkpage by the parties, so why are the admins getting involved? Are we now children that we can't work out such minor things among ourselves and need to go running to mommy?

For the record, I have yet to find a single edit which I have agreed on with TTAAC in my time here, or with MvBW. So this is not about content; it is about using common sense and fair standards. A tight leash is sometimes appropriate, but Wikipedia has a thousand policies and a million ways of running afoul of them. The election is over; most of the disputes have already, or will cool down significantly.

I reiterate my solution above. TTAAC should tone down their language, avoid commenting on editors and avoid using imprecise terms. No other action should be taken. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:01, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bishonen's latest comment is about TTAAC's general conduct, not the points raised in the OP (which is fine, if one is looking to establish a broad pattern). I will try to disentangle the valid from the invalid points. I suggest that the focus be firmly on disruption.

Bishonen gives three diffs and says that they demonstrate an unwillingness to collaborate, a battleground mentality and attacks upon other users. Of these, only the third diff is to an article. As far as I can see, the third diff displays no attacks on any editor. It cites an article by Seymour Hersh in London Review of Books for the content. (I don't like the thesis advanced by Hersh, but it is definitely a notable viewpoint.) The edit summary is not helpful, to put it mildly, but the edit itself is defensible. The other two diffs are from TTAAC's own talkpage. It is clear that TTAAC does not like SPECIFICO.

Now I will evaluate the diffs and people can decide whether my evaluation makes sense. Spend some time in any political topic on Wikipedia and you will encounter editors who you think are fools or worse. I certainly do not like many editors here and probably the sentiment is reciprocated. But one does not need to broadcast one's thoughts to the world; nobody cares whether you like editor X or not. In the same vein, keep your brilliant insight about Obama and ISIS to yourself. Again, nobody cares; just make the edit and give a reasonable edit summary. So, as I said before, TTAAC should avoid this behaviour. However, and this is the main point, I do not see any evidence of disruption, either on article pages, or on talk pages. To the contrary, I see reasonable arguments made in defence of reasonable edits, mixed together with some heat which should not be present but commonly is present all over political topics in Wikipedia. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:47, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Peacemaker67: You wrote: The appropriate thing to do at that point was to take it to talk, not revert and call it vandalism as cover. Did you see this section on the talkpage started by TTAAC? If you did not, does it change your evaluation? And if you did, do you think a single revert is disruptive enough to entail sanctions?

I have already said that the edit should not have been called "vandalism", but I fail to see how this kind of standard can be enforced in any political area. Why was this matter not thrashed out on the talkpage before bringing it to AE? I am opposed to this kind of intrusive enforcement which is untenable both in practice and in theory. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:38, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Peacemaker67: Perhaps you have misunderstood, but there is no WP:1RR violation alleged in the complaint, because it didn't happen. TTAAC reverted themselves once (I'm guessing, to redo the edit with an edit summary -- which is ironic since the edit summary seems to have gotten him into trouble). Also, as I asked in my last comment, did you notice that TTAAC had indeed started a section on the talkpage, as you suggested he should have done? If you did not notice this fact earlier, does it change your view of the incident? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@MelanieN: I am aware of the sequence of events; I thought it was clear from my statement, but if it was not, I accept your clarification. TTAAC opened a section on the talkpage less than half an hour after the edit on the article. There were no intervening edits to either the talkpage or the article page by anyone else. As I said, the revert was not ideal (nor was the edit summary) - but I do not see this as disruptive, but rather in the spirit of WP:BRD. My own routine practice is to make an edit and simultaneously post on the talkpage. See the edit I recently made on the page as an example of what I typically do. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions by My very best wishes

A couple of general suggestions

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

This subject area is going to be very difficult, and for a good reason. I have two practical suggestions.

Please cancel editing restriction about "reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion)". That restriction has been heavily misused by some contributors to unilaterally remove well-sourced materials they do not like, which goes against consensus. If someone edit war against consensus or without talking, this is sanctionable per se. One does not need additional editing restrictions.
Please enforce guidelines on article talk pages. If anyone is talking not about improvement of the corresponding article on these pages, this is already a violation, and especially if one is talking about another contributor (request just above). My very best wishes (talk) 15:36, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I interacted with TTAAC on a few occasions including disagreements. I think he does good content work on pages related to US history and politics. As about his overall editing behavior, I think he is just as "difficult" as all other typical long-term contributors to political subjects. Based on that, I would suggest no action, and certainly no topic ban in the wide area of US politics. Maybe a 3-month topic ban from anything related to US elections 2016 at most. My very best wishes (talk) 17:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Soham321

Agree completely with Kingsindian. This is a content dispute, nothing more. Specifically, with respect to Melanie's four points, i see nothing wrong in the first edit of TheTimesAreAChanging. With respect to the second and third points of Melanie, i have offered a clarification here: diff. TheTimesAreAChanging has agreed that my assessment about his edits was correct. With respect to the fourth point of Melanie, note that there is an ongoing RfC about the Jane Doe allegations taking place at this talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations and any material pertaining to the Jane Doe allegations is not being permitted to be inserted into the main article. I see nothing wrong in removing material pertaining to the Jane Doe allegations from a different WP page pertaining to Trump until this RfC has been resolved. Soham321 (talk) 20:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

it is inevitable that some 'heat' will be generated when editing contentious WP pages. The way to deal with this, almost always, is to tolerate it rather than to seek sanctions on editors one has content disputes with. At the top of the page it says that if you post a comment here then your own behavior can also be scrutinized. So let me scrutinize SPECIFICO's behavior for edits pertaining to the same Trump page from which Melanie has given three out of her four diffs. SPECIFICO warns me on my talk page (TP) and again on the TP of the main article that i am liable to face Arbcom Discretionary Sanctions (DS). What had i done? I had only added a sentence to the butler's testimony from a reference already present in the main article, and given another reference which was corroborating what the reference already present said. Diffs of her 'threats': diff1 and diff2. When i tell her on the TP that i do not believe i am in violation of Arbcom sanctions she responds by claiming the butler is 'biased' and liable to be senile: diff3. Since the butler is still alive i believe this is a violation of WP:BLP and i point it out to her. And giving frivolous threats to another editor about facing Arbcom sanctions is disruptive behavior, plain and simple. I am mentioning all this not because i seek sanctions against SPECIFICO but because i believe the threshold for giving sanctions has to be considerably higher than some of us seem to imagine. Soham321 (talk) 01:59, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is an interesting discussion taking place here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hidden_Tempo (be sure to check the edit history of the page to see a recent edit of Melanie that has been reverted by Hidden Tempo). The relevance of this discussion is that this is again stemming from a content dispute related to the 2016 US Elections which can easily be resolved by giving a warning to the editor to tone down their language; instead we are seeing the editor being threatened with sanctions. Soham321 (talk) 15:24, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MelanieN I have seen the two links you gave to the previous warnings. The one where he called the editor who had introduced an edit in the lead of the Ronald Reagan page, from a self-published blog, an 'idiot' is mitigated by two things. First, removing that edit from the lead of the Reagan page contributed to improving the quality of the article. Second, when he called the person 'idiot' he did not name anyone and it seemed he did not even know who the person who introduced this edit was (probably the edit had not been introduced recently) and this makes his comment less inflammatory than it would otherwise have been. Still he appropriately received a warning about using the word 'idiot'. The person who gave this warning has clarified in this discussion that this was only a friendly warning, not an indictment of the user's behavior. He did not protest against being given the warning, and we have to give him the benefit of doubt and accept that he agreed he had made a mistake by using the word 'idiot'.

With respect to the first link you gave, he explained he introduced the disputed edit back into the main article on the basis of a 4-2 consensus, since he had seen disputed edits placed back in main articles on even weaker consensus. Of course, he is wrong and Bull rightly pointed out to him on his talk page why he is wrong. But i don't see him protesting when Bull tells him he is wrong meaning, again giving him the benefit of doubt, that he agrees with Bull.

Nothing here deserves sanctions. Not his previous edits, because of which he was warned, and not his more recent edits because of which sanctions have been sought against him. This much said, i think we can ask him to tone down his language, specifically in edit summaries. I agree with Kingsindian's suggestion: "TTAAC should tone down their language, avoid commenting on editors and avoid using imprecise terms." The problematic words used by TheTimesAreAChanging, in my opinion, were 'idiot', 'hoax', and 'vandalism'. TTAAC, do you agree with the assessment of Kingsindian and myself? Do you agree to do what we are suggesting? Soham321 (talk) 21:03, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with MelanieN's comment and request TheTimesAreAChanging to strike out the comment Melanie has referred to immediately. I will note that I was the "another user" Melanie refers to and by not arguing with me on what I was saying he, to give him the benefit of doubt, expressed agreement with what I said. Nevertheless I urge TTAAC to strike out the problematic comment immediately as an act of good faith to everyone here.Soham321 (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am disappointed with TParis's decision to retract his comments in this discussion. I thought they were very appropriate. Soham321 (talk) 01:27, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Peacemaker67's objection seems to be to a single edit of TheTimesAreAChanging in which the edit summary "rv vandalism..." was used. This edit, which was a revert, resulted in the insertion of some text in the main article. That text is still currently present in the main article which vindicates TTAAC's editorial judgement although I agree that the word 'vandalism' should not have been used in the edit summary by TTAAC. The other point is that TTAAC violated the 1RR restriction through this edit but given that TTAAC's editorial judgement pertaining to this edit has been vindicated, and TTAAC has expressed regret for violating the 1RR restriction on several occasions, does it really deserve a lengthy T-ban from all articles pertaining to US politics? I have one other concern. Given that this is an AE appeal pertaining to US politics, with several underlying content disputes, as is evident by reading the now retracted comment of TParis, I was disturbed to read Peacemaker67's comment in the 'Result' section of this discussion that "American politics in general is something that is just unfathomable to me." Soham321 (talk) 06:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Kingsindian (KI) has now deleted the material TheTimesAreAChanging had re-inserted into the main article in which TTAAC had used the edit summary "rv vandalism...".KI explains on the article talk page for why he is removing this material. Nevertheless, my point about TTAAC having essentially sound editorial judgement still stands because this material was only removed a short while back (on December 7) while TTAAC's re-insertion took place on November 23 and there have been six other editors who made intervening edits to that article (after TTAAC's re-insertion, and KI's removal of the material). The material was removed in the intervening period by BullRangifer on the basis of what seems to have been a misunderstanding, and re-inserted by Angelsi 1989. I am leaving a message on the talk page of one of these two editors about this AE discussion since I am not able to ping him properly to this discussion (because they don't have a user page); I have pinged the other editor. Soham321 (talk) 15:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Peacemaker67's new argument is that TTAAC called a journalist "insane" and this makes it a BLP violation which contributes to justifying a topic ban. The edit in which the "insane" word was used pertained to this comment: "According to Ben Tarnoff, writing in The Guardian, a key element of Trumpism is that it holds "the notion that people of color and women are less than fully human", and does so explicitly, unlike other elements in the Republican Party." (TTAAC removed the views of Tarnoff from the Trumpism article; the 'insane' word was used in the edit summary when he removed Tarnoff's comments.)

Of course the word "insane" should not have been used. And in fact the edit summary in which this word was used has been revdeled. But can the usage of this word in that specific context justify a topic ban or even justify any kind of sanctions. Let's consider the relevant jurisprudence: diff1 and diff2 Soham321 (talk) 06:58, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (SPECIFICO)

@Soham321: @Kingsindian: -- Most Arbcom violations arise from "content disputes". The issue here is whether this user violated ARBAP2 Sanctions that have been put in place to ensure orderly and respectful discussions and resolutions of those content disputes. TheTimesTheyAreAChanging had been editing disruptively on politics-related articles for some time now. He narrowly avoided a block at a recent AN3. Instead of discussion, he launches into straw man arguments, equivocation, misrepresentation of other editors, and personal attacks. Until recently, His user page read like a battle cry, starting with boast that he bests his "opponents" which he removed after I referred to it at his AN3 thread. His entire user page is a bizarre political rant of the sort I've not seen on any other user's page. This user seems to work constructively on articles relating to video games and other innocuous topics, but he lacks the emotional maturity to work on these difficult politics-related articles. I recommend a topic ban from American Politics. Let's see whether this user can refrain from yet another round of personal attacks on me here. SPECIFICO talk 20:40, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Starting to collect some diffs on this editor: Here is a long talk page thread in which he launches into repeated personal attacks on editor @NYCJosh: [23]' Some of the many battleground edit comments -- and these are just from the past few weeks! [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] etc. etc. SPECIFICO talk 21:51, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here he removed a DS notice from his talk page with the edit comment "not interested, pal" He subsequently denied that he edits articles related to American Politics! He's been warned repeatedly by various users,and recently by Admins: @DoRD: here. Then, here, he tries to enlist @Oshwah: to assist him in continuing his edit war after Oshwah protected a page on which TheTimesAreAChanging was edit warring, supposedly because "his" version was "stable." @Doug Weller: warned him here and the attacks and disruption have only gotten worse. SPECIFICO talk 22:18, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Bishonen: Sorry, I forgot the link. It's here and @Oshwah: observes that TheTimesAreAChanging has violated 3RR here that he's received the DS notice, and that he will be blocked for further edit-warring. SPECIFICO talk 00:43, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I sure hope that y'all are reading all the comments and links before commenting. 4 Admins warned this user. Other editors politely asked him to stop edit warring on numerous American Politics articles (the ones he claims, in one of the links that he does not edit). Ad hominems, mansplaining, personal attacks and disparagement should not be OK in any article. Under DS users should know that such behavior will surely lead to a block. Actions have consequences. SPECIFICO talk 17:07, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I just happened to notice this gratuitous smear of me as a co-conspirator of one of TTAAC's "opponents." I had posted on this user's talk page before he was banned, so TTAAC's message came up on my watchlist. I also had TTAAC's talk page on my watchlist for the same reason, and I saw him straightforwardly tell an editor that he's had a feud with me from 2012 -- a mind-boggling statement, considering that when I checked I found two articles on which we'd both edited that year. On one, Paul Ryan he was page-banned for disruption. On the other he was edit warring unsourced content into an article with typical disparaging and accusatory edit comments and talk page notes. Of the thousands of editors with whom I've shared various pages over the years, I cannot imagine being obsessed with animus and revenge like that. I would like to request, in addition to a TBAN from American Politics, that the Admins also impose a one-way interaction ban so that TTAAC will stop stalking and harassing me. SPECIFICO talk 01:13, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here, TTAAC is tendentiously canvassing Admin @Hut 8.5: about another piece of TTAAC's paranoid conspiracy theories about one of his "opponents." Then, another battleground taunt on the target's talk page [30] is removed (see edit comment) by Admin @DoRD: here after a TTAAC's second Checkuser request against his "opponent" was declined at the SPI he launched. Then, here, he goes to DoRD's talk page to misrepresent the taunt as a "notification." Another example of hostile misrepresentation is found here: Here, he casually refers to "SPECIFICO's forum-shopping" -- which apparently refers to my having commented on this AE and on his AN3 thread, neither of which I initiated, and which related to two distinct infractions. SPECIFICO talk 01:20, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be ample evidence for enforcement here, so this thread may be ripe for closure. Sadly, however, there's a fresh post on another AE thread at this page here that shows TTAAC first denying the evidence here, saying that his own linked contributions have been "used to caricature me as some sort of POV warrior, which couldn't be further from the truth". This is followed by yet more of his political soapboxing, in this case about "Wikipedia's predominant liberal thesis" and lack of "pro-Trump Admins". This was accoompanied by some window dressing to his user page so that the current version contains somewhat less of the battleground and soapbox stuff railing against Wikipedia's mainstream representation of history. See here. I hope this editor grows out of his behavioral issues, but at this time, it's clear that a substantial TBAN from American Politics is called for, to prevent ongoing drag that poisons the efforts of the vast majority of editors who are trying to stick to NPOV, engage in rational discussion of editing and policy application, and are dedicated to observing the restrictions of ARBAP2 for the good of the Encyclopedia. SPECIFICO talk 17:31, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New violation -- A jaw-dropper, given TTAAC's having appeared to control himself for the duration of this AE thread: See the edit comment on a Trump related article here -- a violation not only of ARBAP2 but also a violation of ARBBLP. TTAAC states matter-of-factly that a respected living author and political commentator is "insane". That kind of BLP smear is beyond the pale. A short-term block or TBAN is not going to change TTAC's behavior. The remedy must address the scope of the problem. SPECIFICO talk 14:31, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly the problem with TTAAC's behavior on WP. WP:Competence is required. Mature collaborative editors do not have "opponents" -- we have discussions and occasionally we have disagreements, and we follow behavioral norms and proven process to resolve them. Where would TTAAC get his view that SPECIFICO "doesn't like" him. I never said anything of the sort, so where does he get the impulse to feel everything personally and to project that attitude onto others? I have no opinion at all about him or 99% of the other editors here, because we're all strangers trying to work together on this Project. I have never personally attacked Mr. TTAAC, but he's apparently unabile to understand that, to understand the meaning of "vandalism" here, or even to keep his opinions under his hat when they're off-topic and inflammatory. These are among the behaviors that make it impossible for TTAAC to edit without dragging the project down. After his BLP-smear edit comment on the Trumpism article, I posted the standard BLP DS template on his talk page. He immediately deleted it with this edit comment. The reason I have devoted time to this thread is not that I "don't like" this person TTAAC whom I've never met and know little about. I'm here because disruptive editing is a huge drain on the resources of this Project and on all of our time and effort. It's the one thing that's worth the little extra time and distraction needed to quash it. There's a reason for ARBCOM sanctions. A brightline violation such as the one MelanieN documented, coming after so many prior warnings, has clear consequences. It's not something to be argued away with theories and charts of "left" and "right" editors and Admins. That is the kind of relativism that undermines a policy-based collaborative system such as WP. If we ignore violations, the result will be that the thousands of other editors who are trying to work constructively and respectfully will continue to suffer the deadweight loss of this kind of disruption. SPECIFICO talk 01:39, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by shrike

I never edited this topic area (as far as I can remember) and I don't see here anything beyond content dispute.--Shrike (talk) 12:45, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AnotherNewAccount

Hi. Uninvolved editor here. A suggestion: kick the entire topic area to ArbCom. The constant ructions been a constant thorn in the side of AE for months. It is too much of a battleground now for something not to be done. None of the current editors have clean hands, and a mass cross-partisan topic-banning of most of the current editors may well be in order. Only ArbCom has the will to do that.

Some observations from clicking through the random diffs supplied in this case:

Poor behavior like that TTAAC is accused seems to be universal editing practice among editors in the topic area.
This "must-get-consensus-first" discretionary sanction is being exploited in bad faith by anti-Trump editors to retain potentially BLP-violating material aginst Donald Trump.
The article, Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations is ripe for BLP violations of the WMF-gets-sued variety. I see that certain anti-Trump editors have attempted to remove material that casts doubt on several of the allegations, leaving potentially false allegations undiluted.

It is not enough that this material is "sourced": it must be accurate. Donald Trump has expressed a willingness to sue those who have made unfounded allegations against him, and this is of no help whatsoever to WMF's legal team if WMF is named as a defendant alongside the New York Times, Huffington Post, etc. A look through the talk page makes it clear that much of this is not a "good faith" reporting of mainstream news sources; several of the editors clearly have it in for Donald Trump. Kick this to ArbCom. Kick this to ArbCom. Kick this to ArbCom!

Administrators: It is quite clear that many of you favored Hillary Clinton for president over Donald Trump. And it is clear to me that several of you are partial against those editors whose editing has favored Trump over those whose editing has been against Trump. I am quite certain that if TTAAC had been an anti-Trump editor you'd be looking for excuses to WP:BOOMERANG the reporting editor. I am not going to point fingers, but I am of a similar mind to that expressed by User:TParis elsewhere on this page. I have no confidence in your collective impartiality. Retain some dignity for AE, and kick this to ArbCom! AnotherNewAccount (talk) 19:55, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning TheTimesAreAChanging

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

This does look like inappropriate behaviour to me. TheTimesAreAChanging added some content which was removed by another editor who didn't think it was appropriate. At that point the issue should have been taken to the talk page, both per usual practice and more importantly the active sanction requiring that "All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion)". Instead TheTimesAreAChanging chose to put it back calling the removal "vandalism" (which it clearly isn't). This is a pretty clear breach of the active sanction. Hut 8.5 12:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@TheTimesAreAChanging:: you really aren't doing yourself any favours with your responses here. If you do have a "combative persona", perceive other editors as "attacking" you and try to "hit back twice as hard" then you really shouldn't be editing in this topic area. Wikipedia is not a battleground and you should be working together with other editors rather than spending your time here fighting with them. This is particularly important in articles involving very divisive issues some editors care deeply about, such as this one. I can see how this style of conduct would explain your behaviour in regards to the edits which prompted this request - when one of your edits was reverted you perceived that as an attack and retaliated by reverting again, disparaging the earlier revert as "vandalism" and leaving this rather aggressive talk page comment. If that is the kind of thing you do habitually when editing articles about recent American politics then I suggest you try editing somewhere else. Hut 8.5 20:47, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like a straightforward violation of the discretionary page restrictions on Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations. A few weeks ago, Melanie specifically pointed out on the user's page that they needed to be careful about editing U.S. politics articles under page restrictions.[31] This was in regard to TheTimes' reinstating challenged edits on another article (Political positions of Donald Trump), but you'd think they'd be able to keep the general, and specifically Trump-related, warning in mind. Also I think it's pretty egregious for an experienced editor to play the tired "vandalism" card here in order to justify their revert. New users can be excused for claiming anything they disagree with is vandalism, as they often do, but it won't fly in this case. Bishonen | talk 17:16, 24 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Adding note: SPECIFICO, do you have a link to the ANI discussion you mention, where you say TheTimesAreAChanging narrowly avoided a block? (Minor point: you refer to him as "TheTimesTheyAreAChanging", but that isn't his name. It could be argued that it ought to be — that your version does more justice to Bob Dylan, and to rhythm — but that's the user's business.) Bishonen | talk 00:17, 25 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]
More: Thank you, SPECIFICO. (That's an AN3 thread, not ANI; you may want to change that in your post). I was aware before in a general way of TheTimesAreAChanging being embattled on Am Pol pages, and I had even looked at his userpage — it reminded me of User:EEng's, mutatis mutandis and without the wit. But I hesitated to act, even to warn, simply because there's so much unpleasantness on those article talkpages overall that it takes much study to be sure one person sinks below the general level. Anyway, I'm interested in your diffs, and note from them especially TheTimesAreAChanging's tendency to put personal attacks and BLP violations in edit summaries. Examples:

13 Oct 2016: "RV patronizing warning from hack editor. I have every right--indeed, obligation--to rollback a sockpuppet attack on a BLP; SPECIFICO has yet to engage the issues on talk, instead lecturing me about "edit wars." Come off it!" Not sure what a "hack editor" is. In the context, perhaps a paid Democratic party shill?

27 Oct 2016: "Under no obligation to make these archives easily accessible for oppo-research by SPECIFICO or others." That's like taking every opportunity for a battleground stance, even for something as anodyne as removing his own archive links from his own page.

19 Nov 2016: "Classic NYT propaganda. Flynn was forced out for warning Obama—the "Founder of ISIS"—to stop!)" Calling Obama the "Founder of ISIS". It has quotes round it, and yes, we all know it's a quote and from where, but why is it there at all?

If TheTimesAreAChanging has some explanation of these edit summaries that will make them sound remotely decent, collaborative, etc, I'll be interested to hear it. If he doesn't, I'm not sure he should be editing American politics at all, when it makes him so angry. I see him editing computer games and related pages in a pleasant and constructive manner (AFAICS); stick to that, perhaps? Bishonen | talk 22:31, 25 November 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Having had a good look through this report and the diffs, I agree with Bishonen. Given an apparent ability to edit in other areas without exhibiting this type of behaviour, a topic ban on American politics seems the most effective remedy at this point. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:32, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

~~@Hut 8.5: Defending oneself to a character assassination is not a indicative of a "combative persona".--v/r - T P 00:18, 7 December 2016 (UTC)~~ [reply]
- I've reviewed the LENGTHY section written here, whew, and I really can only conclude that my predecessors here could not have read TheTimeAreAChanging's section to come to the conclusion that they have. Perhaps I am biased. I believe in the last years, I've made it known that I hold the perception that Wikipedians lean left and that is exemplified in the execution of AE complaints. However, I find SPECIFICO's latest example, here, concerns the removal of an opinion blog calling Trump racist and sexist. I know a lot of people here, and in the world, consider that to be unambiguous truth and I may be inclined to believe it. But I question whether that kind of opinion piece would be acceptable on HRC's article. But, that's getting too deeply into the politics of it all.
  I've seen mudslinging coming from all sides on this issue. Specifico characterized this as a "gross smear". Specifico claims that in this diff, TTAAC claims to "best" his opponents. What the diff actually says is that he believes he does a better job adhering to a NPOV. Specifico's portrayal of that is misguided...at best. Specifico claims that TTAAC is making a paranoid conspiracy theory in this edit which is actually TTAAC saying that the proven socking has left them paranoid about more socking.
  The other respondents in this AE report all say this is a content dispute. How the other admins in this thread come to "action needed" is beyond me.--v/r - T P 00:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - ~~Bishon's comments are more convincing than Specifico's. I'd like to see TTAAC's response to that.--v/r - T P 00:37, 7 December 2016 (UTC)~~[reply]
Part of the problem with the atmosphere of this project is that its nearly impossible to express a dissenting opinion on these topics without appearing to be allowing personal politics to influence an opinion. Meanwhile, those that hold a certain persuasion can speak their mind unafraid of being called partisan. Call it an unintentional chilling effect caused by either the real or my perceived leaning of my fellow sysops. I'd rather not comment than leave someone with the impression that I am trying to influence the discussion to go my way. I admit this is self-censorship and no one's fault, but I've reread my comments and I just don't feel comfortable with, nor have faith in, how others may read them.--v/r - T P 01:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This complaint is not about TTAAC's political views or original research about alleged political bias among admins. As an Australian, I couldn't care less about TTAAC's political views as American politics in general is something that is just unfathomable to me. I am about as uninvolved as one could be with this situation. What is relevant to this discussion is whether TTAAC breached the consensus requirement that they were clearly aware of with this edit using the edit summary "rv vandalism...". It clearly wasn't vandalism, and the use of the term was obviously intended to try to get around complying with the consensus requirement, because reversion of vandalism is allowed under the sanctions regime. The appropriate thing to do at that point was to take it to talk, not revert and call it vandalism as cover. I am more familiar with ARBMAC than this area, but it seems possible that enforcement hasn't been very consistent in the American politics space. We have sanctions for a reason, so that people comply and disputes are managed appropriately. If we don't enforce them, why have them? TTAAC didn't comply with the consensus requirement, and to ensure they do in future, I stand by my view that action is required. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:56, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've already sticken my comment, what made you feel compelled to retort?--v/r - T P 03:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a retort, and has little to do with your stricken remarks, so perhaps I shouldn't have threaded it off yours. Sorry about that. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:59, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry for my hostility, then. It appears to have been a misunderstanding.--v/r - T P 05:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is about poor editing behaviour, not American politics. An understanding of the latter isn't necessary to accurately identify the former. I'll add that the BLP violation by TTAAC about a certain journalist being "insane" (noted by SPECIFICO) adds fuel to this, demonstrating failure to abide by community rules (even while TTAAC's editing is being subjected to greater than usual scrutiny). In conjunction with the 1RR violation and using the "rv vandalism" edit summary, it gives the impression that TTAAC doesn't think the rules apply to them. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:18, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are making too much of this, which may explain why it has dragged on so long with no action, with no admin willing to pull the trigger. I empathize with TParis's frustration above. As a community, it appears (to some) that we are more aggressive in policing one side of politics more than the other, which is not surprising given the nature of the project. Unquestionably, TTAAC screwed up but the type of mistakes beg the question whether or not this requires we use the heavy tools grated to us by Arb here at AE. From my perspective, the problems seem rather run of the mill and not really what AE was set up for. Calling someone insane is indeed a BLP violation, for example, but we seldom act on it other than to warn. Reverting good faith edits with the summary "vandalism" is certainly wrong, but it happens at least at least once per minute somewhere at Wikipedia. All of this is a big stale. All of this happened in a topic area that still has people carrying signs in the street. I don't want to excuse bad behavior but I don't see where taking action here is going to actually improve the encyclopedia. Much of this is content dispute, much of it has already settled itself. I would rather see a strong warning given to TTAAC and move on. Anything more may be seen as punitive at this point, and it wouldn't be preventative and he seems to have been right on some of the facts in question, even if he was too aggressive in the way he edited. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:08, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Kamel Tebaast

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

Request concerning Kamel Tebaast

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Nableezy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 18:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#General_1RR_restriction :

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

02:58, 28 November 2016‎ first revert
17:53, 28 November 2016 second revert

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

11 October Indefinitely blocked and topic-banned
13 August topic banned

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

Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see above for previous sanctions
Successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict in the last twelve months, through email with The Wordsmith

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This editor has already been topic banned twice in less than 6 months. This is his second 1RR violation since having the last topic ban lifted. There is a much larger report covering all of his recent "contributions" to this encyclopedia, and the pettiness and bad faith exercises in those edits, but that will take a bit to compile. For now, here's a fairly clear 1RR violation. This user has proved himself incapable of abiding by the rules to edit in this topic area, and I really hope an admin doesnt indefinitely block and lift that block 2 days later after an off-wiki private discussion that they refuse to release any details about, and then lift the topic ban and allow this person to continue wasting our time.

Putting scare quotes around the right of return is not "solid editing". KTs edits since returning from his topic ban have ranged from mildly bad to outrageous. Id like to say more about this here but I think the more substantive complaint requires an email to the arbitration committee for privacy reasons. nableezy - 20:51, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@The Wordsmith:, the users very first edit coming off the topic ban was to remove a wikilink because it said the word "Palestine". He then, without ever once disputing that the agency in question was actually part of the British government of Palestine, proceeded to continue playing WP:IDHT on the talk page for a week. Along with that, he was arguing on the same talk page that the village in question was named after an ancient site that wasnt even discovered until several years after the village had been established and named. All because he did not want to include the well sourced fact that the name was taken from a nearby Arab settlement. See Talk:Beit_Alfa#Kibbutz_Beit_Alpha_was_not_named_after_an_Arab_village. Following that, KT proceeded to attempt to overwhelm the biography of a computer scientist and mathematician with irrelevant material, turning it into a proxy battle between Ephraim Karsh and Tom Segev, neither of whom are the subject of that BLP (diff. The rest of this cant really be discussed here. But, in sum, this person has repeatedly demonstrated that the agenda driven motives in his edits and the distinct lack of respect for Wikipedia policies, content and behavioral. nableezy - 21:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yall should really institute a rule that involved editors may not comment on an enforcement request. nableezy - 19:16, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Lankiveil: yes, this itself is minor. And maybe Im being lazy in seeing yet another minor violation and reporting it instead of actually putting together a more comprehensive report. But Kamel Tebaast is a terrible editor, an uninformed hyper-partisan who has contributed nothing of any substance to a single article in this topic area and has instead spent his time engaged in full out battle on behalf of his cause. He has personalized disputes beyond anything I have seen in however close to the decade Ive been here. He has been petty and vindictive, disinterested in abiding by even WP:BLP, willing to turn completely unrelated topics into proxy battlegrounds on either the topic or against editors he holds to be his antagonists. So yes, this is minor. But in the five months since this person has been allowed to edit in this topic area, a month after he began editing in topics since abandoned because his aim of being a warrior for the cause of Israel on Wikipedia is fairly clear, he has been topic banned twice for two of those months, and since returning has proceeded to demonstrate just how bad this person is for any project purporting to have the aim of creating reliably sourced neutral encyclopedia articles. As you have oversight Id be happy to email you regarding the private information that made me more willing to report a minor violation.

@Lankiveil: sent.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning Kamel Tebaast

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

Statement by Kamel Tebaast

Nableezy is correct about one thing: I did violate the 1RR. I wish I could self-revert, which I would, but it is obviously too late.

They should place warnings: DON'T EDIT WHILE ON MEDS. My only excuse is that I'm on heavy medications prior to a surgery tomorrow. I mistakenly thought that I had made a revert on another article. In any case, the revert in discussion was solid and should not to be construed as disruptive editing. If my intent was disruptive in nature or aimed at violating policy it would be one thing. This wasn't.

@The Wordsmith: I made a technical mistake. As noted, I would have immediately self-reverted had someone pointed it out to me. However the 10 minutes between my edit, the revert, and the filing at AE did not allow. I did not revert the same text, so I was obviously not edit waring. I don't understand why I shouldn't be given the same opportunity everyone receives to correct such a minor technical error. Kamel Tebaast 16:44, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Shrike

Usually users that violate 1RR given chance to self revert.The Kemal was not given such chance and he does accept it as mistake I think warning about being careful in the future will suffice--Shrike (talk) 18:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Monochrome Monitor

It's unfair that he was reported without getting a chance to self-revert. This is contrary to the spirit of wikipedia, where rules are preventative and not punitive. This is simply a "gotcha!" complaint, catching KT (drugged or not) in the act breaking the 1RR rule. Well, from my experience the 1RR rule is easy to break, and nableezy has reported me similarly for doing so without letting me self-revert even though I expressed intent to. But this isn't about me, I'm just saying this because I don't think nableezy understands what 1RR is for. It is not to punish your enemies but to encourage healthy debate, and these vexatious AE reports have a chilling effect.--Monochrome_Monitor 21:21, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Nableezy: Why revert completely if there are parts you dont object to? Why not just remove the scare quotes as you describe them?--Monochrome_Monitor 22:27, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Malik Shabazz: Can we keep this civil?--Monochrome_Monitor 22:28, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Zero0000: If they revert themselves, what's the problem? There is no "impunity" if they self-revert, and even you call it a "mistake". It's a fact that the vast majority of 1RR violations are accidental. Alerting users to their mistake doesn't mean you can't report them, it just means waiting a bit before doing so. The result is the same, their edit is removed, just without getting AE involved. Making people less likely to go to AE is a GOOD thing. The fact is that many users, like myself, never go to AE, and others, like Nableezy, go whenever an "enemy" slips up. (I will gladly take that back if someone can produce an example of Nableezy reporting an editor with his POV for a 1RR violation) If anything we rely too much on 3RR and 1RR violations as "hard indicators" of misconduct, warranting punishment regardless of the circumstances. But WP:IAR is a thing and if anything we should be more reliant on what are currently "soft indicators", namely, being a jackass. The worst offenders who act against the spirit of wikipedia by gaming revert restrictions would fall under that category, but those who politely apologize and self-revert do not.--Monochrome_Monitor 23:12, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Zero0000: I'm not familiar with his baggage but the vast majority of editors (and things in the universe) are not "useless".--Monochrome_Monitor 04:01, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Malik Shabazz

Boo hoo! I was drunk, so I'm not responsible for my umpteenth violation of the rules. I'm on the side of the angels, so I deserve a ~~second~~ ~~third~~ fourth chance. I only broke the rules because the evil nableezy caught me, so it really doesn't count. What a bunch of pitiful whiners! — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 21:33, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by John Carter

I don't know that I've ever seen someone say they may have been temporarily impaired as a result of medications for surgery. If it is true, and I assume it is up to the AE enforcers to determine how much credit they give it, that it was due to such a unique set of circumstances, having myself been in a similar spot in the past, I can see how it might not be unreasonable to maybe allow a single instance of misconduct related to that slide, provided that there is no recurrence. If there ever is recurrence, throw the book or computer at him. The fact that the editor apparently wasn't given a chance to self-revert might also be considered in the decision. FWIW, I edited a wikisource page on a treaty when I was in the same situation, not here, but that was under probably different circumstances. John Carter (talk) 22:20, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My thanks to Irondome (talk · contribs) for his offer of mentorship below, which seems to me to be one of the better options available here. John Carter (talk) 16:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Debresser

To me it is clear that Kamel Tebaast made one edit in the evening and a completely different one in the morning, and probably just forgot that he had made an edit the previous evening. In addition, the edits are sound, and I see nothing contentious about them. Nableezy's post here seems like his umpteenth attempt to get an editor from the "other camp" blocked for no real violation. I think this report should be dismissed and that's it. Debresser (talk) 22:31, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph

I echo what Debresser wrote and what I would like perhaps added to the rulebooks is that if you are bringing an AE action for a 1RR you also need to show that the user had notification of the 1RR and time to revert. There is a huge chill in the air in certain areas and it's just not nice to be around anymore. We need to bring back the "fun" of editing and not harp on every edit. 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 00:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think to settle this matter, the mentoring offer should be looked into as a valid option. 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 20:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zero0000

A lot of nonsense is being written here. Editors who are known for editing in good faith are frequently given a chance to revert their mistakes before getting reported, but bad faith editors like Kamel Tebaast do not deserve such a courtesy. Establishing this as a "right" would fundamentally alter application of policy and would allow bad editors to violate 1RR/3RR with impunity, knowing that they can back out safely if they are challenged. As for my charge of bad faith, one can mention his edit-warring and bad faith argumentation at Beit Alfa, immediately after The Wordsmith removed his topic ban. At the talk page there you can see him trying to argue that this location was named after an ancient site not known to exist at the time, and refusing to accept multiple sources that clearly identify a government department. Zero^talk 00:41, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Monochrome Monitor: What we must not allow is an environment where a bad editor can violate 1RR with the knowledge that they will get a chance to back off if the the edit is challenged. There is no such right, and if someone is reported for a 1RR violation it is their own fault alone. Nableezy already allowed KT to revert himself once recently; how many chances should he get? The admins who work here are capable of seeing the difference between a good editor who made an innocent mistake and a bad editor whose violation was not innocent. Note that "not innocent" is different from "deliberate"; someone who breaks 1RR without intending to during a pov-push is also not innocent. However, I personally think that 1RR is the least of KT's sins since he came off his topic ban. He should be re-banned because he is a disruptive useless editor. Zero^talk 01:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Irondome

I am willing to mentor, as a last resort. This entirely depends on whether KT gets the fact that they need help before community patience is collectively exhausted, and community consensus would support such a move. I have in the past briefly mentored one member of the community who is now positively contributing to this discussion. POV is irrelevant if one sticks by the rules, is intellectually honest and is capable of self-reflection. The medical issue I am keeping an open mind about, and am inclined to be understanding. Even so, it was a terribly ill-timed co-incidence of events. Now, Kamel Tebaast, would you accept mentoring? My terms are strict, and I would not hesitate to hand over to admin action if you broke a mutually accepted mentoring agreement. I have watched this issue from the sidelines for some months, and am aware of the overriding problems to an extent. What does the community say? If agreed by all parties, I will present my conditions here. Irondome (talk) 01:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Kamel Tebaast

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

I'm holding off on judgment for the moment, but suffice to say I'm not happy about this case. I had hoped (perhaps naively) that KT would stay out of trouble for the near future. @Nableezy: You say you have additional evidence. I would like to see it, at least the portion that does not have privacy concerns. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 15:24, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- KT has indicated that he's going to be offline for roughly a week to recover from his medical procedure. Unless there is some compelling reason, I intend to hold this request open until then. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 16:55, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to be on the extremely minor side of things, and I don't see any reason not to AGF where the explanation is concerned; the user should be aware that using similar excuses in the future will probably not elicit a very sympathetic response. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]
- @Nableezy: If there is non-public or suppressed information that you'd like me to look at, please forward it to me via confidential email. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 03:32, 9 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

User:Kamel Tebaast has given notice that he is back, and this request can proceed. EdJohnston (talk) 11:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Based on solely this instance, I see no reason to take action. In the future, a good-faith message on the editor's talk page asking them to self-revert should be made before this is brought to AE. There are likely broader issues here, though, and we need a more comprehensive report to look at those. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:42, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:Nableezy says he has forwarded some private information to User:Lankiveil, who is an oversighter. We should probably wait to see if Lankiveil believes it should affect the decision here. EdJohnston (talk) 22:38, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Unless this evidence specifically relates to suppressed edits, Lankiveil likely can't act upon the information as per the blocking policy. (I ran this by an arbitrator before saying this, and they agreed.) This likely needs to be sent to the arbcom listserv if there's privacy concerns. We can't handle it on-wiki. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:47, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - I've received the email, and it is stuff that needs to be kept confidential (sorry, I can't go into any more detail), but in my mind it doesn't affect the substance of this particular request for enforcement. I'd still be in favour of closing this with a stern "don't edit while drugged up" warning, this other matter that Nableezy has made me aware of will be handled through the usual channels for this sort of thing. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 08:53, 10 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Hidden Tempo

The appeal is declined. EdJohnston (talk) 04:13, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Appealing user: Hidden Tempo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Hidden Tempo (talk) 05:30, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sanction being appealed: 6 month TBAN from the topic of post-1932 politics of the United States, and closely related people, broadly construed. Imposed here, logged here.

Administrator imposing the sanction: Bishonen (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 Hidden Tempo

Inside this collapse box is the original statement by Hidden Tempo in this appeal. Kept for reference since it is what most people responded to. Beginning after the box is the revised version I asked him to create to meet the 500-word limit. EdJohnston (talk) 02:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Regarding the reasoning that I deserve a ban because I called Volunteer Marek's edit "filth" (on my own tak page) this user has been harassing me for over a month, following me from article to article, violating WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF almost every time.[32][33][34]. I also asked him to stop harassing me [35], which he ignored and continued to reply to my talk page edits and proceeded to continue templating my talk page. I submit that I do not deserve a ban on the grounds that I removed a harassing editor's message from my talk page, or that I used the word "filth" to characterize said harassing message.

Bishonen's second point is that I should be banned because I apparently violated WP:SOAPBOXING (as Volunteer Marek, the harassing editor alleged multiple times) with this edit. However, my edit does not fit any of the requirements outlined in that policy. I have never voiced support for any political candidate or revealed my own political views, and yet have been accused of doing so by Bishonen and Volunteer Marek. In that edit, I provided links to RS for each statement. Was my frustration with the lack of neutrality on the Hillary Clinton talk page apparent? Undoubtedly. Did this fit any of the 5 requirements for WP:SOAP to be violated? Absolutely not. I submit that no violation of this policy took place, and strenuously object to a topic ban on these grounds. Bishonen also claims that my comments are disruptive and "foment strife," but is this not what this project is based upon? Healthy discussion and the melding of a variety of opinions are how articles are improved. I welcome (civil) conflict, and challenging the status quo brings about positive change. Whether or not I am viciously attacked by other editors is out of my hands, and therefore provides no justification for a topic ban.

Bishonen's final reason for my topic ban is that I violated WP:BLP violations with the aforementioned edit: "Plus, you phrased wholesale attacks on Clinton and her family members ("Chelsea Clinton using Foundation funds to pay for her wedding") in a way that's not supported by the sources you linked to." With this accusation, Bishonen submits that my statement(s) (oddly characterized as an "attack" by Bishonen, therefore violating WP:AGF), meets the standards for a BLP violation. In actuality, whether or not an edit is reflected accurately in the source material is entirely subjective, and is in fact the very reason we have talk pages in the first place! While providing insight to another user as to why his edit has been reverted, I used the discussion as an opportunity to provide him with clarity as to why he is unlikely to succeed. I pointed to the pervasive and ingrained {{neutrality}} issues with the Hillary Clinton and Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016 pages. The source material ([36] [37]) clearly alleges that Chelsea Clinton used Clinton Foundation funds to pay for her wedding. If Bishonen doesn't agree, that is her right, but a six month topic ban to voice that disagreement is not the proper course of action. I submit that I committed no BLP violations with the edit that she cited on my talk page, and thus should not be subjected to an extraordinarily lengthy TBAN on these grounds.

Lastly, the banning administrator, BIshonen, has admitted to being unable to comprehend "a good deal" of American politics, since she pejoratively describes our political system as "strange."[38]. This self-admitted lack of understanding calls into question her ability to accurately interpret complex American political issues, such as the Clinton Foundation-State Department Controversy and other issues I raised that she feels are BLP violations, especially if English is not her native language (note that this is in no way designed to be insulting or an attack, rather a legitimate concern of detecting nuance). For these reasons, I am appealing the 6-month TBAN, and requesting for a modification of this ban (reduction) to a 48-hour TBAN. While I vehemently maintain that I have done nothing wrong, I may benefit from a break from editing this weekend. Thank you for the consideration, and I apologize if I have violated any rules of etiquette or protocol, as this is my first banning and first appeal.

EDIT: Just another note, I would also like to take this opportunity to request an IBAN for myself and Volunteer Marek to help keep talk page discussions copasetic, whatever the result may be of this appeal. Also, in light of Bishonen's apparent distaste for American politics (see above edit), I believe this poses a natural WP:COI problem and adds to the notion that this lengthy TBAN should be either nullified or at least drastically reduced as I previously suggested. Thank you again. Hidden Tempo (talk) 05:30, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq Forgive me, I'm new at this. Do I reply here? I absolutely oppose the inclusion of "Frigidaire" as a nickname of Hillary Clinton. I feel it's undue, as I know a great deal about Hillary Clinton and have never heard this nickname. In addition, I believe the user provided one flimsy source. I've developed a bit of a reputation on the talk pages for being a "Hillary hater" and/or "Trump supporter," but I've always strived for neutrality, regardless of my own personal feelings about the former candidates. I had hoped that never revealing my own political views would help lend credence to my status as an objective editor, but it seems I've failed miserably. To answer your other question, if I could do it again, I would've started a new section regarding these topics, rather than bundled the issues in the "Frigidaire" subsection. I attribute my penchant for long responses to the repeated "soapboxing" allegations, and maybe if I could find a way to trim and/or better compartmentalize my suggestions to improve articles, my responses wouldn't be confused with soapboxing. However, I maintain that the issues I raised were well-backed by the sources that I cited within the response, thereby avoiding any BLP violations. In retrospect, I should have used the phrases "alleged" and "accused of" to make it perfectly clear that I was not convicting anyone of any crimes on the Wikipedia talk pages, but instead stating the facts that the Clinton Foundation was in fact accused of ethics violations. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to respond. Hidden Tempo (talk) 06:38, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq The Frigidaire nickname wasn't well-sourced, and as I stated in the comment, even if the nickname should be included, it's academic for me. The main problem I have is that there is a Clinton Foundation subsection, but absolutely no mention of the ongoing FBI investigation into the Foundation and (possibly) multiple ethics violations reported on by multiple reliable sources, and likely even admitted by the Clinton campaign itself in the WikiLeaks email that I sourced. I used the analogy that trying to get such a minute detail into the article when there are other monumental issues with the article is like trying to get a stain out of the carpet when the house is on fire. I'm also unsure which source I provided that was partisan. Is Fox News not a reliable source? CNN is very frequently used as a citation on political pages, despite many conflicts of interest (financial and otherwise) with the Clinton campaign that I've discussed previously, but do not particularly want to bring up here as I don't want to be accused of more BLP violations. Hidden Tempo (talk) 07:07, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq @Bishonen @JFG @Soham321 Am I able to reply to @MelanieN's statement here? I would just like to point out that not a single political view was stated by myself in any of those diffs. I never voiced my support for a former candidate, or any opinions concerning, economics, illegal immigration, social issues, healthcare, foreign policy, taxes, energy, entitlement spending, or any other political issues. According to the Wiktionary definition, politics concerns affairs associated with running a "government, organization, or movement." Therefore, voicing my thoughts about the state of American journalism is not a political view, even if I use the words "liberal" or "conservative." Additionally, I am offended at the accusation that I propagated any "conspiracy theory." At the time of that edit, I was unaware that I was required to use sources (even on the talk pages) for every statement that may not be immediately obvious to an outsider. However, after I became aware of this, I began using sources on the talk pages. I am more than willing and eager to share a plethora of sources backing each and every single statement (re: Donna Brazile, John Harwood, Glenn Thrush, Hillary's trustworthiness poll numbers that I referred to as "feeble") etc., thereby more than disproving any misuse of the phrase "conspiracy theory." Lastly, I would like to point out that using the word "mountainous" to describe the number and severity of a presidential candidate's alleged ethical and legal struggles is not a policy violation. This is entirely subjective, and that is the exact reason that I raised these issues on the talk page instead of taking the liberty of adding content directly to the article before reaching consensus. MelanieN may disagree with my opinion, but a disagreement is not a BLP violation or in breach of any other Wikipedia policies that I am aware of, nor is raising the concern of politicians paying people to scrub/protect their Wikipedia pages. Hidden Tempo (talk) 23:49, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS I'm sorry you feel that your intelligence was insulted, but that was not my intention at all. I am simply disagreeing with @MelanieN's thesis that I am voicing political views, when in fact I am not (by the Wiktionary definition of "politics"). I also do not agree that my edits are biased. As I discussed with @Bishonen, the reason that my edits may appear to favor Donald Trump and somehow denigrate Hillary Clinton is due to the status of the articles. My opinion is that Donald Trump's article is currently burdened with the "too long" template because every minute negative detail of his campaign has been crammed onto the page. My opinion is that Hillary Clinton's article, in contrast, is very readable (albeit skeletal), but oddly vacant of some of her career-defining moments and events that many would view as negative. Every possible proud moment of her life and positive attribute is thoroughly documented and discussed in detail. Therefore, I do not argue for potentially negative material to be added to Trump's page simply because there is nothing left to add. It's all there. For the same reason, I do not advocate for positive material to be added to Hillary Clinton's pages - every last bit is represented, including UNDUE material. I truly think that's why I have been unfairly accused of having a "pro-Trump/anti-Clinton" bias. But as JFG pointed out, we all have inherent bias as contributors, here.

I take great exception to your statement that I committed a BLP violation by referring to Hillary's trustworthiness poll numbers as "feeble." It's an NBC News poll that found that just 11% of America trusts Hillary Clinton (as of August, 2016). Is 11% not worthy of the word "feeble"? There's no BLP violation there. There just isn't - it's a factual statement, echoed in the source material, which has direct pertinence to the subject matter of the article. That goes for my concern of WP:PAID issues on political articles, as well. I cited Time Magazine as reference, so I fail to see how that qualifies as "step too far." My statement is backed by an extremely reliable source (in a non-partisan article), and qualifies as more than "a shred of evidence." Thanks for reading and I apologize for the lengthy edit. Hidden Tempo (talk) 02:10, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS I think we have both made our views on this topic abundantly clear at this point. I would just like to note that I have read WP:BLP several times to better familiarize myself with the criteria for a violation to have occurred. As you said, "unsourced and poorly sourced" material should not be added. Both statements in question were well-sourced, and I never edited the article's subject matter to include the sourced material. Instead, I visited the talk pages in an attempt to reach consensus, and offered a nicely written (in my biased opinion, of course) proposal[39] to say a few words about the Clinton Foundation-State Department Controversy. I invited other editors to take part in improving my draft, and was instead met with accusations of POV, tendentious editing, and being "snide." Only @MelanieN was kind enough to offer constructive feedback. Hopefully that exchange provides a better idea of who I am and how I'm treated by a select group of contributors. In any case, as Soham321 stated, I am relatively new to the project, but still cannot reconcile your description of my talk page edits as a "BLP violation" after reading the page multiple times. They don't appear to fit any of the requirements outlined on that project page, but please correct me if I'm wrong with the exact passage (remember, my allegedly "contentious" edits are well-sourced) that makes even mentioning Secretary Clinton's trustworthiness poll numbers a BLP violation, rather than just a normal disagreement of WP:DUE on a talk page.

One more thing - despite the obvious tense nature of a TBAN appeal, I would appreciate it if we could be a bit more civil. I don't think it's very appropriate to threaten and appear to relish the opportunity to block me with language like "I'll see you at ANI" and accuse me of feigning indignation. I believe I've been exceptionally polite throughout this process thus far, and don't believe my prior actions in question should be reason to deny me the same courtesy. Thank you.Hidden Tempo (talk) 04:39, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@My very best wishes, what "unsubstantiated complaint" that created "disruption" are you talking about, here? I'm really confused, now. I will acknowledge that we seem to be deviating from the basis of my appeal, though. I was banned for three reasons according to Bishonen (1) referring to Volunteer Marek's harassing message as "filth," 2)violating WP:SOAP, and 3) violating WP:BLP. I believe I have sufficiently refuted all three of these claims against me, so maybe we could get back to the main meat of this TBAN. My proposal for an edit on the talk page of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016 article is still open, and I would very much like to have my TBAN rescinded soon and rejoin the collaborative effort while it is still active. This would of course be done with the understanding that I must always source any potentially contentious material that I propose (including on the talk pages), adopt a less combative attitude, take the suggestions of @JFG and @Soham321 to heart, and focus on improving articles piecemeal rather than engaging in long diatribes to voice my frustration with my perceived neutrality issues. Many thanks. Hidden Tempo (talk) 06:19, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to extend my gratitude and appreciation for the insights and contributions of @JFG, @Soham321, @TheTimesAreAChanging, @SashiRolls, and @MelanieN to this appeal. @Bishonen, I think we have all thoroughly addressed all three violations upon which you based your TBAN. I have been blocked, then unblocked hours later after demonstrating that I am much more familiar with WP:BLP, and it seems we are largely in agreement that my edits do not warrant my standing in the corner for an additional 6 months. It also seems that there is a perceived double standard for my edits, as other contributors have launched direct, vicious, and sometimes obscene attacks against living persons without receiving any repercussions whatsoever.[40][41] It appears the general consensus is that I should tone down my language, and ensure that my approach to editing is focused solely on the topic at hand, not the editor, suggestions which I agree with and am ready to abide by. I also think it's obvious that my intentions to edit articles are pure, as the alleged violations occurred during attempts to gain consensus on talk pages, rather than repeatedly making contentious edits to the articles themselves. And as another user pointed out, the word "feeble" was used to describe a percentage, not a living person, making any possible BLP violation a rather small one. I think we also agree that the seriousness of using the word "feeble" was certainly dwarfed by the aforementioned attack on Bernie Sanders as a person, using rather colorful, hyperbolic, and purposefully derogatory language to describe the man. As I have gained the confidence of at least ~~two~~ one admin (~~@MelanieN~~ and @Boing! said Zebedee) that I am now better equipped to follow BLP policies and play well with others, I request that my topic ban be reduced to 48 hours as I requested previously, and have it lifted immediately as that amount of time has already elapsed. Thanks very much.

P.S. Please also note that I have formally requested an IBAN for @Volunteer Marek due to repeated WP:CIVIL violations and harassment, and may pursue an IBAN for Objective3000 as well, as he continues to disparage me on virtually every talk page edit I make. Note that this user is choosing to do the same thing even on this page, erroneously claiming that my use of the word "feeble" was in reference to a former presidential candidate's health, when I clearly stated (and is obvious to every other user thus far) that I was referring to a poll regarding that candidate's trustworthiness perception. These IBANS will help stop other contributors from attacking me personally and possibly trying to provoke further conflicts, and maintain peace on the talk pages.

EDIT: MelanieN asked that I strike her name from the list of administrators who agree that I've learned my lesson, but I'd like to point out that she did admit that the BLP violations alleged by the banning administrator (Bishonen) are not blockable offenses. My tiffs with other editors are in the past, but I don't believe WP:CIVIL problems were one of the three items listed as a reason for my 6 month ban. Hidden Tempo (talk) 06:30, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I read the ban notice, @Bishonen. I maintain that I have addressed all of your reasons for the ban, and neatly refuted them all. I tried to reduce them to more digestible well-defined points in an attempt to prevent the appeal from getting bogged down by vague, sort of amorphous complaints about me. Anyway, I think the obvious trend in this appeal is a clear consensus among users that a 6-month TBAN is unwarranted. The two exceptions are one involved user who has attacked me in the past, and another who came to my talk page to try to sweat/grill me about my IBAN request for that user - and then you suddenly rematerialized here shortly afterward to indirectly reference the information gleaned from the aforementioned user's bizarre edit. Unfortunately for me, user consensus doesn't get bans overturned - uninvolved administrators do. And so it seems that in this case, 2 outnumbers 7 (so far). I think there were some great points made by other contributors to this appeal, especially in regards to double standards and which reliable sources Wikipedia trusts. At least I know I'm not crazy.

Journalists and organizations that donate millions of dollars to/secretly meet with/collude in formulating debate questions/provide advance debate questions to one candidate are to be considered respectable, unbiased, non-partisan, highly regarded organizations that are worthy of our boundless trust. That whole "left-wing mainstream media" thing is nothing more than a POV myth. However, if an organization doesn't donate to any candidate or is widely considered the most trusted name in news (in the case of Fox News, as an example), that source is to be considered nothing more than right-wing propaganda/sensationalist/a wing of a political party, and should never be used. If you dare reference one of these sources, you can expect to be shamelessly attacked (along with former candidates themselves) and accused of being a right wing echo chamber, with absolutely no action taken against that user. Wikipedia says that that's just fine, and I can accept that. I won't be pleased if part of the reason for my TBAN being upheld is responding to WP:CIVIL violations with alleged WP:CIVL violations. I'm not fine with that, but again, it's not up to me...or the assortment of editors who also deem that standard to be patently unfair.

BLP Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this edit are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the Wikimedia Foundation or Wikipedia. Any people or organizations referenced are purely hypothetical unless otherwise explicitly stated, and are not meant to bear any similarity to any living persons, companies, or entities.Hidden Tempo (talk) 19:09, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've been very busy trying to undo what you've done, here. As an admin, to crush a Wikipedian with a 6-month TBAN may be as simple as changing a few characters in html, but that Wikipedian then must undergo a long, arduous process to even have the ban removal to be considered. Since I firmly believe that I am in the right and you are in the wrong (and your opinion seems to be in the vast minority and have gained little support), I have no problem posting 3,500 words in my defense. Whether or not your relationship with MVBW is "unbecoming" or not is completely unknown to me. I was merely pointing out the serendipitous nature of this user scrounging around for information on talk pages, and then you (as you admit) post your second comment in the discussion a short time later and attempt to use that information against me, tangentially.

I am indeed native speaker of English. I don't see how that's relevant, though. When I said "I attribute my penchant for long responses to the repeated "soapboxing" allegations," it was probably poorly phrased. I was trying to convey that since I often post long replies, many may confuse my replies with "soapboxing." But, as I've shown before, my edits don't meet any of the five requirements for soapboxing to have taken place. Hidden Tempo (talk) 02:32, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly what I've been talking about EdJohnston and Bishonen. My very best wishes is freely permitted to post this kind of attack on living persons and other editors: "Yes, users who support D. Trump tend to be more disruptive. This is nothing new. Users who support fringe theories, extremist groups and non-orthodox politicians tend to be more disruptive." During her fierce campaign for a ban/block against me, she is completely unhindered during her efforts to equate those who supported Trump during the election with those who support "fringe theories, extremist groups..." No diffs of course, this is her just saying whatever pops into her head. She also says those who she believes to have supported the President-elect "tend to be more disruptive" with absolutely no diffs. I found the remark offensive and unsubstantiated, and asked her to go ahead and strike it out, which she refused. And yet, she received no sanctions and nobody ran crying to the ANI board to beg an admin to block her. However, if a user refers to 11% of Americans as a "feeble" percentage as I did, that user is blocked for a BLP violation and practically had to beg to even continue to defend himself in his AE appeal. Is that really the kind of website that Wikipedia strives to be? This is what passes for neutrality, here? Hidden Tempo (talk) 02:21, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For the review of @EdJohnston:

My 6-month topic ban by @Bishonen was given for “persistent tendentious editing, soapboxing, and WP:BLP violations on Trump- and Clinton-related pages” [42]. What follows is a description of how I have vastly increased my familiarity with each policy, and how I will ensure that these violations do not reoccur (assuming my appeal to have this TBAN lifted is successful).

Regarding tendentious editing of talk pages, I see how some of my wording and advocacy for certain issues to be included in politics-related articles can be characterized as “tendentious.” I was perceived as having an inherent pro-Trump/anti-Clinton bias, not having a neutral point of view, as well as owning a single purpose account. To prevent these accusations from being leveled in the future, I plan to spend more of my time editing other areas that I also care about improving, such as American football and articles related to film studios and their executives. Also, I will be phrasing my talk page edits more carefully and succinctly, so as not to be viewed as soapboxing. Additionally, I think I will have more success with my proposed edits by staying on the topic itself, rather than straying into other subjects.

I acknowledge that while proposing the inclusion of certain topics (mainly information related to WikiLeaks, and the Clinton Foundation-State Department Controversy), my edits also often included long rants about systemic bias on Wikipedia, based on what I consider the tendency of political pages to lean sharply to the left, as well as the pattern of accepting liberal sources as “reliable,” while eschewing conservative-leaning sources. While I admit that my views regarding this issue are unchanged, I will use alternative avenues to express my concern and approaches to address this trend, instead of the talk pages of the articles themselves.

Regarding the BLP violations, I believe these accusations are the result of my a) often not providing diffs to the source material providing supporting evidence and b) using careless and hyperbolic language when describing living persons. Now that I have a better grasp (as evidenced by my recent block [43], and subsequent unblock by @Boing!_said_Zebedee) [44] of what constitutes a BLP violation, I am confident that my days of violating WP:BLP are over. I believe another reason for my 6-month topic ban was for having WP:CIVIL issues with other editors. To prevent this from happening in the future, I plan to adopt a less combative attitude in my edits, take the suggestions of @JFG, @Soham321, and others to heart, and focus on improving articles piecemeal rather than engaging in long diatribes to voice broad frustrations with perceived neutrality issues. If I feel provoked and/or attacked, I now know my options to prevent escalation, and allow administrators to handle disputes rather than attempt to “fight back” and possibly violate WP: BATTLEGROUND in the process. I would again like to point out that my attempts to improve articles are pure and intended to be collaborative in nature. This is evidenced by the violations occurring exclusively on talk pages, while seeking consensus, and not from my implementation of contentious edits outright. Thank you for the consideration. Hidden Tempo (talk) 23:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some new information has come to light that I believe needs to be considered here, @EdJohnston and @Peacemaker67, regarding @Bishonen's overall attitude towards blocks/bans as well as her relationship with RexxS, who recently claimed to be a "disinterested editor" during his plea for a stiffer punishment for me[45]. This is also a reply to Soham321, when he pointed again[46] to the fact that Bishonen finds American politics "strange" and "incomprehensible"[47], and thus may not be the best administrator to hand down punishments regarding American politics. In any case, I was told that any follow ups to accusations/questions do not count against the 500 word limit?

The banning administrator, Bishonen, appears to have a very cavalier and lax attitude toward blocks and bans. She has said that a user's handle is enough reason along to block that user [48], freely admitted to being "hard as nails" [49], and has joked about blocks, saying "You think I won't block him if he does it again? Ha, we'll see." [50] while reassuring RexxS that his desired block of another user will be enacted, should Bishonen find it suitable. This is after RexxS joked about another administrator being a "patron saint of blockers."[51]. One of the most disturbing and vile edits from Bishonen comes from when she voices her opinion after another administrator rejected a block. Bishonen has an alternate stance on these punishments (vulgarity redacted for the sake of maintaining decorum): "F**k that, just block, you know?" [52].

RexxS, who again, claims to be a "disinterested editor" in fact has an extraordinarily cozy relationship with my banning editor, Bishonen. Bishonen openly showers praise on RexxS, alluding to the "cleverness of young RexxS" [53], and RexxS enjoys helping Bishonen with her administrator duties, and even helping her mull punishments for his fellow Wikipedians [54],[55]. As an aside, the relationship is fostered when RexxS trashes the "poor writing" of another user, boasting that he is grateful that he "didn't attend a stately[sic] funded university" [56] and going on to say that he is a "contemporary" of British royalty [57]. Finally, in an edit that he summarizes as "Just me being mean," he actually encourages Bishonen to be more liberal with punitive actions, charging that she is "too soft" on people with whom he disagrees, who he derides/attacks as "these POV-warriors" [58]. Yesterday, RexxS made an untrue claim against me, opining that I am "acknowledged as a Trump supporter, not a neutral editor" [59], which he bases off another user's opinion that has been placed into the form of a table[60]. I politely requested that he strike the false characterization of my political views (still unknown, and only theorized, by every user on Wikipedia), which he refused [61] and advised me to "stick [my suggestion] elsewhere."[62]. After again asking him to strike the comment, he again argues for leaving it in, and then offers this as less-than-kind parting note: "unless you've led an unbelievably sheltered existence, you'll know that the sticking suggestion could have been a lot worse." [63]. While I believe that this very poor behavior and violations of WP:CIVIL (and likely other areas) require administrator action/enforcement, I am willing to accept an apology in its place, should he decide to strike both comments as well as all of his edits on my AE appeal, as it has been revealed that he should not have been participating in the appeal due to his undisclosed quite comfortable relationship with Bishonen, and the implications of impartiality that go along with that. In the interest of letting bygones be bygones, and avoiding any WP:BATTLEGROUND problems, I am happy to part ways on this note.

With all due respect to @Bishonen, I believe these diffs more than proves that she has been playing a bit "fast and loose" with her administrative powers and perhaps has wielded these powers against me in the same reckless fashion of which she has treated other editors. In addition, her very close relationship to @RexxS poses additional problems, as he has passionately argued for my ban on this page, requested a block against me on the ANI page (can't find the diff at the moment), and gave himself the disingenuous label of "disinterested," when in fact he works closely with Bishonen to enforce rules across the project and salivates at the thought of her issuing bans/blocks, as they trade pet names for each other [64]. Considering all of these factors, @EdJohnston and @Peacemaker67, I would greatly appreciate a second look at my ban, and would kindly and respectfully ask that you please take into account the above diffs regarding Bishonen's handling of her sanctioning powers, and also disregard any comments from RexxS when making your final decision. @JFG and @TParis, I wouldn't try to drag you into this, but your opinions regarding this revelation would also be much appreciated.

P.S. Peacemaker67, you stated that you would like to "see evidence" of me being "capable of editing neutrally and constructively in a less contentious area." I provided several diffs on your talk page demonstrating this, and I think it's only fair that I post them here as that fact seemed to have been factored into your opinion regarding my appeal.[65], [66],[67],[68],[69],[70],[71],[72],[73]

Statement by Bishonen

I don't think Hidden Tempo's analysis above does justice to my reasons for banning them. But I've already dialogued with them on these matters, so I suggest reviewers read their user talkpage, especially this section and this, and form their own opinion.

Another thing: I've started to think a narrower scope might have worked, such as "topic banned from all pages related to either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, both broadly construed". I hadn't quite realized how narrowly focused this user has been on promoting Trump and attacking Clinton (IMO) ever since they started editing, and on really very little else in American politics. On the other hand, there might be a risk of the disruption simply moving to other political areas. What do people think? Bishonen | talk 10:47, 3 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Further notes:
I don't for my own part accept Hidden Tempo's suggestion that the six-month AP2 topic ban be shortened to 48 hours, which he thinks is enough because his "tiffs" with other editors are in the past. It's sort of the nature of the beast that sanctions are placed because of the past — the recent past, naturally, as in your case, HT, because we don't care about ancient history — and that it's up to the person who behaved badly a day ago or a week ago to convince the admins that they're now a reformed character. I'm sorry to say you haven't convinced me — for one thing, the word "tiffs" doesn't exactly sound like taking previous problems seriously (now please don't run away with the notion that that word choice is my only objection!). Also, how are the disagreements in the past? I haven't seen you reach out in any way to Volunteer Marek or Objective3000 on this page or elsewhere. Quite the opposite. But then, the review here isn't to be carried out by me. If other admins here like the idea of 48 hours, that'll be fine by me. And, hello? I'm still hoping somebody, anybody, will comment on my tentative suggestion, above, that a narrower ban, such as "topic banned from all pages related to either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, both broadly construed", rather than from AP2, might be enough. Uninvolved admins, where are you?

@Hidden Tempo: re your recent statement "I think we have all thoroughly addressed all three violations upon which you based your TBAN",[74]. As I've already said above, I don't think your analysis does justice to the basis for my ban. In the ban notice, I stated that "you have been sanctioned for persistent tendentious editing, soapboxing, and WP:BLP violations on Trump- and Clinton-related pages. Compare the warnings on this page and elsewhere." You haven't engaged with that, but have instead repeatedly insisted that I banned you for two specific edits (together comprising the "three violations" of which you speak), namely this edit summary on your own page and this post on Talk:Hillary Clinton. And you're still insisting on it. I did refer to these two edits on your talkpage, in a note immediately above my topic ban notice, though rather mildly with respect to the "filth" edit summary (I said merely that I was "mystified" by it, as Volunteer Marek's post that you were removing seemed civil enough to me), and I gave the Talk:Hillary Clinton post as an example of the way you've been disrupting political talkpages and fomenting strife. You focus on my mention of these two edits to the exclusion of not only of all the other advice and information I've attempted to give you on your page, but of my actual ban notice as well. Taking off from your own definition of a tiny basis for my ban, rather than from what I said was the basis of my ban, you have spent a lot of ink on this page explaining elaborately why there was in your view nothing wrong with either of the two posts you have chosen to comment on. You call on policies from WP:AGF (which you believe I've violated) to WP:SOAP (which you say your Talk:Hillary Clinton post didn't violate) and throw in WP:COI, in a way that makes me seriously doubt you ever read it. I don't understand why you shrink my ban rationale in that myopic manner. Didn't you read my actual ban notice?

I note your call for an IBAN between yourself and Volunteer Marek. I won't support that, simply because of my poor experience of IBANS. From what I've seen they're a recipe for never-ending acrimonious ANI and AE serials. But other uninvolved admins, who may still weigh in here (sigh), might think differently, and institute an IBAN. I don't think that's likely to happen, but of course I won't object if it does.

I won't comment on your view that my calling American politics "strange" shows I have "distaste" for it which in turn "poses a natural WP:COI problem" and therefore I'm not in a position to be placing bans per the ARBAP2 discretionary sanctions. Well, I won't comment beyond recommending you to click on WP:COI and read it. I'll leave it to the uninvolved admins to take stock of your opinion of my unsuitability for adminning in this area, if they ever do show up. PS, hey, User:EdJohnston just turned up! Thank you! Bishonen | talk 16:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Final response to Hidden Tempo: I beg your pardon? You post here some 16—17 times, in a fair bid to talk the hind leg off a donkey with some 3,500 words, and then according to you I suddenly rematerialize, to post my second comment ever in the discussion, which you hint has some sort of unbecoming relationship with something on your talkpage, which I have no intention of researching because I don't care? I've had enough of your sneers, sir, and I'm completely done with trying to explain anything whatever to you. And no, I'm not a native speaker. Are you? What does "I attribute my penchant for long responses to the repeated "soapboxing" allegations" mean? Bishonen | talk 20:35, 5 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]
EdJohnston has asked me on my page if I want to reconsider the topic ban in view of Hidden Tempo's new and improved appeal text. Please see my reply here. (Summary: I'm dithering a bit but basically coming down on the side of "no".) Bishonen | talk 16:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by JFG

Having edited quite a bit in contentious political pages, I noticed Hidden Tempo sometimes behaving in not-so-civil ways, but aside from getting impatient, I don't see anything illegitimate in HT's contributions. He makes cogent and reasoned arguments about existing contents or noting lack thereof. He appropriately refrains from making controversial edits to articles without discussing them on talk pages; in fact he seems to be criticized here for posting lengthy arguments on talk pages. He discusses systemic bias in some mainstream sources, while proposing other sources for different viewpoints; what's wrong with that? A 6-month ban is absolutely overkill, perhaps a week would help him cool off and study some of our neutrality and civility policies. The suggested i-ban with VM might help keep things civil too, maybe that would be useful for a couple months. Banning this contributor for 6 months could be construed as censorship, and God knows WP doesn't need more accusations of bias one way or the other. My personal advice to HT: rather than ranting about your perceived imbalance of coverage, do make concrete and small proposals to restore balance one edit at a time. WP:There is no deadline. — JFG ^talk 11:05, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a followup to MelanieN's comments and Hidden Tempo's response. Admitting to one's own POV on talk pages should be encouraged in the spirit of full disclosure and WP:COI. I have zero problem working constructively with editors harboring strong personal opinions on both sides of any political issue: such discussions, when conducted in good faith, tend to result in stronger, precise, neutral and more defensible consensus wording. Melanie: you and I have done this a few times during the campaign season, although I suspect we did not agree politically on which candidate would be the best fit for the country at this time. What irks me are editors who keep crying NPOV at every turn while harboring a transparently obvious POV of their own and forcefully denying it; I much prefer to deal with straightforward opinionated people.

Speaking of opinionated editors, I would like to quote EEng's cogent remark in Doc9871's case above: If we only allowed editors free of bias, we'd have no editors at all, literally. — JFG ^talk 00:18, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MelanieN

Disclaimer: I am WP:INVOLVED at the Clinton and Trump pages, so I am commenting here only as a regular editor who is familiar with HT's work. (I am going to refer to HT as "he" because I have seen him identify himself as a "man" or a "guy" in several posts.) Regarding talk pages, HT claims: "I have never voiced support for any political candidate or revealed my own political views." In fact he reveals his political views all the time. His POV against Clinton, against mainstream media, and against Wikipedia is clearly in evidence.

Against Clinton: "mountainous scandals" "HRC feverishly resisted releasing the transcripts"[75] Here's a post in which he (without irony) simultaneously attacks Clinton ("dealt a massive blow to her already feeble trustworthiness numbers") and requests others to "keep our own personal politics out of it, as some of the POV I've seen here by viciously (and at times, defamatory) attacking a presidential candidate and his supporters is downright disgusting and has no place on this page".[76]
Against media: "Whether or not the San Francisco-based Wikipedia organization regards a liberal newspaper as 'reputable' is of no consequence to me."[77]" At an AfD for the article Mike Cernovich: "Creating articles based on whatever topics that a bunch of radical left blogs and newspapers deem newsworthy sets a dangerous precedent."[78] On his own talk page, he complains that Wikipedia accepts as sources Slate and Huffington Post - "some of the most disgusting, profane, unapologetically openly left-wing websites…run by the most alarmingly radical liberal bloggers "working" today" - while not allowing Breitbart and the Drudge Report.[79] At an article talk page: "this page and countless others are littered with citations from CNN. CNN is owned by Time Warner, Hillary's 7th largest campaign donor. They were also caught feeding debate questions to the Hillary campaign in order to help her cheat, and fired Donna Brazile for it. We count Washington Post as a "RS," despite the fact that they admitted to hiring a special "Trump Unit" composed of 20 reporters whose sole job it was to dig up dirt on Trump. We use CBS as a reputable source, despite the fact that John Harwood was caught colluding with the Hillary campaign, brainstorming questions to ask the Republican candidates in the primary debates. POLITICO is regularly cited, despite the fact that Glenn Thrush, the editor, was caught sending articles to the Hillary campaign for pre-approval before publishing. Something doesn't add up here."[80] (He later denied this was intended to suggest any "conspiracy theories.")

A particular target is the New York Times, "a far-left wing newspaper".[81] "The overwhelming majority of the American media and populace (as well as various sets of data) agree that the NYT is an avowed liberal newspaper, providing a leftist ideological perspective from the front page to the editorial page."[82] "The New York Times has not endorsed a Republican candidate for POTUS since Eisenhower. Sixty years ago. The headlines throughout the campaign have been ludicrous, and at times disgusting."[83] They also mischaracterized a New York Times's letter to subscribers as "apologizing for dishonest coverage of Trump."[84]

Against other Wikipedia editors: "This article has obviously been heavily contaminated by editing from Hillary supporters, and possibly paid operatives from the DNC."[85] "There seems to be a handful of activist editors who are sanitizing all pages related to the DNC and the corruption of Hillary Clinton, and it appears something needs to be done to bar these users from editing and violating WP:POV and WP:DUE until their emotions cool down."[86] "As far as fighting the uber-liberal Wikipedia leadership and highly active DNC representatives combing political articles, working diligently to revise history and scrub news that reflects poorly on Democrats from their pages, I have neither the time nor the resources to take on such a monumental task."[87]

Against Wikipedia itself: He repeatedly cites the fact that "Wikipedia is based in San Francisco" as the reason why Wikipedia pages have a "liberal" slant.[88] [89] When it was explained to him that it's the WikiMedia Foundation that is based in SF, and that enwiki content comes from worldwide Wikipedia volunteers and not the WMF, he replied "whether or not I can prove that Wikipedia has bought into the Silicon Valley Facebook/Microsoft/Google/Apple, etc. long and storied tradition of devout liberalism is beside the point."[90]

In my opinion his POV is so strong that he is unable to be neutral. In particular his attitude toward Reliable Sources (that a "liberal" source, which in his opinion includes most of the mainstream media, should not be considered reliable) is completely out of line with Wikipedia's definition (reputation for fact-checking and accuracy). Also, his repeated attacks on the good faith and neutrality of other editors (always generic and collective, never individually targeted as far as I have seen) are a problem. For these reasons his Clinton and Trump talk page contributions are, at best, unhelpful. I apologize for the length of this post, but I think quotes and diffs are helpful in this kind of review.

Additional comment: Since I am involved, I did not intend to recommend outcomes here. But I must disagree with the hints from User:RexxS and User:My very best wishes about a possible block. I can't see that HT has done anything to deserve a block. I also disagree with bringing WP:SPA or WP:BLP into the discussion. To my mind the SPA tag describes a person who from day 1 focuses entirely on one article, often with promotional intent. Many of us focus on one general area of interest to us, especially during our first few hundred edits; that does not make us SPAs. And I don't see any BLP violations in his negative comments about Clinton. Negative comments about aspects of a politician's campaign may be POV, but IMO they do not violate BLP.

BTW I wasn't the one who brought up "conspiracy theories". Another editor, User:Objective3000, commented (a few posts after the HT link that I cited), "This page is taking on the tone of a conspiracy site," to which HT replied "Is it? In what way? I did a quick scan of the talk page and haven't found a single conspiracy theory raised, as of yet." And that was the end of that thread.

Well, now I see that User:Boing! said Zebedee disagrees with me about whether the comments were BLP, and did in fact issue a short block. I guess that's why WP:INVOLVED administrators (like me) do not make this kind of decision. --MelanieN (talk) 21:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Hidden Tempo RE: As I have gained the confidence of at least two admins (@MelanieN and @Boing! said Zebedee) : Please don't put words in my mouth. Yes, I did say that I didn't regard your comments about Clinton as a BLP violation or blockable. I also said that your attitude toward what constitutes a Reliable Source is completely out of line with Wikipedia's, that your repeated attacks on the good faith and neutrality of other editors are a problem, and that your talk page edits are, at best, unhelpful. And besides, as I keep pointing out, I am not here as an admin. I'd appreciate your striking me from the sentence I just quoted. --MelanieN (talk) 05:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Johnuniq

Taking the hint from the sections above, I have moved my comments from the discussion below, without the pings to ensure they don't provide another notification. Johnuniq (talk) 07:00, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hidden Tempo: I'm wondering about this comment at Talk:Hillary Clinton. Would you write that differently if redoing it? Why or why not? Do you think "Frigidaire" should be listed as a nickname at Hillary Clinton? Johnuniq (talk) 06:28, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hidden Tempo: Yes, I believe you reply there. I don't think we need to discuss this at length but I will register my surprise that someone who so emphatically opposes "Frigidaire" would post that comment. Re inserting "alleged"—that is not relevant for WP:BLP. No page at Wikipedia can be used to insert dubious claims on the basis that "alleged" was used and a partisan source provided. My comment is generic as I have not examined the claims/sources beyond noting the confrontational tone of the overal comment. Johnuniq (talk) 06:58, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hidden Tempo suggests Bishonen's TBAN is not supported by commentators here. That raises the question of whether an appeal at WP:AE is settled by vote of those commenting or by agreement among uninvolved admins. My reading of appeals is that it is the latter (see the #Result of the appeal by Hidden Tempo section below).
Uninvolved admins will consider comments made by editors but may take into account any background circumstances. For example, SashiRolls is involved with situations such as this where it is claimed that a pro-Clinton website was very inappropriately added to fake news websites. Also, an editor under a WP:AE topic ban may want such TBANs overturned. Soham321's views may be colored by incidents such as this. There is an active request regarding TheTimesAreAChanging above where Bishonen posted an unfavorable assessment two weeks ago.
Hidden Tempo suggests that My very best wishes is "permitted to post this kind of attack on living persons and other editors". The section at Statement by My very best wishes is very short; it offers an opinion with no attack on living persons (see WP:BLP for what that means) or other editors (see WP:NPA for that).
Just above I asked about this comment. HT's response above (search for "Frigidaire") is not compatible with the comment which included 'I promise you that you will never see "Frigidaire" on this page longer than the 3 and a half minutes (max) that it takes somebody refreshing their watchlist every second of every day to notice what you've done, and immediately revert it. You have to pick your battles, and this one is like trying to get a stain out of the carpet when the house is burning down.'
The pugnacious but flawed manner in which HT is promoting their position shows that the topic ban was appropriate. Johnuniq (talk) 09:51, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: You posted in what is now Soham321's section. Re "breach of WP:BLP": do you mean BLP? A BLP violation involves abuse of an identified living person, not a group of unindentified Wikipedia editors. WP:BLPGROUP doesn't cover a claim of disruption by editors IMHO. A case could be made that WP:NPA applies as it mentions "group of contributors". However, people claim editors are "disruptive" all the time. WP:ASPERSIONS applies, and going on and on with such claims could be sanctioned but a one-off assertion scores very low on the scale of personal attacks. Johnuniq (talk) 23:47, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TheTimesAreAChanging

NB: This comment is in part informed by a similar AE request against myself; unlike Hidden Tempo, I committed a revert that might well merit some sanction (it's much too late to self-revert), but—as with Hidden Tempo—the thread rapidly devolved into scouring my userpage and user talk for political opinions or mildly uncivil rejoinders that could be used to caricature me as some sort of POV warrior, which couldn't be further from the truth—and came from one particular critic whose hands were far from clean. In response to MelanieN, I caution against expanding the definition of "conspiracy theory" to include documented facts such as Brazile's collusion with the Clinton campaign, as well as speculation that CNN's coverage might be skewed by the political donations of its parent company. (Is every Marxist media criticism now considered "conspiracy theory," too?) I checked every diff provided by Bishonen and MelanieN, and it seems they neglected to provide even a single example of Hidden Tempo making a non-neutral edit to any article. Despite this, MelanieN is convinced "his POV is so strong that he is unable to be neutral." Perhaps, but a 6 month topic ban should not be handed out lightly or as a preemptive measure. It would be impractical and impossible to ban everyone with a political opinion from editing in American Politics, and yet having an opinion seems to be the crux of the rationale for sanctioning Hidden Tempo. (If you want to go down the rabbit hole of declaring everything—even sourced, attributed claims from Wikileaks—related to the Clinton Foundation–State Department controversy a WP:BLP violation, one might say that accusing Hidden Tempo of "conspiracy theory" violates WP:NPA. Why not focus on article improvement and consensus building rather than the alphabet soup of Wiki-policies?) Furthermore, if we are serious about countering systemic bias it might even be helpful to have a rare voice of dissent from Wikipedia's predominant liberal thesis. (Or do you know of any Trump-supporting admins?) To be fair, it does seem that Hidden Tempo (still a very inexperienced user) has a problem with tl;dr screeds, but the fact that the vast majority (over 60%) of his edits have been relegated to talk pages also begs the question as to how much disruption he could possibly have been causing to merit such a strong punishment. Finally, while I question the wisdom of the topic ban, I recommend that Hidden Tempo voluntarily spend some time learning the ropes on less controversial, heavily-patrolled, and stressful areas of the encyclopedia—for his own good.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 10:45, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that Hidden Tempo was only blocked a short time for calling Hilary's trustworthiness numbers "feeble," but I still think that that example raises serious questions about unequal treatment by admins. By way of comparison, User:Oneshotofwhiskey recently started a massive edit war at the WP:BLP Dinesh D'Souza, in which he replaced the previously accepted photo of D'Souza with his mugshot and left numerous inflammatory comments such as "the paranoia and most outrageous behaviors of convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza (who himself sees conspiracy theories everywhere and relies solely on emotional reasoning for his worldview)" and "We are not calling him a pathological liar, delusional, mentally-unstable, or an adulterer though outside of wikipedia it is certainly true." Despite this, Oneshot was not blocked and engaged in friendly exchanges with an admin (Oshwah) in which no block was even threatened. (As Oshwah remarked: "The last thing I want to do is impose any sort of administrative action or sanctions upon anyone who does not fairly deserve them.") I was unable to achieve consensus for topic banning Oneshot from D'Souza at ANI; not one of Oneshot's BLP-violating comments was ever redacted. In fact, Oneshot's behavior was defended by several editors, including Kingsindian ("The editor has apologized and retreated from the mugshot photo ... I don't see any disruption in the discussion, though it has sometimes become heated"), Snow Rise ("In fact, his edit summaries make it clear that he thinks he is following an editorial path that is more neutral than the article status quo"), and SPECIFICO (who lavished praise for Oneshot's "constructive and usually policy-based ... edits and comments" and filed an ANI regarding weeks-old complaints against me two hours after my topic ban proposal gained some support in a move other users considered "retaliatory and unwarranted"). Oneshot was later indeffed for massive sockpuppetry, but the point still stands: It seems we are sending the message that you can say virtually anything about a conservative pundit like D'Souza—and about Bernie Sanders—but the minute you dare to question Hilary's trustworthiness numbers you are blocked. This can only have a chilling effect on the representation of diverse views on Wikipedia.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:17, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by My very best wishes

@Hidden Tempo. You said you previously edited on WP for years [91]. Did you previously receive any blocks, warnings, etc, while editing from other accounts or as an IP? Most people who commented here were misled: they thought you are a new user. My very best wishes (talk) 15:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hidden Tempo. It seams that you are threatening a contributor today in this comment, even after shortening your AE statement. You tell: "I would like to give you an opportunity to strike that comment...". And if she/he does not do it, then what? My very best wishes (talk) 18:50, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Collapsed, but kept as something other users referred to

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

First of all, I think Tempo is not a new user. They are way too familiar with bans, policies and who is doing what.

Secondly, Tempo creates a lot of disruption using very small number of edits. If there is a case for preemptive t-ban, this is it. Do not do it, and you will see what happens.

Finally, there are claims about unfair treatment here and elsewhere [92]. Not true. Yes, users who support D. Trump tend to be more disruptive. This is nothing new. Users who support fringe theories, extremist groups and non-orthodox politicians tend to be more disruptive. My very best wishes (talk) 12:48, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think Hidden Tempo is unable to interact constructively with other users including admins. Hidden Tempo immediately starts accusing each contributor who had happen to disagree with him on something. That is what triggered his topic ban, and that is exactly what he continue to do on this noticeboard. Based on their responses, he is going to continue complaining about other users if this appeal is granted [93]. Does he understand the problem? No, he does not. He tells "Not accusing anyone of anything" [94]. How come? Is not that an accusation of people who never interacted with him before? Also note a misleading edit summary ("All opinions are welcome, as long as they're leftist in nature"). But the comment is not about all opinions are welcome. It tells exactly the opposite. My very best wishes (talk) 16:26, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Indeed, he just shot another round of accusations [95] in his AE statement. My very best wishes (talk) 20:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SashiRolls

I believe now I should post a quiet message in the involved editor section. Obviously I'm sort of involved since I was also discussing -- without much luck -- some ideas on the page where all this trouble seems to have started. Sometimes reading, yes, I winced because this or that was sharp, but c'mon seriously... you have to have a thick skin to try to say anything in political space. Or have read Gogol before google.

These inquiries, this inquisitiveness, these show trials don't strike me as helpful types of appeasement. Nobody here is Hitler: we can try to be a peaceful community, no? Malicious BLP violations and sharp invective, such as what I've read on various pages, including in the citations in JFG's statement above, has gone too far. When passions lead people to curse about politicians on WP talk pages or – worse – about other editors, there is fear under the surface. What is this fear? I agree with Eeng, being upfront about one's POV is good. I would never chose a name like Fairness, for example. Zero credibility. ^^

I agree with My very best wishes' observation that the center of the political spectrum has a big advantage over the wings in this wiki-building process because of the "nature" of WP:RS since antiquity. Logically, then, this frustration should be more acutely perceived by those on the wings. Yet it is those in the center of that widening gyre that seem to curse the loudest. So where are we now? Things fell apart, the center didn't hold. It's time to heal quickly and move on.

It's custom to go back into forgotten history and cite Copernicus in the mainstream vs fringe debate – possibly to distance ourselves from all the entanglements that Diderot and d'Alembert – publishing abroad – faced ("Because of its occasional radical contents [...], the Encyclopédie caused much controversy in conservative circles, and on the initiative of the Parlement of Paris, the French government suspended the encyclopedia's privilège in 1759");

but I think it's better to look at more recent history, a time when one wrote for the drawer, as Mandelstam and Bulgakov called it. Not exactly open culture, those times were they? Please, peace: let the prisoner go if he promises to play nice. I really don't think this is any of our business.Всего хорошего, SashiRolls (talk) 20:41, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've read the recent comments by Masem, RexxS, Soham321, and Timothyjosephwood. Defending a user against a topic ban is not a waste of time. Especially, as Soham mentions, editors with a clear acuity that may only be manifesting itself on Trump/Clinton pages because of the current level of access accorded to those who do not share the "consensus" view on these figures who are actually somewhat "dissensual". Johnuniq (like Calton) seems to think -- my apologies if I'm wrong -- that I, for example, have an ax to grind against Clinton. This is not true. I would never have edited any Clinton pages had I not read so many "placed stories" during the election about other candidates. (By placed stories I mean stories that were written by those spinning for one candidate or another.) I was, indeed, surprised that a number of issues during the campaign were never treated on the campaign page, or more particularly the Clinton Foundation page, where an RfC still !! has not been closed concerning the Caracol project in Haiti, broadly covered in mainstream sources. Just the mention that there was controversy regarding this story was vehemently blocked (by Scjessey -- mentioned above -- among others), which was astonishing to me given to the sheer volume of reporting that has been done on it (and which I put onto the talk page in an effort to move consensus towards mentioning it). I do believe a slim majority of editors voted in the end for inclusion of that material, but the RfC was never closed, so we couldn't move forward. It's against the rules to cast aspersions, doubt good faith, and so forth. And yet, despite my call on the HRC presidential campaign page, no admin ever went to close out that RfC, not even MelanieN who clearly saw that call.

I don't want to fight POV wars or see POV wars being fought, and yet, there is truth to what has been said here on AE about issues such as "gaslighting", "smear", and tag-team type editing. A type-A, warrior-type mentality is prevalent here on Wikipedia (at least in the spaces at issue). Is this because most editors are men? Maybe, maybe not. (I think it may be, though don't get me wrong, I know from experience that women can often be very powerful and combative POV advocates on fora too) I think it's related to the fact that we are engaged in faceless interaction which does not promote accountability, so someone like Calton can cuss me out in a way he would never dare do IRL, because he would be quickly reminded of social norms of politeness and professionalism. The first line of our article on Fake news websites says: "Fake news websites are websites that publish hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation to increase web traffic through sharing on social media". Reliable sources have spoken of the Clinton outlet Shareblue / Blue Nation Review as "pravda-esque" for making up stories/headlines like "Why does Bernie Sanders keep denigrating Hillary’s supporters?" It is included on at least two fakenewschecker sites, which include sites engaged in what might be called "hard spin".

Neutrality greeted me in the political "arena" by asking me to delete the word "spin" from a talk page back in July (see the top of my talk page), and now I find him using that same word as though it were innocuous: "The article content that has nothing to do with fake news, and furthermore it is difficult to see how any rational observer could see otherwise. Political spin is not "Fake news." Now, I guess I & others are meant to conclude that I'm an irrational observer... that's how such ABF selective spinning (what some have called "gaslighting" I gather) works. When I first read Hidden Tempo on the HRC campaign page, I knew he was someone eloquent who had a clear understanding of what was at work, and that is why I am supporting him here, as I have supported others who have raised these issues (sometimes in "politics", sometimes in other areas). My POV: I don't often agree with the assessments of EdJohnston and Bishonen. I do see they are both very often willing to get called into these matters (to such a degree that I wonder how much time they can have left for building an encyclopedia rather than wearing the enforcement uniform). I bear neither of these administrators any ill will, but think that they might be -- in good faith -- missing something very important. PS: WP:NOTAFORUM is disingenuous. WP is a forum, different from the Athenian forum and different from reddit (or a php bulletin board), but a forum -- under the surface -- all the same, especially here on this project page.SashiRolls (talk) 18:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having no idea who Calton is (other than from his user page, from our limited interactions on the Haitian-US Relations page (IIRC), and from Bishonen's talk page, where she urged him not to intervene on AE and to calm down [96]), I'm not quite sure what to make of his aggression except to see that he is known for it. I have been transparent through this process (as transparent as the tban allows me to be, since it does prevent me from talking about some aspects of my own alleged POV). I showed transparency in my statement by referring people to my talk page and by mentioning users whose actions I referred to in my statement. This is more than can be said for Calton and User:Sagecandor who have gone behind user's backs.

As a point of fact, Calton is wrong: I did not vote for the candidate he thinks I voted for, nor did I vote for the winning candidate. My actions on Wikipedia have been to counter disinformation and the recycling of what I've called "placed stories" above (a good example is the copyright violation I had to IAR to remove from the page I am temporarily banned from). The administrator involved who decided my case chose to take no action on that matter, though of course it was brought to his attention, as has this matter. Whether Calton would cuss me out in the real world workplace or not is a question worth examining: If he were my boss, I would suck it up and deal with his attitude if I thought the project my employer was working on was an interesting one worth my continued effort and there was potential for the work environment to improve. Were he my co-worker, such outbursts would certainly not serve him well in staff meetings, he would lose far too much credibility and might quickly find himself headed for the minority or the door; and were he to make threats like those in his statement as my subordinate, in the best case scenario he would remain employed if he were regularly correct despite his difficulties with normal social rules. In my limited experience with the user, that is not the case. At worst, he could well end up fired with a restraining order preventing him from returning to the work place.

But Wikipedia is not an ordinary workplace. Nobody gets paid, and -- as Bishonen says -- it has its own gallows on the jobsite. [97] SashiRolls (talk) 19:48, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Boing! said Zebedee

I won't add my comments in the Results section, as I have issued and lifted a short block. Because of that I think it's better to leave the consensus to others.

As for the block, MelanieN opined that the action was not block-worthy. That's a fair opinion, and for the specific action I think it was marginal. I did what I thought was best at the time for getting Hidden Tempo to understand the problems with personal editorializing and why it is forbidden. I'm not sure how successful that was.
Hidden Tempo says he has "gained the confidence of at least one admin (@Boing! said Zebedee) that I am now better equipped to follow BLP policies and play well with others", but that is stretching it a bit. Hidden Tempo said in the block appeal that "I am not able to use any words in my edits that are not also in the source material, even on talk pages, without committing a BLP violation", which is over-literal and does not really show proper understanding, but it was sufficient to convince me that we would not see a repeat of the immediate problem and that it was safe to unblock so that this AE appeal could progress.
Part of the problem, I think, is that Hidden Tempo appears to see things in very literal terms. That unblock request was one small example, but I'm seeing a lot more here in this appeal. For example, we see the belief that the TBAN was for two (or whatever small number of) specific edits, when it was in fact for more general behaviour for which some specified edits were offered as examples. Another example of literalism is in Hidden Tempo's claims that, because he has not specifically said who he does or does not support between Trump and Clinton, he should be seen as editing neutrally. Editing with a POV is a far wider issue than just explicitly stating your position on a subject, and it's close to impossible to hide your POV by simply not stating it.
I'm also seeing lots of lawyering here on specific examples, without really standing back and considering the whole picture. It's important to consider specifics, certainly, but the discussion of those specifics needs to be done in the context of the whole.
On the topic ban itself, I can see merit in Bishonen's suggestion to narrow it to just Trump and Clinton. But I can envisage subsequent lawyering as to what, specifically, is covered by those two subjects. It's 50/50 from me on this one.
IBAN with Volunteer Marek? I largely oppose IBAN's, for the same reasons as Bishonen, and would oppose this one. Topic bans are, in my view, significantly more effective and more efficient.

I'm sure there was something else I wanted to add, but I've forgotten what it was. But that's probably enough words for me anyway. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:03, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Timothyjosephwood

Someone step up and decline this appalling waste of time before we spend a few thousand more words on a forgone conclusion. TimothyJosephWood 14:21, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, there is almost nothing to be gained by repealing the topic ban because the user has made almost no meaningful contributions to the topic area to begin with. They are a net negative and instead of showing that they can productively and collaboratively contribute in other areas, they have come here to spend, what is apparently an overabundance of personal time, on yet more endless debate instead of doing literally anything else.

Spending so much effort on appealing the TBAN shows me nothing beyond the fact that their primary intention on Wikipedia is to engage in a political debates, and not to build an encyclopedia. If they can be reformed, then a TBAN is an opportunity to do so. If they cannot, then they are no loss to the project. What is however a loss to the project, is spending more otherwise productive time from otherwise productive editors on this appeal. TimothyJosephWood 19:30, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Rouge admin TimothyJosephWood 20:38, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Soham321

Johnuniq writes that the background of editors who have offered comments on this AE appeal should be scrutinized. In this connection he mentions me and also SashiRolls. As proof of the fact that my "views ~~are~~ may be colored" (Johnuniq's words), John gives the link to an unsuccessful July 2015 appeal of mine pertaining to a topic ban imposed on me by Bishonen. In this connection I have the following to say:

I wonder whether John is guilty of not dropping the stick when he refers to the July 2015 incident to claim that my "views ~~are~~ may be colored". By this yardstick, since John made over 45 edits on Bishonen's user talk page, and Bishonen has made 21 edits on his user talk page, and a scrutiny of these edits reveal that John and Bishonen are on friendly terms, does it imply that John's own "views ~~are~~ may be colored"?
There is no T-ban of any sort imposed on me as of now; i am an editor in good standing. I have pointed out elsewhere that in my opinion the reason why the T-ban was imposed on me, and why my appeal against the T-ban was unsuccessful, was because of my unfamiliarity with WP:RULES.
The fact that I do not show up on discussions involving every topic ban or block appeal imposed by Bishonen (or any other Admin) shows that I only offer my views in specific "deserving" cases. (I did not comment in the recent discussion involving Peeta Singh in which a T-ban was imposed by Bishonen since I thought it was a deserving T-ban and there were a sufficient number of editors and Admins supporting the T-ban so I thought my comment in this appeal would be unnecessary.) Is it John's contention that because of my past history, I should not in future offer my comments on any block or ban appeals in AE or ANI (even though I am currently an editor in good standing with no T-bans imposed on me) since my "views ~~are~~ may be colored"? If this is the view of the community I will be happy to oblige.
The only reason I intervened in discussions involving Hidden Tempo and TheTimesAreAChanging is because I consider both these editors to be intelligent and knowledgeable and I believe it would be WP's loss if they were to stop editing. I have not come across a single edit in article space made by these two editors which violates WP:NPOV. I completely endorse JFG's suggestion that a disclosure of one's POV should be encouraged, not discouraged. See diff1 and diff2. Soham321 (talk) 15:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

EdJohnston writes that Hidden Tempo(HT)'s words "There is a veritable army of Hillary supporters and Trump detractors on these pages that have already taken care of that" violate WP:BATTLEGROUND. This, together with Ed's claim that HT criticizes sources that Wikipedia generally trusts as being left-wing, seem to be the reasons for why Ed believes the topic ban was justified. In this connection I have the following to say:

The comment was made by HT on his own user talk page during a dialogue with Bishonen who was complaining about his editing and who would go on to impose the topic ban on HT. The message you are sending by holding HT to account for what he said to Bishonen during this dialogue is that one should not enter into any extended dialogue with an Admin communicating with your on your talk page about your editing history since your words in this dialogue can be used against you to justify any Admin action taken against you. And this comment of HT on his own user talk page was made in a specific context; this is the diff to HT's comment And this is a more extended quote from that comment of HT:
Do I ever make edits that make Hillary look better and Trump look worse? Admittedly, no. But guess what? I don't have to. There is a veritable army of Hillary supporters and Trump detractors on these pages that have already taken care of that. There is literally no potential NPOV edits that could be made on Hillary's bio or campaign page to make her look better, and vice versa for Donald Trump's. The President-elect's page has multiple issues, and has more than earned its neutrality and length templates. Every possible event, statement, and left-wing blog's opinion (yes, some blogs are left-wing, and no that's not a political view) is represented on his page.
HT had less than 275 edits to his name at the time the T-ban was imposed on him. He cannot be expected to be familiar with WP:BATTLEGROUND. The fact that HT made the comment not on any article talk page or talk page of another editor but on his own talk page during an extended dialogue with the Admin who would go on to impose the T-Ban on him, means that Ed should be viewing this comment more leniently in my opinion. Soham321 (talk) 16:22, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Masem, since you apparently believe Hidden Tempo is guilty of WP:BATTLEGROUND, I place for your consideration this post of My very best wishes (MVBW) which I believe violates both WP:AGF when he accuses Hidden Tempo of not being a new editor on the ground that HT is "way too familiar with bans, policies and who is doing what."; and also violates WP:BATTLEGROUND when he writes that "Yes, users who support D. Trump tend to be more disruptive. This is nothing new. Users who support fringe theories, extremist groups and non-orthodox politicians tend to be more disruptive." And this is Hidden Tempo's response to MVBW's comment:diff. Slightly battleground, on account of using the world "disgraceful", but not nearly as violative of WP:RULES as his accuser in my opinion. Soham321 (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am also concerned about a possible WP:BLP violation by My very best wishes when he wrote the following in this AE discussion: "Yes, users who support D. Trump tend to be more disruptive. This is nothing new. Users who support fringe theories, extremist groups and non-orthodox politicians tend to be more disruptive." I'd like to know RexxS's opinion on this in light of his strong defense of WP:BLP in this AE discussion. Soham321 (talk) 19:20, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In her latest comment, Bishonen gives a diff to a comment on her talk page giving details as to why she thinks the 6 month topic ban on TP is appropriate. Bishonen's comments reveal an extraordinarily naive understanding of American politics. Consider Bishonen's words (from her talk page diff):

But it doesn't sit altogether well with me that he speaks of being "perceived" as having an inherent pro-Trump/anti-Clinton bias, and proposes to take measures "to prevent these accusations from being leveled in the future...after HT submitted the short version, he's still, after all that has gone down, standing by his claim that he is a "neutral editor"...Hidden Tempo's claims that, because he has not specifically said who he does or does not support between Trump and Clinton, he should be seen as editing neutrally.

Every knowledgeable editor editing an article pertaining to US politics will have a POV (to put it in a sophisticated way), or a bias (to put it more crudely). It is impossible not to have a POV in US politics if one is knowledgeable about US politics.
Neutrality is something separate from having a POV. One can make neutral edits while having a POV.
An editor need not be pro-Trump or anti-Trump, or pro-Clinton or anti-Clinton as Bishonen seems to see it. An editor may agree with Clinton on the issue of medical insurance, while agreeing with Trump on the issue of the need to retain jobs in the US. Likewise an editor may agree with Clinton on many issues, and with Trump on many issues; and also disagree with both Clinton and Trump on many issues. My point is that this is not a black-and-white thing as Bishonen seems to see it.
Earlier Bishonen had written that she finds American politics "strange" and "incomprehensible": diff
Peacemaker67 who is also endorsing the 6 month topic ban does not give any specific reason for why he thinks this ban is appropriate other than the fact that he has read Bishonen's reasoning for the topic ban. Earlier, Peacemaker had revealed his own naive understanding of US politics when he wrote that "American politics in general is something that is just unfathomable to me"
I am concerned that Admins who admit they have a naive understanding of US politics are evaluating AE discussions having underlying content disputes pertaining to US politics. I think this is a fit case for ArbCom to consider: whether an Admin who openly admits to being naive about US politics is competent enough to evaluate any AE case with underlying content disputes pertaining to US politics. Soham321 (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Lizzius, I never asked for any ban or block on the person I complained about in ANI (which was after they refused to retract the unnecessarily inflammatory comments they made in this case after being requested to do so) . The fact that they promptly retracted their inflammatory comments in this AE discussion (by hatting it themselves) after I filed the ANI case shows that they took my complaint seriously. Soham321 (talk) 19:17, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Calton

There seem to be a lot of political editors who are looking at this AE as a chance to ride their particular hobbyhorses or try to "work the refs"in their own AE cases.

Like SashiRolls (talk · contribs), for instance, whose pinging within their above grievance-fest brings me here. They've received their own topic ban from the Jill Stein article for their inability to keep their crusading under control. (The talk pages for August and September for Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka are particularly instructive: for the latter, do a search for "smear"to get some flavor of SashiRolls's crusade, and this comment illuminates both their obvious bias and their battleground mentality). The final straw was their edit-warring attempt to unilaterally override a discretionary sanctions zero-revert RFC, proclaiming other editors were conducting "an offensive against [Jill Stein]".

SashiRolls's claims of neutrality can be judged by looking at their actual behavior, like their attempt at guilt-by-association they try to rationalize above (the bogosity of the actual content, I'll probably be dealing with at the Talk:Fake news website soon). Their sense of victimhood can be gleaned by their willful and self-serving misreading of my comment as "cuss[ing] them out": click the link and see for yourself. And if I had wanted to "cuss out" SashiRolls, I would have done so, and I would certainly not have the slightest hesitation in doing so in person, whatever their clumsy attempt at baiting tries to imply.

In short, SashiRoll's comments should be given short shrift and -- given the way things are going -- SashiRolls might be making their own re-appearance here soon enough. Which, of course, will be part of the concerted efforts of the Bad People to censor SashiRolls. --Calton | Talk 15:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having no idea who Calton is... And yet you pinged me here. Don't you recall? And as much as I respect her, a) I don't work for User:Bishonen; and b) User:Maslowsneeds topic ban violations were AFTER Bishonen's warnings.

As a point of fact, Calton is wrong: I did not vote for the candidate he thinks I voted for, nor did I vote for the winning candidate. More reading comprehension/mind-reading failure from SashiRolls: I have said not a word nor made even a suggestion of "who [you] voted for", so it's kind of hard to be wrong about something I've never said. What I have done is point to your topic ban on Jill Stein and the battleground behavior which prompted it, which contradict your unconvincing (and continuing) claims of neutrality. That continuing behavior -- as well as the (probably) willful/(possibly) bungled misreading of basic texts as you just illustrated will (in my opinion) inevitably lead you back here, no matter what seem to be your efforts to "work the refs" in advance. --Calton | Talk 04:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RexxS

I am an uninvolved editor, a British citizen living in the UK, with no experience of, or interest in, the field of US politics.

I've just had the unpleasant experience of being harangued on my talk page by Hidden Tempo. [98]

He makes a point of referring to how the facts make Trump and Clinton look in his post. I believe that is a breach of his topic ban. I'm afraid that his investment in arguing his case here has made him forget that one of the purposes of his topic ban was to prevent him from spreading his fixation across the encyclopedia and to give disinterested editors such as myself a break from it. It appears that the sanctions applied so far are not having the desired effect, so I request that some escalation is considered to drive the point home to him. If his present conduct is representative of what we can expect his behaviour to be should his topic ban be relaxed, I can't see any alternative to extending it beyond six months to prevent further disruption. --RexxS (talk) 18:35, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Soham321: (moved from his section)

If you ask me directly, I certainly wouldn't say that users who support Trump are more disruptive. Although if you take a look at User:James J. Lambden/sandbox, he does seem to have assembled quite a bit of evidence to support the assertion that Trump supporters are more disruptive by a factor of more than 3 to 1. As an aside, he seems to indicate in that table that Hidden tempo is acknowledged as a Trump supporter, not a neutral editor as he's been claiming. Nevertheless, the table may be contentious in that we don't know how comprehensive James Lambden's survey is, so my opinion is that saying "users who support D. Trump tend to be more disruptive" is a breach of WP:NPA. If you find an example of MVBW repeating it several times after having it pointed out to him – as Hidden tempo did in his BLP violation – then I'll support a similar action. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 23:26, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Hidden Tempo

I am sympathetic towards the points raised by Hidden Tempo with one exception. I find edit summaries on his talk page like "Removed slanderous personal attacks and out-of-context POV remarks.", "Deleted repeated harassment and false accusations from User: Volunteer Marek", and "Removed more filth from the well-known tendentious editor "Volunteer Marek." to be unnecessarily inflammatory and overly aggressive. Two wrongs don't make one right. Even if he believes the other party is being unreasonable, the WP best practice is to continue adopting restraint when it comes to any kind of content dispute. I am willing to be lenient because this is a relatively new editor who is probably unfamiliar with the rules of WP editing. I would recommend to Hidden Tempo to start reading the material in WP:RULES Soham321 (talk) 06:39, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MelanieN gives a lot of diffs which she argues reveal HT's strong POV, but none of these diffs seem to refer to edits in article space. Does this mean that HT's edits in article space are neutral? Everyone has a strong POV when it comes to individuals like Trump or Clinton. When HT slams the NY Times, he is not making a fringe argument; he is making an argument which the President Elect has made. Finally, i have not scrutinized Melanie's edits in detail for her POV but in the Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations page, she has made exactly one edit and this consisted of undermining the credibility of a person who was supporting Trump: diff Soham321 (talk) 23:26, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at Hidden Tempo's contributions and his comments on this page, he gives the impression of being interested only in US Politics (over 90% of his contributions), and with a strong bias toward toward Trump and against Clinton. I can find no edit where he has found criticism of the former and none where he has anything positive to say about the latter. That in itself would not be so bad, as there are likely other editors with diametrically opposite viewpoints, but his inability to understand how sources are used on Wikipedia – "Is Fox News not a reliable source?" with no clue about the fact that context determines reliability – or to listen to the advice given, tells me that the encyclopedia would be better off without his presence in the field of US politics for a while longer. In a similar way to the WP:Standard offer, I'd want to see evidence that he has learned how to contribute positively in other areas before letting him back into a controversial area. And before he turns to ad hominem attacks on my opinion, as he has to Bishonen - whose English is perfect, by the way - I live in the UK and view US Politics as an dispassionate outsider. English is indeed my first language. --RexxS (talk) 13:56, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Having seen Hidden Tempo's recent post, I'm now completely convinced he shouldn't be editing US politics, and arguably shouldn't be editing Wikipedia at all. Does he not realise that wikilawyering that "not a single political view was stated by myself" in the face of the obvious bias in his contributions simply insults our intelligence? If he were simply voicing his thoughts about the state of American journalism, we could just direct him to WP:NOTFORUM, but he has regularly labelled reliable sources as "left wing" in a systematic attempt to discredit them as sources. There is no acceptance on his part of the fact that mainstream newspapers which have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy meet our requirements for reliable sourcing. Similarly, repeating in this very thread a BLP violation like Hillary's trustworthiness poll numbers that I referred to as "feeble" and thinking that including the word "alleged" is a get-out-of-jail card for other violations is indicative of a contempt for other editors' ability to see past words and scrutinise actions. Finally, repeating the calumny of politicians paying people to scrub/protect their Wikipedia pages in this context without a shred of evidence to support the allegation is really a step too far. I see no likelihood that he recognises the legitimate concerns that Bishonen expressed prior to imposing the topic ban. --RexxS (talk) 01:45, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Hidden Tempo: do you really think that more wikilawyering about definitions of "politics" is going to strengthen your case? It isn't. Your edits convey a political view and a clear bias. No amount of denial is going to alter that fact, especially when other editors can simply look through your contributions and the history of your talk page and see for themselves. Your edit summaries are particularly enlightening. Your edits don't just appear to favour Trump and denigrate Clinton, they actually do just that, against a background of you claiming that you're "neutral". Who do you think you're kidding? You take "great exception" to my statement that you committed a BLP violation? Really? You'd better read our WP:BLP policy, with particular reference to its scope, which includes talk pages and pages such as this, and pay particular attention to this: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing." I take it you understand what "contentious" means? If you think that you repeatedly calling a person's trustworthiness poll numbers feeble isn't a BLP violation, then I'll see you at ANI where I'll be asking for a block for you to prevent further disruption. Remove it or suffer the consequences. Next, your extremely reliable source, Time magazine, discusses paid editing in 2015 and before, but says nothing about editors being paid to edit in the arena of 2016 US politics that you chose to work in. When you bring up that accusation during your disputes there, we can all see that you are attempting to tar your opponents with the "paid editor" brush, despite not having a shred of evidence (as I accurately pointed out first time) that any of them are receiving payment. Your faux indignation at being caught out using such disreputable tactics merely serves to highlight your continued poor behaviour. --RexxS (talk) 03:14, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Hidden Tempo: Your source NBC News never once mentions the word "feeble". That's your choice of adjective and is not "allegedly" contentious, it is contentious. If you can't or won't understand after being told so many times that it's a BLP violation on a talk page and on this very page, then you've no business editing Wikipedia. I've seen far too many civil POV-pushers to be impressed by niceties, so don't plead that one. --RexxS (talk) 16:39, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: I have trouble following your reasoning. Apparently HT was paraphrasing a reliable source mentioning 11% support for the candidate's perceived trustworthiness. Quote: Just 16 percent of voters say that Trump is honest and trustworthy, but only 11 percent believe the same about Clinton. Calling that a "feeble" score is now an insult? What if he used "low", "weak", "very low", "historically low", "unprecedented"? He didn't use "pathetic", "ridiculous", "abysmal", "daunting" or "miserable". "Feeble" is quite a feeble term; how low shall we set the bar on acceptable vocabulary now? And 6 months is not a feeble ban! — JFG ^talk 18:06, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLP is a "bright-line" policy. There's no gradation like "slightly contentious"; a term is either contentious or it isn't. In this case it is. Again, this is clear wikilawyering, attempting to push the boundaries of what is acceptable comment on another living person. The bar is set at zero: we allow no contentious terms at all. Hidden Tempo has made a habit out of creating his own negative descriptions of a BLP subject without a single source to justify the choice. Now it needs to stop. If you also don't understand how our BLP policy works, then I suggest you refrain from commenting on it. --RexxS (talk) 18:23, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Un faible taux de participation = a low participation rate. faible = low, weak, etc. Wow! SashiRolls (talk) 18:56, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: I understand BLP rather well, thank you very much. And I maintain that this particular case is in no way a BLP violation. First, "feeble" is not an insult, it's not even derogatory. Second, this adjective was not qualifying Ms. Clinton but her trustworthiness score in some reliably-sourced poll. An 11% score of anything can be called "feeble", "weak", "low" without passing judgment; this is just a statement of fact. Were this score 89%, it could be called "strong", "high", "commanding". Were this score 45% it could be called "average", "passable", "unimpressive". Were this score 23% it could be called "weak", "mediocre", "disappointing". And no matter how HT qualified the given score, that was not derogatory towards Ms. Clinton. As you said, BLP is a bright-line policy, and this edit does not touch the line because it does not touch the person. That HT needs to stop editorializing and casting aspersions on fellow editors, I wholeheartedly agree, and I have given him relevant advice in my statements above. That he should be t-banned for 6 months is utterly disproportionate.

Shall we examine the jurisprudence? In a recent case, Scjessey was censored for calling Mr. Sanders a "dick" on a talk page. That's both a clearly insulting word and unambiguously addressed at a notable living person, so the BLP violation is patent. Nevertheless, the offending editor wrote in his defense: The phrase "being a dick" is not a BLPVIO. Was he t-banned? No. Was he even admonished? Slightly. Was there further action and drama? No. His edit was erased and the world moved on. (Funnily this happened as Scjessey was replying to an argument by Hidden Tempo. Then, unable to call Sanders a dick any longer, Scjessey called him a "petulant, power-crazy candidate who fanned the flames of hate against Clinton and depressed her vote". Wow, BLPVIO much?) So let's discuss Hidden Tempo's problematic behaviour here, but let's not judge him by a much stricter standard than more experienced editors or apply drastic sanctions indiscriminately; lest we be accused of biting the noobs. — JFG ^talk 23:55, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If I may, as a semi-involved editor, the first definition of "feeble" is: "lacking physical strength, especially as a result of age or illness." This has been a long-running claimed characteristic of HRC by DJT and has an added meaning here. As far as the non-action against Scjessey, perhaps that wasn't handled correctly. It's not relevant. Objective3000 (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I am in no way advocating sanctions against Scjessey: he was probably feeling frustrated and clumsily let this show in a heated talk page debate. That's all fine and dandy by my book: tell the involved parties to keep cool, hat the discussion, revdel the truly offending comments if any, and move on. I actually became aware of this incident because I defended Scjessey's edit by calling TPO and NOTCENSORED on somebody who had erased his "being a dick" comment. — JFG ^talk 02:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Stop talking about dog whistles. The kabbalistic similarities between 'dog-whistling' and 'wolf-crying' are too obvious to ignore." It is relevant that Hidden Tempo has been held to a higher standard than virtually any other editor in American Politics. Above, I provide a similar example where an editor calling a conservative pundit "a pathological liar, delusional, mentally-unstable, [and] an adulterer" passed without incident, and was not even redacted. Hilary shouldn't be the sacred cow! (Disclaimer: No hidden meaning intended.)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:39, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, here are some examples of "feeble" being used in a sentence, from Merriam-Webster:

She's still feeble from her long illness.
We heard a feeble cry for help.
Business is suffering because of the feeble economy.
He made a feeble attempt to explain his behavior.
He offered a feeble excuse for his behavior.
"Dislike" is too feeble a word for how she feels about him.

Only the first (and maybe the second) sentence uses "feeble" to literally refer to a person's physical stamina. To suggest that "feeble" has no other common uses is silly. Why not try assuming good faith? (Also, Hilary did collapse at that 9/11 memorial, and it probably wasn't—as the Wash Post alleged—because Putin had her poisoned. Am I getting blocked for that?)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but that's misleading. WaPo did not allege anything of the sort. A sports columnist reported that someone else made this allegation in the Sports Section. And yes, HRC did have a collapse -- which is why the use of the word is relevant, particularly in the context of the history of Hidden Tempo's numerous edits disparaging HRC. Objective3000 (talk) 02:38, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

.

User Hidden Tempo made only 275 edits in the project so far. Most of their recent edits were made in a highly contested political area under discretionary sanctions. Many of these edits, including ones in article space are arguably POV-pushing. I do not think anyone should even consider appeals by such users on WP:AE. My very best wishes (talk) 23:53, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dear My very best wishes, every editor is free to edit in only their preferred domain without being accused of WP:SPA. Every editor is free to admitting their own POV and discussing systemic bias honestly on Talk pages without being accused of POV-pushing. You have been accused of such in the past but you should not deserve a lengthy ban for that. As long as an editor knows to distinguish his personal opinion from what is acceptable to write in Wikipedia's voice, they are a valued contributor. — JFG ^talk 01:13, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no. An editor who only edits in one "preferred domain" is by definition a single-purpose account – with all the concerns that raises – and should not be surprised if that's pointed out to them. Your other point, that editors who know how to distinguish their personal opinions from their contributions to articles are valued contributors, is likely true. Unfortunately, Hidden Tempo has shown no such self-awareness in a contentious area subject to discretionary sanctions, which has inevitably led to his current topic ban. --RexxS (talk) 01:52, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RexxS, HT has so far made less than 300 edits on WP. Why should it be so strange that he has not edited in diverse areas of WP? Many if not most editors on WP would be branded as SPA accounts if only the first 300 edits of an editor are used to call him or her an SPA. This is now coming across as WP:BITE to me. Soham321 (talk) 01:59, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Now, you're really insulting my intelligence. In my first 300 edits, I edited dozens of articles on different topics and even created a new article. If you make all 300 of your first edits in one narrow area, of course you're a SPA. If you have any evidence of me BITEing new users, let's hear it. Your transparent attempts to smear me is a familiar tactic to discredit those you disagree with. I'll treat your baseless accusation with with the contempt it deserves. --RexxS (talk) 02:34, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RexxS, i went and examined your first 500 edits on WP. With respect to your edits in article space, they seem to have a narrow focus on anything related to diving. This apples even to the algorithm whose WP page your edited. Soham321 (talk) 03:38, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's odd, because I think they have a very broad focus on everything to do with diving from Ambient pressure to Zippers on drysuits. But then there's Saint Patrick's, Newry, Little Rock Central High School, Harold Abrahams, Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances, Noble gas, Oxygen, Neena Gill, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV/Workshop, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Formation of the Napoleonic Empire, Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 August 5, Midland Examining Group, Germanium, Reactive oxygen species, as well as loads of talk pages. I'm not seeing your point. --RexxS (talk) 04:15, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The WP articles on Noble gas and Oxygen refer to diving in the article content. You did make a few edits to some non-diving articles (usually 1-2 minor or non-lengthy edits in any such articles), but the vast majority of your first 500 edits in article space--including all your major/lengthy edits-- were in articles having anything to do with diving. Soham321 (talk) 04:40, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Did you, me or RexxS receive a topic ban after making our first 250 edits and did we complain about this on WP:AE? No. So, please stop wikilawyering. My very best wishes (talk) 05:42, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

- This is someone who made very few content edits, but already managed to receive a topic ban, and for a very good reason (there was nothing "out of process" here). What she/he suppose to do? Edit quietly something that does not cause anyone's objections in another subject area, gain a lot more experience and politely ask later to remove the t-ban, after proving that they can constructively contribute. But what they actually do? They brought an unsubstantiated complaint here, which creates even more disruption. Do they create disruption on purpose? I do not know, but they soon can be indeffed. My very best wishes (talk) 05:28, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I only comment here as many of the same issues around this situation mirror what I experienced in the Gamergate situation, in that I was many times accused of having a pro-GG POV for trying to write a more neutral article which required going against the strong opinions published by sources, as well as writing lengthy points in talk page discussions to try to explain this. In contrast, I carefully avoided anything close to personal attacks despite numerous editors personalizing the situations at me; whereas HT does seem to engage in personalizing the issues. There is one piece of advice I can give and that is to back off from the topic area and edit elsewhere, if only to calm down and let the situation simmer down.
However, to points raised by EdJohnson below, I see some problem commentary. As determined by Pew research (and more details here [99]), the bulk of sources we do deem as RSes are considered left-leaning - or more to the fact, we generally have purposely decided that right-leaning sources doesn't qualify as RSes because of sensational reporting. HT's statement about our trusted RSes broadly being left-leaning is not false. And with more and more sources adopting new journalism-types of reporting, where facts and opinions are intermingled, it becomes more and more a problem. Couple that with our generally acceptance of RSes primarily from the left, and we quickly can become an echo chamber for a popular press view. I do not edit anything in American politics, but in monitoring boards like RS/N and BLP/N, there clearly is a tendency for editors to take controversial claims about right-leaning persons or groups made in our body of RSes (which are broadly left leaning per above) and state these as fact; this moreso happened over the last election cycle. We as editors have to be more aware of that, and while HT's approach may not be the best way, HT and others should have every right to discuss potential systematic political-scale bias of this nature on talk pages with other editors without being called out as a POV warrior. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- One problem with that analysis is that the US-centric Pew Research Center produces a ranked list of 33 news sources, then labels 26 of them "left-leaning" and 7 of them "right-leaning". Of course, outside of the USA, most editors would not agree with that categorisation, and you'd have a problem trying to convince mainstream UK editors that the BBC ranks so far to the "left". In fact it's in a group at the median of the rankings. The next problem is that a WP:RS's reliability depends on context. There is nothing inherently "reliable" about the New York Times, CBS News, or Breitbart. It must depend on context. They may have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, but I hope that nobody is going to use them as a RS for whether taking folinic acid improves the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders.
- So if you start from the premise that four times as many sources are "left-leaning" than "right-leaning", it's easy to conclude that we have a preponderance of "left-leaning reliable sources" and that it must create a problem. But that doesn't follow – if we conform to our sourcing guideline WP:DUE, we must "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Hidden Tempo's attempts to correct what you see as "our trusted RSes broadly being left-leaning" is a breach of WEIGHT and he is rightly taken to task for it.
- Wikipedia is not the place to right great wrongs, like an editor thinking that the press doesn't support his political view. Hidden Tempo has not demonstrated the ability to drop that stick, and – coupled with the way he treats those editors he see as his ideological opponents – there are no grounds for allowing him back into the contentious area where his problems arose. He needs to demonstrate his ability to work collaboratively and temperately before that can happen. --RexxS (talk) 13:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - There's a whole separate policy discussion that needs to happen regarding this new political systematic bias (moreso because we have purposely opted to not treat many right-leaning works as reliable due to sensational journalism) that is inappropriate to have here. A key issue is to remember that it's not just the political leanings of sources, but that they have more and more engaged in new journalism, which makes them less neutral as they write stories now around a viewpoint and treat that viewpoint as fact; UNDUE/NPOV does not readily account for this. Without getting into that, I see HT's situation as butting up against editors who are able to stand firmly on the UNDUE position because that's how we've worked in the past, but we need to change that to avoid following the non-neutrality that media sources are more often adopting. But again, how we do that is a completely separate issue for elsewhere. I don't think HT's approach is always the right away to address their concerns on the affected articles (BATTLEGROUND comments seem to be appropriate from reviewing contributions), but the points they have raised on sourcing bias are extremely valid points to discuss on talk pages of controversial topics to make sure we're not repeating opinion as fact, or if we are ignoring facts that don't fit the popular opinion. If HT's actions are going to be reviewed for block or ban purposes, it should not be because they have offered arguments about sourcing and media bias in political topics. Other behavior is of concern though. --MASEM (t) 14:27, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - I would not disagree that there's a debate to be had about the impact of new journalism on UNDUE, and I wouldn't object to hearing Hidden Tempo's views on that in the appropriate place. But he can't challenge what is current established policy by fighting against it in individual articles and their talk pages, especially where they are subject to discretionary sanctions. That quickly becomes disruptive and leads inevitably to friction with other editors who have opposite political views as well as uninvolved editors who try to enforce our sourcing policies as they stand. I'm sorry, but I firmly believe that HT's posts in the controversial area are inextricably linked with his other behavioural concerns. He needs a break from that. --RexxS (talk) 15:28, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      - HT doesn't appear to be affecting too much mainspace content, and staying with the 1RR of the DS (not even toeing that line from the last 100 contributions); the complaints here appear to be about two issues: volumes of talk page content that are seemingly from a contrary POV, and battleground behavior. The latter is a problem, but the former, having been accused of the same during the GG ArbCom case, is not something that should be a blockable offense, as it was determined for myself. I do offer the same advice I was given then - just to back off and be more economical with words when one is that tenacious, or even just to step away for a brief period, but using talk pages to discuss article topic issues, even if wearing their POV on their sleeve, is exactly why we have talk pages, and absolutely should not be a block or bannable offense. I do agree that the POV aspects are tied to HT's battleground nature, but let's focus on what is clearly problems, which is the personalizing issues w/ battleground mentality. --MASEM (t) 16:54, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      - @Soham321: If there is (at least) one editor being accused of BATTLEGROUND, there is often at least another editor or more that also should have behavior evaluated under BATTLEGROUND too - it takes two to tango for all purposes. There are times it is a single editor clearly at fault, but my skims of relevant talk pages involving this case show overall behavior that is trending towards BATTLEGROUND, though have not spent any significant time to narrow down exactly which editors are problematic. --MASEM (t) 20:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Masem. I do not think my comment was inappropriate, I as tried to explain to Soham321 here, however if you or any other admin thinks it was indeed inappropriate, I can strike it through or remove - no problem. I only wanted to help. My very best wishes (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't make any specific accusation towards a specific editor other than HT here, only that when skimming the affected talk pages, there is a sustained BATTLEGROUND atmosphere. A more in-depth review of all actors at play would need to be done to point any more fingers. --MASEM (t) 22:09, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I experience the kind of stonewalling that Hidden Tempo does anytime I try to edit an article in the broad range of politics. Editors will stretch reliability to publish slander about Conservatives while arguing reliable sourcing and undue weight on Liberal topics. Hidden Tempo hasn't handled it well, but this project is rife with, as RexxS has said, those of a diametrically opposite viewpoint. Are right-leaning editors more disruptive? I'd say perhaps on the surface. The other 'side' has, from my own experience, appeared to be more organized and better at using civil POV pushing to get under the skin of right-leaning editors. It's a tried and true tactic. I've had editors argue that my sources weren't reliable before I'd even posted them. I've had editors argue that my sources were invalid (paraphrasing) "duh, because faux news lies". I've seen editors push vigorously to label BLPs or Orgs as "Conservative" but then resist labeling like article of the left. I've seen Media Matters for America opinion pieces used for sources where Fox News was opposed. There is more going on here than simple name calling - and I've never seen someone sanctioned for calling an editor's remarks "filth". We have long standing editors on here who have done much worse. I, myself, said "ass" earlier today - where is my sanction?--v/r - T P 21:28, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think any of this seemingly broad-based characterization of editors that you may think are left-leaning relates to Hidden Tempo's TBAN. Objective3000 (talk) 21:33, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You'd be wrong. I am very clearly saying that 'filth' is not sanctionable, and that obvious poor behavior often has a hidden provocation that deserves equal attention in these topics.--v/r - T P 22:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can confirm what TParis is saying, just at BLP/N and RS/N alone, as well as taking what I experienced at GG in mind as well. --MASEM (t) 22:09, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You'd also be wrong to post in the uninvolved editor section of this case, User:Objective3000, it seems to me. Diffs if necessary.SashiRolls (talk) 22:08, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if this is correct, although I did identify myself as semi-involved even though I don't think I was involved in any particular incident mentioned. In any case, I'll bow out. You might also be considered involved as you and HT were in at least one heated section at Talk:Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016 Objective3000 (talk) 22:28, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Soham321: I won't go so far as to call your poor characterization of Bishonen's response deliberate, but I think it is fair to say you missed the point. In fact, I would urge you to re-read the diff Bishonen provided (you will find she actually said the opposite of what you posited in terms of editing with a known bias), but also to revisit the beginning of this uninvolved editors thread, where you posted similar thoughts and received replies in the same spirit. I apologize for adding more to this ocean of words for all to sort out: I was following up on Soham's filing at ANI, which involved another out of context quote and was thankfully treated as seriously as it should have been. As for the remainder of this case, we all edit Wikipedia knowing we are subject to the policies that govern content creation, and it is clear in reviewing the history Bishonen highlighted that Hidden Tempo's editing patterns simply aren't compatible with following those policies in this contentious area. There may be larger issues with the mainstream media and reliable sources as a whole, and TParis's concerns certainly lie adjacent to that broader issue. However, so long as we are a network of collaborators held together by common policy, excusing bad behavior in not the way to get the change we think we need. Lizzius (talk) 18:57, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Result of the appeal by Hidden Tempo

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

Please note that I have issued a short block for User:Hidden Tempo for continuing the BLP violations here in this AE appeal (in the form of repeating the use of derogatory adjectives which are not used by any supporting sources, and trying to justify that use even when personal editorializing is clearly forbidden by BLP policy). So I would ask that any consideration for closing this be delayed until either the block expires or Hidden Tempo agrees to stop repeating the BLP violations. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To update, after discussion on Hidden Tempo's talk page in which the problem seems to have been understood, I have unblocked. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would decline the appeal of the topic ban. have reviewed the ban per User:Bishonen's recommendation above:
But I've already dialogued with them on these matters, so I suggest reviewers read their user talkpage, especially this section and this, and form their own opinion.

Based on my reading of the talk page, and noting how Hidden Tempo criticizes sources that Wikipedia generally trusts as being left-wing, I agree with User:Bishonen's six month topic ban of this editor from American politics post-1932. I don't see any reason it should be lifted or narrowed. We do tend to parse the language that editors use on talk pages to figure out if they are capable of editing neutrally, or if they view the article as a battle zone. This remark by Hidden Tempo doesn't put him in a good light: "There is a veritable army of Hillary supporters and Trump detractors on these pages that have already taken care of that." The word 'army' disagrees with the advice here: "In large disputes, resist the urge to turn Wikipedia into a battleground between factions". Letting Hidden Tempo continue to participate on these articles is a recipe for ongoing warfare. EdJohnston (talk) 15:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So far I'm the only admin to offer an opinion in this section on granting the ban appeal. If it turns out that I am the closer, I want to make the offer to User:Hidden Tempo that I'll reconsider if he is willing to revise his 4200-word statement so that it fits within the 500-word limit. Otherwise my intention is to deny the appeal. It's my hope that if he undertakes a shorter version, he might come up with better arguments that are more aligned with Wikipedia policy. EdJohnston (talk) 16:34, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At my request Hidden Tempo prepared a new version of his statement to meet the 500-word limit (see #Statement by Hidden Tempo). I think this is an improvement and I hope the people who have commented on this appeal will take a look to see if they want to revise their opinion. EdJohnston (talk) 02:58, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bishonen's reasoning is sound, and this is a proportionate and appropriate sanction to control someone who is not, I think, terribly accepting of dissent. Given the contentious nature of the recent election, and the ongoing dramas about the President-Elect, I think that anybody who engages in tribal infighting in US politics articles is likely to end up in the same boat. Wikipedia is unlikely ever to become a post-factual encyclopaedia, a political blog, or a platform for extreme partisans. Guy (Help!) 23:46, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at Bishonen's reasoning, and HT's shorter version (thanks EdJohnston), I am convinced that the TBAN is appropriate and proportionate. If HT is capable of editing neutrally and constructively in a less contentious area, I say let's see evidence of that. Six months is long enough to determine if HT is able step back from battleground behaviour and be a net positive for WP. I was a little tempted to support the narrowing of the TBAN as Bishonen suggested, but such things can provide too many temptations to wikilawyer around the edges and just create more drama. I also have little time for IBANs. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:37, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Closing. The appeal is declined. Three admins have commented in this Result section on whether to grant the appeal: User:JzG, User:Peacemaker67 and myself. None of us favors lifting the topic ban. Thanks to Hidden Tempo for coming up with a shorter and more persuasive version of their appeal. User:Bishonen did not say when the ban could be appealed again, but I suggest three months from now. EdJohnston (talk) 03:56, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Peeta Singh

Appeal declined. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

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

Appealing user: Peeta Singh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Peeta Singh (talk) 07:36, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sanction being appealed: Topic ban from Sikh and Punjabi related articles based on allegedly tendentious editing, pushing a nationalist agenda, and ignoring information about Wikipedia's policies from experienced editors and administrators.

Discussion prior to ban: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Peeta_Singh
Discussion regarding the ban: User_talk:Bishonen#Reason_for_Block.3F

Administrator imposing the sanction: Bishonen (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 Peeta Singh

Since day one, I have been targeted by users: @Apuldram, @Utcursch, @Uanfala, @Sarah Welch, @RegentsPark, @Kautilya3 and @Salma Mahmoud. They have attempted to get me blocked neumorus times because I improve Punjab and Sikh-related articles. After many attempts, they've falsely alleged me of POV-pushing and got me topic banned. In my defence, I would like to emphasis, that i'm not POV-pushing, but only editing information based on reliable sources.

I don't understand how contributing towards improving Wikipedia is being construed. [100] I've followed the rules, improved articles and spent countless hours expanding Wikipedia.

Before I edited the Punjabi language article [101] At present after I edited the article. Was I construed for adding information with reliable sources?

Before I edited the Gurmukhi alphabet article [102] At present after I edited the article. Was I construed for adding information with reliable sources?

Before I edited the Wikipedia:WikiProject Punjab page [103] At present after I edited the article. Was I construed for improving the Wikiproject Punjab page?

Was I construed for creating template such as Template:Punjabi film list and Template:Cinema of Punjab so it improves the standard of the Punjabi cinema article?

Was I construed for following the guidelines and considering Consensus? [104], [105]

They're bullies that challenge almost all my edits on Wikipedia [106], [107]. They have tried getting me blocked since I've began. They've made all sort of false allegations. They've accuse me of WP:NOTHERE but continue to add the term India [108] at any and every article where it's not relevant, even sometimes with irreverent sources [109]? They push the Indo-Aryan theory? [110] Why don't the guidelines apply to them?

Here is the comment of an IP regarding @Uanfala User_talk:Peeta_Singh#Saraiki_dialect_of_Punjabi_Language

Here are the comments of User:Js82 regarding @Ms Sarah Welch [111]

Peeta Singh (talk) 07:44, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal by Peeta Singh

Being new here, I've made mistakes and who doesn't? However, seeing my contribution I would like to be allowed to edit Punjab and Sikh-related articles under the supervision of User:Doug Weller or some other admin (except: @Apuldram, @Utcursch, @Uanfala, @Sarah Welch, @RegentsPark, @Kautilya3 and @Salma Mahmoud). They're POV pushing, but i'm being targeted. I might not be as skilled with quoting the guidelines or even as experienced, but I haven't gone against the guideline so much that I should be imposed with an indefinite topic ban.

My proposal is that I be sanctioned to edit Punjab and Sikh related articles but with the condition of asking permission from User:Doug Weller or some other admin before editing every Punjab and Sikh-related article. That way I won't make the mistakes i'm being accused of.

Peeta Singh (talk) 00:14, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bishonen

[112]. Bishonen | talk 13:18, 3 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by Ms Sarah Welch

My name appears twice in @Peeta Singh's appeal, but @Peeta Singh and I have not been in any edit disputes in recent weeks. The user has not offered any edit-diffs, therefore I do not understand the grounds for "since day one" allegations. @Peeta Singh is a relatively new account, one with first edit on October 15 2016. The admins and editors mentioned by @Peeta Singh have been rightfully concerned with copyvio, OR, POV-y edits etc. They have been welcoming and helpful, in good faith, despite the disruption by @Peeta Singh. I say disruption, so I must provide some evidence. Here is some:

[1] This was the state of Template:Punjabis before @Peeta Singh's first edit to it. Since then, @Peeta Singh has predominantly edited this template between November 11 to December 2, and edit warred with @Filpro, without a trace of discussion effort on its talk page. @Peeta Singh has re-titled that Template to "Culture of the Panjab" with link to nationalism. This insertion of "Panjab nationalism / Khalistan" POV-y by @Peeta Singh is not isolated or rare. It has been noted with concern by other editors such as here on October 22 2016 by @Apuldram, here on December 2 2016, etc. This pattern of WP:TE has not subsided after those caution and requests, rather continued.

[2] @Peeta Singh alleges "I improve Punjab and Sikh-related articles". But consider Guru Amar Das, an article about the third of ten Gurus of Sikhism. The article is a stub. @Peeta Singh has edited it, but did not attempt to improve content or cite new reliable sources, but edited it with the edit summary "was not India at the time of the Guru". You see this in many edits by this user. Again in the Sikhism article, this editor changed "Indian subcontinent" to "South Asia", without explanation. That edit was reverted by @RegentsPark, but @Peeta Singh edit warred (without citing any reliable source or discussing it on the talk page). Then edit warred some more. In other words, @Peeta Singh's editing history suggest the intent is not content improvement of important articles related to Sikhism or Punjab that are currently a stub, it is persistent removal of relevant encyclopedic content from current articles, removal of any connection of Sikhism with India or Indian subcontinent, and then placement of a certain POV without adequately citing any scholarly reliable sources. This suggests WP:NOTHERE.

[3] See @Utcursch's note to @Peeta Singh on OR, Battleground and more here. I also share @Utcursch's concerns about @Peeta Singh's WP:TE on Gurmukhi script article.

Based on evidence such as the above, and more can be found by wading through the edit history of @Peeta Singh, I support @Bishonen's sanctions. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:07, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Dennis Brown: Indeed. Please see this statement by @Salma Mahmoud on @Bishonen's talk page today, on @Peeta Singh, because it is relevant to this AE case. I support uninvolved admins expanding the ban, as @Peeta Singh's edits elsewhere such as this on Wikidata that plugged in Khalistan as an alias for Punjab, on December 1 2016, suggests that the disruption by @Peeta Singh is systematic, has been on-going and has continued through very recently, the CIR and other concerns seem much broader. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:56, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by utcursch

I have not "targeted" the Peeta Singh, and as far as I can tell, neither have others whom he calls "bullies": Apuldram, Uanfala, Ms Sarah Welch, RegentsPark, Kautilya3, Salma Mahmoud. All these users edit a wide range of articles, and presumably happened to notice Peeta Singh's controversial edits on their watch list.

I noticed Peeta Singh's changes to the article Punjabi language and Gurmukhi alphabet, which were on my watchlist. First, some background for the uninitiated: According to a colonial-era theory, some of the Indian "martial races" are of "Scythian" descent, because unlike the other Indian castes, they are supposedly tall, fair, strong etc. Although no longer tenable in mainstream scholarship, this theory remains popular among some people whose ancestors were classified among the "martial races" by the British administrators. For example, some Sikh nationalists claim that Jat/Rajput Sikhs are "Scythian", and therefore, different from other Indians (who are Indo-Aryan, Dravidian etc.) This apparently bolsters their demand that these people need their own independent nation-state.

I'm not sure to what level Peeta Singh believes in these things, but he sure seems obsessed with removing the term "Indian"/"Indo-Aryan" from Punjab-related articles, and in some cases, adding wildly inaccurate claims of their "Scythian" association.

I'm not concerned about anyone's personal feelings about Sikh/Punjabi nationhood, but the user's repetitive addition of erroneous information is what bothered me:

Peeta Singh insisted that Punjabi is a "Scytho-Punjabi" language[113]. In addition, he insisted that Punjabi is an official language of Canada. When opposed, he claimed that "there's an hidden agenda to Indianize the article" [114].

He claimed that that Gurmukhi was a "Scythian script"[115]. When countered, he came up with with his own original research (he had already been advised to read WP:NOR by 3 different users by this time). He also claimed that the "users of Indian origin" were "deceiving the public".[116]

By the time I posted my first message about WP:RS / WP:NOR on his talk page, Peeta Singh had already received 5+ notices from other users. I've not interacted much with him after our last debate on Punjabi and Gurmukhi articles two weeks back, so I cannot say whether the topic ban is justified or not. But a look at his talk page history suggests that he has received multiple warnings by other users (he recently removed several warnings). A cursory look at his contributions since our last interaction indicates that he has not given up contentious editing:

He has again attempted to remove the term "Indo-Aryan" from the Punjabi language.[117][118][119]

He insists that the Sikh religious symbol Khanda is an emblem of Punjab [120][121] and that it "represents the people of Punjab"[122]. He has also added Khanda to the newly-created templates {{PartofWPPUNJAB}} and {{Punjabi quick links}}, which he has transcluded into several Wikiproject Punjab related pages that have nothing to do with Sikhism.

On 12 November, I had explicitly told Peeta Singh about the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Context guideline.[123] Despite this, he has continued to remove the term "Indian" from lead sections of biographies, replacing it with "Punjabi".[124][125] He has also created empty categories, such as Category:Punjabi legal professionals. Earlier, he has updated Wikidata descriptions to replace "Indian" with "Panjabi".[126]

By the way, the user has already been blocked on Commons for ignoring warnings. utcursch | talk 00:16, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have previously apologized from my use of the term "Indianize" at User_talk:RegentsPark#Sikhism_articles The incident utcursch has mentioned is from when I had just joined Wikipedia and had no knowledge of the guidelines. I have learnt since and not furthered the "Scytho-Punjabi" and "Scythian script" theory. After this episode I started referencing my content with reliable sources. My agenda has not been to promote the Punjab nation/Khalistan theory but to improve Punjab-related topics. If the term Punjab nation/Khalistan was relevant I added it. [127] Now how is NPOV, pushing POV? If there's a problem with me using the terms Khalistan, Scythian and Punjab nation then topic block me from them.

The Wikipedia guidelines clearly says "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability."[128] Example Gurpreet Ghuggi (Punjabi politician and actor) or Gippy Grewal (Punjabi actor). Aren't they POV pushing here or don't they have an agenda? Rather than following the guidelines and considering Consensus they reverted my edits numerous times and without a reason. [129], [130], [131], [132], [133] Are the guidelines only for me?

I explained to @Filpro why I added the Khanda [134] and requested @Filpro and @Salma to follow the guidelines and discuss this issue. [135], [136] But it seems they had other plans. [137]

Everyone sees my contribution as POV pushing but why not theirs who act as the Owners of Punjab and Sikh-related content. utcursch, why only target me?

Peeta Singh (talk) 04:46, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Uanfala

I was pinged in this discussion but I'm afraid I don't have much to say as my interaction with Peeta Singh has been limited. I'm a bit surprised that they think I've been targeting them – our exchanges have so far been amicable. However, I have had to revert most of their edits to Saraiki dialect and Punjabi language. I can't say there's been any agenda behind them as the issues mostly had to do with being unaware of the subject matter and how it is generally treated on wikipedia (for Punjabi), or with not being careful when checking an online source (for Saraiki). Here Peeta Singh hasn't been disruptive (or at least not nearly as much as half of the users who edit in this area), but they certainly need to spend some time learning how things work before making any bold edits. – Uanfala (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Peeta Singh

I'm sorry, but Peeta Singh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)'s command of the English language is so weak that I don't believe he understands when he improving an article and when he is making it worse. Could somebody please explain to him the meaning of "construed", as I don't believe it exists in the first person passive. Looking at his talk page, it is clear that he has not taken on-board any advice he's been given, even from clearly uninvolved experienced editors such as Doug Weller. His contributions reveal a lack of awareness of Wikipedia policies from simple mistakes like moving 'Punjabi cinema' to 'Punjabi Cinema' to edit-warring his preferred version into an article against two other editors [138], [139] (note the edit summary!). Of most concern, though is his attempts to replace the word "Indian" with "Sikh" and to add |nationality=Sikh to infoboxes. That does indicate an attempt to push a Sikh-nationalist POV, and Wikipedia isn't the place to be doing it. His appeal is riddled with grammatical, spelling and comprehension errors, not to mention his inability to distinguish between Punjabi language and Punjabis in his first question here. If nothing else, surely competence is required? --RexxS (talk) 14:32, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I followed Ms Sarah Welch's link to Wikidata and was dismayed. I've just spent half an hour sorting out the mess he'd made by confusing Punjab (Q22424) (Indian state), Punjab (Q4478) (province of Pakistan) and Punjab (Q169132), (geographic region divided between Pakistan and India). The problems he caused on Wikidata are not directly relevant to his topic ban here, but they are indicative of the difficulty he has in separating the three concepts and his fixation with Khalistan. --RexxS (talk) 00:16, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for doing this. It confirms my own experience and the need for the topic ban. Doug Weller talk 05:21, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Result of the appeal by Peeta Singh

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

Peeta Singh, I believe the ban is justified. You've been warned repeatedly about the Sikh nation idea yet you apparently continue to push it. Everyone is welcome to edit Wikipedia but you need to demonstrate that you're not here merely to push a POV. Edit articles on other subjects. Demonstrate a broader commitment to the project. Then you will have some standing asking for the ban to be lifted. (Note: Though I'm mentioned in the list of 'targeted by users', to the best of my knowledge the only interactions I've had with Peeta Singh are two warnings I placed on their talk page [140],[141]. Which, unfortunately, they chose to ignore.)--regentspark (comment) 14:54, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Taken at face value, the actions by Bishonen seem reasonable and within our policies as there clearly was a problem. The appeal itself gives no indication that problematic behavior will stop, nor does it provide a path forward. With these two facts in mind, it is my opinion that the appeal should be declined. I would not oppose stronger sanctions due to CIR and other concerns. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:51, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the discussion above and the user contributions, it is obvious that this action is necessary and the appeal declined. If anything, I'm not entirely sure that the sanctions will be sufficient and I echo Dennis Brown's sentiments on stronger sanctions if they can be worked within the purview of AE action. —SpacemanSpiff 07:13, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maslowsneeds

Blocked 48 hours for WP:ARBAP2 ban violation by User:JzG. EdJohnston (talk) 14:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Request concerning Maslowsneeds

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Calton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:05, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Maslowsneeds (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2#Final decision :

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

Topic banned from post-1932 American politics and people closely related. Topic ban notified here

10:35, December 5, 2016 Restores a reverted attempt to add mention of a political website Shareblue to an article on fake web sites. Is warned about the explicitly political content of the edit being a violation of his topic ban by two different editors, one an administrator (Sagecandor and Doug Weller)
23:13, December 5, 2016 Adding "Pravdaesque" to article -- taken from the above edit -- about the same political group Shareblue, AFTER the above warnings about the topic-ban violation

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The editor strenuously denies that the topic ban applies, saying that the issue is either "journalism ethics" or business decisions". The editor also implies that the edit doesn't apply to topic bans because he was restoring an edit, not adding one. [142]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Since the editor's first reaction to any advice or notification is to go on about "being attacked","harassment", "bullying", and "cyberstalking" ([143] [144] [145] [146] [147]), no, I haven't notified him. Feel free to do so.

Notification added to user's talk page at 03:10, 6 December 2016.

Discussion concerning Maslowsneeds

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

Statement by Maslowsneeds

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Maslowsneeds

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

Appears to be a straight violation of the American Politics topic ban. This diff from December 5 is obviously about politics, since it says that the goal of the Shareblue site was to get Hillary Clinton elected. Even if Maslowsneeds was just restoring material removed by someone else, he is still responsible for whatever he adds. And the thread at User talk:Maslowsneeds#December 2016 is not very reassuring about the editor's intentions for the future. It seems to me that a block is necessary. EdJohnston (talk) 19:06, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
10:35 12/5 is clearly political, and Ms. Bish chose to warn instead of block. The edit at 23:13, shortly after the warning, sources a NYT article that mentions a political figure in the title and is in the "politics" section. Both are obvious breaches of the topic ban and in line with the issues that prompted the ban. The responses on the editor's talk page are clearly disappointing and point to a significant likelihood of recurrence. Kuru (talk) 00:25, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Blocked for 48 hours. The absolute best you can say of it is that Maslowsneeds might have been testing the limits of the ban. Guy (Help!) 12:25, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gilabrand

Blocked for 3 months, and any recurrence of sockpuppetry will turn this into an indefinite block and probable siteban. Guy (Help!) 09:19, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Request concerning Gilabrand

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Supreme Deliciousness (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:52, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Indefinite ARBPIA topic ban :

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

23 November Edits history and other information about an Israeli settlement in Israeli-occupied territory: "Had Ness was established by the Herut Beitar settlement movement. Home ownership was approved in March 1982, after the Golan Heights Law was passed in 1981. Families began to move there in 1987." "Many residents of Had Ness run guesthouses and zimmers."
5 December Edits Israeli-built ski resort article located in Israeli-occupied territory
4 December Moves an Israeli settlement in Israeli-occupied territory

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

Looooooong list: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3AGilabrand

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning Gilabrand

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

Statement by Gilabrand

When the topic ban was discussed with HJ Mitchell, he specifically noted that I could edit Israel-related articles as long as my edits were not about the conflict. I have been editing now for over a year and not once has anyone challenged or reverted any of my thousands of edits. With respect to Had Ness, you attribute to me all kinds of horrible motives, but I just happened upon the article because a clown friend of mine said he was going there to perform. I had never heard of the place and googling it came across an actual reference to it in a scholarly book. Looking at the article and seeing the history section was unreferenced, I added it. There was nothing about the conflict. It was just a historical statement of fact. I also saw that the spelling was wrong, and moved the article to reflect a more correct spelling (again, not perfect, as the "h" sound in Hebrew has no parallel in English). I have tried exceedingly hard to stick to the rules over the past year and I find it sad that there are editors like SD who have been on the warpath for years and are basically holding Wikipedia articles hostage. The one and only reason for my edit was to add a reference where there was none. Geewhiz (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC) Oh, and for the record, I was not the one who added the material about the guesthouses. I removed a chunk of uncited PR material that was promoting a specific guesthouse. So SD should actually be thanking me for ruining their economy...[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph

None of the edits have anything to do with the IP conflict. All of the edits were improvements to the article. This is just yet another "gotcha" style enforcement action. Furthermore, why are these articles subject to ARBPIA enforcement?

Well they certainly have something to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict: "Had Ness was established by the Herut Beitar settlement movement. Home ownership was approved in March 1982, after the Golan Heights Law was passed in 1981. Families began to move there in 1987." "Many residents of Had Ness run guesthouses and zimmers. " [148]. She is editing texts specifically about Israeli settlers in occupied territory. Other edits she is editing settlement articles, which she shouldn't be touching at all. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And? Are we now going to put all settlements and Arab villages under ARBPIA? Her edits have nothing to do with the conflict and are an improvement to the article. This is just you trying to get a pro-Israeli editor banned. It's a petty and vindictive action. This is not what AE nor Wikipedia is about. She changed the name from Had Nes to Had Ness, and you bring her to AE for that? 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 17:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All Israeli settlements in occupied territories are under ARBPIA, Yes. Her edits are directly about the Arab-Israeli conflict specifically talking about the Israeli settlers and when they moved to the Israeli settlement in the occupied territory and when the Israeli settlement was founded and by which settler movement. She is topic banned for a reason. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 17:33, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since when are all settlements and Arab settlements under ARBPIA? You need to go to ARBCOM and clarify that. You're just nitpicking trying to push your POV and make Wikipedia more toxic. Please don't respond to me anymore here, I will not reply to you. Stay in your own section. I reiterate that no actionable edit occurred. 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 17:38, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I refer admins to the statement above: "Disruptive...groundless or vexatious complaints, may result in blocks or other sanctions." We have edits from "ages" ago, that are not in the ARBPIA area and this is a groundless complaint merely brought to shut down an adversary. 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 17:41, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestions below begs the question if editing Arab villages and towns would also fall under ARBPIA, or is it just Jewish towns? 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 14:24, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just for clarification, and since RexxS mentioned it, the ARBPIA templated was only added yesterday. 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 17:58, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RexxS

In response to Sir Joseph, it is not helpful to a topic-banned editor to encourage them to make edits which others could interpret as a breach of the topic ban. Topic bans quite often contain the phrase "broadly construed" and most editors will interpret that in terms of ARBPIA to include editing topics about settlements in the occupied territories, whose existence is inextricably linked with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Had Ness is a clear example. The consequences for you of being wrong are zero; whereas the consequences for a topic-banned editor of following your advice if you are wrong are serious.

The convention on Wikipedia is for a topic-banned editor to check the talk page for a notice such as {{ARBPIA}}. The presence of the notice is a clear signal to keep away. The absence of such a notice is not, however, a green light to edit the article. The usual practice, in the event of any uncertainty, would be to seek advice from a knowledgeable-admin – perhaps the one who performed the ban – whether they considered the article covered by the topic ban. In my humble opinion, it's probably best for an editor who is topic banned "broadly construed" to assume that all settlements in the occupied territories are subject to ARBPIA. Nobody's going to get sanctioned for following that advice. --RexxS (talk) 22:44, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AnotherNewAccount

I suggest lifting the ban. I did see a while back Gilabrand was sailing somewhat close to the wind of the topic ban on occasions, but the nature of the editing tended to be gnomish stuff like category editing, WikiProject bannering, image adding etc. None of the edits have been problematic, and she has been editing for over a year without incident since being unblocked. She has not touched the "battleground" parts of the topic.

HJ Mitchell wrote:

I would suggest, as a ball-park figure, that six months would be an appropriate amount of time passed before I would be wiling to consider lifting the AE block.

She seems to have surpassed that requirement with a goodly amount of decent editing. The fact that it's taken this long for anybody to notice and complain here is evidence of the benign nature of her editing to date. AnotherNewAccount (talk) 19:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Huldra

To put it bluntly: anyone assuming good faith with Gilabrand, is a gullible fool. Seriously. She lied about IP socking while banned, was forgiven and let back, and "repaid" by socking again. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive147#Gilabrand, where User:Bukrafil was found to be one of her socks. I was taught to turn the other cheek, but I have run out of cheeks, w.r.t Gilabrand.

So no, I simply do not believe that, say, that first diff is an innocent mistake. Having said that, as long as she only does copy- edits, I do not mind that she edits articles under ARBPIA.

I think a block is in order, but not a long one, (she has done constructive work, too). Say, 1 to 3 months?

Statement by Malik Shabazz

I don't think it's very nice that Gila refers to her friends—any of them—as clowns. Isn't there a policy or guideline against that? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 06:02, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Gilabrand

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

Context for reviewing admins: the topic ban was imposed in this 2014 AE thread; Gilabrand was indefinitely blocked at the same time and unblocked just over a year ago. I see I noted at WP:DSLOG when I logged the topic ban This topic ban is indefinite [...] and will continue in the event that Gilabrand is unblocked. I'd prefer this complaint be adjudicated by other admins (and make no comment on its merit for the time being), but I'll monitor this thread. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello User:Supreme Deliciousness, please post in your own section. And the first diff listed shows Gilabrand removing the following material from the Had Nes article:
Had Nes was founded in 1989, when the area had already been unilaterally annexed by Israel, via the 1981 Golan Heights Law. It was named after 3 settlements, Holit, Dekla and Neot Sinai, evacuated from the Sinai Peninsula as a result of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in 1979. Reference
It is hard to claim that removal of the phrase 'unilaterally annexed by Israel', when referring to the Golan Heights, is unrelated to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In my opinion diff #3. the move of Had Nes to Had Ness looks innocuous, though I take note of the view that anything done to articles on Israeli settlements in occupied territory may be questionable for a topic-banned person. EdJohnston (talk) 19:20, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like an example of testing the boundaries. A settlement in the Golan Heights will be viewed by many as certainly within ARBPIA, it is not the job of topic-banned editors to make this determination by testing the boundaries. Gilabrand needs to pay very close attention to the words "broadly construed" and adopt a policy of not touching an article unless it is either unambiguously and unarguably free of ARBPIA (so with no connection whatsoever to Israel's disputed borders, for example), or asking for advice before editing. My view is that the very next edit to any article which is arguably related, should lead to an immediate block. Guy (Help!) 13:11, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am persuaded by Peacemaker67. Though the last block was a while ago, it is very clear that Gilabrand is still determined to edit in this area and is also still unable to restrain the strong POV which led tot he restriction. I have blocked for 3 months, see [149]. Guy (Help!) 09:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be inclined to provide a warning that edits to settlement pages are within the broad topic area if not for the portion of the first diff highlighted by EdJohnston above. Topic bans cover any edit, not just any page, and it's beyond clear that removing the phrase "unilaterally annexed by Israel" is within the topic area. Given the number of previous blocks for topic ban violations, I see no choice but to block here, probably for a long period of time. This editor has long since exhausted their share of good-faith errors related to this ban. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the whole thing from the beginning, I think (as noted by EdJohnston then Rob) it is self-evident that removing the phrase "unilaterally annexed by Israel" is a violation of the TBAN, which was "broadly construed". Any assumption of good faith around the edges of that is surely long gone. Given the back story (which reaches back to 2008) regarding blocks relating to this topic, I don't support Guy's suggestion of a final warning, as I think whatever rope there was has been played out. I suggest at least a three month block is an appropriate response, with the TBAN still in force indef after the block expires. Given the past history of socking, any socking during the block to result in an indef block. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:55, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Solntsa90

Blocked for three months for failing to adhere to community standards in the ARBEE topic. EdJohnston (talk) 19:02, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Request concerning Solntsa90

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Sagecandor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 21:53, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Solntsa90 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Eastern_Europe#Standard_discretionary_sanctions and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2#Discretionary_sanctions_.281932_cutoff.29 :

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

18:55, 27 November 2016 Removing "debunked" from descriptor about conspiracy theory affecting WP:BLPs.
19:00, 27 November 2016 The New York Times apparently not good enough source for this user in disputes -- adds "claims to have debunked" instead of "debunked" before the newspaper.
4 December 2016 - adds Russia Today in violation of indef topic ban [150] from all related Vladimir Putin topics.
4 December 2016 - again inserts Russia Today in violation of topic ban.
20:46, 7 December 2016 Insertion of unreliable source against talk page consensus, later removed by Neutrality. -- see previous topic ban from Russia Today [151].
7 December 2016 - again adds Russia Today, this time after edit-summary warning by Neutrality. Again in violation of topic ban from all pages related to Vladimir Putin.
20:43, 7 December 2016 Edits in subsection directly related to Russian propaganda - AFTER notification by Neutrality of topic ban violation on all pages related to Vladimir Putin, and AFTER the Arbitration Enforcement notification.
20:44, 7 December 2016 Edits in subsection directly related to Russian propaganda - AFTER notification by Neutrality of topic ban violation on all pages related to Vladimir Putin, and AFTER the Arbitration Enforcement notification.
21:48, 7 December 2016 Edits in subsection directly related to Russian propaganda - AFTER notification by Neutrality of topic ban violation on all pages related to Vladimir Putin, and AFTER the Arbitration Enforcement notification.
21:50, 7 December 2016 Edits in subsection directly related to Russian propaganda - AFTER notification by Neutrality of topic ban violation on all pages related to Vladimir Putin, and AFTER the Arbitration Enforcement notification.
15:54, 8 December 2016 Edits in subsection directly related to Russian propaganda - AFTER notification by Neutrality of topic ban violation on all pages related to Vladimir Putin, and AFTER the Arbitration Enforcement notification.
15:55, 8 December 2016 Edits in subsection directly related to Russian propaganda - AFTER notification by Neutrality of topic ban violation on all pages related to Vladimir Putin, and AFTER the Arbitration Enforcement notification. And after the proposal by EdJohnston of three-month-long-block.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

17:23, 19 January 2016 Six-month topic ban from "from the article RT (TV network) and its talk page." (Note behavior recently inserting Russia Today at [152].)
23:33, 28 February 2016 Blocked for violating unblock condition related to WP:RFARB.
26 February 2016 Indef topic ban from Vladimir Putin - therefore insertion of Russia Today [153] is violation of this sanction.

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

20:39, March 30, 2014 - Discretionary sanctions alert by EdJohnston as to Eastern Europe and related topics (WP:ARBEE)
26 February 2016 Indef topic ban from "the topic of Vladimir Putin on all pages of Wikipedia including talk."
28 November 2016 Discretionary sanctions alert by Neutrality as to both (i) pages regarding with living or recently deceased people (WP:ARBBLP), and (ii) pages involving post-1932 U.S. politics (WP:ARBAP2)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification given at 21:55, 7 December 2016.

Discussion concerning Solntsa90

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

Statement by Solntsa90

The article on Fake News has literally nothing to do with Russia, except for media claims that this originates in Russia--still nothing to do with Vladimir Putin--and the fact I'm using an RT News source as a citation.

The burden of proof will be on you to prove that this topic is directly related to Vladimir Putin.

I didn't violate my topic-ban; You're just attempting to get rid of me on a contentious issue. Solntsa90 (talk) 15:47, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My edits aren't even related to Russia. The burden of proof will be on whoever issued this complaint to prove that my edits were on an article directly related to Russia or Vladimir Putin, of which neither were; This is all happening because I dared to use RT News as a source. Solntsa90 (talk) 15:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Neutrality

I agree with and fully join in Sagecandor's request regarding Solntsa90. I see this as a flagrant violation of his topic ban(s), and one more example of an ongoing pattern of behavior that indicates a complete inability or unwillingness to edit productively in the topic area of American or Eastern European politics. Particularly illuminating is his statement, in an edit summary, dismissing "a few editors [that] have an objection" because "Consensus is not needed on valid sources, of which RT is." Solntsa90 seems to believe that his understanding is baseline/predicate. He doesn't seem to appreciate that others might have rational views to the contrary. Nor does he seem to understand that generally, the burden of showing a source's reliability is on the proponent of the source.

Even if this isn't quite a NOTHERE case, it certainly is one that calls for:

A broad-based, long-term topic ban. Since targeted sanctions haven't work, there should be consideration of a ban of Solntsa90 from all pages, project-wide, touching "government/politics related to the United States, Russia, or Europe, and journalism/media/news related to the United States, Russia, or Europe, broadly construed," or something to that effect.
Some sort of 1RR restriction that bars Solntsa90 from reverting anything but obvious vandalism.

Neutrality^talk 22:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Solntsa90

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

I agree with Neutrality. Drmies (talk) 02:13, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, after this edit, "I think the issue here is who decides that they are the arbiter of truth? Is it simply by how much media influence you have, how much money you spend on advertising or your editorial team, etc.?" I am convinced that SoIntsa90 simply can't play by the rules, and does not, or does not want to, understand how consensus and RS works. Much in that comment is on the sly--for instance, "the issue here" could point to "here" as "in general"--in the US, in the West, whatever--but it probably means "here on Wikipedia", and thus the "editorial team" that's on whoever's payroll is us Wikipedia editors. It's bad enough that the whole liberal media conspiracy theory gets so much air time on Wikipedia talk pages, including by SoIntsa90, but this is also a total violation of AGF and a toxification of the entire process. Enough already: I'm blocking now for a short period considering this one particular violation, and add my support for an AE block to EdJohnston and Peacemaker. Drmies (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The ban from RT (TV network) was mentioned by User:Neutrality. That particular ban was for six months and it has expired. But the pattern of problems continues. I would favor a three-month AE block for continuing problems with neutral editing in the area of WP:ARBEE, since they have got themselves named twice in the WP:DSLOG for ARBEE this year alone. See the user's block history. The log includes three blocks for edit warring and a two-week block for harassment. EdJohnston (talk) 04:58, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with EdJohnston that the editing pattern persists despite previous blocks. Enough rope has been played out. Three month block for the ARBEE issues. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Closing. User:Solntsa90 is blocked for three months as an arbitration enforcement for failing to adhere to community standards regarding the ARBEE topic. While Drmies issued a shorter block above for a specific violation, he did express his support for my proposal of an AE block. EdJohnston (talk) 19:02, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ag97

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

Request concerning Ag97

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Sagecandor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 17:19, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Ag97 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2#Discretionary_sanctions_.281932_cutoff.29 and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Editing_of_Biographies_of_Living_Persons#Special_enforcement_on_biographies_of_living_persons :

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2#Discretionary_sanctions_.281932_cutoff.29
WP:BLPBAN as superseded by motion.

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

Sneaky minor edits at Pizzagate (conspiracy theory) to minimize fact it is fake, even though it impacts BLPs including living people who were endangered by a shooter with a rifle:

23:23, 4 December 2016 - Removes large amounts of content from intro on good article page about BLP, reverted by TheTimesAreAChanging.
15:36, 9 December 2016 - Words conspiracy theory as if factual, "and tie a number of pizzerias ..."
15:51, 9 December 2016 - Removes "discredited" from lead of conspiracy theory, calls this "minor change to lead".
15:54, 9 December 2016 - changes "determined to be fake" to "called "fake news" ..." in scare quotes, calls this minor change to lead".
15:57, 9 December 2016 - changes "debunked" to "described as false", removes word "debunked" from section on "debunking".
16:49, 9 December 2016 - WP:BATTLEGROUND retaliation. User starts talk page section about their edits, immediately responds with same in reverse with same passive aggressive wording.

06:30, 9 December 2016] - Inserts discussion of theory into related article which treats the conspiracy theory as a matter of debate rather than debunked falsehoods, despite the fact that both sources they cited explicitly describe the claims as "fake."

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

23:12, 11 January 2013 - Warned about BLP, by Paul Erik.
15:39, 2 December 2016 - Warned about Fringe Topics related to BLPs, by Neutrality.
17:09, 2 December 2016 - Warned about edit-warring, by NorthBySouthBaranof.
17:09, 2 December 2016 - 48-hour block for edit-warring/3RR violation on Pizzagate, by Kuru.

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

16:00, 20 October 2016 - Discretionary sanctions alert for content related to post-1932 American politics, by MrX.
15:32, 2 December 2016 - Discretionary sanctions alert for content related to living persons, by Neutrality.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

17:20, 9 December 2016 - Notification given about arbitration enforcement discussion.

Discussion concerning Ag97

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

Statement by Ag97

This is absolutely ridiculous. I made several good faith edits that improved the Pizzagate article. I gave clear reasons for all the changes, and can defend all of them. I am very willing to defend any of my edits on the talk page. This is an attempt to block me by Neutrality. Neutrality has threatened me, saying "Ag97 has previously been blocked for a 3RR violation on this very article. I think it is time for AE on this. Neutralitytalk 16:26, 9 December 2016 (UTC)." Neutrality previously got me blocked for edit warring, even though he himself was guilty of edit warring just as much as me. I find it very concerning that Neutrality is attempting to bully me by using his administrator rights to threaten to block me for disagreeing with him. All of my edits were made in good faith, were justified, and improved the article. Nothing was intended to be sneaky, my edits were accurately described, and improved the article by rewriting phrases using more neutral language that more accurately describes the cited references. If Neutrality has a content dispute with me, he should discuss it on the talk page, rather than trying to get me blocked. This is nothing more than an attempt by Neutrality to silence someone he doesn't agree with. Ag97 (talk) 17:51, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NorthSouthBaran 's accusations are also inaccurate. I never posted anything that was false, I said "conspiracy theory" and never claimed that the theory is true. The words "conspiracy theory" are sufficient to explain that the claims aren't true. No other Wikipedia article describes conspiracy theories as false, so why should this one be an exception? My edit was justified, as I explained [154]. NorthSouthBaranOf and Neutrality have no right to get me blocked for disagreeing with them.Ag97 (talk) 18:28, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, foundational Wikipedia policies mean neutral point of view. All other false conspiracy theories on Wikipedia, such as 9/11 or Sandy Hook, and never described as false, even though that is uncontested. So why should this article be written from a biased point of view when no other Wikipedia article about a conspiracy theory does that? Secondly, this discussion should be taking place on the article's talk page, where many people agree with me. [User:Ag97|Ag97]] (talk) 19:01, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Addition: I just want to point out that it is completely absurd that people want to block me from Wikipedia for having a discussion on a talk page, as what MjolnirPants wrote. It seems that I am being attacked by people who are angry that I disagree with their opinion. Ag97 (talk) 22:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by NorthBySouthBaranof

I view these edits as problematic as well; the user inserted a lengthy discussion of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory into a related article, Podesta emails, without mentioning that the theory has been widely debunked, discredited and is viewed as false by all mainstream sources. This despite the fact that the two sources they cited explicitly call the theory "fake."

The user in question may well be editing in good faith, but it is clear that they do not have a good understanding of Wikipedia content policies, particularly those regarding fringe theories and false claims about living people. They are clearly editing from the POV that the claims are "not proven false," which is at best a fringe viewpoint and at worst an overt attempt to spread libelous, ludicrous nonsense which has already resulted in one extremely dangerous incident. A number of the user's previous edits on the topic have had to be suppressed, and I suggest that the continuation of this behavior warrants a topic ban. They have demonstrated that they are not here to edit this topic in compliance with policy but rather in an effort to spread false claims about people, or at the least create the impression that there is some substantive debate about their veracity, as against the unanimous declaration of reliable sources that they are malicious lies. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ag97 does not seem to understand that this is not a matter of personal disagreement, but a matter of alignment with foundational Wikipedia policies. That the claims of this conspiracy theory are false, malicious lies is an uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertion among reliable sources, not merely someone's personal opinion. Editing related articles to make it sound like Pizzagate is a subject of actual debate or that there is any truth to the claims whatsoever contravenes this policy. We must describe Pizzagate as mainstream reliable sources do — a fake, fraudulent conspiracy theory. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:35, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Neutrality

I agree with Sagecandor and NorthBySouthBaranof. Ag97 has been extensively reasoned with, alerted, warned, and sanctioned, all to no avail. I consider the (repeated) BLP violations to be serious. Some sort of topic ban or revert restriction or both, applicable to American politics in general or conspiracy/fringe theories in particular, would seem to be in order. Neutrality^talk 18:18, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also: This hardly needs to be said, but Ag97's statement that I somehow "threatened to block him for disagreeing with me" is completely meritless. What I told him, on December 2, was the following:

Let me be perfectly and unequivocally clear. You have two simple choices. You can either stop edit-warring in violation of our fundamental policies and guidelines. Or you can continue this conduct, and I will pursue and very likely obtain Arbitration Enforcement remedies against you. The choice is yours, but I strongly recommend the former.

Ag97 immediately disregarded this advice, disregarded my follow-up corrections to his incorrect notions about Wikipedia policies, and proceeded to consistently and flagrantly violate BLP, even after being blocked for the exact same conduct on the exact same issue. So here we are. Neutrality^talk 23:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Timothyjosephwood

The failure to understand that criticism of a source does not constitute a source is...fairly run-of-the-mill for these topics. The immediate jump to WP:ROUGE and WP:CABAL is concerning.

User:NorthBySouthBaranofs characterization of this edit as a "lengthy discussion" is at best wrong. It is, in fact, a single sentence, and that may be a little WP:ABF.

There has been a tendency on the article to want to pack in as much tentative and doubt-casting language as possible: The theory purported to claim that the "person" reportedly did the alleged "thing" which was a false unfounded hoax, not true, and very likely a fib. At at least a few instances of this has needed to be simplified. So there's definitely a middle ground there somewhere.

Not sure there's been an insane amount of disruption, but not sure that discussion is really possible, since in about six seconds it went from zero to This user is purposefully rewriting the article to remove neutral language and make it biased, reducing the overall quality of the article. In addition, he and his friend Neutrality have threatened to use their administrator rights to block me from Wikipedia in retaliation for voicing my opposition and concerns about their changes. TimothyJosephWood 18:46, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. TimothyJosephWood 20:50, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge

I have to admit that I'm a bit perplexed why this RfE was filed.

[155] Personally, I wouldn't have removed the sentence about Bush but editors are allowed to make WP:BOLD edits. Whether the edit improves the article is matter for talk page discussion, not RfE. Further, the filer describes the edit as removing "large amounts of content", however, I count only one sentence being removed. Can someone double-check my math?
[156] This edit changed the word "ties" to "tie" and adds "contain coded messages referring to human trafficking...in Washington D.C". I don't see how this edit words this conspiracy theory as factual.
[157] This edit does remove "discredited" but leaves in "described as a 'fictitious conspiracy theory". I'm not sure if there's a substantial difference between the two versions of this sentence, but the edit summary should have been more descriptive.
[158] This edit changes the sentence that reads:

“

The theory has been described as a "fictitious conspiracy theory" by the District of Columbia Police Department and determined to be fake by multiple organizations including Snopes.com, The New York Times,and Fox News.

”

to:

“

The theory has been described as a "fictitious conspiracy theory" by the District of Columbia Police Department and called "fake news" by multiple organizations including Snopes.com, The New York Times, and Fox News.

”

I don't see any substantial difference between these two sentences. A more descriptive edit summary should have been used.

[159] Another minor change of little significance.
[160] Personalization of dispute. This is the first diff that actually shows the editor doing something wrong.
[161] I wouldn't have made this edit. This is trivia within the context of Podesta emails. That's the only thing I find objectionable about this edit. I don't see how this treats the conspiracy theory as a matter of debate. The edit plainly labels it as a conspiracy theory. Since when is being called a "conspiracy theory" a good thing?

This seems to me to be a frivolous RfE. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:47, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MjolnirPants

I've been watching the page for a day or two now, and when I see problems like this: where an editor complains that edits are POV shifting and the individual diffs themselves don't hold up to the rhetoric, I've found that it is helpful to look at the edits as a whole. That's what this is. (note that there are three edits by TimothyJosephWood in there, but none of them are to the wording)

When taken as a whole, this series of supposedly minor edits does indeed shift the POV from "This claim is false" to "This claim is unpopular" significantly.

Then, when looking further back, I found this edit, which characterized text sourced to politifact.com as "unreliable, unverified content", apparently because it included information from a buzzfeed article. I should point out that buzzfeed has been recently growing its reputation for journalism, and is increasingly used here on WP as it is found to be reliable. The fact that this story was repeated (and thus, presumably vetted) by a politifact writer actually says quite a bit about its reliability. All that being said, it is still understandable that someone might see "buzzfeed" and immediately think "unreliable", even if it is essentially wrong.

Those who know me probably know that I'm not quick to ask for sanctions, but I believe this is a situation that could stand to be 'nipped in the bud'. A firm response is warranted, given the BLP concerns and the fact that this subject has already put one person in jail and faced several others with a deadly threat. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Addition I just noticed this edit, which claims to be a result of talkpage discussions by two other users, except one of those users has never edited the talk page, and the other user absolutely did not say what the edit summary in that diff claims. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:50, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Further addition I agree with Exemplo's statement below. Since this started, the editor in question has escalated their disruption of the page and its talk page, including by arguing that accurately reflecting the sources counts as "editorial bias". This is about as clear-cut a case of a serious POV problem as I've seen. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:00, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Exemplo347

The fact that this Arbitration Enforcement action is taking place does not seem to have given the subject of it any reason to reflect on their actions. I'd urge a swift resolution to this, if only for the sanity of editors who are having to deal with his editing - it's like having to follow a puppy around with a pooper scooper. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:32, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Acroterion

I've been keeping an eye on things Pizzagate for a couple of weeks. A few days ago I revdel'd a good bit of old defamation at related pages, some of which has since been oversighted, and I placed extended confirmed protection on the articles after semi-protection didn't do enough to stop disruptive editing. I've warned and blocked a few people for flat-out BLP violations. The pattern here is reminiscent of GamerGate, in which lots of new editors and previously inactive editors converged on the topic to insist that their POV, however discredited, was being suppressed in favor of material supported by mainstream sources, and that Wikipedia could not ignore what they termed "alternative media." The means by which both topics have been promoted are similar, and there is a good bit of overlap in the places where they are being promoted. The difference is that rather than shaming campaigns, doxxing, swatting and individual threats, Pizzagate involves enthusiastic defamation in the grossest terms and actual people with guns conducting "investigations." It is this enthusiasm for defamation, either overt or by omission that is being promoted here by Ag97 using similar arguments that somehow neutrality demands that we take lunatic fantasies seriously. Given the fact that the articles document real-time events we should not for a moment allow Wikipedia to be used as a platform for promotion of a pernicious assault on individuals who are unpopular with conspiracy enthusiasts. While some of hs edits are unproblematic or productive, Ag97 is using Wikipedia as a battleground for promotion of these attacks. Acroterion (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrX

I'm not surprised to see Ag97 here; I'm only surprised that it took so long. I gave Ag97 a DS alert when, after a two year lapse from editing, they burst onto the scene with this edit to Bill Clinton, writing "Clinton was accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick in an interview published on the news network Breitbart." sourced to Breitbart News and freebeacon.com. This was followed by a series of poorly-sourced edits in which Ag97 attempted to add material to several articles [162] [163] [164] [165] claiming that protests at Trump rallies were "done by paid instigators working for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign" sourced to the inimitable Washington Times.

Here, Ag97 expresses his disdain for Wikipedia editors:

"*Yes - Wow Wikipedia is one big joke. This is supposed to be neutral? You losers are still refusing to list Trump as the successor? You are in a state of denial. Your candidate lost, Trump is going to be president. Get over it! There is no logical reason whatsoever why Trump shouldn't be listed as the successor. Even Melania Trump is listed as the successor on Michelle Obama's article. For every single senate race, their successor is listed. On every. single. other. politician's. article on Wikipedia their successor is listed!! I don't know if you people are paid CTR shills or just radical leftists who hope that by throwing temper tantrums you can change the result of the election. Well guess what losers, it's not going to happen! And by tainting these high profile articles by showing your bias and not even attempting to be neutral, you make all of Wikipedia look bad. Shame on you."[166]- Mr X 00:08, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Ag97

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

These Pizzagate (conspiracy theory) edits are quite damning: marked as minor, they blur the difference between fact and conspiracy. Edits on Pizzagate (dab) show they either have no clue about the BLP and its project-wide application, or no interest in such knowledge. Editor has no business editing in the area of US politics, as other edits and warnings have shown, and I strongly support a one-year ban from that area altogether. If others feel that the ban should extend to all conspiracy theories, I have no objection to that. Drmies (talk) 18:48, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This feels like the start of Gamergate all over again, but with a much larger spotlight on this to start, it should be easier to devolute things. I do agree that some of the diffs of Ag97 are problematic after warnings, but I don't think all edits are incorrect. There is a difference between "fake news" (in the current context of websites running purely ficticious stories) and a "fake conspiracy theory" (as this theory appears fully legit by those that believe it, so it's not "fake". Debunked and/or proven false, yes, in that any validity to the theory has been investigated and found non-existent, so that the edits that attempt to change that wording are a problem, but I do see Ag97's point about the "fake conspiracy theory" being inaccurate wording.(*)) I'm not sure if the edit on Podestra's page is a problem: as long as we have the article on Pizzagate, his ties to it are unfortunately notable, but the language Ag97 added did establish the ties as "alledged" (though I would use "debunked" or "disproven" to follow the above comments based on sources). But overall, editing behavior and battleground mentality definitely needs to be addressed as that's still edit warring on articles clearly within the AE scope, and limited term topic ban seems appropriate here given past warnings/blocks. --MASEM (t) 20:11, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Just to add noted at (*) above, I see that "fictitious conspiracy theory" is exact wording from the police per published stories; I think that's still awkward wording to use w/o the quotes and attribution (as again, it implies the theory itself is a completely fictional thing no one believes is true, but there's clearly those that think it still is despite the wealth of investigation from authorities to disprove it). --MASEM (t) 20:29, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Drmies (talk · contribs) that while each edit is perhaps defensible on its own, taken together they are pretty damning in trying to make this theory look more credible than it really is. If this were an isolated incident of poor judgement from this user I'd be inclined to just tell them to be more careful in the future and not to do it again, but given the user's history and the comments described by MjolnirPants and MrX, I'm convinced that we don't want this editor on BLPs or in this topic area at all. I'd support a year-long topic ban from both US politics and conspiracy theories. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:19, 10 December 2016 (UTC).[reply]

Abbatai

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Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Abbatai

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: EtienneDolet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 04:10, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:AA2

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

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

Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 19 May 2016 by Coffee. Received a block for violating topic ban on 27 May 2016 by Coffee. Topic ban extended to 6 months on 27 May 2016 by Coffee.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is one of the shortest reports I've filed simply because the POV is self-evident and the user's history is so disruptive that it just had to be reported. Abbatai removes the word 'Nazi' in this edit when it comes to Azeris, but adds it in the lead of an Armenian article a few minutes later. A bit of a history lesson here: the Armenische Legion and the Aserbaidschanische Legion were both foreign units of the Wehrmacht. Armenians (like Dro) and Azeris all fought alongside the German Army during those days. However, according to Abbatai, the Azeris should not be designated Nazis, but the Armenians should. It can't get any clearer POV pushing than that. Given this user's disruptive POV pushing history, there should be serious consideration as to whether he should be topic-banned once more.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested: [167]

Discussion concerning Abbatai

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Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Abbatai

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Abbatai

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

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

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

[a]

[b]

@@ Line 339: / Line 339: @@
 ::::*I'm sorry for my hostility, then.  It appears to have been a misunderstanding.--v/r - [[User:TParis|T]][[User_talk:TParis|P]] 05:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 *This discussion is about poor editing behaviour, not American politics. An understanding of the latter isn't necessary to accurately identify the former. I'll add that the BLP violation by TTAAC about a certain journalist being "insane" (noted by SPECIFICO) adds fuel to this, demonstrating failure to abide by community rules (even while TTAAC's editing is being subjected to greater than usual scrutiny). In conjunction with the 1RR violation and using the "rv vandalism" edit summary, it gives the impression that TTAAC doesn't think the rules apply to them. [[User:Peacemaker67|Peacemaker67]]  ([[User_talk:Peacemaker67|click to talk to me]]) 06:18, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
-*I think we are making too much of this, which may explain why it has dragged on so long with no action, with no admin willing to pull the trigger. I empathize with TP's comments above that we (as a community) do seem to police one side of politics more than the other, which is not surprising given the nature of the project.  Unquestionably, TTAAC screwed up but the type of mistakes beg the question whether or not this requires we use the heavy tools grated to us by Arb here at AE.  From my perspective, the problems seem rather run of the mill and not really what AE was set up for.  Calling someone insane is indeed a BLP violation, for example, but we seldom act on it other than to warn.  Reverting good faith edits with the summary "vandalism" is certainly wrong, but it happens at least at least once per minute somewhere at Wikipedia.  All of this is a big stale.  All of this happened in a topic area that still has people carrying signs in the street.  I don't want to excuse bad behavior but I don't see where taking action here is going to actually improve the encyclopedia.  Much of this is content dispute, much of it has already settled itself.  I would rather see a strong warning given to TTAAC and move on.  Anything more may be seen as punitive at this point, and it wouldn't be preventative and he seems to have been right on some of the facts in question, even if he was too aggressive in the way he edited.  [[User:Dennis Brown|<b>Dennis Brown</b>]] - [[User talk:Dennis Brown|<b>2&cent;</b>]] 12:05, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
+*I think we are making too much of this, which may explain why it has dragged on so long with no action, with no admin willing to pull the trigger. I empathize with {{u|TParis}}'s frustration above.  As a community, it appears (to some) that we are more aggressive in policing one side of politics more than the other, which is not surprising given the nature of the project.  Unquestionably, TTAAC screwed up but the type of mistakes beg the question whether or not this requires we use the heavy tools grated to us by Arb here at AE.  From my perspective, the problems seem rather run of the mill and not really what AE was set up for.  Calling someone insane is indeed a BLP violation, for example, but we seldom act on it other than to warn.  Reverting good faith edits with the summary "vandalism" is certainly wrong, but it happens at least at least once per minute somewhere at Wikipedia.  All of this is a big stale.  All of this happened in a topic area that still has people carrying signs in the street.  I don't want to excuse bad behavior but I don't see where taking action here is going to actually improve the encyclopedia.  Much of this is content dispute, much of it has already settled itself.  I would rather see a strong warning given to TTAAC and move on.  Anything more may be seen as punitive at this point, and it wouldn't be preventative and he seems to have been right on some of the facts in question, even if he was too aggressive in the way he edited.  [[User:Dennis Brown|<b>Dennis Brown</b>]] - [[User talk:Dennis Brown|<b>2&cent;</b>]] 12:08, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
 ==Kamel Tebaast==

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