Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

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On community review

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

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

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

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

Appeals and administrator modifications of non-contentious topics sanctions

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Appeals by sanctioned editors

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

Modifications by administrators

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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.

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Noteduck

Noteduck receives a logged warning to be careful and to abide to policies while editing in the topic area of American politics--Ymblanter (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2021 (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 Noteduck

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Springee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 04:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Noteduck (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

Edit warring Reverted editors include myself, Conan The Librarian, Shrike, Visite fortuitement prolongée, Mcrt007, Pincrete, Kyohyi. While wp:ONUS puts the burden of making the case for inclusion on the editor trying to include new content, Noteduck feels the burden is on those rejecting the change.

The PragerU (trimmed):
- [[1]]
- [[2]]

At Douglas Murray (trimmed):
- [[3]]
- [[4]]
- [[5]]
- [[6]]
- [[7]]
- [[8]]

Behavioral Standards: Bludgeoning

Long discussion regarding the Bridge Initiative as a SPS here: [[9]]. Editor tediously says consensus is reached because they feel objections have been addressed. [[10]], [[11]], [[12]]

Behavioral standards: Edit summaries disparage editors (trimmed)

[[13]] "Given that (from your talk page) you've engaged in edit wars on this page and given that you called the PragerU page "critical remarks from partisan leftists writing in fashion magazines and on twitter" (20 November 2019) you may be struggling with bias. I see you and [editor] know each other - please don't collude to remove material"
[[14]] "a warning was given for disruptive editing which was ignored. Lvl3 vandalism given on page User:[editor]. Please refrain from deleting material on the page without evidence. Go to talk page for commentary on article and discussion"
[[15]] "I am concerned that your revision was not made in good faith and can be considered tendentious editing. If these edits are removed again a warning for vandalism may be due. You betray your biases with your description of academic sources as "absurd" and "nonsense" on the talk page. Please refrain from unjustly removing evidence thnx"

Behavioral Standards: Casting aspersions/inappropriate talk page comments: (trimmed)

[[16]] If you cannot view this subject neutrally and objectively it may be best not to edit this page
[[17]] In particular, this comes in the form of right-wing editors trying to omit unflattering material from pages on controversial subjects, resulting in a kind of whitewashing by omission or status quo stonewalling
[[18]] "I've noticed that certain editors on this page have a regrettable tendency to revert large blocks of recently-added material wholesale, especially material that might be controversial." - Admin deleted the section [[19]]
[[20]] "have a look at WP:ROWN when considering whether to discard this edit"
[[21]] Created section "Blatant partisan politicking on this page" - "This is the last attempt I'm going to make to put a stop to these tendentious edits. The editors engaged in this process of tendentious editing know who they are and I'm not going to ping them for now.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

NA

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts): [[22]]

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Noteduck account created 19 Dec 2020 (prior account Spungo93 from April 2020). Battleground mentality including include edit warring, uncivil talk page behavior (unrelated comments about editor, tendentious editing, refusal listen to others). Editors have reached out to discuss issues [[23]], Callanecc (uninvolved) commenting[[24]][[25]]. Myself before filing this complaint [[26]]. Noteduck complaint at the Treehouse. An uninvolved editor said Noteduck needs to listen to others[[27]].

Dialog was ignored or treated as examples of the unreasonableness of other editors. Noteduck does not follow concepts like BRD and CONSENSUS, repeatedly reintroducing disputed content absent consensus or sometimes discussion. This resulted in extensive, slow edit warring. Noteduck is quick to use article talk pages/edit summaries to cast aspersions and or inappropriately focus on editors. Affected articles include PragerU, Roger Kimball, Douglas Murray (author) and Andy Ngo.

Edited for length Springee (talk) 14:25, 22 February 2021 (UTC) [reply]

and again Springee (talk) 18:54, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Replies

Noteduck's replies illustrate why they are problematic. Rather than address their own behavioral problems (edit warring, attacking other editors etc) they have bludgeoned the discussion with text, much of totally misrepresenting the facts. As an example, in "Update 5" Noteduck falsely said I removed "Reuters and Fox News(!)[281]". The link in question shows I moved the text, removed nothing. This sort of false accusation yet again illustrates the issue. It is not possible to have a good faith disagreement with this editor. Until they learn the ropes they should be restricted to less contentious areas of Wikipedia. Springee (talk) 12:57, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck, your Update 5 accuses Pudeo of colluding on some of the disputed pages:

It's worth noting that Springee, Shine, Pudeo, and Hipal have all edited together and largely backed each other up on pages like Andy Ngo and PragerU

The editor interaction tool is telling here [[28]]. Pudeo has never edited PragerU or its talk page. They did edit Andy Ngo... over 2 months ago (2 edits total). Their edits to Douglas Murray (3 months back) and Roger Kimball (3/4 years back) are even further back and less than 3 edits each time. Falsely accusing editors of collusion is an example of the disruptive behavior that we are concerned about. Springee (talk) 18:32, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to jps

jps, It's interesting to note that you also felt Noteduck's behavior has been sufficient that you warned them to be careful[[29]]. Noteduck's comment here [[30]] suggest they still do not understand the difference between commenting on the content vs the editor. Springee (talk) 11:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Generalized reply to Loki and Shadydabs

If you look at the diffs in most cases Noteduck isn't reverting my edit or replying to my comments. Absent diffs claims that I was edit warring, POV pushing etc have no merit. Springee (talk) 14:33, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Loki, your edit here fails to noted the talk page discussions that went along with the edits. Most of this talk page is about the content in question[[31]]. Note there were more editors in the discussion. Can you say there was a consensus for any of the edits you cited?[[32]] Why have a consensus policy if we don't expect editors to respect it? Springee (talk) 18:49, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is clear Noteduck still doesn't get that they should comment on the edits, not the editor. In the last few hours they accused Hipal of ROWN.[[33]] Springee (talk) 11:56, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Shadybabs, it is perfectly reasonable to dispute your edits to long standing article text. Why is that a complaint here? Springee (talk) 15:05, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Cedar777

Cedar777, your accusations against me misrepresent the facts but also miss the point. For example, when looking at the examples of casting aspersions, Noteduck is attacking a large number of editors, not just myself. Even with this active ARE they decided to accuse Hipal of ROWN just a few hours ago. Springee (talk) 11:53, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to dlthewave

Dlthewave, I think you are confusing disagreements regarding content with editors casting aspersions etc which is the heart of the issue here. Your last point, saying I refused to review a list of sources, is not entirely accurate. Noteduck dumped a large list of possible sources on the talk page and asked which I would reject which is already borderline failing to AGF. Since there was no text to accompany the source we have no way to know how the sources would be used. I did provide an answer [[34]] but it had to be limited to just the sources which were either not green or not green for this topic. You also neglected to mention that you are an involved editor. Springee (talk) 04:32, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to El_C

El_C, I've thought about what is the correct remedy here. As I said to Noteduck here [[35]] I want the problem to stop. I think a clear warning that comments about users are not acceptable on talk page. Any comment that is about the editor not the content of the article should not be on the talk page. The one sanction I think would help is a consensus required restriction. This would force Noteduck to slow down and listen to editors who object to changes but aren't willing to engage in the edit wars. Being forced to slow down and trying to address objection or otherwise establish consensus is only going to make Noteduck a better editor overall. Springee (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

El_C, you comment is one of my concerns. The real issue here is the volume of inapropriate comments, edit summaries, examples of large changes made without consensus. In filing this complaint one of the hard parts was figuring out which examples to leave out[[36]]. Springee (talk) 17:08, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

El_C, even with this AE open, Noteduck's edit warring and failure to follow BRD continues. Just last night they added new content [[37]]. The material was removed, ND restored it with a demand that the objecting editor make the case for removal [[38]]. {u|Peter Gulutzan}} subsequently agreed and removed the content. Noteduck's failure to discuss disputed edits and expectation that others should have to justify removals is contrary to ONUS and BURDEN and leads to more edit warring. A BRD restriction or similar on ND's edits would be helpful. Springee (talk) 15:23, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@El C, Rosguill, and Ymblanter:, this has been open a while with little traffic in March. Is it appropriate to request a close with warning which appears to be the admin consensus? Springee (talk) 11:46, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[[39]]

Discussion concerning Noteduck

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 Noteduck

I believe 1RR allegations are factually incorrect, as LokitheLiar said.

Given block reverts and vandalism I will concede that I got somewhat cranky around the Douglas Murray (author) page. As a newbie I was sometimes ignorant of policy - eg I know now Springee can delete material from talk page even if I'd prefer they didn't - and I apologize. It seems I edit-warred on several occasions and I apologize - happy to learn from any arbitration decision.

A counter-claim - if not the right forum I will happily withdraw it for now: I contend Springee is highly partisan and doesn't edit pages with any objectivity. Springee's talk page history has many claims of partisan bias and misunderstanding of policy (these just from the last 3 years),[40][41][42][43][44] including worrying claims of firearm advocacy,[45] behavioral problems,[46][47] edit-warring,[48] vandalism,[49] and canvassing[50][51] Springee's twin fixations seem to be conservative politics and firearms. Stalking has been raised by another editor.[52][53] Springee has followed me around Wiki, aggressively editing pages they previously had no involvement with right after I edit them.[54][55] I believe Springee sometimes follows my user contributions, looking for material to challenge. Springee's MO seems to be stonewalling any potentially unflattering material from pages on conservative subjects. It's worrying that Wiki pages of powerful conservative groups have become one-sided and whitewashed thanks to Springee. Full disclosure - I have discussed these problems with other editors via email who have concurred.

I appreciate Loki's criticism - it's ironic of Springee to accuse me of ignoring requests for help. On several occasions my posts on Springee's talk page were rapidly deleted without engagement.[56][57]

As Loki mentioned this is a boomerang but I believe Springee in fact has serious behavioral and POV problems that need addressing. Noteduck (talk) 08:22, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I went back further through Springee's talk page history, and there are a large number of accounts of behavioral problems and failure to meet Wiki standards going back years, including some serious allegations including hounding and harassment. I'm not sure how to deal with it but it needs attention Noteduck (talk) 09:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE 2: I'll get to the other points but first, what is the actual contention of impropriety on the Roger Kimball page? Two primary sources referring to Kimball's endorsement of the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden rigged the 2020 presidential election (which he has done on quite a few occasions, hence the term "repeatedly") were deleted by Springee and I reverted them once. Multiple previous primary sources in the same paragraph that were more flattering to Kimball were not touched. At any rate, after discussion on the talk page and a BLPN discussion initiated by Springee I did not end up restoring the contested source and provided two independent sources for the claim, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Pudeo, I'm not sure how familiar you are with Australian journalism, but Creighton and Newman are VOCAL about lockdowns and climate science respectively, so I don't see how this material is improper in any way. I didn't know the Epoch Times was depreciated at the time and don't see how that's relevant, but I apologise, I should have done more research. I never said Springee hounded me - I said that Springee's pattern of apparently going through my user contributions in order to contest material was concerning given previous accusations of stalking and hounding. Pudeo, given that you made vociferous, detailed, and baseless claims of sockpuppetry against a new editor (myself) on my talk page, and declined to remove them when I asked, your accusations of incivility are something of a pot-kettle-black matter[58] Noteduck (talk) 06:09, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[To El_C:] what sanctions are potentially enforceable? I've learned more about Wiki's rules over the last two months and I'll aim to be more mindful of Wiki policies. I still think I have a strong counter-claim though, which I'll support with more evidence soon Noteduck (talk) 04:35, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hipal, I've presented robust claims of partisanship, POV-pushing, stonewalling and behavioral problems from multiple editors on Springee's part in formal and appropriate language, based on dozens of diffs (with more still being added). I've taken two days off my new job to make sure my arguments are as thorough as possible. This is a forum for resolving disputes between editors, and I hardly think presenting my side of the case constitutes "battleground behavior" Noteduck (talk) 03:21, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

El_C, I don't quite understand your comments. I am just making my defence that I am not in conflict with a disinterested editor, but rather somebody who is highly partisan and experienced at whitewashing Wikipedia. Is this not the appropriate forum for this? I think my sometimes scrappy behavior needs to be understood within this context, but nonetheless I'll strive to improve and be more relaxed in the future. I believe that my contributions to Wiki, such as creating Soon May the Wellerman Come, Draft:Osman Faruqi(waiting on assessment for this one) and my additions to Douglas Murray (author) and Andy Ngo, as well as innumerable grammar and syntax corrections, are high-quality and demonstrate my commitment to improving this site in good faith Noteduck (talk) 13:31, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

El_C, I wanted to tell you this privately, but it was bound to come out sooner or later at any rate. I'm disabled - I have bipolar disorder and struggle with mania from time to time. I should have been more proactive about looking up Wikipedia disability policies but I see there is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility page and a Template:User bipolar2 tag. Over the summer (I'm Australian) I was unemployed and had nothing to do, and nothing to look forward to or be happy about except editing Wikipedia. I think this is trenchant information that demonstrates that I have no ill intent or lack of good faith in editing. I'll cut down the statements in the morning Noteduck (talk) 13:46, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

El_C, no problem with the trim. For full disclosure, I do plan to launch a claim against Springee, which is in my sandbox for now Noteduck (talk) 00:48, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Springee, please cease repeating the misrepresentation that I "accused" Hipal of anything. I simply mentioned being mindful of WP:ROWN when considering whether to revert material - a reminder of established policy is not an accusation Noteduck (talk) 04:39, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks El_C. I feel like I need to do two things (1) defend my own conduct and the charges Springee is making, and (2) make a counter-claim against Springee's own conduct, which I believe I have a strong case for. Should I being with the first one, or try to combine them both into a single argument? Cheers Noteduck (talk) 00:37, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Springee, please don't make spurious and misleading allegations. I added a single 14-word sentence to the Dennis Prager page based on a NY Times article that referred to Prager misrepresenting the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic. There weren't any editing restrictions on the page at the time, and nobody has told me that I can't edit while the arb request is ongoing. The edit was reverted on the frankly implausible basis that it was "fake news","misleading, biased and anti-semetic"[sic].[59] I think any reasonable editor would have done the same as I did and restored it Noteduck (talk) 00:33, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rosguill ^talk and Ymblanter, thanks for taking over this matter. Is there a usual timeframe for wrapping up these arb request decisions? Thanks Noteduck (talk) 05:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC) Furthermore, I just want to confirm that it's okay to criticize persistent editorial bias and tendentious editing if the editor feels that it's justified, including on talk pages of contested articles when necessary. I'm not sure how else it can be communicated. Cheers Noteduck (talk) 00:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

it's heartening to see other uninvolved editors like LokiTheLiar, Shadybabs, Cedar777, Dlthewave, PaleoNeonate, jps (note that I'm a newish editor, don't have social connections on Wiki, and haven't solicited comments from any of them) raising the same serious issues with Springee's conduct. Browsing Springee's last 1000 edits (a very small sample given their 12 years on Wikipedia) over 95% seem to relate to subjects related to right-wing politics (I've discounted contributions to user pages) and follow this same pattern of relentless ideological bent and obstructionism. This WP:AE claim is clearly WP:LAWYERING and WP:BOOMERANG on Springee's part. Springee, can you please strike out the false claim you made on 26 February that I engaged in edit warring and failure to follow BRD?[60]? Obviously, this whole matter belongs in Arb Com. Noteduck (talk) 01:43, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by LokiTheLiar

As someone who's been involved in some of the disputes above, I would like to say that Springee's above portrayal of themselves as neutral or justified in all the above is not true. So for example, take the PragerU page from January 5th to January 7th. It's my contention that that history pretty clearly describes a two-sided slow moving edit war, with one of the sides being Noteduck and the other being Springee and Shinealittlelight, and that it's eventually ended by the edit-protection of the page by Callanecc and the starting of this RfC a few weeks later. Or in other words, Springee was also edit warring, they just had a partner making their edit warring less obvious.

I also think the characterization of Noteduck as having broken 1RR on PragerU is incorrect. This edit, which Springee characterizes as a revision of this previous edit adding that entire sentence to the page, is not in fact a revert. It's just an edit. A revert, according to WP:3RR is an edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions — whether in whole or in part. Simply changing the wording of a sentence to be less credulous towards Ngo's claim does not undo the previous edit regardless of what Springee feels about the purpose of including that sentence. (And I'd also like to point out that asserting that it does undo the edit to reword it would be evidence of POV-pushing, as it would indicate that the purpose in including that line was to support Andy Ngo and not to document the facts.) Noteduck made only one revert to that page, this one, in accordance with 1RR.

I'm less familiar with the situation on Douglas Murray but a cursory glance at the page history reveals a similar slow motion edit war that Noteduck is only one of many participants in. Several editors, most of whom appear to now be blocked, remove large parts of the page without going to the talk page, and Noteduck and several other users add them back in, including Springee themself at one point. My impression here is that the side mainly at fault is the side with all the socks that repeatedly tries to remove large sections of the article without talk page consensus.

Some of the above behavior from Noteduck is still concerning. Obviously, edit warring is not good even if many other people are also edit warring on the same page, and I'd really rather Noteduck had just gone to ANI with their complaints rather than cast all the WP:ASPERSIONS they've been casting. But TBH I'm tempted to call for a WP:BOOMERANG here because Springee's case against Noteduck is pretty directly parallel to a similar case that could easily be made against themselves. At the very least, this is not a problem with Noteduck, it's a content war across multiple pages that Noteduck is one member of one side of.

E: Quick reply to Shine: I don't believe that anyone here is casting aspersions, nor do I believe that aspersions can even be cast here,as this is one of the appropriate forums for dispute resolution that the guideline mentions. The whole point of the guideline is to get people to raise concerns about editor behavior here and not on article talk pages. Furthermore, I gave evidence that Shine was a party to a slow motion edit war, and Noteduck seems to have given plenty of evidence for their accusations, so I really can't help but see this as attempted WikiLawyering.

E2: Because both Springee and Shinealittlelight again have asked me to provide evidence, I am providing a timeline to substantiate my accusation of a slow motion edit war on PragerU (and fixing the broken link above, sorry, my mistake):

Timeline

03:15 on Jan 5th: Noteduck adds some material to the Critiques of Videos section about a video on Robert E. Lee, and points people to the talk page in the edit summary.
03:49 on Jan 5th: Springee reverts Noteduck's edit, asserting existing consensus on the talk page was against inclusion.
04:04 on Jan 5th: Noteduck reverts Springee's revert, again directing Springee to the talk page and asserting previous removal of the material was based on poor sources.
04:38 on Jan 5th: Noteduck adds more material to the Critiques of Videos section, this time significantly expanding a paragraph about a video narrated by Douglas Murphy.
15:09 on Jan 5th: Shine reverts Noteduck's older addition about Robert E. Lee, and points to talk page consensus as the reason.
02:42 on Jan 6th: Springee significantly cuts down the material Noteduck added about Douglas Murphy, again pointing to discussion on the talk page.
02:53 on Jan 6th: Noteduck reverts Springee's partial manual revert, claiming it is "totally unjustified".
06:28 on Jan 6th: Shine completely reverts Noteduck's addition to the Douglas Murphy paragraph, again pointing to the talk page.
06:43 on Jan 6th: Noteduck reverts the revert and accuses Shine of edit warring and POV-pushing in the edit summary.
08:43-11:45 on Jan 6th: Noteduck adds a bunch of material to the Reception and Critiques of Videos sections.
16:04 on Jan 6th: Springee makes a small edit adding context to Noteduck's new material but does not remove it. They also explicitly say they do not endorse the new material.
17:07 on Jan 6th: Another user named Hipal comes in and manually reverts all Noteduck's edits up to this point.
01:05 on Jan 7th: Noteduck reverts Hipal's manual revert and asks them to be more specific about what exactly they object to.
03:10 on Jan 7th: Hipal reverts Noteduck's revert.
11:41 on Jan 7th: Callanecc full-protects the page.

Also for full context, this RfC about Noteduck's various additions was opened weeks later through processes that apparently did not entirely occur on the PragerU talk page.

In total, over a three day period, that's two reverts each for Springee, Shine, and Hipal (for a total of six reverts by their "side") and four reverts by Noteduck, for a total of ten reverts over 3 days.

@El_C: Could you be a little clearer about what part of Pudeo's comment is causing you to lean towards sanctions? I'm personally not seeing anything interesting/new there.

Statement by Shadybabs

Having come into conflict with Springee in the past I can say pretty confidently that it is Springee, and not Noteduck, who is the primary problem with contentious edits and extremely biased application of wikipedia policy to whitewash factual information with respect to right wing individuals or organizations.

[61] Another diff by Springee undoing edits where I try to move language away from PragerU's self-published claims to those made in RS, as well as re-inserting edits that were still under dispute in the talk page. He provided no specific justification on which edits were sourced poorly. Alarmingly, PragerU's disinformation regarding climate change is removed from the content about their fact-checking spat against youtube, highly biasing the article against youtube in favor of PragerU, against what is reported in third party sources.Shadybabs (talk) 14:33, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Shinealittlelight

Noteduck admits to being sometimes ignorant of policy and states that Noteduck edit-warred on several occasions. Noteduck then quotes editor complaints on Springee's talk page over the last three years, which don't show anything without providing diffs of alleged misbehavior. Noteduck then alleges that Springee was hounding him. But this isn't true: WP:HOUND says Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy. Given that Noteduck was violating policy (as Noteduck admits) it was reasonable for Springee to check on Noteduck's edits to be sure that Noteduck wasn't continuing to violate policy. Noteduck says Springee's twin fixations seem to be conservative politics and firearms. What is the evidence for or relevance of the claim that Springee has "fixations"? He then accuses Springee, without evidence, of whitewashing. To me, without diffs backing these statements, Noteduck is repeatedly casting aspersions here. Per WP:ASPERSIONS, An editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence. LokiTheLiar apparently concurs that Noteduck has cast WP:ASPERSIONS elsewhere as well. I agree, per the evidence Springee gave above, and I would add that Noteduck has shown an unwillingness to stop this behavior despite being repeatedly warned (again, per the evidence in the complaint). That and his repeated editing against consensus has been what is most frustrating to me.

@LokiTheLiar: accuses me and Springee of slow-motion edit warring. This is an outrage. I'm extremely careful not to edit war. If evidence cannot be produced, then I'd ask Loki to strike that statement. I thought Noteduck was pushing content about Douglas Murray and Robert E. Lee into the article against consensus, which I politely removed one time each here and here. Because Noteduck kept reintroducing this content against consensus, other editors, including Springee but also notably the most experienced editor on the page, Hipal, removed the material, e.g. here. These additions went to arbitration, which produced a massive RfC which seems to be split at present (no consensus so far). This is how editing contentious pages works: we slowly improve the page. Casting ASPERSIONS and editing stuff into the article against consensus is going to drive good editors away. I'd like to also note that Hipal and I have often disagreed in the past; there's no attempt to "team up" here. I see Springee, Hipal, and I just trying to do our best to deal with a disruptive editor.

@Shadybabs: do you have any diffs showing what you're saying about Springee? Otherwise that's more WP:ASPERSIONS.

Noteduck is new, and I don't want to be too hard on new editors. But Noteduck needs to apologize for casting aspersions, and to be sternly warned that continued editing against consensus and casting of aspersions is unacceptable. Shinealittlelight (talk) 14:14, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@LokiTheLiar: The "evidence" you allegedly provided is that broken link to the history page? That's not evidence. And no, we can't cast aspersions, even here at AE, without evidence. Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hipal

Per the evidence offered by Springee, Noteduck needs to be constrained from involvement with AP2 topics, otherwise we're going to be back, after even more disruption from Noteduck. Noteduck's statement above shows what we can expect until it is stopped: bad faith assumptions of others, an inability to respect content and behavioral policy, and the battleground attitude typical in AP2 topics. --Hipal (talk) 21:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck's subsequent comments above show an inability to take responsibility for their own behavior, in addition to what I wrote above. --Hipal (talk) 17:32, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck is now arguing above, without any diffs, that editors agreeing with Springee (It's worth noting that Springee, Shine, Pudeo, and Hipal..) are doing so because of similar biases. [62] This is absurd and assumes bad faith. Noteduck provides no diffs because it's nonsense. --Hipal (talk) 02:50, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On January 27, I provided Noteduck with 13 diffs showing evidence demonstrating you've been working from the perspective that other editors are pov-pushing against your edits [63]. The response from Noteduck was agreement: right-wing editors trying to omit unflattering material from pages on controversial subjects [64]. Almost a month later, Noteduck continues with this battleground mentality in this very discussion. --Hipal (talk) 03:10, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck has redacted the accusations against me made here.[65] Thanks. --Hipal (talk) 19:17, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dlthewave, we're dealing in this discussion here with an editor, Noteduck, that I think would be best blocked or banned from PragerU completely for the reasons already given. In this context, I believe my very slow and cautious approach to his latest comments at Talk:PragerU are perfectly fine, especially if one were to assume good faith. Even if this discussion wasn't happening and there was no problematic editing going on, slow and cautious is always advisable. --Hipal (talk) 19:19, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pudeo

Noteduck could have been blocked as a "sock of someone" (seen such a block rationale), after Spungo93 was CU-blocked and their explanation for that did not make sense. Noteduck explained: I made User:Spungo93 years ago and forgot about it. This was not correct because Spungo93 had been created on 18 April, 2020 (log entry), meaning Notedeuck misremembered the date by years. Furthermore, the "forgot about it" part did not make sense because they had edited with the account 4 days before registering this one. (After more review, I don't think Noteduck is Perspex03 based on their timecard, though).

Noteduck has used self-published / WP:PRIMARY sources to make contentious claims: 1) Using Dennis Prager's own National Review column to say he rejects scientific consensus on climate change 2) Using Roger Kimball's own columns to say he has "repeatedly" contended that there was voter fraud, then after someone changed "fraud" to "irregularities", they changed that and their own original wording to say he has repeatedly made "false and debunked claims", while claiming white-washing in the edit summary. They once reverted the removal of these primary sources, accusing Springee of hounding. One of Kimball's own columns that Noteduck used as a source was in The Epoch Times which is a deprecated source in Wikipedia. 3) Using Maurice Newman's own column to say he rejects consensus on climate change 4) Using Adam Creighton's own column to make critical claims on his lockdown stance. I think it's unusual that someone would link to The Epoch Times or the person's own columns to make negative claims about the subjects, so it's clear these were WP:OR claims, and editors should err on caution per BLP like Springee has done.

They also initiated a declined RFAR with a focus on four editors on January 7. They seem to be constantly accusing other editors of partisanship: "partisan politicking", "problem with partisan bias", problem with politically partisan editing" "ideologically motivated -- sabotage" etc. Some of their statements had to be hatted in the PragerU DRN thread due to personal comments. While this isn't too unusual in the topic area, it's usually done by ranting IPs, not by regural editors. --Pudeo (talk) 22:25, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cedar777

My familiarity with this dispute is limited to the Andy Ngo article. Noteduck has made a number of constructive, if imperfect, comments and edits. The article has benefited after Noteduck pointed to WP:ROWN and MOS:LEADCITE. I do not agree that there was a 1RR violation or that Springee is a faultless party here.

Springee has repeatedly removed reliably sourced content from the article that, if retained, might reflect unfavorably on conservatives. The bar set by Springee (with support from Shinealittlelight) for inclusion of content critical of Ngo is impossibly high such that they have disallowed content from the NYT, the WP, along with a number of other sources listed in green at WP:RSP when the content is not flattering to conservatives. In observing these patterns and engaging with editors on the talk page over several months, the phrase "moving the goal posts" comes to mind. Even innocuous statements such as Ngo has been the subject of wide ranging media coverage (when there were already 77 citations) have been sanitized from the article by Springee as in this edit.

Meanwhile, the door has largely been left open to contributors sympathetic to Ngo where the quality of their sourcing receives limited scrutiny, as with this edit sourced to Sky News Australia followed by more disparagement of RS at talk where the NYT & Wapo were referred to as "fourth rate sources". This pattern is also reflected in efforts to enforce 1RR: sympathizers get gentle proactive advice from Springee here, while opponents are warned and/or scolded here and here where a user restored sourced content that happened to mention a political figure. Overtime, these actions add up to a skewed article that does not reflect what the bulk of RS actually say. Sanctioning Noteduck is not going to address this underlying issue.

Noteduck has been direct at times about the reverting of unfavorable content but is otherwise respectful. Springee and Shinealittlelight have had issues with what is known as "talking out of both sides of your mouth". For example, Springee claims this NYT article can be used to support that Ngo must be called a journalist diff. . . but once a summary of what this same NYT article was discussing about Ngo was added, the source was deemed no longer usable or relevant when it came to criticism. Diff A second instance is where user Springee, in a slow motion edit war, reverted content that was added by 3 different editors, sourced to WP, Bellingcat, and Daily Dot:

The original contribution Nov 19 from Snooganssnoogans: Addition 1a + sources in Addition 1b Springee deletes content: Deletion 1

Content restored on Dec 1 by LokiTheLiar: Addition 2 The second deletion by user Springee: Deletion 2

The most recent addition Feb 12: Addition 3 Which was again deleted by user Springee: Deletion 3

Noteduck is a newer editor, with much to learn. While I cannot speak for the disputes at the other pages, in my view their contributions have been a net positive at Andy Ngo. Cedar777 (talk) 06:56, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Robert McClenon

User:Noteduck filed a Request for Arbitration concerning PragerU. I said that I was willing to mediate the content dispute, and the arbitration case was closed, and a DRN case was opened, which was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_201#PragerU The result of the mediation was a six-part RFC, which is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PragerU#RFC_on_Various_Proposed_Edits The calendar is about to run out on the RFC, so that the bot will remove the tag, and the RFC will be ready for closure. One editor took issue with the RFC, saying that the sources were unreliable. My view was that reliability of the sources could be considered by the community in the RFC discussion. The same editor, User:Hipal, also said that there were behavioral issues that needed to be addressed. The behavioral issues were not addressed at DRN because DRN is a content forum.

I don't have a strong opinion on either the content, because I was maintaining neutrality in order to mediate, or on conduct, because DRN is a content forum. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:35, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Closure If any admin here (or other experienced editor) hasn't become involved in this case, they could help by closing the RFC. On the other hand, I am willing to close the RFC if no one objects, and if the parties agree that I have not become involved and am neutral. Of course, "closing" the RFC doesn't mean performing some housekeeping task such as archiving it. It means assessing consensus, which requires judgment.

Do the other editors want me to assess consensus and close the RFC? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Update on Closure User:ProcrastinatingReader has closed the six-part RFC, evaluating the consensus on each of the questions separately (which is what was needed). I thank ProcrastinatingReader. I would also like to comment that my own opinion is that no action except maybe a caution is needed, but I try to stay neutral if I have taken an actively neutral role. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:51, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dlthewave

I have concerns about whitewashing at PragerU, where it appears that several editors are working to block any negative content. The general attitude towards Noteduck comes across as condescending and there seems to be no effort to work collaboratively or help Noteduck develop their editing skills.

Example #1:

00:07 19 February 2021: X-Editor adds "In 2020, a joint analysis conducted by counter-disinformation consulting firm Alethea Group and the nonprofit Global Disinformation Index found that PragerU was one of the five most common sources on the Internet that spread COVID-19 misinformation.^[1]"
12:12 19 February 2021: Springee reverts with the reason "Opinions of a red linked group (Alethea/GDI) are not DUE", an argument that has absolutely no basis in policy. Springee has been around long enough to know that WP:DUE concerns the reliability of the source, which in this case is MSN/Yahoo News, not Alethea/GDI.
Discussions follow on Springee's talk page [66] and the PragerU talk page [67]. Springee repeatedly claims that Alethea and Yahoo News somehow do not meet WP:DUE, and Hipal repeatedly claims that the source is a "warmed-over press release" (read it, it clearly isn't). Both editors provide little to no evidence or correct interpretation of policy, and there is little effort to acknowledge that Noteduck and myself have a valid point of view, yet these spurious arguments are effectively blocking inclusion of this content.

References

^ Dickson, Caitlin (2021-05-01). "Exclusive: Pandemic relief aid went to media that promoted COVID misinformation". Microsoft News. Yahoo! News. Retrieved 2021-02-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Example #2:

17:38 24 February 2021: Noteduck proposes a "Criticism" section along with 13 sources.
18:53 24 February 2021: Hipal immediately suggests a bizarre and tedious approval process - "How about picking the best reference out of that bunch and telling us what you believe is encyclopedic and due from it? If we don't agree on it, we can go to the next, until we have some agreed-upon references or we run out of references to consider." This bears no resemblance to our normal consensus building process, and I struggle to see it as anything other than the start of another drawn-out effort to block content that Hipal doesn't like.
20:23 24 February 2021: Springee refuses to look at the sources and instead insists that Noteduck bring a proposal to Talk before editing the article. This appears to be an effort to require Noteduck to bring a publication-ready proposal that will not be approved until it is perfect, and the entire burden will be on Noteduck to satisfy any concerns.

I've seen this abuse of the consensus-building process before and it's a very effective way for a small group of editors to control article content while maintaining superficial civility and complying with 3RR. I'm concerned that a "Consensus Required" restriction would only grant Springee, Hipal and others more power to block content by refusing to reach consensus. –dlthewave ☎ 04:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I also wanted to address Pudeo's BLP concerns. I would generally argue against the use of these primary sources, since they would need secondary coverage to establish WP:WEIGHT and The Epoch Times has been deprecated. However, I fail to see how Noteduck's edits [68][69][70][71] can be construed as contentious or negative. They're literally repeating what the subjects say about themselves which falls under WP:ABOUTSELF from a verifiaility standpoint. Again, this content shouldn't be self-sourced, but it's not the big BLP brouhaha that Pudeo is claiming. –dlthewave ☎ 04:20, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PaleoNeonate

My involvement at PragerU has been minimal so far and I'll avoid commenting on specific editors at the moment. I comment to share that I did notice particular resistance and whitewashing in relation to the promotion of climate change denialism by the org, despite reliable sources being clear about it. There's a tendency to present a WP:GEVAL view like if ideology and science were equal or that sources that comment on it are only opinions. —Paleo Neonate – 18:50, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by jps

I am appalled by User:Springee's approach on the Talk:PragerU page. It looks to me like we have a case of WP:Civil POV-push as a source is being blackballed from a respected university on the flimsiest of bases. When I pointed out that this is the hallmark of an ideological game, Springee decided to come to my user talkpage to wag his finger. Perhaps Springee should take a break. jps (talk) 23:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Username

Result concerning Noteduck

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

Springee, your request greatly exceeds the 500-word limit, so please trim accordingly. Thanks. El_C 06:02, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll preface by saying that I've only glanced at this still lengthy complaint (with me, Spartans!), but from the several random examples I viewed, I'm not seeing anything too egregious. Just a tendency to call out partisanship, which runs both ways, in a way that certainly exceeds article talk and user talk pages usage. Overall, the less said on any of that the better, except in forums such as this. Not sure what the filer or the respondent to this complaint are really asking for. Are they asking for sanctions? A logged warning (to that, to those interested, see my latest clarification request about logged warnings at ARCA)? An un-logged warning?

Regardless, an evidentiary basis needs to be established with both the recent and the egregious prioritized, if one expects any sort of an outcome from this process. Finally, I plead with several participants to significantly trim and otherwise aim at concision. Us AE admins are not paid staff, we are volunteers like you. I submit that you are asking too much out of available volunteer resources. El_C 15:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Springee, I'll re-emphasize that the evidentiary burden for sanctions (CR or otherwise) doesn't appear to have been met in your complaint. Just from what I've seen so far. El_C 16:08, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Springee, I'm afraid I don't have any additional advise beyond those general recommendations at this time. Perhaps another uninvolved admin will see it different...? Who know. El_C 17:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Per Pudeo's evidence, now starting to lean toward sanctions. Will wait to see what other admins think, though. El_C 02:05, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck, you probably don't realize this, but your various updates (word limit?) are doing you a disservice. "Partisanship" is in the eyes of the beholder. Even if much of everything (everything!) that you've written has a sound basis in fact, I doubt that, in this case, that's something AE admins would wish to address — if anything, that would probably be a Committee matter. You're basically making the complainant's case for them right now. Thought you should be aware. El_C 13:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck, two things. First, to re-emphasize: word limit? Secondly, in answer to your question: no, with respect to what you allege about Springee (which, hey, may well be true), I contend that this goes outside the purview of admins at AE, but rather, that this would be a Committee matter. I suppose other admins' mileage may vary, though. El_C 13:42, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck, while Wikipedia takes a strong anti-ableist position, as it does against all other forms of prejudice and discrimination (for example, with WP:ACCESSIBILITY and so on), I'm afraid that when it comes to the realm of the psyche, that isn't something for which many allowances can really be made. BTW, sorry for declining your request to correspond privately (I now realize about this), but as a matter of principle, I don't usually do that with users whom I don't already know (well enough). Best wishes, El_C 13:57, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck, thank you for the significant (20K) trim. Much appreciated. El_C 23:44, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gah, I still seem to be the only one contributing to this section, so maybe a couple of additional notes. Noteduck, you should make your case here. If you are to file a new AE request, it is likely to be viewed negatively. Folks may well end up asking: why didn't they just present their case in the original complaint? I'll stress that the filer of an AE complaint faces no less scrutiny than the its subject. Springee, you still need to trim (hopefully, with no more collapsing). The requirement is an upward of 20 diffs, whereas you are now approaching 40. El_C 17:18, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noteduck, sorry, I am not familiar enough with the details so as to advise further with any confidence. All I am really able to provide is my general sense. Which, hey, may be off. Who knows. Also, I'm sorry to say (well, not that sorry, to be honest), but I will not be following up further with this or any other open complaint on this noticeboard. Best wishes to all. El_C 00:59, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Guess whose back...? No, not really. But I do note that after being open for over a month, this complaint is probably cursed. Help us, Buffy! El_C 17:34, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that if Noteduck stops including allegations in their edit summaries and slows down a bit no further intervention will be necessary. Notebook has made some errors regarding the use of primary sources, but given the examples seen so far this seems like it is likely just inexperience and a good faith misunderstanding of WP:OR. I don't think it is necessary to impose a consensus-first sanction at this time, but a formal warning is probably appropriate. Regarding the behavior of the editors listing grievances against Notebook, while they obviously could have been a bit more collaborative, I don't see any breaches of conduct that clearly merit a sanction (Noteduck, note that it is more helpful to post diffs of problematic behavior itself, rather than diffs about other editors accusing someone of problematic behavior). One editor's obstructionism is another editor's quality control, and I concur with El C that ArbCom is the only venue that can successfully handle cases where the allegation is tendentious editing without overt breach of decorum or policy. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 05:33, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think I agree with Rosguill that a logged warning is needed, but probably not blocks or topic-bans at this stage.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:11, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sadko

Sadko and Mikola22 are topic banned from WP:ARBEE. Amanuensis Balkanicus is warned about editing tendentiously. The list of pages suggested Peacemaker67 protected for a year. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 01:45, 20 March 2021 (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 Sadko

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Peacemaker67 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 01:28, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Sadko (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#Discretionary sanctions

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

5 January 2020 Sadko stated “I have a duty to my ancestors” with respect to his editing, setting the scene for the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour they have engaged in ever since
27 September 2019 stating that editors that disagree with them have a “corrosion of intellect”, and 25 March 2020 Calling opposing editors “punks in kafana (a dodgy type of Balkan tavern)” against WP:NPA
28 October 2020 Further indication of adopting a victim mentality and an axe to grind
15 November 2020 and 3 December 2020 These are examples of trolling of the talk pages of editors that oppose his POV

Examples of consistent POV pushing

1 December 2020 Changing “Genocide” to “Ethnic cleansing” on Chetnik war crimes in World War II
2 December 2020 Removing the WWII Chetnik genocide of Muslims and Croats from List of genocides by death toll
3 December 2020 Deleting NPOV addition regarding Ante Starčević on Anti-Serb sentiment
20 December 2020 and same day Continuing POV-pushing work of the indefinitely Balkans-TBANed User:Antidiskriminator, removing mention of the numbers of Muslim civilians killed in Battle of Višegrad
20 December 2020 Clear disdain for non-Serb nationalist sources and POV comments on Talk:Battle of Višegrad
14 January 2021 Adding an image of Muslim SS to History of Bosnia and Herzegovina – hugely undue POV pushing
18 January 2021 Deletion of material mentioning Serbs killing Muslims and the resulting split between Chetniks and Partisans
[72], [73], [74],

[75], [76], [77], [78] These all involve removal of negative material from clearly reliable sources from an article Sadko created about a highly controversial recent Serbian film about the Croatian Ustaše Jasenovac concentration camp (Dara of Jasenovac) between 5 and 25 February this year

6 March 2021 Unsourced POV pushing regarding the views of Ante Starčević on Croatisation
6 March 2021 Inserting negative material about a historian criticising the Chetniks on Dubravka Stojanović (this is a classic case of pushing obvious academic gaslighting; Stojanović says Serb historians are involved in historical revisionism/negationism, so Sadko adds material from a Serb historian claiming she is involved in historical revisionism…). This is clearly in response to and intended to undermine Stojanović’s negative comments about Dara of Jasenovac which were incorporated into the film article by other editors. Sadko has not incorporated any negative reviews or comments into the article, which confirms his obvious POV editing and agenda.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

7 September 2019 Warned by EdJohnston for suspected battleground behaviour and reverting without gaining consensus on Bosnian genocide denial
23 September 2019 Warned by EdJohnston for edit-warring at Vlaho Bukovac (a Croatian painter and academic)

Sadko has made quite a number of other appearances on the dramaboards in the time this report covers (since the account was renamed from User:Mm.srb in August 2019) , as the editor being reported or through making gratuitous comments, baiting or casting aspersions regarding others involved in discussions, including:

27 September 2019
4 November 2019 Resulting in Sadko making a concession that he would stop edit-warring to avoid a block
5 January 2020
30 April 2020
2 August 2020
24 October 2020
1 January 2021 Issues with Sadko’s editing behaviour identified by Joy (a long-time admin operating in this subject area)

Since January, I have been largely inactive on WP due to RW stuff, but have been collating material for this report when time allowed, and have only just been able to complete that task.

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

Alerted to ARBEE discretionary sanctions by Barkeep49 11 December 2019 and reminded by EdJohnston 1 July 2020

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I've been given a dispensation by Vanamonde93 for going over the usual limits. Long-term POV-pushing is one of the most insidious aspects of Wikipedia, and one with which I have long experience as a content creator and admin in the Balkans subject area. It is hard to counter and it is harder to make a case against its exponents than against editors who cause intense but short-term disruption. I could add many additional diffs of the same sort of editing behaviour. One of the worst aspects of what Sadko has been doing is that their editing is clearly at the core of a significant uptick in highly disruptive and blatant POV-pushing editing and battleground behaviour on former Yugoslavia articles that has been going on for over a year. In that time, in addition to a small group of longer-term pro-Serb/Serbia editors, many IPs and new accounts have appeared to support Sadko’s efforts, either to reinstate Sadko's edits when reverted, or to chip in on talk pages to create the impression of a “consensus” supporting their edits. The meatpuppetry and off-wiki coordination implications are obvious. Equally, Sadko often supports and reinstates edits made by these IPs and new accounts.

This has created an environment where editors from other countries in the Balkans have responded in kind, themselves supported by IPs and new accounts, as well as existing POV pushers, particularly pro-Croat/Croatian ones, but also others. My primary subject area is Yugoslavia in World War II, but as you can see from some of the above diffs, Sadko's editing behaviour spreads wider than that into all subjects relating to Serbs and Serbia and their relationships with other former Yugoslav peoples and countries. Sadko’s creation and POV defence of the Dara of Jasenovac article is just the latest in this war against neutrality on Wikipedia.

In order to help prevent the high level of disruption and POV-pushing centred on Sadko, I recommend they be topic banned from Balkans and Balkans-related articles for at least six months, with scope to appeal after six months expires if they are able to show that they can edit neutrally in other subject areas in the meantime. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:28, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not intending to reply point-by-point to Sadko's response, although I will respond more generally in a day or two. Given I have been given some dispensation as to length and diffs, Sadko's response length is fair enough, as they are the subject of the report. However, the length of other editors' comments (particularly those that take one or either side in Balkans articles) need to be looked at by reviewing admins. Long TLDR/off-topic comments re-fighting past battles are of no use here. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:20, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting that I will be posting further, as requested by reviewing admins. Probably later today Australian time. Unfortunately, RW stuff is sucking up most of my time at present. I will note that most of the editors posting here claiming there is "nothing to see" are the usual suspects, many of whom are themselves highly partisan (from one side or the other), and reviewing admins should take that into account when reading their contributions. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:04, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your patience, and apologies in advance for the length of this. The key aspect of long-term POV pushing is that it usually does not cross the line into easily blockable "smoking gun" territory. It needs to be looked at across a considerable period of time, and the restrictions on 20 (or a few more) diffs actively hampers effective reports of it, because only examples can be used. I used 22 diffs over a year and a bit, but I could have provided many more. Long-term POV pushing (which I agree Mikola22 is also involved in, for the record, and which needs to be dealt with) is a consistent pattern of partisan editing behaviour that erodes the Wikipedia pillar of neutrality. Editors that engage in it are trying to minimise negative material about their "side", and maximise negative material about the other "side". The majority of the POV-pushing that has been ramping up in the last year has been coming from Serbophile/Croatophobic or Croatophile/Serbophobic editors, and Sadko and Mikola22 are probably the worst offenders from the respective sides (although there are several others who are not far behind, some of whom have commented here). The numbers of editors pushing their POV and battlegrounding in the Balkans area has, over the last year, become completely unmanageable from an admin perspective due to a high level of disruption, and is significantly eroding the quality of the encyclopaedia in this area. They may well be coming from Croatian Wikipedia (which is a cesspit) and Serbian Wikipedia (which isn't great either).

But back to Sadko. If you look at Dara of Jasenovac, not only did Sadko create the article about the film (which was highly promotional from the beginning), but they consistently defended the film from criticism for weeks (as evidenced by the diffs above, and others I did not use), and never added any information about criticism of the film at all. This is absolutely typical of Sadko's editing behaviour, in this case, they are enhancing as much as possible the victim status of Serbs (which is of course entirely correct in the case of the Jasenovac camp and the genocide of Serbs by the Ustasha more generally), while minimising or eliminating completely legitimate and serious criticism of the film and the motives behind it from reliable sources. This is Sadko's default editing position. Sadko claims I am "involved". But am I really? I am trying to ensure articles in this space are neutrally written, and when I disagree with him, others on his side, or editors on the opposing side, protect articles to stop edit wars etc, I am just protecting the neutrality of the encyclopaedia. I have no barrow to push here, and am not aligned with any side, although I have been "accused" of being from every faction of the former Yugoslavia at one point or another.

In response to Vanamonde93's specific question: If you look at this edit on 1 December 2020 that you mentioned, Sadko is changing "genocide" by Chetniks (Serb guerillas) to "ethnic cleansing". At this point, the question of genocide vs. ethnic cleansing had been discussed on the talk page in April and May of that year, and any fair reading of the thread (now in the archives, but here) would have concluded that the consensus (if you take out the comments by the later Balkans TBANed WEBDuB and Antidiskriminator (both Serbophiles), and Mikola22 on the Croat side), was that the correct term was genocide, and several reliable sources were provided by those arguing that point (including me). But Sadko ignored this when he made the 1 December 2020 substitution, and it was then the subject of a further discussion at that time (here), which again resulted in a consensus that genocide was the right term, despite the intense involvement of WEBDuB again (Antidiskriminator had been TBANed by this stage). When the matter was raised yet again in late December 2020 as an RfC (the continual rehashing of disputes where a consensus has already emerged is frankly exhausting), it was closed in support of the description of it as genocide. So, Sadko was acting against an existing consensus in 1 December 2020, and that consensus has been confirmed twice since.

In conclusion, the TBANing of Sadko (and Mikola22 for that matter) would significantly reduce the ridiculous amount of POV-pushing and battlegrounding going on in the Balkans space by editors trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS against their "side", something that has been going on at intense levels for over a year and is eroding the quality of the encyclopaedia in this space due to the constant undermining of neutrality, a core content policy. Rosguill has suggested that liberal application of temporary TBANs may help establish higher standards of editing behaviour, and I heartily endorse that approach. When it comes to POV-pushers in this area, like WEBDuB and Antidiskriminator, TBANs have been the only thing that has worked. In my nine or so years here, Wikipedia hasn't been good at dealing with long-term POV pushing in the Balkans; it took years for Antidiskriminator to get indefinitely TBANed despite his outrageous POV-pushing behaviour and multiple reports. Any editors TBANed as a result of this report will get the opportunity to show that they can edit neutrally in areas outside the Balkans, and in six months they can ask for it to be lifted if they have demonstrated they can do it. If they have, I will support their return. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:29, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If it is of interest to the reviewing admins, my view is that 0RR restrictions will just result in meat puppetry, socking and gaming of the system. These editors will not back off in the current climate in which mid-level edit-warring and POV-pushing seems to be normal. They will continue to push their POV by any method they can. There are few admins active in this area, and as can be seen below at at ANI, any report (even one where there is supposed to be a word limit) results in TLDR screeds of twaddle re-fighting past battles. I know from experience with Antidiskriminator that TBANs work against individuals, and handing them out more liberally will not only protect the encyclopaedia from the assault on its neutrality that individual editors are carrying on, but will have a deterrent effect on others. I urge you to adopt a robust response or we will be back here in a few weeks with more of the same. Regards, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

G'day Bishonen, good idea, that will reduce the ongoing whack-a-mole exercise. I will endeavour to put together a list in the next few days. We can always add to it as needed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:57, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here are my thoughts on articles that could do with long-term semi-protection in the first instance. They are not in priority order:

There are almost certainly others, and some of these are less active, but they all have bouts of edit warring and IP disruption. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:17, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

G’day Bishonen, I was very disappointed with AB’s approach here, and also with their recent behaviour in articles, which has been quite battlegroundish at times. In the past I have been able to collaborate with them on a couple of Balkan FAs, but I’m afraid that won’t be happening again given what has been transpired here. I think a logged warning for AB is appropriate. While there are other problematic editors who have posted here, Maleschrieber isn’t among them IMHO. Khirug can be problematic due to a tendency for some Hellenic editors to reflexively support fellow Orthodox editors (in this case, Serbophile ones) but I’m not sure a logged warning is justified as yet. Thanks to all the reviewing admins for ploughing through the TLDR posts below and resolving to take firm action. I am sure this will improve the editing environment significantly, and your attention is greatly appreciated. Regards, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 20:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

01:24, 8 March 2021

Discussion concerning Sadko

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 Sadko

I was and am here to build an encyclopedia, and I did so for a number of years, improving subjects and articles which were in poor state, and sometimes tagged for +10 years. I do not claim that my editing is perfect or anything of the sort, but the text posted above takes it to a whole new level.

Most of the diffs presented have been cherrypicked and taken out of context, by an administrator, no less, with whom I had several strong disputes and disagreements in the past. Out of the diffs presented across many years and months of editing, I am guilty of 1 ad hominem comment made after the IP edits which pushed fringe viewpoints on Nikola Tesla for several years.

I can also understand that there is this interesting idea being introduced in the report, which pretty much states that my ban will somehow magically lead to things being calmer, during the time that the editor making the report is absent. That is both naive and offensive. It serves as means to present me as the main cause of the supposed chaos, which was ever-present in the Balkans-related topic to begin with. It is even more irrational considering that I have been hounded and harassed by persistent disruptive IP editors.

Examples of cherry picking and not giving proper context in the report:

#4 November 2019 Resulting in Sadko making a concession that he would stop edit-warring to avoid a block In fact, the deal was about 1 article only, Old Serbia, which was fully respected to this day. There were no bans after that little incident; in total I was banned for that once and another time for going over 3RR when one editor denied the existence of a whole nation. That is all, for 10+ years on the project.

5 January 2020 Sadko stated “I have a duty to my ancestors” with respect to his editing, setting the scene for the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour they have engaged in ever since. Nonsense and obvious lack of good faith. I was referring to Historical Revisionism and Anti-fascism, which are some of my personal values. "My duty" was presented in the report literally, for obvious reasons.

Calling opposing editors “punks in kafana (a dodgy type of Balkan tavern)” In fact I wrote "LIKE punks in kafana", which is jut a figure of speech and a colorful comment on the atmosphere in the comment section. Another things, Kafanas are not "a dodgy type of tavern" (see the pictures), as somebody who lived in the Balkans and with a connection to the region, he/she/it is probably aware of this.

Another example - Dara of Jasenovac, which I created, improved, heavily engaged on the TP, tried to be neutral etc. PM was deeply WP:INVOLVED (an example which was further analysed and tried to push the content including criticism of this movie by 1 irrelevant person who directed 4 short films (which he bravely presented as an evidence of my "POV" here + opinion stated by an NGO director who has nothing to with cinema or potential scientific analysis of political messages shown in the movie. He even ignored 3RR (please check the page history). Talk about "POV defence". I did not add most of the negative reviews because other editors added them, but I did add this one, which just proves how wrong this "agenda narrative" is. I really do not follow this line of thought, which obviously holds a bias against my editing and probably myself.

Another example - Changing “Genocide” to “Ethnic cleansing” on Chetnik war crimes in World War II This is a tricky one (and a sensitive topic); only several academics call these terrible events this way and it something relatively recently introduced. There are authors who do not call it genocide, and PM if familiar with this. As it can be seen, presenting a different viewpoint will lead to a person being labeled. Ethnic cleansing is also factually correct and undisputed.

Another example - *14 January 2021 Adding an image of Muslim SS to History of Bosnia and Herzegovina – hugely undue POV pushing . The page history would suggest that the image was not added by myself, it is relevant, on-topic and it was removed without any discussion. Considering that other editors thought otherwise, I have removed myself from that discussion.

I did not attack other editors on "dramaboards", I've merely stated my opinion, calmly, most of the time. Some comments may seem be a bit more salty, which can happen to anyone. This insinuation is an attempt to prove that I am a part of some wider plot.

I have only 1 account and I have no means to gather "supporters", as it is bluntly implied without any evidence. The fact that there are several editors who are following my edits (which I am very well-aware of), has nothing to do with me, and it is outrageous to hold it against me.

this diff was presented as If I was a Muslim hater and supporter of these crimes. In fact, the information was simply added without any sources! Another article in which PM was involved and where he had his online battles with editor Antidiskriminator, who created the very same article. no sources

[79] This diff was a matter of dispute as it obviously introduced a number of reliable sources. PM missed to mention that and the fact that I've let it go and that this particular dispute has been taken to the TP.

6 March 2021 This diff was used to present me as somebody who is trying to dig dirt on my "opponents". In fact, the article/source used, written in Serbian Cyrillic, which PM can not read and can not understand, was written by 1 influential university professor and academic, going point by point as to why a part of this historian's statements are problematic. It's mindboggling and even creative to present my edit as some sort of agenda, because, well, I was supposedly angry because of her viewpoints of 1 particular movie. The edit was an improvement (in my book) and it was not challenged so far. Presenting that diff is even comical and show how far a person can go in order to present somebody they disagree with as a vilian.

[80] This diff was presented as if I was removing information about massacres, while in fact the editor just copied the source and the sentences made little sense. The editing history clearly shows that I did not edit or reverted further.

3 December 2020 Deleting NPOV addition regarding Ante Starčević on Anti-Serb sentiment That is very far from the thruth. There was a lot of fake balancing on the article about this person, who was a chauvinist and a racist. No admin actions were taken because of these edits at the present time.

What was presented as an example of my "trolling" (I'm not entirely sure what that means) by PM was directly or indirectly about myself and my actions and I did not offend anyone with my responses.

TP, my TP/Archive1 and page history on Vlaho Bukovac suggest that we did reach a consensus and improved the article (I added most of the references), while the person who reported me was temporarily banned for several reasons. This context was not given here and this, should be, on the contrary, an example of joint work and consensus.

Pinning some sort of "problems in the wide topic of Balkans" on me is not fair, but I did not expect anything else. I am just 1 editor, with no administrative power over anyone's editing.

This report even includes reports of my editing (which did not lead to anything) by long-term disruptive editors who have been blocked across the project and used fascists as sources several times. [81] I reverted a number of their questionable edits and was accused for whatnot. The reporter is well familiar with this fact. And I do understand WP:NOTTHEM, I am just trying to add context and explain that there was no selection of diffs in this report, it was all lumped together.

An example of a discussion in which PM was also involved. By all means, add it to the report. I presented reliable sources which claim that 1 information present in the article was obviously wrong, it can be checked in 3 clicks, please, be my guest. What happened? I was accused of whitewashing war crimes/criminals, insulting the victims, the whole shallow bravado. And he/she/it left the debate. Wow.

[82] This was a response to angry allegations that I am following somebody around, which is and was nonsense, because I edited the page before. Using this "evidence" is mindboggling.

Another example of the same type of behaviour pointed at me over and over again, while accusing me of adopting the "victim mentality".

PM has also made snide comments about my capabilities as an editor and intellectual in the past. I can't dig them at the moment as I need to work soon, and I do not think that they would do much good, I've been around enough to understand how the system works.

Another thing, it just seems weird to ban 1 editor from editing about, for example, culture/art history/geography of the Balkans or any other region, if their edits, which are presented as disruptive, have all been about history in the first place. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 04:27, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[@Mikola22:]

1) The sources claimed so, not myself. TP debate was over and in the end there was a consensus about it. There is absolutely nothing wrong in that dispute in fact, it is a nice example of a civil debate. 2) Yes, there were cases of assimilation of many groups even in the Middle Ages. Cheers. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 19:38, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[@Maleschreiber:]

1) It did not improve. 2) I never accused any admin of being anti-whatever, that is not my opinion and never has been. 3) My editing is not linked to anything but the intention of improving the encyclopedia and material on the topics which are generally not in a good shape. 4) That was a typo, I have an app. which auto-corrects English on my work, considering that I use other languages on a daily bases, "deaf" (diff) is an example. :) 4) There is no "minimalization", it is utter nonsense. That is a sensitive topic which was a matter of debate. Please do not try to present that I had some hidden intentions or the idea to minimaze anyone's victims, which is something that I never did nor will do. The very fact that we had a lengthy debated about the wording and everything else suggest that there is no consensus on the matter, and do not blame that on me (or several other editors who had a similar stance), but rather - the sources and the lack of consensus amongst scholars. Another things, this sort of subtle labeling, accusations of attempts to "minimaze" victims and the general pressure (this has been taking place for a while) is the exact reason why I did this. That is the amount of pressure and lack of good faith which people can generate on these topics. The same narrative can be seen in this report. 5) Ha, now this is great, I did not "defend a fringe theory that Serbs and Russian lived in early medieval Macedonia". The author, a university professor with a PhD in archeology in fact stated that Antes are the ancestors of modern-day Russians, and that Antes, and other Slavs, settled Macedonia. I went by the source, that is all to it. 6) The edit on Jovan Ćulibrk was factually more correct. Another thing which would give perspective about this one: This also happened on the same article. Before that edit, we had this question as well [83] 7) I was in favour of !keep and improving the article (the more important part) and I see no problem with that stance, considering that Noel Malcolm, Noam Chomsky and other notable scholars have discussed it at length. The article was in a poor shape and I was in favour of improving it. Thank you for your comment. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 05:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[@Peacemaker67:]

I'll try to answer as short as I can. This is my reply to the second post by PM.

When the matter was raised yet again in late December 2020 as an RfC (the continual rehashing of disputes where a consensus has already emerged is frankly exhausting), it was closed in support of the description of it as genocide. So, Sadko was acting against an existing consensus in 1 December 2020, and that consensus has been confirmed twice since. PM presented this diff as an evidence for my alleged default behaviour. If you look closely the user in favour of this formulation was reverted by a senior editor (Buidhe). The reporter quotes the RfC when discussing my edit from 1 December. That is quite interesting, considering that the RfC was initiated on 25 December. I made no further edits about the wording after the RfC was initiated (which established the consensus). This can be easily checked.

At this point, the question of genocide vs. ethnic cleansing had been discussed on the talk page in April and May of that year, and any fair reading of the thread (now in the archives, but here) would have concluded that the consensus (if you take out the comments by the later Balkans TBANed WEBDuB and Antidiskriminator (both Serbophiles), and Mikola22 on the Croat side), was that the correct term was genocide, and several reliable sources were provided by those arguing that point (including me). Opinions stated in the discussion in late April/May: In favour: 3 (Tezwoo, PM, Mikola22), against - 3 (Sadko, Antidiskriminator, WEBdUB), Neutral (prefers a middle solution, alternative wording) - Ktrimi991. I would say that is textbook no consensus. What the reporter failed to mention is that the editors who were banned (this is highlighted in order to present me as guilty by association) were banned long after that discussion in April/May 2020 and mostly for other reasons, 1 editor was banned in January 2021 and another in September 2020.

But back to Sadko. If you look at Dara of Jasenovac, not only did Sadko create the article about the film (which was highly promotional from the beginning) What part of the article when I created it is "highly promotional"?

but they consistently defended the film from criticism for weeks (as evidenced by the diffs above, and others I did not use), and never added any information about criticism of the film at all. Not true. Here is an example of criticism added by me.

This is Sadko's default editing position. Sadko claims I am "involved". But am I really? I am trying to ensure articles in this space are neutrally written This is an example of the "neutral" content PM was attempting to add to the lead, the movie was barely released at that point And please check this out I stand by my view that the source quality is very questionable, and this particular NGO is not relevant for the movie, I have literally never seen film criticism published by this NGO, which publishes politically charged opinion pieces and promotes incendiary rhetoric that goes beyond simply civil society activism . I have created and edited a bunch of articles on this topic and never have I seen something like this.

become completely unmanageable from an admin perspective due to a high level of disruption This is supposed to motivate other administrators and gather sympathy, but the reality is very much different. I have been editing for over a decade, longer than the user reporting me, and no one considered TBANNING all that time. Any content disputes I may have engaged in since December 2019 were to undo edits I considered disruptive, to a large extent by Mikola22 and now banned sock Miki Filigranski.

they are enhancing as much as possible the victim status of Serbs Utter nonsense. History is only one of several topics which I'm interested in. I am more active and have been contributing for years on topic like Culture, Arts and Religion, having created dozens of articles on these topics and improving a number of articles, like Serbian literature or Slobodan Jovanović or Atanasije Jevtić and many many others.

and when I disagree with him, others on his side, I'm sorry but is this "us vs. them" type of comment???

(although there are several others who are not far behind, some of whom have commented here) + will note that most of the editors posting here claiming there is "nothing to see" are the usual suspects I am the subject of this report, leave other editors out of this.

They may well be coming from Croatian Wikipedia (which is a cesspit) and Serbian Wikipedia (which isn't great either). This is also extremely unfair and offensive. No article on SW, which is not perfect mind you, ever went full Holocaust denial like the case was with the CW. It is simply unfair to many hardworking editors from sr.wiki who have outstanding results, which can be seen here and here.

As a testimony of good will, I am willing to recuse myself from the Balkan topic area for a month as a sign of good faith and to show I am capable of neutral editing. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 22:22, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[@Santasa99:]

The lengthy post by Santasa99 has 3 main points, I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

1) The first thing he/she/it did was "to show" that there is some sort of secret bromance/connection between AB and myself. It is completely nonsensical and WP:ASPERSIONS. Considering that I edit the topic which has only several active editors, it is only natural and logical to exchange messages on the TP at some point and overlap in regards to which articles both of us edit, like I did with this editor only recently. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, is it not? I can't see what is the point in posting diffs to show that I have asked other editor to contribute to articles about Arts which I have redone and rescued from a poor state, like Serbian literature? If there was some sort of context or relevance, that would be understandable, general comments with a bunch of text are bludgeoning the report considering that the amount of text posted is already huge. Santasa posted a diff which he claims proves "canvassing". In fact it was a neutrally formed message posted out in the open on the editor's TP. drmies explained how things stand, what is allowed and what is not, gave comments to the editor writing to his page about unreliable source used and everybody moved on (or so it seemed), business as usual.
2) The next claim is that I have "special ways of sophisticated disruptive editing by removing scope" and what not. That is absolutely not true and even imaginative. As seen here I engaged on the TP a lot. As it can be seen here, two more editors were not accepting the massive removal of content by Santasa99. I agreed to remove some of it and added a ref. or two, but having seen the TP discussion I have left the article as it is now, which can be seen in the page history. Completely misleading. The second example presented as my "disruptive work" is List of Serbian films. You can see the debate here and who did the hard work - here. The same can be observed on other pages, where I tried hard to get to a solution acceptable for all, which is usually very hard. Please check this out - I am the one who is allegedly changing the scope and doing God knows what. What a spin.
3) Adding those outrageous accusation of hounding is just too much. If there was a basis for such a claim, the editor would make the report long back. I have faced and faced this sort of harassment before (we simply edit the same type of articles), and my answer is stated in one of the diffs presented by fellow editor Santasa. Notice the way this editor is addressing me in one of the diffs presented: Well, obviously, you have no clue, As far as I know, accusations of hounding are a serious matter and should not be thrown around like that - for over a year. They are doing it quite frequently. The funny thing is, there were no such accusations made against me in the last 5-6 month by the same editor. I guess I was on a break from my notorious hounding agenda during that period; it's not like I don't have way more interesting and usable ways to spend my free time.
Additional points: 1) Editor Sa99 comments about the fact that there is a clear difference between Serbians (citizens/nationals of Serbia of all ethnicities) and Serbs (ethnicity+nation) and calls it "an ambiguity". What is up with that? 2) Some of the diffs presented are attempts to "get even" because of prior "lost battles" like this one and many many other crusades which led to permanent ban of the editor posting the comment being on the table a couple of times, I'll stop myself there as anything more from my side would be off-topic and not okay.
This report is making less sense after every reply (not that I am content about it or anything). If some of my comments made on the report are not civil or they are against any Wiki guidelines/rules, do let me know so that I can work on that. Another thing, a bunch of comments which should have been about my editing only have gone full or borderline WP:ASPERSIONS, WP:HARASSMENT and WP:PERSONAL. For example, two editors have tried to use my prior nickname as "evidence" for... What exactly? Nobody commented about that except for 1 editor. What is up with that? How is that allowed, considering that there is no real context or connection made directly? Not to mention all the other repeated comments and diffs, which are borderline WP:BLUDGEON, repeated armchair Pseudopsychology of my editing (which is something I never did to anybody) and what not. This is simply outrageous. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 00:14, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Recently posted comments are just more of the same; diffs are presented where there were disputed (which ended in some sort of consensus), to some editor's dislike, as if they were not a part of the very same dispute. Some of those were posted by Resnjari.

The thing is, banning me will not do any real good or betterment in the long run. Introducing 1RR rule in the are might help. Semi-protecting a long list of articles would help. As stated before, I could take a break from editing after these rules are introduced, and let us see what happens.

Once again, I am very interested how is it possible that comments which are: textbook pseudopsychology, nonsensical accusations of "hounding", borderline ethnic bashing, other judgmental comments which are not on-topic and are borderline ad hominem, can be a part of this report? Is this acceptable on a wider scale or am I missing something? I could give plenty of examples.

I refute the comparison to some other editors mentioned, the comparison can't stand because I am: a senior editor, I have been banned only 2 times for 24h for all those years, I've written and rewritten a bunch of articles and most importantly I do not go around searching for info. which would present any nation in a negative way. Most of the diffs presented follow a clear pattern of action and my reaction.

I am and I will be content with whatever the result may be, this is just a hobby after all and there are other projects available. :) Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 19:05, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mikola22

@Amanuensis Balkanicus, it is enough to see editor Sadko's report against me on WP:AE. Review of that report from administrator Peacemaker67 has shown that there is nothing or very little in report. This was bad faith report. As for the second attempt ANI (2021), and the merging some of my statements from the past(2019) in Nazi context, I have explained that a hundred times. Krunoslav Draganović, which is the biggest Ustasha and Nazi for you, Sadko and others for me in 2019 was a historian esteemed in the Croatian Church, quoted in many Croatian school papers, presented in libraries by leading peoples of the Catholic Church in Croatia, even Noel Malcolm use his sources. I don’t know about his Nazism at that time and I don’t know how you can’t understand that? Regarding "Ustaše on meta.wiki" I didn't mention the Ustashas anywhere. At that time the source which was on Cro wiki in some article, some editor on meta.wiki exposed as a problem of Cro wiki. I thought at that time(2019) that it was RS and since I supported Cro wiki I also supported their decision to use that source because I didn't know at that time what actually mean RS although I never read that source. For me at that time every source is RS. I was also ask for negative reviews of that source and no one, not even you or Sadko who were there exposed this negative reviews.

To summarize, from your answer it is clear that attacks based on artificial facts continue against me and that I am only one on your mind. Anyone who neutrally evaluate your accusations against me, you accuse as my support which clearly shows yours bad faith in relation to me but also disrespect for administrators. I don't think that's right. Mikola22 (talk) 21:57, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy: You may not have read my answer but report of Sadko against me(here) was very weak and false which I knew right away at first reading, ANI(2021) report was a set of my edits and my statements from past(2019) when I didn't know the rules of wikipedia nor do I know then what wikipedia actually is. @Amanuensis Balkanicus is editor which supports editor Sadko on all occasions no matter what. Do you see that he mentions some Ustashas which I didn't mention, do you see that he keep repeating the same thing even though it was explained to him in good faith what is it about, do you see that he is just continuing the work of editor Sadko, he twice reported me for alleged sockpuppetry, it is constantly somewhere behind me waiting for my mistakes. When I as editor started entering information's in articles for NPOV ond other information's about Vlachs, Milan Nedic, Partisans, Serbian history, various maps etc..they didn't like it. I suggest you read article about Milan Nedić, Statuta Valachorum before my edits and after my edits, see my edits on Yugoslav Partisans article, look at the historical forgeries that have been promoted on Vlachs of Croatia article(talk page) or Serbs of Croatia, take a look at my debates about forgerie (or mistake identified in the sources of Sima Ćirković) which still exist on several articles(Eparchy of Marča etc.., and "200 thousand Serbs who came to Slavonia and Croatia"), etc etc. This is their problem, not my statements from 2019 or the use of some source which is used and by British academic. If various historians and academics say that Serbs or part of Serbs are of Vlach origin, it is not my fault, blame Noel Malcolm and others don't blame me. Therefore when you do an evaluation of the actual situation you have to get to the heart of the problem. When someone promotes primary historical information that "Serbs inhabit the Roman Dalmatia", it would be ok put the NPOV information's which exists in various sources. By the way, we heard this information as one-sided information(just as it has been in various articles) from Greater Serbia ideologues. This is problem. Mikola22 (talk) 07:55, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Khirurg:there is evidence that he has a) defended the claim that the number of victims of Jasenovac concentration camp was "probably 1,654" I don’t follow Roman Ljeljak, I just said what I knew in 2019 about this information. As far as I remember, for the entire complex of Jasenovac camps, he found in the Belgrade Communist Archives number of 29 or 26 thousand killed(I don't remember exactly) and just for Jasenovac(inside Jasenovac not for the whole camp complex) he talked about that number which is also found in Belgrade Communist Archives. I am not defending that number nor am I interested in numbers, my answer "Therefore, if no Croatian historian has refute this document, then it is probably correct.", I mean the document(that it is a legitimate primary source) not the numbers. We need to have sources at that point which refute his book(no source for refute is exposed). Context is that Roman Leljak bases his claims on original Yugoslavian documents. And this polemics is about whether his source is RS or not because on Cro Wiki use that source(Roman Ljeljak) in articles and this was exposed as one of the problems for Cro Wiki but at that time we have no RS which refute or negatively evaluates his source and Cro Wiki is not guilty for that. My earlier answer in this context "Considering it is a sensitive issue Leljak chose the way(historical interpretation) in which documents speak instead of him. This is logical because documents he uses speak very differently from official history. I am not defending his claims I say that he "speak very differently" but he uses Yugoslav sources which no one else mentions. And whether or not this source is RS must be told by the sources(I learned that then on the English wikipedia) but at that time this sources do not exist. Mikola22 (talk) 20:59, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosguill: you know I will respect every decision, but still you have to be aware that I came among them 5 or 6 editors, also I was very inexperienced because I didn't know what wikipedia actually is and they used this situation well. I think that two of these 5 or 6 editors are blocked, the third would be editor Nicoljaus who worked for some period in tandem with Sadko, and Sadko as the fourth is close too. If I were from beginning in interaction only with editor Sadko and not with all of them I certainly wouldn’t have so many reports and edit wars because they all worked together. So we are not completely equal to share common punishment. Also as we hear from them, when I came to wikipedia they all started getting into trouble and slowly disappear from wikipedia? They worked here in good faith for years and then some anonymous(Mikola22) person with hundreds of sources, information's, checking the sources from articles, removing OR information's etc, disrupted their good faith conception? Yes there were mistakes but I think a lot of good has been done. Mikola22 (talk) 22:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here is one game play. Editor Amanuensis Balkanicus and Sadko vs Mikola22, article Smiljan. Information from the source "Serbian Orthodox Vlachs lived in the hamlets of Selište" and OR information which are supported by these two editors "which was aligned with ethnicity; in Smiljan the Orthodox, who were ethnic Serbs, lived in the hamlets of Selište". In that moment they know what the source say but they together pushing OR and violate the rule wikipedia. [84][85] My edit [86] Mikola22 (talk) 23:19, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We have and this game play. Article is Flag of Serbia. Here are together editor WEBDuB and editor Sadko. The source mentions primary information from 1281 that on some canvas(fabric) two colors are mentioned "Red and Blue". Based on that, they support a flag(of some anonymous person ie editor) with this information "Flag of Vladislav I (reigned 1233–1243), as described in 1281." which obviously have today's modern Serbian flag as pattern but with context "from 1281". They continue to promote OR information although the administrator Peacemaker67 tells them that it is OR. They act as if they are alone on wikipedia.[87][88][89] Talk page discusion[90]. Mikola22 (talk) 05:48, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Promotion of OR map of editor Khirurg and editor Sadko although this has been explained to him several times. Article is Serbia in the Middle Ages. This map is based on primary source De Administrando Imperio. In this case, the area to which Serbs coming includes and parts of Croatia, Montenegro(Duklja), Bosnia, Bulgaria, probably Albanian territory but this fact primary source DAI does not mention ie that Serbs coming to these areas. Despite everything, they promotes this map, even though they knows that this is a violation of wikipedia rules.[91][92] and map[93] Mikola22 (talk) 06:20, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Promotion of OR and fringe information. Article is Višeslav of Serbia and there we have information that According to De Administrando Imperio the other Serb-inhabited lands, or principalities, that were mentioned included the "countries" of Paganija, Zahumlje, Travunija and the "land" of Duklja(Montenegro), but primary source DAI does not mention Duklja which were setled by Serbs. The fact that Serbs appear in that area in a later period has nothing to do with DAI or "according to DAI" fact and this was confirmed by a neutral(Englesh) editor on RSN(which should be respected).[94] But in this case editor Theonewithreason who has support of editor Sadko[95] continue to promote OR information ie context in this article. Mikola22 (talk) 08:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Promotion of OR and fringe information. In this article Serbia in the Middle Ages we have interesting situation. Participants are editor Khirurg and editor Sadko. Information During the 822 uprising, Serbs supported the rebellion, thus siding against the Frankish Empire and indirectly supporting the Byzantines. This information is from source of some archaeologist. The context is rebellion[96] in Lower Pannonia(810 – 823). In primary source Royal Frankish Annals which speaks of rebellion Serbs are mentioned in one word "Ljudevit escaped to Serbs", and in no rebellion context. Sources or historians which would talk about participation of Serbs in that rebellion do not exist. But that doesn't stop mentioned editors from supportng fringe information even though everything has been explained to them and they know that.[97][98][99] Mikola22 (talk) 09:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Promotion of information from historian who denies the existence of Croats in Montenegro, considering them as Croatianized Serbs and information from some internet portal which is not RS. Article is Andrija Zmajević and information is Zmajević was born to a Serbian family. Editors which support information from these portals and historian are Amanuensis Balkanicus and Sadko.[100][101][102] Mikola22 (talk) 10:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Article is Yugoslav Partisans and giving suport[103][104] for information in the introductory part of the article ie that "The multi-ethnic resistance movement was majority Serb but had significant minorities of Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Bosniaks."(edit which has not passed because sources do not have such information, and because most editors decided that, talk page[105]) He as editor knows that in article exist this information "According to Tito, by May 1944, the ethnic composition of the Partisans was 44 percent Serb, 30 percent Croat" and this is not minority fact. His right as an editor is to support whatever he wants but at the same time he remove information from strong RS that Serbia’s contribution in Partisan movement until the autumn of 1944 which means the last six months of the war was disproportionately small.[106][107] Mikola22 (talk) 06:16, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Promotion of OR and fringe map. Article is Časlav of Serbia and everything is explained on talk page[108] but despite that editor Sadko with support of block sockpuppet editor John L. Booth and editor Theonewithreason(also used sockpuppet account in some others edits) continue to promote OR and violate wikipedia rules.[109][110][111][112][113] A simple solution in good faith is correction of irregularities in that map, but it is not an option for them, for them it is better to continue supporting OR and fringe information although they know that in fact they support violation of rules. Mikola22 (talk) 08:58, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Article is Croatisation. I am not reverting the article in state before editing of sockpuppet editor John L. Booth, although it is requested by admin Sro23 ("Closing. Also, does anyone want to clean up the sock's contributions?" from 5 March 2021)[114] I only remove edit in which I saw problem in the sources(I didn't research the rest at this time).[115] My edit is reverted by editor Elserbio00[116] After I exposed problem on talk page[117] editor Sadko returned edit of sockpuppet editor John L. Booth two times[118][119] After my notification of the editors on talk page and the fact that it is a requirement of admin and that in Uskoks section we have problems, editor Vacant0 as third editor made revert ie restored information's of sockpuppet editor John L. Booth [120]. And then coming and forth IP editor and made revert[121] So they are all aware that it is request of admin(talk page [[122]]) and that at least in Uskoks section we have problem but they persistently return controversial information to the article and knowingly violate the requirements of the admin and wikipedia procedure ie rules. Mikola22 (talk) 05:08, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Removing Croat and Catholic participation in Herzegovina uprising (1875–1877) and leaving information's only for Serb participation. After I entered information's from the sources blocked editor Antidiskriminator and editor Sadko remove my information's with claims I quote: "WP:UNDUE hypothesis in attempt to Croatize this uprising" and "POV pushing, fringe and undue"[123][124][125] although they are very well aware of the fact that and Croats and Catholics also live in Herzegovina, they actually make up the majority of Herzegovina population as a whole(it would be logical that some of them also took part in the uprising). After I found more sources including a Serbian author who also talks about Croats as participants in that uprising they stopped their actions. Finally the blocked editor WEBDuB remove information from the introduction part of the article about Croat and Montenegrian participation in that upraising although a strong Serbian source speaks about it.[126]. Since I'm not sure what can go in introduction part of the article I didnt make revert of WEBDuB edit. Later there were attempts to remove my information's and sources(some IP editor) but while I am here these information's must be respected because they are from strong sources, Mikola22 (talk) 06:12, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Eight sources challenge. Article is Military Frontier, and I have 8 strong sources for information that in Military Frontier and Vlachs are coming, part of the sources uses context "Vlachs and Serbs, etc" ie that they coming together. But for editor Sadko even 8 sources is not enough because it is, I quote: "Germans and Vlachs were a tiny minority compared to Serbs and Croats, this formulation is not WP:NPOV and looks like WP:SYNTH"[127]. I think that I'm holding the record of wikipedia with this edit, because not 8 non-Croatian sources are enough for punting one information to the article. Eventually I had to add two more sources, "The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics" from Ivo Banac and the best North American book in the field of Russian and Eastern European studies for 1984, and source of Austrian historian Karl Kaser expert for Military Frontier. It is ultimately 10 sources. Mikola22 (talk) 09:55, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Article is Serbs. My first edit ie removing of OR and primary information[128]. Editor Sadko has nothing against this edit as can be seen from his later edits. Later comes blocked sockpupet editor John L. Booth and restore this and other information's.[129] After this edit is reverted from editor Pipsally, editor Sadko comes and returns controversial informations to the article(including my information for which the OR and WP:PRIMARY problem was detected)[130]. In the introductory part of the article(which is part of that revert) also exist and historical context information "The territorial distribution of Serbs is affected by the World War II genocide and 1990s Yugoslav Wars, after which Serbia became home to highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in Europe." which in the sources does not exist as a common context. In this context this information is also WP:OR, very likely and and WP:FRINGE. Given that the editor Sadko knows these facts he still suport OR and posible fringe information's by giving support to the editor John L. Booth. Mikola22 (talk) 13:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I fully support the statement of administrator @Peacemaker67. This block will be final for me because I don't follow other parts of wikipedia. What a ride it was. I have been anonymous and alone from the beginning and I managed to learn most of the rules of wikipedia although I didn't even know what wikipedia really is (because I hadn't read it until 2019). The only person I appreciate here is "editor" @Peacemaker67 and his word is commandment. It is very possible that some of my information will start to disappear but let others take care of it(if they are interested in these information's and because they are based on strong sources). I just couldn’t edit differently because there were too many of them. It was simply such a situation. Thanks to everyone who stays. I will edit until this process is complete. Tnx. Mikola22 (talk) 12:19, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing I resent is when editor Sadko report me here all administrators supported his report although in fact nothing was written in it (which I knew immediately) or very little which was later establish and by @Peacemaker67. I blame you(administrators not you @Peacemaker67) for that but I forgive you. Mikola22 (talk) 12:29, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Joy

As mentioned above, I've noticed the issues with this user's behavior myself, and I'm only posting in a separate section in an effort to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

In short, yes, having people editing in this topic area while they can't seem to follow some basic tenets of Wikipedia and rules of the contentious topic area in particular - is pointless. For example, we shouldn't have to keep explaining what should be the glaringly obvious rules on the basic integrity of reproducing what sources say like I had to do here. Or what's an ancient primary source and what's a modern secondary source, like I had to do here. Add in advocating for biased pamphlets masquerading as articles and then railing against evil admins who are out to get them, like it happened here, well that's just depressingly bad.

A non-trivial volume of (fairly ridiculous) Balkan edit warring is going on at en: practically all the time - indeed whoever follows up on the links above will notice that often times it was interactions with editors who have since been rightfully blocked for various policy violations. The 'warring' parties feed off one another's ridiculousness, and create what seems to be a perpetually toxic environment. If an editor has 25k edits under their belt and still has to be moderated in this regard, then that is a lost cause and a waste of volunteer time and effort. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:42, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Side note, about comments by Amanuensis Balkanicus

Amanuensis Balkanicus, the fact that all this tendentious editing is considered par for the course in your eyes is actually pretty depressing, and demonstrates how the casually toxic environment has become more of a norm in the WP:ARBMAC topic area, as opposed to being an exception. The proper way forward is to enforce the rules of decorum, for example also extending a topic ban on this Mikola22 user for their own violations of the rules of decorum. Not letting Sadko and them continue to battle it out for years to come. Hell, for all we know, all of them could be persistently violating the sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry policies and in another 20 years we'll have another Kubura situation and nobody will care. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 06:44, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I should note that I have and continue to vehemently disagree with AB's assessments of 'nothing burgers', just like I did in the ANI report initiated by myself (but then closed before I could respond there). Back then, on Narentines, Sadko didn't violate 3RR because he 'only' reverted twice, while continuing to flame [Crovata's sockpuppet] on the talk page. I didn't press on the issue of the latter sockpuppet because it was helpfully fixed in the meantime by someone else, with a proper application of the sockpuppetry policy. On the Partisans talk page, I curiously never heard an actual argument in response to my numerous, source-based explanations on how these "We must have ethnicities in the intro!" claims were bogus. So, yeah, there's only so far we can go in being lenient with these rationale-free behaviors - it very soon descends into toxic claptrap. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:32, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rosguill thank you for coming back to the point. I am entirely unamused to see the discussion spammed to death again just like the last time I had contact with this matter. This is basically gaming the system to death - an abuse that is pretty much obvious is met by kilobytes upon kilobytes of wikilawyering. And that is both by allies and enemies of the accused! Apparently they all sense that keeping the waters muddy is the main trick here. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Side note, about comments by Khirurg

I should note that the claims by Khirurg in their assessment of Peacemaker67's completely reasonable interpretation of consensus are egregious wikilawyering. I didn't immediately remember seeing many of this user's contributions before, but a quick look back into the history found me their comment saying "Keep Topic is notable. The state of the article notwithstanding [...]" on the AFD where I got flamed by Sadko for saying anyone who voiced unequivocal support for that ridiculous abuse of an article should have their contributions examined by admins. A quick look into their contributions immediately shows a lot of drama, and I noticed a fair bit is about labels like "Greek/Ancient Greek" - note how the Narentines edits of Sadko that I had noticed before were also about labels, int that case "South Slavs/Serbs". So, yeah, it seems fairly clear we've got another classic bit of axe-grinding on our hands here - whoever closes this discussion and doles out the topic bans, please take note. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:36, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bishonen Drmies I think it would be advisable to take a closer look at the behavior of this user Khirurg, too, per above. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:25, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Side note, about comments by Ymblanter

Ymblanter what do you mean by "the state support of Croatian, and, to a less extent, of Serbian nationalism"? Are you saying you observe editors somehow supported by these two states, or? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:09, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ymblanter Okay, I don't think this comment is helpful in this context, where one of the topics at hand is Dara of Jasenovac, which was funded by the government that you assessed to be less in support of nationalist aims, yet was then widely observed as pursuing the latter. I think we need to focus on assessing how editor contributions affect Wikipedia, rather than on whether 'their' government is better or worse. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:44, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ymblanter We're in complete agreement on that. Just saying, value judgements about the external impetuses aren't necessary. For example, even when Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, there were notable expatriate organizations advocating a wholly biased interpretation of history. If Wikipedia had existed back then, there'd have been plenty of folks POV-pushing for their cause, even if they didn't have active government support at all. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:31, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amanuensis Balkanicus

This will be lengthy, but it extensively dissects the points raised by Peacemaker67, and I promise you, is well worth the read. Sadko is a user who's been editing Wikipedia far longer than anyone likely to comment here, including Peacemaker67 (and excluding Joy). Full disclosure: I've worked with PM67 for around a decade and together we promoted 3 or 4 articles to FA status and several others to GA. I've always considered him a constructive editor, although we've had minor disagreements in the past. By early 2020, my perception of PM67 began to change, because when push came to shove, PM67 began to almost invariably side with "Croatian POV editors " (his words, not mine) in content disputes.

After his six-month topic ban in January, WEBDuB (an editor I believe is Serbian) appealed to PM67, but the latter told him he supported the topic ban until WEBDuB could "demonstrate he could edit neutrally." [131] This all seemed rather peculiar to me, given that PM67 has treated the Croatian editor Mikola22, whose editing is far more problematic than WEBDuB's or Sadko's, with kid gloves time and time again, using his considerable clout as an admin to ensure he evades sanctions. This comment defending Mikola is from the other day. [132] This glaring double standard was noted by Griboski shortly after WEBDuB's topic ban. [133] A few months ago, PM67 also came to Mikola22's rescue in an AN/I and argued that Mikola's outbursts had been misconstrued because English wasn't his first language. The diffs in which Mikola said those awful things were from 2019, and thus "stale", PM67 said. [134] Water under the bridge. Let bygones be bygones. But with Sadko? Then it's perfectly acceptable to cherrypick diffs from 2019 and use them to portray Sadko in the worst possible light, first language and age of diffs be damned. Mighty convenient, chief.

Let's take a look at PM67's "evidence" of Sadko's supposed malign behaviour:

Sadko stated “I have a duty to my ancestors” with respect to his editing, setting the scene for the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour they have engaged in ever since. [135] So you consider this snippet phrase from a much longer paragraph an apropos example of a comment presaging WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour, but not Mikola22's remarks about the Ustaše on meta.wiki which were the subject of an AN/I in which you defended Mikola22? [136] [137] Sadko has been editing since 2008. If this "set the scene" for his so-called WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour, what has Sadko been doing for the past 13 years? By your own logic, he's been a constructive editor.

Calling opposing editors “punks in kafana (a dodgy type of Balkan tavern)” against WP:NPA [138] and stating that editors that disagree with them have a "corrosion of intellect" [139] As far as incivilities go, "punks" and "corrosion of intellect" are G-rated. I hate to say this, but I've heard worse from you, PM67. One time you even said you had no issues with calling other users "arseholes" or telling them to "fuck off" in certain circumstances. [140] Fair enough, I get frustrated sometimes too. But don't then turn around and feign outrage that an editor you disagree with used mildly naughty words at some point in time. Clearly you have no intention of holding Sadko (or other users you don't like) to the same standard you hold yourself (or users whose POV matches your own).

Further indication of adopting a victim mentality and an axe to grind [141] Leave the armchair psychology to the armchair psychologists, chief. Sadko was responding to Mikola22's claim that anti-Serb sentiment is a myth created by Serbian intellectuals. While "bias" and "hate" are strong words, Sadko was totally justified in opposing Mikola's rhetoric. Perhaps you also believe anti-Serb sentiment is a "myth"? Do tell.
These are examples of trolling of the talk pages of editors that oppose his POV [142] and [143] I find this highly amusing since yours truly has been the target of very public and gross "gossiping" by OyMosby and Peacemaker67 in the past. [144] Sadko has every right to interject in a conversation that is about him. Given that he was called a hypocrite by OyMosby in the preceding paragraph, his passive aggressive tone is mild given the context. [145]
Changing “Genocide” to “Ethnic cleansing” on Chetnik war crimes in World War II [146] Run-of-the-mill content dispute; this particular edit came before the start of a months-long RfC into the matter (which was only concluded a few days ago and in which I personally did not participate).

Removing the WWII Chetnik genocide of Muslims and Croats from List of genocides by death toll [147] Yep, because its WP:SYNTH and WP:OR (Geiger, the source used to cite the death toll in question, doesn't use the term genocide), although the edit summary Sadko provided is admittedly lazy.
Deleting NPOV addition regarding Ante Starčević on Anti-Serb sentiment [148] This paragraph was sourced to a reference from...1918. I seem to recall something about WP:PRIMARY and WP:AGEMATTERS. Sadko was fully justified in this diff. Why was this even included as "evidence"?
Continuing POV-pushing work of the indefinitely Balkans-TBANed User:Antidiskriminator, removing mention of the numbers of Muslim civilians killed in Battle of Višegrad [149] and [150] Umm, yeah, because there were no sources provided for the 2,500 figure in those diffs. Ctrl+f and check for yourself. Totally justified. Again, can't tell why this was included as evidence of "wrongdoing".

Clear disdain for non-Serb nationalist sources and POV comments on Talk:Battle of Višegrad 20 December 2020 I see two users (Sadko and Santasa99) whose first language isn't English squabbling about obscure sources they both know little about. Cringy? Maybe. Malicious? No. Grounds for a TBAN for either of them? No.

Adding an image of Muslim SS to History of Bosnia and Herzegovina – hugely undue POV pushing [151] Why is it "hugely undue POV pushing"? The division was part of the country's history, wasn't it? In any event, Sadko wasn't the one who originally added the image, he was merely restoring it after it was removed by Santasa99 without consensus. [152] The user who originally added it was GenoV84 [153] Again, very sloppy "evidence collection".

Deletion of material mentioning Serbs killing Muslims and the resulting split between Chetniks and Partisans [154] WP:COPYVIOs can be removed on sight ("Contributors should take steps to remove any copyright violations that they find.")

These all involve removal of negative material from clearly reliable sources from an article Sadko created about a highly controversial recent Serbian film about the Croatian Ustaše Jasenovac concentration camp (Dara of Jasenovac) [155] Has there been an RSN discussion about the reliability of Radio Sarajevo? Not to my knowledge, there hasn't. Until Radio Sarajevo's reliability is sorted out, Sadko is well within his rights to question its reliability.

Unsourced POV pushing regarding the views of Ante Starčević on Croatisation [156] The content was originally added by the sockpuppet John L. Booth, and Sadko was making a blanket revert to that version. While I disagree with Sadko in this case and would not personally have reinstated the banned user's edits (as per WP:BANREVERT), this is hardly tendentious. OyMosby did the same thing recently after I implemented WP:BANREVERT on another article. [157] I have no intention of seeing him TBANNED over that.

Inserting negative material about a historian criticising the Chetniks on Dubravka Stojanović [158] So PM67's issue is Sadko added WP:BALANCE to the article? I can cherrypick that time PM67 added nothing but glowing reviews to Philip J. Cohen and yours truly had to balance out the reception section with more critical reviews. I certainly never considered seeking a six-month topic ban against PM67 until he "could figure out how to edit neutrally".

Sadko has made quite a number of other appearances on the dramaboards in the time this report covers (since the account was renamed from User:Mm.srb in August 2019) I don't see what the point of underscoring the fact that Sadko's username used to be Mm.srb other than to emphasize that he is Serbian, especially given that none of the links you've provided about the warnings Sadko has received were made while the account was called Mm.srb. Not a good look, PM. I'm very disappointed to see this from you.

And lastly, only two of the AN/I's and AE's that PM67 has cited were directly about Sadko's editing, and both ended in Sadko's favour. There's a damn good reason for that. None of the closing admins who weren't WP:INVOLVED saw enough reason to take any measures against him. But why one AN/I and (now two) AE's, you may ask? Because Sadko's involved in editing Balkan-related articles, that's why. I don't know if you've noticed, but no one can agree on anything here.

The last AE cited is rather interesting in that it included the participation of two glaringly obvious anti-Sadko sockpuppets that I subsequently exposed and who were then blocked (Miki Filigranski and Thebeon). Naturally, no one cared in the slightest about the socks, including Joy, the initiator, until I came around. Joy's tunnel vision with regard to the conflict between Miki and Sadko, and his apparent bias against the latter, was even called out by El C. [159]

In conclusion, literally everything Sadko has ever-so-dubiously been accused of here is either something that is standard fare in this part of en.wiki or has been done by the vast majority of Balkan users who have commented here or are likely to comment here. All in all, this report is quite disappointing, not least because PM67 is a longtime admin, who (in theory, at least) is supposed to be impartial and "above all that", especially when it comes to petty regional quarrels as we've been seeing over the past 18 months. Not to mention the incredibly poor quality of evidence that's been put forth. A great big nothing-burger all around. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 20:07, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy: It's encouraging to hear that you're at least open to treating Mikola with the same "gloves" you would Sadko. That's a marked improvement over PM67's approach, so I commend you for that. Apologies if I seemed overly harsh earlier, but once I saw the thoroughly unconvincing (and in some cases, misleading) nature of the diffs provided, it was frustrating to have to put aside over an hour of my valuable time to address each point one by one.

I also understand your eagerness to stamp out systemic POV-pushing given what happened at hr.wiki (which is now being reversed, thankfully). However, it's inappropriate to compare Sadko (or Mikola22, for that matter) to Kubura because (as I understand it) Kubura was one of very few admins on hr.wiki, giving him a disproportionate influence over the project. Given their editing histories, I don't see either Sadko or Mikola becoming admins, literally ever. But taking actions that give the impression that admins favour a certain "editing bloc" over another is not the way to go (as I think you're starting to realize), and would actually contribute to the toxic environment you are referring to.

Believe it or not, I used to write GAs and DYKs on a regular basis because for many years the topic area wasn't the den of instability it has become in the past 18 months. Now I have no time or energy to contribute meaningfully to the project because I have to deal with drama on half-a-dozen articles at a time on an almost daily basis. It's all become quite exhausting. That being said, this drama didn't start with Sadko. It largely started with an uptick in editing by Mikola22 and OyMosby (among others) in late 2019. COVID-19 made things crazier because suddenly people were working from home and had more time to edit. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 13:50, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ymblanter: Some really interesting suggestions. Option #2 seems like it might provide a good framework for improving the overall editing environment. I can't help but see parallels with the Arab–Israeli conflict and India–Pakistan conflict topic areas. Maybe it would be best to implement a 1RR policy across all the articles in the topic area, plus permanent extended confirmed protection of all the articles that are reasonably construed as being contentious (there are probably several hundred of them). This would obviously need Arbitration Committee approval but given that multiple constructive editors here have stated that the constant feuding has significantly eroded their willingness to meaningfully contribute further to the project, maybe this wouldn't be such a bad idea. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 17:24, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Khirurg

Sadki has been editing productively since 2008 and has generally managed to stay out of trouble, and has kept a clean block log since 2019. He performs valuable work on badly neglected topics such as Serbian cinema and arts; for instance, he has created over 70 articles on Serbian art personalities [160]. He has not violated 3RR, nor does he regularly game the 3 revert limit.

The "punks in a kafana" and "corrosion of intellect" diffs are extremely mild and I have seen (and been on the receiving end) of far worse from other Balkan editors. And in Peacemaker's own words civility is mostly subjective [161] and robust discussion is entirely warranted regarding Yugoslav topics. These disputes can get very very intense (in Peacemaker's own words, try the patience of a saint), but I have yet to see Sadko cross the line. If these are the most incivil diffs Peacemaker can find, that would make Sadko one of the most civil editors in the topic area.
The diffs regarding the claim that Sadko has quite a number of other appearances on the dramaboards in the time this report covers either do not involve Sadko at all [162] [163] [164], or were created by editors with an opposing POV, in an attempt to get rid of Sadko. In none of those reports was Sadko sanctioned. If anything they reflect well on Sadko, who was dragged to the drama boards in bad faith several times, maintained his composure, and emerged vindicated.
The vast majority of the "consistent POV-pushing" diffs are part of typical content disputes in the topic area, and what constitutes "POV-pushing" is entirely subjective. Of course, if one has a pro-Croatian POV, these diffs could be seen as POV-pushing, but as someone who is somewhat familiar with the subject, it is not immediately obvious to me what is so egregious about diffs such as these [165] [166] (Radia Sarajevo is not WP:RS). Regarding changing "Genocide" to "ethnic cleansing" in the Chetnik War Crimes in World War II article [167], that is an extremely controversial topic, and Sadko's edits are not out of line with much of the scholarship in the area. The title of the article adter all is "war crimes", not "genocide". These diffs have also been convincingly address by Amanuensis Balkanicus, who is much more familiar with the topic area. In any case, Sadko has participated in the many dispute resolution attempts, such as RfCs, and has always abided by their outcomes.
Much of Sadko's editing is in response to POV-pushing by Mikola22. If anyone deserves to be topic banned, it is Mikola. In this report here [168], there is evidence that he has a) defended the claim that the number of victims of Jasenovac concentration camp was "probably 1,654" [169] (actual number: 83,000), b) lamented the very existence of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia [170], c) introduced material from notorious Nazi sympathizer Dragoslav Krunovic [171], among others. Yet instead of taking action, Peacemaker casually dismissed the ANI report as nothing more than a disturbing trend of Serbian POV editors trying to get rid of Croatian POV editors from en WP [172], which successfully derailed it. He even played the English is obviously not their first language, and their meaning is sometimes not clear. card. Does this apply to Sadko as well, or no? While we are all obligated to adhere to NPOV, this is even more true of admins. I found Peacemaker's defense of Mikola extremely disturbing to say the least.
Lastly, the allegations of meatpuppetry, off-wiki coordination, and using IPs are entirely unsubstantiated and should be removed or struck. We can't have stuff like that in an AE proceedings.Khirurg (talk) 18:23, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Peacemaker's most recent addition does not contain any new evidence, and basically boils down to something like "Sadko is really really bad, trust me on this". Regarding the edit from Sadko on December 1 2020 [173], I note the RfC was initiated on December 25th [174] and closed on January 21. The edit by Sadko predates the RfC by almost a month. Furthermore, all the votes in the RfC where a consensus was supposedly reached regarding the genocide question are from editors (with the exception of Peacemaker) who are heavily involved in the topic are and strongly favor a particular POV. Two of the votes are just !votes without any reasoning provided. I would argue that is a very weak consensus and the RfC was prematurely closed before the 30-day period ended. Nor do I see anything resembling a consensus in preceding discussions in the talkpage [175]. All I see is users with similar POVs agreeing with each other. But if there is no "smoking gun", there is no case. This is a very difficult topic area, and things often get hot. If we start banning people evidence-free, it would set a disturbing precedent. Khirurg (talk) 04:58, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Maleschreiber

This report is about Sadko (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). If other editors' activity is similar, they should get reported.
The Balkans editing environment has improved in the past six months largely as the result of topic bans and increased admin oversight on a daily basis. El C, Peacemaker67, EdJohnston, Drmies and other admins have played an important role in establishing oversight. Every time a Balkans editor has been reported, blocked or sanctioned admins have been accused of having an anti-/pro- Croatian/Serbian/Albanian bias.
Sadko's editing is linked to persistent, mid-level edit-warring very often based on a POV narrative and a personalization of disputes with other editors: Fake balancing which only brings confusion to the readers - POV editing with aims to narrow down early Serb medieval history only to Rascia.[176], sheep voting has been seen in several requests for renaming so far, this is a free project and I am quite free to suspect[177]Do you have any Wikipedia rule or guideline which would support your deaf???[178] The POV narrative is also evident in the reports they file and they have been logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration_enforcement log#Eastern Europe and warned to not weaponize AE in order to eliminate opponents of content disputes on 29 June 2020. They still personalize disputes in reports as in The reported editor is a big time WP:BULLY. I’ve seen this at work several times, in RL he would instantly get fired for Mobbing (...) [179]. The bigger problem is that their editing is often focused on specific POV narratives whether it involves minimization of crimes of Chetnik Nazi collaborators against Croat civilians (That is still only several historians, as I said before, there is more mentions of genocide done to the Muslims, which is not the general case for Croats. The title alone seems awkward ("Genocide of Bosniaks and Croats") and a verbal construct of Wikipedia editors. The number for the Croats are simply not there, neither is the scale of crimes, which simply can't be compared to most of similar terrible events.[180] or defense of a fringe theory that Serbs and "possibly" Russians lived in early medieval Macedonia[181] or arguing that that the virulent antisemitism of Nikolaj Velimirović in the 1930s is not antisemitism but something "very different" ..anti-judaism (immediately prompting the intervention of another editor [182]) or trying to !keep articles like Demonization of the Serbs.
PM's suggested sanctions are justified and will improve the editing environment - as all sanctions have done. Its limited 6-month scope will allow Sadko to focus their editing attention on other pages and reflect on their perspective. The ban could then be lifted via simple admin action without a discussion at AE.--Maleschreiber (talk) 20:10, 10 March 2021
@Newslinger: I have filed or been involved in most JohnGotten sock reports and I will file another one about a new account. The examples you found are not the only ones about Sadko and JohnGotten. Pipsally removed some of their edits before the block and started removing all of their edits per WP:DENY after the block. Sadko reverted them and tried to restore JohnGotten's edits with no explanation (before the block), talkpage discussion or even the basics required by an edit summary for the restoration of sock edits (after the block). The best example is a revert with the summary Not an improvement (before the block - a highly contentious edit which restored at the second paragraph of the lede of Serbs the sentence The territorial distribution of Serbs is affected by the World War II genocide and 1990s Yugoslav Wars). Sadko's support of such account use is continuous. Just before PM's report, I reported to EL C, a new account (CrnogorskiKralj (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) which replaced in hundreds of articles the Montenegrin language template with the Serbian one and tried to explain themselves on my talkpage that I shouldn't be bothered because he was removing an "invented" language. El C blocked them, but before that happened, Sadko came to the discussion at El C's talkpage to relativize the new account's conduct and claim that despite the "unfortunate wording" they are factually correct User_talk:El C#Massive edits. The account has been blocked and cleanup is needed at hundreds of articles, but it becomes even more difficult to manage because of such interference. @Rosguill: @Drmies: I disagree with administrative measures which aim to solve problems which can't be solved administratively, but I think that PM's report is not a case which asks for the broad application of sanctions about low-level infractions. I can't prove it to you unless you edit daily in the Balkans topic area, but even the existence of this report has had a particular positive effect. Because most people who are involved in ex-Yugoslavia disputes are 'wary' of the report and how it might affect the topic area, edit-warring on all sides has dropped significantly in the past week. It highlights that admin oversight sets editing standards.--Maleschreiber (talk) 12:12, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ymblanter: If the editing environment is a market and admin oversight is the regulation of that market, placing articles under XRR restrictions will have a specific effect: tag-teaming will increase. It's already observable across ex-Yugoslavia articles that when certain editors reach 3RR, others continue the reverting. Under lower than 3RR restrictions, the number of editors on each side will play a greater role and large teams will assemble to make sure that the 'correct version' is preserved. XRR restrictions will also affect editors who support neither side. I think that we need targetted restrictions/sanctions. The escalating last warning>6-month tban>indef tban is a good scheme, which in practice is already present in some decisions and has improved the situation. The only problem with its consistent application has been that it takes a long time to prepare a good AE report.--Maleschreiber (talk) 19:45, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Vacant0

I can't really tell if the environment around Balkan-related topics has been improved over the course of past six months since I've been trying to stay out of them ever since I made my account. What I have noticed is that since the beginning of this year there has been more POV pushing by all sides, and because of it I had to step in somewhere even though I didn't want to. I don't think that it's worth for me to make statements about Sadko's unacceptable behavior because other editors already proved some point. Sadko has been here for over 10 years now and there is no doubt that he might did something wrong in the past, but I personally think that he isn't that type of an editor to do these unacceptable edits on purpose. I've been following Sadko's edits since the beginning of this year because he has been involved in some of the Balkan-related topics and I generally can't see any POV pushing by him. I'm pretty sure that I'm not wrong but if I am you can correct me on this one. I think that my comment won't make any difference here but I personally wanted to comment on this situation because I saw similar and worse editing by user Mikola22 but I'm not sure if his edits have been discussed before. Vacant0 (talk) 12:30, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Santasa99

It’s hard to be concise at the same time and work out something elaborate that should show a wide range of violations - in terms of behavior and content. The toxicity of the Balkan scope can hardly be tolerated, and the root of all the problems is, of course, the emotional attachment to local identities, which editors cannot or do not want to control. I’ll try to put together a statement in as few words as possible and as few “diffs” as possible, and if any administrator finds it interesting, I’ll provide clarifications. First to contrast these enormous defensive walls of text of Sadkos tag-team buddies, such as Amanuensis Balkanicus (AB) (this illustrates existence of exclusive circle, [183]→[184], or how they together suspect Mikola from time to time [185]→[186]→[187], [188]→[189] (there is Sadko's attempt to get rid of Mikola in one such report, which closing admins called weaponization of the process but Sadko escaped with warning); this didn't stop Sadko from trolling my own TP uninvited for reason they perceived as similar (I never respond to such requests, though): [190]); false equalization by insisting on "POV pushing on all sides"; noticeable attempt to distract this report by redirecting attention from Sadko to Mikola (who else), while questioning Peacemaker's integrity as a neutral editor and admin by all three parties, Sadko, AB and Khirurg - so, let it be registered that AB is not neutral agent and that his agency as a pusher of Serbian perspective (POV) on Balkans topics (history, Yugoslav Wars, and so on), is felt, for instance, when they found themselves implicated in meatpuppetiering with messages like this to Sadko, regarding this, they removed the AB's message immediately and went to help; or like this, where AB asking Sadko for support against admin Drmies' concerns after the issue was raised by Maleschreiber. Drmies warned AB of canvassing and both, AB and Sadko, of tag-teaming on highly sensitive topics, adding that what they did was partisan and not neutral (Drmies advised Maleschreiber to take it further to ARBMAC). How these editors, who edit from the same POV as Sadko, appeared here if no one invited them, is something noticeable in many examples in AN and voting, with sr.wiki editors without being active on en.wiki appearing out of nowhere (diffs for this can be provided on request) - I learned about the case by interacting with Sadko's edits at the List of Serbian painters, a case of disruptive editing which I am about to post below.)

Sadko peculiar method of disruption is changing scope where arguments fail. In article List of Serbian painters, I tried to remove painters who do not belong to the list because they are not related to Serbia, but Sadko restored these items (painters) twice, and on third revert they did this, with an edit-summary, Lead changed, as it gives a wider range of possibilities for growth of the article + numerous great Serb painters were not born or lived in Serbia., followed with this, with an edit-summary, data restored, per lead, and from this point onward reverting dragged through several weeks, avoiding 3RR. All that time I tried to bring them into discussion on the TP, but they apparently didn't think that their change of the article scope should be open for discussion, only the content, however, as soon as I would restore article appropriate scope in the lede, Sadko would resort to blame game, stating in "edit summaries" that it's me whose editing is disruptive because I am changing the scope - extremely irritable summaries in this case aren't far from outright trolling. I strongly suggest reading Talk:List_of_Serbian_painters in its entirety - it has three sections/discussions, much shorter than any individual statement in this report, and it is quite illustrative in exposing Sadko's focus (do I dare say obsession) on ethnicity, which combined with emotional attachment to identity drives this kind of attitude, or as Sadko explains this phenomenon best by saying that they "have a duty to (their) ancestors" to fix the project and correct mistakes on Wikipedia. Oftentimes they use their own preconception on ethnicity in conflict with entire set of guidelines dealing with ethnicity vs. nationality. As Sadko ambiguously explains it in this exchange, [191]→ [192] (Sadko is/was Mm.srb), this ambiguity is reflected in their usage based on personal whim, as it suites them from case to case, and although they correctly observe the problem of double definition for Serb(s) and Serbian(s) could possibly result in existence of double articles, they proceed to use this ambiguity themselves elsewhere, such as in case of List of Serbian painters, which they tried to turn into list of Serb painter, against whole host of problems attached to such re-writing: article is titled List of Serbian painters not Serb painters, turning scope into ethnic-based exclude Serbian painters of all other ethnicities, which we then can't include elsewhere, and so on (again, on TP I discuss all aspects of the problems created with this approach and they respond, so pleas read it). Similar thing happened here, while here Sadko defended and reverted my attempt to change scope which was terribly conceived, almost outright nationalistic, as it can be seen from diff. However, where it does or doesn't suits their POV, they interchangeably play with the "ethnicity" - example: when asked about it, they responded with this, but then changed a tune in this; this also means they are aware of what they are doing. Never apologizing Sadko seem content with Balkan-scope toxic situation: Wikipedia is not the place for you, as there are constant complaints about somebody being harsh or something like that. Unfortunately, Balkan-related topics are not always milk and honey and that's not likely to change. ([193])

Another problematic issue is following (hounding): me - Sadko I complained many times since late 2019, at least twice at user's TP: first time, and again. Few examples: instead of individual diffs I offer my User contribution page filtered between 02:13, 20 June 2020 and 23:58, 20 June 2020 where it can be observed editor jumping from page to page behind me; me - Sadko. I could provide more diffs on this problem if necessary, also in case of other editors being followed by Sadko, if that would be appropriate.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 21:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Sadko:, we can check timelines here ?--౪ Santa ౪^99° 03:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC) As a side note, since when we refer to editors with "it" - we refer to each other with singular "they" forms of third-person personal pronouns, hence, I am not "it", I am "them"/"they"/"their(s)"/"themsel(f)ves" for you and anyone else in here, unless I say differently.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 04:20, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

:@Ymblanter and Drmies: these walls of text are unfortunate necessity, in Joy's words, if we want to "to get rid of (...) obvious gaming of the system". But - I hope you won't mind if I say so - there is something that could be done, and it's very simple, usual solution for the (un)usual problem: a stronger, closer, more committed oversight on admis' part - and the idea for how to fulfill such commitment could also be simple: admins could agree between themselves who will step in (one or two) and offer to volunteer their time and commitment to closely (maybe even exclusively) oversee Balkan scope and editor community, with all its peculiarities (Ed Johnson has done a lot, but they never committed "officially" to follow inner dynamics of this particular community specifically and exclusively).

As a side note: as far as I can tell, there are no Bosnian Muslim and Montenegrin editors currently that I know of, who would be editing on the contentious subject (of Balkan history, culture and politics); there are at least three times more editors editing with Serbian slant then those who edit from the explicit Croat bias. In the last couple of years some of the worst violators in the users-names of Zoupan and AnulBanul (Serbian and Croatian sockpuppetiers), Shokatz and Ceha (blocked, Croatian), Antidiskriminator and WEBDuB (banned, Serbian), are now gone. However, we lost invaluable members who self-imposed premature "retirement" on themselves, due to their refusal to participate in editing under such a toxic atmosphere - an examples I encountered are/were likes of Ivan Štambuk (whose invaluable contribution (expertise really) in sphere of Serbo-Croatian linguistic gave en.wiki and its articles on the subject credibility with correct info based on local and international mainstream scholarship), Timbuktu, Director or Producer (not sure anymore who between them), Potočnik, to name a few more. Needless to say, they were on the opposite side from "all" other POV-pusher groups, "all" being just two groups really (Serbian and Croatian), Ivan in particular - bottom line, they all left because of persisting toxicity and lack of strong, close oversight.

If I am really correct in my observation, then, it significantly undermines usual claptrap about "all sides pushing their POV's equally" and evermore common trope that under Balkan scope locals are all more-less steeped in nationalistic bias and tribal quarrels. A curiosity, though, is that locally neutral POV always existed and is related to application of Serbo-Croatian, or more commonly Yugoslav, lens through which one perceive more commonalities than differences between Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks (Muslims), Bosnians (Bosnianandherzegovinians), and Montenegrins, in both real life and in project - with that being said, all of these editors that came to my mind, with enough certainty can be recognized as Croatian, which means that Croatian editors come from both camps, pro-Croatian and nationalist, and neutral and anti-nationalist, where I have yet to encounter Serbian editors who belong to the later camp.

With this in mind, admins shouldn't lose from sight the fact that this report is filed by outsider, whose credibility as neutral editor and admin with integrity that can not be doubted. Finally, evaluation of which state (Croatia or Serbia) inject more nationalism in its respective society is unnecessary distraction, potentially even harmful for editors as naive as Mikola, who may feel that they can correct Ymblanter observation, and in doing so, in good faith but their weak English, compromise them self even more.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 22:30, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Vanamonde93: I'm prepared, ready and open for whatever should come my way, from warning to t-ban to block - one thing though, I don't need to get impressed with explanation for rational behind any sanction that may or may not eventually come my way, if it's delivered with reasonably convincing sense of fairness in assessment within such an overwhelming amount of diff's that concern so many editors and their conduct, not just myself, with Oy Moysbi,--౪ Santa ౪^99° 00:01, 17 March 2021 (UTC) →(inserted remark:)→ however, do not and can not, because it's rhetorical and logical impossibility, concern those few who left their defending statements but are themselves on the opposite from the report directionality.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 01:11, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Griboski

As it's been pointed out by other editors and admins, most of these diffs regarding Sadko aren't egregious. But let's just take a couple of examples listed here; Sadko's removal of genocide from the Chetniks war crimes and list of genocides by death toll. There was legitimate debate back then over this. Buidhe, who is a prolific editor in topics of Holocaust and Genocide supported these same "POV" changes. 1 2 It's a real issue of historiography (and WP:OR as far as it being included on the list). @Vanamonde93: This is also in response to your inquiry. There is more background on this in this thread, although it is long.
Most of the less-than-ideal editing behavior from Sadko has coincided and been directly impacted by the arrival of Mikola22, who has shown an exclusive preoccupation with Serbian topics and articles, editing from a Croatian nationalist POV. It is then easy to see why that would provoke a reaction from Sadko and result in a battleground atmosphere. I proposed a topic-ban for Mikola in an ANI Report in January. Rosguill, the lone uninvolved admin and editor in that report, who has also commented here, supported it before those with a similar POV to that of Mikola came out in droves to derail the thread.
If the goal here is to create a less toxic environment in the Balkans editing area, then the fairest and most appropriate solution would be to implement a topic-ban for a period of time against both Sadko and Mikola as suggested by AB, Joy, Rosguill and PM (and agreed upon by Mikola). Otherwise, it is selective punishment and enforcement of rules. --Griboski (talk) 22:00, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Resnjari

There is a strong case for @Sadko receiving a topic ban on all Balkan topics. Peacemaker67 has made a succinct case and Maleschreiber has presented additional examples. As not to tread ground they already covered, i will note one recent interaction with @Sadko and myself when it came to the article about Niš city and the etymology of its name. I added content based on WP:RS, about its placename formation via reliable scholarship discussing that partial formation through early medieval (proto) Albanian-Slavic linguistic contact. The bit about the role of Albanian was removed by @Sadko [194] who said it was an "irrelevant piece of trivia and WP:OR, Ancient Greek it is." The bit about Ancient Greek was not contested or removed, only elaborated upon how certain other linguistic input and changes resulted in its final present form. So then why is it "trivia"? Because Albanian is mentioned? So i reverted Sadko [195]. Sadko responded with an edit where he reinterpreted the Albanian of the sources to mean Illyrian and wrote it as such [196]. That smacked of WP:OR. I had to point out the sources made no such claim and readjusted accordingly and out of courtesy kept much of @Sadko's wording from previous edits [197]. The sentence on the name etymology achieved its current form after some more edits on the page by other editors and myself.

At the same time this issue did bleed into the History of Niš page. Here a similar cycle was begun by @Sadko's edit [198] and then responded to by Ktrimi991. However administrator Drmies opened a thread [199] in the talkpage after seeing both @Sadko's and @Ktrimi's edit summaries as they "tickled my fancy, as did Sadko's edit summary". I engaged in the talkpage, so did other involved editors and admin @Drmies. @Sadko never once bothered to engage in the talkpage to explain or make the case about reasons for exclusion. The reason I bring this Niš placename example up is the rationale for content exclusion and reverts by @Sadko was not based on something substantive like policy or guidelines, but "triva" and so on. What is one to make of that apart from WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS editing.

And this sadly has echoes of 2017 when the same matter at the History of Niš was contested by @Antidiskriminator on grounds that "undo POV pushing of Greater Albanian autochtonous mythology per WP:BRD. Take it to the talkpage to gain consensus" [200]. The talkpage discussion imploded into toxic farce [201]. My point is @Peacemaker67 is a good judge of character and is one of the few brave enough administrators willing to engage with the Balkans topic area and deal with hotheads. @Antidiskriminator was topic banned for nationalist editing after years of problematic behavior only when his editing was put under the spotlight by @Peacemaker67 in this forum. So when @Sadko is brought here by @Peacemaker67 and edits by @Sadko exhibit WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS with WP:BATTLEGROUND characteristics, isn't it time for a proper long topic ban? And not a short one of some weeks or months. As some have said, Sadko is an editor harking back to 2008. The problems have increased, not decreased. Who is to say we won’t be here again and again.Resnjari (talk) 09:14, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Sadko

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

Having read through this report and mulled over it for a decent amount of time, I feel like I need to write some sort of comment here, even if I'm unsure what the best outcome would be. It's clear that Sadko has a consistent POV, but most of the diffs presented here strike me as defensible. The most troubling behavior that I see here is the comments defending the prominent use of a medieval source at Talk:Narentines as mentioned by Joy, which, despite its relevance to Balkan historiography, requires further analysis and interpretation by more recent scholarship. As I have previously suggested sanctions against Mikola22 at ANI, I'm not exactly opposed to the idea that they deserve a tban, but it's not clear to me whether banning Mikola22 necessitates a ban for Sadko as well. I'm wondering if the liberal application of temporary tbans to POV editors in Balkan may help establish new standards for behavior around this subject matter, while allowing borderline editors to eventually return to the topic and demonstrate their commitment to building an encyclopedia once the waters have settled a little. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 19:54, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm wondering myself whether such a liberal application might not be the best solution. I keep marveling at the copious amounts of time these editors have to write up these notices, provide the diffs, respond to them, respond to the responses, and keep a record sometimes going back years. Don't they need to eat? Drmies (talk) 03:09, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still working my way through this; anyone besides Peacemaker and Sadko would do well to be more concise going forward, as I suspect y'all have already scared off many patrolling admins. Peacemaker67, I hate to ask you to lengthen your statement, but I'm looking at diffs like this one, and while that may be taken as evidence that Sadko has a POV, it's only a problematic edit if he is actively misrepresenting sources or ignoring consensus in the sources to push fringe views. Can you elaborate on those diffs to show that this is the case? Vanamonde (Talk) 21:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@El C, Ymblanter, EdJohnston, and Newslinger: I see you have been active as admins on ARBEE matters; do you have anything to suggest here? Even if you have no wish to plough through all of the above, any insights you have would be appreciated. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:01, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have now ploughed through the entire history of Dara of Jasenovac and it's talk page, and that's an hour of my life I'll never get back. It's frustrating, but unsurprising, to see the same patterns of stone-walling and argumentativeness appear here as in other prominent political and nationalist disputes. Having read through that history, I am convinced Sadko needs a break from the topic area. Mikola's conduct on that particular page was not egregious, but they are not exactly covering themselves in glory either, and I think a warning to them is the minimum necessary. There's others at that page whose behavior is worse; I'm not going to name them, because they haven't participated here. More generally, I think this area could benefit from more uninvolved admin intervention, and from quicker use of limited TBANs, partial blocks, and/or EC-protection. I am not in a position to undertake such monitoring. El_C does yeoman's work in difficult areas, but we can't rely on him for everything. If no single admin is willing to dive in, more frequent posts to AN/ANI/AE might be necessary (yes, I did just say that). Vanamonde (Talk) 18:58, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've done my best to go through the excessively long and accusatory statements here. I remain convinced that Sadko and Mikola require topic-bans, of at least 6 months. I was also thoroughly unimpressed with the conduct of OyMosby and Santasa when reading through some of those diffs. I believe a logged warning for both of them is the minimum required. For the record; I had noted those patterns before they posted here, but chose not to comment on them given their lack of participation. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:09, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Santasa99: If you want me to take your opinion into account, please express it in plainer language. @Bishonen and Peacemaker67: I would add that I am very willing to liberally apply EC-protection where semi-protection isn't quite cutting it; while you're making your list, PM, I'd appreciate if you could look into that as well. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:56, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, the diffs in the initial report lack a "smoking gun" violation of policy that would justify a topic ban. Content-wise, the worst diff I see is Special:Diff/1010666091 (as well as Special:Diff/1010680495), which shows edit warring to restore inadequately sourced controversial content about Ante Starčević that was originally inserted into the Croatisation article by John L. Booth, a sockpuppet of the previously blocked editor JohnGotten. As stated in the policy on proxying, "Editors who reinstate edits made by a banned or blocked editor take complete responsibility for the content", and to be compliant with the verifiability policy, these edits needed inline citations to support the controversial content about Starčević. A pattern of edits like these two would justify a sanction, but I believe these two edits by themselves do not.
Behaviorally, the initial report shows a concern with respect to the following comments, all of which fall short of the civility policy:
1. Special:Diff/918206068: Describing another editor's comment as "a sure sign of corrosion of intellect"
2. Special:Diff/947289150: Stating that other editors are "behaving like punks in kafana" while accusing them of "labeling other editors and ignoring Wikipedia:Civility" in the same sentence
3. Special:Diff/995378938: "Learn to behave yourself and stop acting paranoid"

Since these three diffs span a range of 15 months, it would suffice to issue a reminder for Sadko to focus on article content, not editor conduct, in content disputes.

As it is likely that editors will add more comments to the existing discussion, here is some general advice for participating on the arbitration enforcement noticeboard:

Be concise. Lengthy responses are more likely to be skimmed over by reviewers, which would reduce the amount of consideration afforded to your points. If you have written too much, feel free to collapse the less important parts of your comment using templates such as {{cot}} and {{cob}}.
Provide diffs. Commentary is not very useful for assessing the situation, unless it is supported by evidence. Reviewers are more interested in the actual edits that were made, and less interested in general opinions about the dispute. Clear-cut examples of policy violations are the strongest form of evidence.
Address the reviewers. The sectioned format of this noticeboard is intended to encourage involved editors to speak directly to the reviewers, instead of to each other. This makes the discussion more manageable. If you would like to address a point another editor has made, try to do so while staying on topic (which in this case would be focusing on whether Sadko's editing is sanctionable).

— Newslinger talk 06:14, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive232 § Capitals00, I see that there is precedent for issuing topic bans on all editors who exhibit a long-term pattern of battleground behavior in a topic area covered under discretionary sanctions, regardless of whether the reported edits are sanctionable when viewed in isolation. Based on this, I support Ymblanter's "scorched earth" recommendation, with a change: per Bishonen, indefinite topic bans are preferable to time-limited topic bans, since the affected editors would be required to make constructive edits in a less contentious topic area before appealing. An indefinite topic ban for both Sadko and Mikola22 from Eastern Europe and the Balkans would raise the standard of conduct expected of all editors in the topic area. — Newslinger talk 03:23, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked at the situation, but it is complicated, and I better look again before providing an opinion.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:12, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, now I had one more look. On one side, it is clear that Sadko consistently pushes POV and performs mid-level edit-warring. On the other hand, pretty much everybody in this area does the same (and the state support of Croatian, and, to a less extent, of Serbian nationalism does not really help). It persists for many years, we have discretionary sanctions in the area available for ages, and it does not get better. I see, in principle, two ways to solve the problem. (i) "Scorched earth" policy - everybody who is out of line, gets a DS alert, second time out of line causes half a year topic ban, third time brings an indefinite topic ban. From this position, Sadko is at the stage when a 6 month topic ban would be appropriate. (ii) Instead of removing editors, we can try forcing them to behave, which can be achieved by configuring 0RR sanctions on all problematic articles. I am not sure the resulting discussions are going to be productive, or possibly even editors would be mobilized to gain advantage and fix articles in particular states, blocking reverts, but we can try. In this narrative, Sadko needs to get a fairly strong warning.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:59, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Ymblanter, I agree with most of what you say, but the problem is that line--which line? I think most editors crossed all those lines a long time ago--you said it yourself, "mid-level edit warring" is a kind of normal here. Even this very report shows it: something as important as an arbitration request is just another opportunity to write up thousands of words, as if each of these contributors here thinks this is their own platform. And it's that sheer verbosity in ALL of these areas, on article talk pages, on user talk pages, in ANI requests, that make this so tedious. I wish I knew what to do here; all I've been able to do is work with individual editors on individual little things. And when working on that, many of these editors are fine to work with. But when three of them get together, oh my. I'm sure there's a bunch of good jokes about that. A Serb, a Croat, and a Bosnian Muslim land on the moon... Drmies (talk) 20:23, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  @Drmies: Yes, if we go down this road - which I am still not sure is the right way to do - well, then everything counts, edit-warring, POV pushing, etc. Like if we do it for PIA. Any mild violation of any policy - and you quickly get reported to AE, with a dozen of editors happy to present arguments against you, and you get half a year to do some other things on Wikipedia and fell happy you have not been blocked. Indeed, I had extensive experience with Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, where sides would never change their positions whatever happens, they would argue forever, try to get a numerical advantage, but never take a step back, and they only way to operate there is to remove the editors from the conflict area. It is a pity that this has to be done, but if this is the only way we have to be strict and not make exceptions.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:38, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Joy:, no, I am not aware of any editors being paid by these governments to edit Wikipedia, nor do I impiy this. I mean state support of ideology.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:16, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @Joy: Editors are not operating in vacuum. They go to school somewhere and learn whatever the school decides it is good for them to learn. They are exposed to the information flow and they are not necessary able or even expected to take it very critically. Yes, sure, when they edit Wikipedia, they are expected to follow NPOV and RS and whatever, but the ideas about which sources are reliable and what POV is N depends a lot on the background. To take an example not pertaining to Serbia or Croatia, in 2007 the Ukrainian president awards the highest merit of the state to Stepan Bandera, who outside of Ukraine known as terrorist, Nazi collaborator, and Holocaust theorist, and in 2020 we have a stream of canvassed driveby Ukrainian editors, unhappy with how our article portrays this Hero of Ukraine, who are able to bring our own sources and who call the article POV. So I am not really looking forward to welcome several hundred neutral, highly educated and knowledgeable new editors this year, capable of cleaning up all the nationalistic bullshit and to rewrite the articles as NPOV. We have what we have, and we need to take administrative decisions.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:03, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've read most of the above — time I will never get back! — and I support at least two topic bans and plenty of semiprotection. I'm convinced it will be a benefit to the area if Sadko and Mikkola22 are removed from it through topic bans. Perhaps also Khirurg, per Joy. As one of my hobbyhorses, I feel there should be no time-limited topic bans, which can simply be waited out, after which an unreconstructed POV-pusher can return and start up again. Let's do indefinite bans with an option to appeal in six months. This obliges the users when appealing a) to have some decent editing in other areas or other Wikimedia projects to point to, and b) to make some commitment for the future, which if necessary can be held against them. I don't mean to sound bad-faith-assuming, but without such considerations, it is by no means the case that re-bans are cheap. They cost blood, sweat and tears.

Secondly, disruptive IPs and socks have been mentioned above. Surely the most affected articles need to be long-term semiprotected, and then, if that's not enough, raised to extended confirmed. I'm not familiar enough with the area (even though this AE has been an education!) to know which ones, but I see Croatisation, for instance, is currently unprotected. Surely articles like that need to be semi'd for years. A question for Peacemaker: I know you've already spent a lot of time on this, but could you provide for us a list of articles that are in your opinion candidates for long-term semi? Bishonen | tålk 09:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you for this list, Peacemaker67. Unless somebody else objects, I will semi all those for a year in a day or so. (Other admins are welcome to help.) Drastic? Yes, but the nationalist editing in the area needs to be curbed. Bishonen | tålk 11:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Closing. The amount of text above may have reached a point where people will no longer read it. The request seems quite important, and should not be allowed to roll off into the archives without action simply because the involved parties on both sides have made it such a chore to read. Compare the forlorn appeals for conciseness above from Vanamonde93, Drmies, and Newslinger, and the sharp comments about "spamming to death" and "wikilawyering" from Joy (an admin posting outside this section). T-banning Sadko and Mikkola22 indefinitely, plus semiprotecting Peacemaker's list of articles for a year, seems to me to be a reasonable outcome of all the uninvolved admin comments here. I will close this request accordingly in 24 hours, unless there are objections. Also, I specifically ask people to address whether there ought to be logged warnings against anybody. Bishonen | tålk 16:58, 19 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you Bish. I think a few logged warnings might be in order. I am disappointed in Amanuensis Balkanicus's tone in these proceedings--this is not a joke, and it's not a place for cynical stabs. Khirurg and Maleschreiber managed to be relatively concise and somewhat objective, so that's great. Drmies (talk) 17:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Drmies and Bishonen: I will close this thread in a few hours --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 19:40, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Then I support a logged warning for at least Amanuensis Balkanicus, perhaps Khirurg also, per their own statements above, and per comments by Peacemaker and Joy. Bishonen | tålk 21:30, 19 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]
I would support a logged warning for Amanuensis Balkanicus. I have not researched Khirug's contributions enough to take a position on a warning for them, one way or the other. I do not see anything egregious in their statement here. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:42, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

2601:C4:C300:1BD0:4C8F:CA4A:AD98:6994

2601:C4:C300:1BD0::/64 is warned to avoid making personal attacks and reminded to use dispute resolution. 2601:C4:C300:1BD0::/64 has accepted the warning. — Newslinger talk 06:24, 23 March 2021 (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 2601:C4:C300:1BD0:4C8F:CA4A:AD98:6994

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Equivamp (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 02:42, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: 2601:C4:C300:1BD0:4C8F:CA4A:AD98:6994/64 (talk · deleted contribs · logs · edit 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/Gender and sexuality#Standard discretionary sanctions

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

March 9 Edit-warring against strong consensus (one of several times)
March 9 Casting aspersions against editors with whom they disagree
March 9 Stating intent to continue bludgeoning the discussion over the next few weeks
March 9 Confirming awareness of consensus and dismissing it by accusing the editors with whom they disagree as being "transphobic" without evidence
March 15 Personal attacks
March 15 Personal attacks
March 15 Personal attacks
March 15 Personal attacks

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

Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on March 9

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Several IP addresses that I think are quite clearly the same editor, another recent one is User:2601:C4:C300:1BD0:656A:420D:A1FA:7075; check the page stats

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[202], [203]

Discussion concerning 2601:C4:C300:1BD0:4C8F:CA4A:AD98:6994

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 2601:C4:C300:1BD0:4C8F:CA4A:AD98:6994

The users opposing me repeatedly asked for "reliable sources". I repeatedly provided them with numerous sources which they refused to accept. Now, they want to remove the "Background" section from the article seen here at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_people_killed_for_being_transgender&oldid=1012358623#Background

It appears that I can never appease them. I relented to removing the introductory paragraph laying out the criteria for inclusion. I also relented on removing the vast majority of the 2020 transphobic deaths see at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_people_killed_for_being_transgender&oldid=1012401252#Trans_Lives_Matter?

How much are the opposing parties asking for? 100% exclusion of transphobic deaths. They are politicizing the deaths. Zero compromise, deletions of explanatory paragraphs, purposeful obfuscation, and total removal of the people listed in 2021 without presenting the opposing sides of the argument is biased and not neutral. --2601:C4:C300:1BD0:656A:420D:A1FA:7075 (talk) 11:28, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is about not biting editors like me. You need to think about the implication of de-platforming me. Right now, other editors don't dare to add Diamond Kyree Sanders to this list. Whereas I would add her name and explain that the Cincinnati Police Department was quick to rule out transphobia without any identification of the suspect or meaningful investigation, saying, "This was a crime of greed. This had nothing to do with the victim’s lifestyle."[204] So, there can be no mixed motive? As the article I linked to states, Cincy police was using "insensitive language to describe Sanders’ gender identity." The HRC listing 11th which major news organization like ABC, CBS, and CNN will concur with while a squad of editors demand not only a zero listing, but also brook no discussion. --2601:C4:C300:1BD0:9109:BAFB:F671:DCB4 (talk) 21:32, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[@Newslinger:] Yes. I am willing, and I have removed my statement made in anger.--2601:C4:C300:1BD0:7C6B:5717:3201:B979 (talk) 11:13, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MJL

I was right about to leave the IP user a note about cutting out the personal attacks when I saw this was filed. They really gotta stop with that. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:10, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@2601:C4:C300:1BD0:656A:420D:A1FA:7075: This is really not the place to double down.. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:36, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@2601:C4:C300:1BD0:656A:420D:A1FA:7075: I'm literally arguing for a broader consensus at the talk page right now.
Also no one wants to deplatform you, but we do want you to stop being uncivil. That isn't okay. If you agree to stop insulting people and railing against an undefined group of transphobic editors, then this will probably resolve ambically. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 23:05, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JPxG

Same as MJL, except I actually did give the NPA warning. jp×g 05:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning 2601:C4:C300:1BD0:4C8F:CA4A:AD98:6994

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

2601:C4:C300:1BD0::/64, civility is one of the core principles of Wikipedia, and personal attacks (e.g. labeling other editors as "transphobic" and accusing other editors of making "hormone-addled deletions") are prohibited on Wikipedia. In content disputes, it is important to focus on the content, and not on other editors. Now that you are aware of these policies, are you willing to do the following?
1. Recognize that some of your talk page comments fall below the standard of civility required on Wikipedia
2. Refrain from personally attacking other editors or casting aspersions
3. Follow the recommendations for resolving content disputes in the guide to dispute resolution

— Newslinger talk 02:56, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, 2601:C4:C300:1BD0::/64, for your response. Based on the response, I support closing this report with no further action, noting that the warning has been accepted. — Newslinger talk 02:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I left the IP a message here. This could be closed with an informal warning to the IP that disruption or personal attacks will result in sanctions. Feel free to contact me (perhaps with a ping from a talk page) if admin attention is wanted. Johnuniq (talk) 03:02, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

‎OgamD218

The facts in the case don't match the claim. There was an RFC, OgamD218's edit appears to be consistent with the RFC AND their edit summary clearly invited others to tweak if they felt necessary. No action taken against OgamD218 in this case. I would warn FDW777 that when they file an AE/AN/ANI case, they need to more careful that the claims are substantiated by the facts. Note, this doesn't mean the edit is "perfect", as this is a BLP, and subject to more than just the RFC, as our policy on BLP applies, but any shortcomings can be addressed through the normal editing and discussion process. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:40, 20 March 2021 (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 ‎OgamD218

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: FDW777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 11:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: ‎OgamD218 (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/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

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

07:42, 19 March 2021 Reverts to add text in contravention of RFC result

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)

Notified

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The RFC was closed stating there was general consensus for inclusion, but with the specific caveat stating However, the exact wording and precisely how to present the information, such as how or whether to contrast it with her denial, has not yet been determined and can still be discussed. The first hasty addition by another editor was reverted citing that exact caveat, yet it was ignored completely and restored without any attempt at discussion. This editor has a history of tendentious editing in the Troubles area, see for example the discussion at Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army#Terrorist Designation, especially the sub-section at Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army#"No, all of my edits were originally fully referenced and accurately represented". FDW777 (talk) 11:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning ‎OgamD218

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 ‎OgamD218

It appears this has been resolved favorably, which I'm grateful for, but feel I should get several facts on the record:

- The Good Faith policy was abused by FDW who outright lied in their report. I ask admins to please look more closely at the background of this, incl the RfC and ANI discussion by CeltBrowne. No major dispute existed, general consensus for inclusion = every editor disagreed with FDW from the start, so they dragged things out for weeks, Stonewalling, filibustering and using other bad faith tactics.

- The edit i restored wasn't made "in haste", this is a lie, it was in the RfC.

- FDW made a false report under a false basis, the issues here have nothing to do with The Troubles, FDW uses threats of sanctions for breaching the 1RR to bully other editors even in instances where it shouldn't apply.

- I don't have a history of tendentious editing in the Troubles area, this lie is easily exposed by reading the 2-3 neutral edits I made that outraged FDW.

- FDW does have a history of tendentious editing in the Troubles area, in addition to this incident specifically, the PIRA page linked was denied GAN by Peacemaker67 bc, referring to FDW, it is clear that my concerns about the article meeting criteria #4 Neutrality (regarding sectarianism), will not be addressed by the nominator. In over 350 Good Article nomination reviews, I have never struck such a level of intransigence from a nominator when a serious concern has been raised about an article.

- The tactics FDW used here and uses regularly should be addressed. I ask the admims here to please look more closely at this, as pointed out by Dennis Brown - 2¢ Unless I'm missing something, what took place was exactly the opposite of what is being claimed here. OgamD218 (talk) 07:38, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sunrise

To be clear, as the one who wrote the text being quoted, the statement is not intended to imply that the information has to remain out of the article until agreement on the text is reached. It may also be relevant to note that this AE request follows the opening of an ANI discussion by a different editor. Sunrise (talk) 15:45, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nil Einne

I'm not involved and don't wish to be involved in this dispute in any way. But as I pointed out at ANI, it might IMO be acceptable for FDW777 to revert an addition if they had started a discussion explaining why they feel the addition was a problem and preferably suggesting how it needs to be improved. I might even agree that while that discussion was ongoing, the text shouldn't have been re-added. But with the RfC, FDW777 cannot IMO just revert an addition and demand others start a discussion. While I normally think disputes where both party are demanding the other start a discussion rather than being the one to start one themselves, are silly, in this case the ball is clearly in FDW777's court to start a discussion. Any addition seems to be trying to fulfill the consensus achieved and therefore can be taken as an improvement not explicitly needing discussion. If FDW777 feels the proposed addition is a problem they need to explain why, rather than expecting someone else to explain why there needs to be a change as we have already established the that. Nil Einne (talk) 09:37, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning ‎OgamD218

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

It seems like the re-addition of the content following the RfC is justifiable, per Sunrise's comment above. I skimmed through the linked talk page discussions; while there might be some OR/SYNTH issues, it seems like the related content disputes need additional outside participation and/or dispute resolution. In the absence of diffs showing inexcusable tendentious behavior, I don't see a need for sanctions at this time. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 18:46, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not only does it seem appropriate, but the edit summary "consensus has been reached that this merits inclusion, but you're more than welcome to make appropriate edits as to wording and other details" would seem to say they were open to others tweaking it and not taking a hard line on the prose. Unless I'm missing something, what took place was exactly the opposite of what is being claimed here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:53, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is a bit tricky as it involves a BLP where (according to the talk page) the subject has denied being a former member of a particular party, but sources say she was and the RfC says she was. My quick look did not find a source with the denial, but if it was strongly expressed the denial would need highlighting and the RfC would be faulty. If the current text (OgamD218 11:05, 19 March 2021: McDonald stated she had been "in the wrong party"...) is correct, the denial might be disregarded. Regardless of all that, FDW777 needs to accept they are outnumbered and should follow the RfC until a new discussion focusing on the denial overrules the current wording. The current wording agrees with the RfC. I would close this as no action. Johnuniq (talk) 03:57, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nableezy

Nothing new has been presented as evidence, and the events given have already been reviewed by the community as a whole. Timothy is basically appealing the outcome of an ANI discussion, but the rationale is simply that he didn't like the outcome. Since he has not provided us with a substantiated conflict, mistake or other fatal flaw in the close, it would be inappropriate for us to review. In fact, this is simply a second bite of the apple. As such, the appeal should be denied. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:55, 20 March 2021 (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 Nableezy

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: TimothyBlue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 23:30, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Nableezy (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/Palestine-Israel articles 4

I believe this is the appropriate and latest version of AE sanctions for Palestine-Israel articles

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

Per "You may also link to an archived version of long discussions instead of supplying very many diffs" I link to this ANI discussion [205]. It contains an abundance of diffs and comments, and the recent discussions on this talk page [206]

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

[207]

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I write this reluctantly as I've largely decided to leave, but I returned this afternoon to see if anyone had closed the recent ANI thread here. I expected no action, but to my surprise Wikieditor19920 had received a topic ban and Nableezy had received a "final warning". I definitely do not believe a "final warning" is adequate given the entire situation and that this is a DS area, and I cannot see how this outcome is anywhere near equitable. Wikieditor19920 may well merit a topic ban given the entirety of the circumstances, but for them to receive a topic ban while Nableezy skates away with a warning is beyond believable (but it does validate my thinking about the dysfunctional mess at ANI).

Yesterday I was planning to post to AE for a review and was waiting for the ANI thread to close because I've seen AE requests rejected because of an open ANI, but several admins had seen multiple editors requests to close and move to AE and not taken action and the situation continued to get worse. I came to the conclusion this entire mess was a waste of time, no one was taking the mater seriously and walked away. But because I think this is an inadequate and inequitable outcome, I am requesting the conduct of Nableezy be reviewed by AE. That the ANI report was allowed to spiral out of control (again) is absolutely inexcusable; its outrageous editors cannot expect orderly civil discussions at ANI.

I think AE needs to consider the discussions as a whole to determine if DE/TE is a problem. I ask that the discussion at ANI and at Talk:Arab states–Israeli alliance against Iran as the most recent be examined in this regard. If Nableezy's editing is acceptable, this should be made clear to all; if it is not acceptable, it merits a topic ban since this is a DS area. If Wikipedia allows a Lord of the Flies atmosphere to reign, they will get editors that thrive in this type of environment and will continue to lose editors that want an orderly civil atmosphere to build and improve.

One final note: If you look at their user page you will see the collapsed section "A trip down memory lane". Along with the comment here You can consider me perpetually aware of the sanctions lol., AE should consider why this is posted if there is a message and attitude here about ANI and AE. // Timothy :: talk 23:30, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

User talk:Nableezy#Notice of Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard discussion

Discussion concerning Nableezy

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 Nableezy

I already received a logged warning for all this. And I acknowledged how thin the ice I skate on is, and I acknowledged my own shortcomings both in that ANI and in past edits. Not sure what else I am supposed to add here. I dont think Ive done anything wrong at Talk:Arab states–Israeli alliance against Iran, Timothy has been upset that I decline to wait a month to remove what even he agrees is material that fails verification. Our standards for content get more stringent in contested areas, not more lax, and the idea that we should retain potentially false material for a month doesnt have any policy basis and so I declined to follow that plan. I dont see how linking to an entire talk page is useful either in showing problematic conduct, but if there is some specific diff there that somebody would like me to address please let me know. nableezy - 23:41, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, to preempt any editor in this topic area who thinks they are doing me a favor by chiming in here, kindly dont. Obviously I cant say that to anybody who wishes to jump in to support a ban. nableezy - 23:50, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Huldra

TimothyBlue: You really need to post some diffs here, preferably some diffs that hasn't come up before (and which gave Nableezy a logged warning.) I believe Double jeopardy still holds? Huldra (talk) 23:53, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nil Einne

I agree with those who suggest it is problematic to ask for a different outcome at AE than one that was achieved at ANI from the same evidence. But also, what I saw at ANI is that in a short space of time, TimothyBlue went from supporting a topic ban of both, to then supporting the eventual outcome, to now demanding action against nableezy again. There's nothing wrong with that but TimothyBlue surely you can provide some diffs from those 2 days or so when you came to your final conclusion rather than expecting people to read a very long ANI etc to find whatever it is that lead to that conclusion. I mean what's the point of people reading stuff from the part which would lead the your middle conclusion i.e. in support of the outcome you are now unhappy about? Nil Einne (talk) 12:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zaathras

Hello, just an observer. As an ardent, personal supporter of Israel I have hesitated to toe-dip into articles in the topic area, but have read some of these debates with interest, including the WP:ANI. I boldly removed the filer's closing of the WP:ANI discussion as a rather naked conflict-of-interest, was surprised to see it went unchallenged until (properly) re-closed by an administrator. I have never to my knowledge interacted with Nableezy, and I must say this Enforcement filing smacks of vexation. The matter was settled there. Zaathras (talk) 14:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Nableezy

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

I am unconvinced that the best way of resolving a long and contentious ANI discussion is to open an AE discussion that will inevitably end up being an extension of it. Also, given this ("Nableezy it looks like you won. Congrats, run wild, have fun. Its sad for Wikipedia your tactics have won") it looks a bit like trying to get different admins to impose a sanction because the first one didn't. Black Kite (talk) 00:08, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Like Black Kite, this feels to me like asking the other parent. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 02:05, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I made four comments in the lengthy ANI discussion and I am sorry that at least one of those should have been expressed more clearly to indicate that I was talking about activity by the regulars on the article talk page, not the comments by participants in the ANI discussion, and not the comments by TimothyBlue. I still think that Talk:Arab states–Israeli alliance against Iran#Morocco shows standard procedure and no battlegrounding. I haven't examined all of the over 100K bytes of text since that section started but the key point is that I cannot see an answer to Nableezy's initial (and very polite) question about whether there is a source supporting the very strong claim that Morocco is a member of an allianceagainst Iran. Again, I haven't examined the 100K bytes but at least the initial discussion shows model behavior from Nableezy and misguided suggestions from others that support sources which plainly fail verification. El_C closed ANI with the appropriate result and this request should be closed in 24 hours if there are no precise details of a problem that was not addressed by El_C. Johnuniq (talk) 04:18, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

[3] Dickson, Caitlin (2021-05-01). "Exclusive: Pandemic relief aid went to media that promoted COVID misinformation". Microsoft News. Yahoo! News. Retrieved 2021-02-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

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