Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

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

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

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

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

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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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Before commenting, please familiarise yourself with the referenced ArbCom case. Please also read all the evidence (including diffs) presented in the AE request.
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PCPP

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

Request concerning PCPP

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: —Zujine|talk 07:29, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: PCPP (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Indefinite Wikipedia:TBAN#Topic_ban on Falungong

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

PCPP has an extensive history of problematic editing, most of which appears on Falungong pages, though he occasionally displays similar tendencies on other pages related to China. His point of view is distinctly non-neutral, and he seeks ever to try to diminish criticisms of the Communist Party of China, to highlight criticisms of Falungong, and delete content that depicts the suppression of Falungong by the Communist Party. Everyone has a point of view, of course, but PCPP pursues his in a uniquely disruptive and tendentious way characterised by edit waring, constant reverting and deletion of content without discussion, misleading edit summaries, and personal attacks against those who disagree with him. His user talk page is a testament to this pattern of disruptive editing; it is riddled with cease and desist requests, warnings, blocks, and temporary topic bans for his editing on Falungong-related pages. He was subject to a four-month topic ban beginning February of this year (the arbitrary request is here[1]). After a period of minimal activity, he recently returned to editing Falungong in a disruptive manner. Given his extensive history of tendentious editing, which has been documented and described at length before, I will only present evidence here of his behaviour since his last topic ban, presented in chronological order:

From May, 2011: [2] [3] PCPP twice removes sourced content from the page on the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. The content in question consisted of a very short paragraph explaining the alleged use of coercion to boost attendance numbers, cited to the New York Times. Moreover, the editor who added it had started a talk page discussion before adding the content, and explicitly asked in his edit summary that anyone who disagreed with its inclusion should discuss it on the talk page. PCPP failed to discuss the matter, and reverted it twice. Only after being asked on his user page to discuss did he chime in (not very convincingly, in my opinion), and accuse the other editor of “spreading misinformation” [4]. The other editor seemed to have given up.

September 2011: [5] In a series of edits, PCPP adds a rather large sum of content and quotes from Falungong critics, including marginal and partisan ones, and deletes information referenced to mainstream scholars on Falungong and other reliable sources. I wrote a summary of just some of these edits here[6]. In short, among the edits I summarised, PCPP misused a quotation from a reliable source, deleted three other reliable sources, inexplicably deleted a comparison of Falungong's beliefs to Buddhism, added a sensationalised paraphrasing of Falungong beliefs, highlighted the opinions of fringe critics of the group, and deleted an explanation of the Chinese government's use of the term "cult" (xiejiao) in reference to Falungong. He says nothing about any of these edits on the talk page.

I have not carefully parsed the other edits that he made in September, but from a glance they are of a similar nature. This one[7] is instructive. It deals with a paragraph about how, in 2009, judges in Argentina and Spain ruled to indict top Chinese leaders on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the persecution of Falungong. With an edit summary that states he is "summarising the response section," PCPP removed all references to genocide in the rulings. For the record, one judge described the persecution as a "genocidal strategy," and the other said that the suppression has the characteristics of a genocide. It's worth noting that PCPP was previously sanctioned for edit warring over Falungong's inclusion as a genocide/alleged genocide at List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll.

Every editor has a point of view, but most at least strive to make neutral edits, to achieve things through consensus, and engage in discussions when they find that they are in disagreement over their contributions. PCPP does not do this, and his edits consistently serve to advance a partisan perspective. What is more troubling, however, is that PCPP pursues his partisan interests unilaterally, always with minimal discussion, and with remarkable aggression toward other editors and normal editing processes. In this case, he has not allowed any other editor to edit the page; no matter how seemingly innocuous or minor, he has reverted every change.

Following the series of edits in September, editor Olaf Stephanos partially undid some of PCPP's changes to Falun Gong, adding in additional content in the process. Olaf left a note on the talk page briefly explaining his edits, at which point another editor began to engage him in discussion on one of the changes, and he responded with more elaboration. I then chimed in expressing agreement with some of Olaf's concerns and raised additional questions.

PCPP arrives and reverts the page to the last version he last edited in September.[8]. He does not participate in the talk page discussion that was ongoing.

Editor Homunculus reverted PCPP, and left a note on the talk page explaining why.

PCPP reverts again[9], accusing Homunculus of "POV pushing" in the edit summary.

Homunculus reverts a second time, asking again in his edit summary that PCPP participate in the talk page discussion before further reversions.

PCPP reverts for a third time[10]

At this point PCPP and Homunculus are discussing on the talk page. Homunculus asks PCPP to address the concerns that other editors raised regarding his changes to the page. PCPP addresses only one of these concerns very tersely, and accuses Homunculus of "trying to paint a false picture." PCPP also accuses Olaf Stephanos of being a "known [Falungong] activist". The conversation can be seen here.[11]

For the benefit of those watching the discussion, I then spent a good deal of time parsing through the changes that PCPP made to the "controversies" section of the page (again, it's here[12]) Finding that they were, on a whole, not very productive and some changes were rather inexplicable, I asked PCPP to account for these changes. I left a note on his talk page directing him to the discussion. I also pointed out that I found his comments towards other editors to be inappropriate, and asked him to stick to discussions of content rather than making accusations of bias or ad hominem attacks (particularly on the basis of other editors' religion, as in the case of Olaf).

PCPP tells me to "Go away" on his talk page and defends his personal attack against Olaf.[13]

PCPP then responds on the Falungong talk page to each of the points I raised. Failing to thread his post (annoying), he also fails to address the substance of the concerns (sometimes presenting straw man arguments or attempting to change the subject), ignores some entirely, and responds to one with a sardonic "Wow, I removed an extra word! Alert the presses!" He concludes his explanation by saying that his repeated reversions were merely "defending my right to edit Wikipedia."[14]

At last, PCPP made two minor changes at the request of another editor. As several problems remained, I proposed a middle-road solution for resolving this dispute on the talk page, and made some edits to the page accordingly. I preserved valuable information and sources that had been added, and also contributed some new sources that were representative of the issues, made some rearrangements to the order (but not substance) of some content, and removed a disputed quote. I assumed this edit would be pretty non-controversial, and then…

PCPP reverts for the fourth time, though a series of eight consecutive edits.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Once again, he does not discuss his changes on the talk page. And once again, his changes serve to advance the views of the Falungong's critics, and to diminish the views of neutral experts on Falungong religion (particularly with respect to the representations of Falungong's organisation). Other edits that he made here seem like reversions for the sake of it, because evidently, he is the only person who may edit the page.

When PCPP does engage in the talk page to account for his rather substantial changes, he leaves only a terse note accusing me of deception.[23]

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

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is PCPP's first foray back into editing Falungong articles since his last topic ban. The above collection of evidence should, in my view be more than enough to justify an indefinite topic ban (4 reverts, almost no discussion, no substantive response to legitimate questions, and plenty of accusations of bad faith and personal attacks). But just in case anyone believes it is insufficient, I would remind those reviewing the case that he has an extensive history of disruptive editing. After his last topic ban he should have mended his ways, yet this most recent exchange demonstrates that his propensity for tendentious, aggressive editing, and his penchant for repeated reversions with little or no discussion has not been rectified. His MO has changed slightly; where previously he would only delete content, this time around he has taken to a combination of deletion things he doesn't like and adding other material to advance his POV. Yet his approach to the community, to other users, his disregard for good faith discussion, and his willingness to edit war and accuse others are unchanged. As sanctions are intended to be preventative, and PCPP has not changes his editing habits, it can only be expected that he will continue editing in the disruptive manner described here. I would also note that, before his return, the Falungong article was stable, and the involved editors had been able to work together with minimal conflict to greatly improve it. PCPP's presence marked the return of incivility, and leads to a toxic environment where no consensus is possible, and no other editors may contribute to the page without being summarily reverted by PCPP. I would recommend a permanent topic ban, possibly extending to a community-wide ban.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[24]

Discussion concerning PCPP

Statement by PCPP

I find this particular AE request completely unwarranted and in bad faith. Fact is, from February of this year until October, I have not even touched once Falun Gong related article. In the few disputes that I had, I actively engaged with the users on the talk page with civilty, such as a nationalistic content dispute on the China-Korea relations article [25] and asked for admin advise on guidelines referring to article content [26].

To address Zujine's allegations:

1)I only edited the Expo 2010 article twice, with many weeks in between. Homunculus insisted in adding critical information regarding attendence in the main article, when in fact a separate article already exist for the very purpose, with the very same information, as several other editors had pointed out.

2)Everything I added to the FLG article in September were sourced to reliable sources, and a good faith attempt to introduce alternate perspectives. I have not "deleted information related to mainstream scholars", as Zujine claimed. The previous version's controversy section frankly does not follow article guidelines, where FLG's controversies were portrayed as being manufactured by the PRC government, ie an opening critical statement gets dismissed with two supportive statements. I rewrote the section so that the particular controversy gets noted, and highlighted both perspectives without favoring one or another, as any "controversy" section should.

I find Zujine's so called "breakdown" [27] of my edits rather hostile in nature. He makes a big deal over the fact that I summarized a sentence from "mainstream religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism" to "mainstream religions such as Christianity and Islam". Furthermore, in regards to a statement sourced to the New York Times, he keeps claiming that the author's statements are "imflamatory" while demanding primary evidence linking to FLG lectures, which clearly violates original research policies.

3)For that particular edit, I simply summarized the previous paragraphs, replaced the FLG source with a mainstream report, and drew attention to the fact these lawsuits are, as admitted by FLG themselves, to be largely symbolic and that no arrests are likely to be made. Furthermore, going by the original article, User:Homunculus was warned [28] for misintepreting the source article and stating that the Chinese officials were "found guilty", when they were simply indicted.

4)In contray to Zujine's claims, Olaf's October 17 revert [29] restored the original "controversy" section, removing everything I added, and did not "add in additional content", as Zujine claims. In the talk page, he made several ad hominem attacks on the author, claiming that he's "very partisan" and a "mouthpiece for the CCP" [30]. Later, he also tried to introduce personal anecdotes as a practitioner as "evidence" [31].

5)As for Homunculus, he added fuel to the fire by reverting two additional times [32][33]. In the talk page, he accused me of violating WP:BLP and WP:UNDUE, and "removing content" [34], despite the fact that this article isn't coved by WP:BLP, and my additions were the ones being removed. In my opinion, he believes that his reverts are justified as "right" reverts , while mine are "wrong" reverts, and even asked an admin to restore the page to his "right" version [35]

6)I simply referred to Olaf as a "known activist" and a valid COI concern, which is based on his previous case [36], in which he was banned for 6 months and the closing admin noted "He also rather often indicates that he is a practicioner of the movement, indicating a very realistic WP:COI concern".

7)Zujine's October 23 edits were actually a partial revert, [37], in which he restored numerous paragraphs in the controversy section to the previous version, and deleted the NYT article while a discussion was going on.

I find Zujine and Homunculus's behavior hard to work with, especially their partisan attitudes in this very request accusing me of trying to "diminish criticisms of the Communist Party of China." The fact is, I have tried to engage in discussions under tremendous stress, and even tried to introduce some outside opinions via RFC. I feel that no sufficient consensus has been demonstrated due to the lack of editors.

Going by the numerous issues in the past, the Falun Gong articles are highly controversial, and almost devoid of neutrality despite numerous attempts in the past at mediation. I do not enjoy editing these articles at all, and would have gladly left upon even the smallest editorial oversight. I edit these article on a vain but good faith attempt to improve its neutrality issues and provide a balanced POV. However I feel that these Zujine and Homunculus are deliberate hounding me based on my editing history on the Falun Gong pages, showing up in every dispute I've had in the past year and taking the opposite POV, and willingly engaging in reverts wars, based on the perspective that they're "right" and I'm "wrong", and that somehow I'm trying to advance the causes of the CCP. Almost all the time I find that my edits getting merciless reverted by these two, causing me endless distress in real life. I do not enjoy in edit warring, but am simply defending my right to edit the FLG articles without these two showing up every moment and undoing everything.--PCPP (talk) 18:11, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning PCPP

Homunculus

I participated in the previous AE against the user, and as nothing has changed, I am pasting my previous comment below my assessment of the current situation. I think it summarizes my feelings well. With respect to recent events, in particular, I would like to draw attention to the following:

In case it was going to affect the results of this case, when I reverted PCPP's unilateral changes to the page here[38], I left a note on the talk page indicating my reasoning, and suggested that some of the content PCPP had included material may have violated WP:BLP, which would justify a summary revert. In fact I had misread the source of a guideline another editor had posted as evidence of why not to include some of PCPP's content. The guideline was from actually from WP:RS, as I later realized, and not from WP:BLP (although it included mention of the sensitivity of accurately quoting living persons). Had the policy been WP:BLP, I understand that any number of reverts to PCPP would have been justified, but this not being the case, I ask observers to disregard that part of my talk page comment.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that the three editors who reverted or partially reverted PCPP all did so with an explanation on the talk page. The other two editors (other than myself, that is), did not engage in wholesale reverts but selective ones, and Zujine in particular was attempting to find an agreeable resolution that retained worthwhile sources added by PCPP. By contrast, PCPP has effectively changed the page five times (including his edits in September), and never once voluntarily participated in talk page discussion to explain these edits in good faith.
I would note as well that PCPP has a tendency to attempt to distract from legitimate discussions of content with accusations of bad faith sometimes escalating to personal attacks, attempts to portray other editors as biased, and when pressed, specious or straw man arguments to justify his page contributions.
Finally, a note that (aside from vandals and sockpuppets) I do not think I have encountered other editors on Wikipedia with whom I have been unable to reach a quiet or even begrudging resolution, if not a consensus. On Falun Gong pages in particular, for the last year or so I have found the climate to be generally civil and constructive when PCPP is not around. When he is around, the pages become a battle ground that is extremely unpleasant to work in. There is an unfortunate feature that has characterized Falun Gong pages in the past (dating back to before I was around). That is, the propensity to group editors into either pro- or anti-Falun Gong, as judged by which side of an imagined "middle ground" position they fall on, and to then seek to discredit their contributions on the basis of a perceived bias (the middle ground, as judged by Wikipedia editors like PCPP, is not neutral at all, but instead is the median point between scholarly and NGO consensus on Falun Gong and the perspective of the Communist Party). If these pages are to continue being civil, reasonable environments, it is necessary to judge the substance of edits, not the suspected bias of the people making them. PCPP has accused every editor with whom he disagrees with possession of a pro-Falun Gong bias, because he is unable to engage in substantial conversation. It is worth noting that none of the editors involved here have reciprocated these accusations of bad faith, and have consistently attempted to engage with content.

Here are my comments from the previous AE case:

Personally I find all this very unsavory. But I am involved, so I should probably speak up. In my various interactions with PCPP, I have tried to hold my tongue and avoid accusations of bad faith. This is not because I have the slightest regard for this individual, though, or for his intentions. I have encountered this editor on several articles related to either Communist Party history or Falun Gong, and have found him to be exclusively concerned with massaging the image of the Communist Party and maligning Falun Gong, in spite of any facts that may stand in the way. I cannot recall one instance in which he contributed in a productive way, let alone an objective way, to these articles. He mainly deletes content, and when challenged, he is typically unable to offer a reasonable defense for doing so. He does make numerous weak attempts to justify his edits, consuming much time; his recent reverts on List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll is a good example of how he’ll delete with one excuse, and when it is shot down, he will simply embrace another justification for deletion, and another, and another... By the end, he is arguing that Falun Gong should not be on a list of genocides because the National Endowment for Democracy is an American propaganda agency, or because David Ownby has not said it is a genocide (even though Ownby states that he is not an expert on the human rights issues related to Falun Gong, but instead on the religious and historical context surrounding it). It's exhausting. As inhumane as it may be, my problem is not with this editor’s ideological bias per se. Nor do I care that he has recently taken to accusing me of bad faith. My problem is with the means he uses to advance his point of view, which include blanket and repeated reversions without discussion, editing against consensus, leveling personal attacks against editors who disagree with his aggressive behavior, misrepresenting sources, cloaking controversial edits under innocuous edit summaries, and deleting anything that does not comport with his view of the world. I can imagine that cognitive dissonance is a difficult thing to live with. It’s hard to accept that Mao Zedong is not a saint, and that innocent people are victimized by the Communist Party. But I would recommend that the best way to cope is to try accepting facts, rather than deleting them from wikipedia in a vain and annoying attempt to shape the world to accord with one’s personal beliefs. Asdfg was concerned that in filing this request for arbitration, PCPP would attempt to distract from his own behavior by drawing attention to Asdfg’s history. I was prepared to file this request in his stead, because I do not want the conversation to be derailed. I have wasted enough time unpacking the specious arguments that PCPP offers to support his indefensible position on these topics. Homunculus (duihua) 22:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

A final note: I just saw PCPP's statement. I don't have time to dissect it, but would exhort observers to read the relevant discussions in full; it is time-consuming, but can be more instructive than referring to a list of diffs. Real life awaits. Homunculus (duihua) 18:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A response to Quigley: Reiterating what I said above, I would again ask that administrators reviewing this case carefully read the discussions that have been highlighted, rather than only the summaries given, as the latter may be somewhat misleading. In the instance of PCPP's edits to the 2010 Shanghai Expo, Quigley writes that I alone argued for the inclusion of the sentence on attendance numbers. This was not the case; the only uninvolved editor who weighed in during that RfC (that is, the only person with no history of editing pages related to the PRC) actually agreed with me, not PCPP, as Quigley claimed. Ultimately I gave up, and the page remains a POV fork to this day. But that content dispute is not what's at issue here; the problem with PCPP's behavior in that case was that I started a talk page discussions explaining the decision to include the content and asking those who disagree to discuss it. PCPP reverted twice before participating in those discussions, only chiming in after I asked him to on his talk page. As to Quigley's suggestion that PCPP is not a unilateral editor and that he does not break consensus, I would refer back to the last AE that was brought against him, in which he was found to repeatedly revert content against consensus. The fact that his talk page is littered with warnings and sanctions is not evidence that he is being martyred; it is evidence that he has a serious problem editing Falun Gong pages. His behavior in this case speaks for itself. PCPP makes extensive changes to a previously stable page, and does not discuss it. When another editor raises concerns and undoes some of his changes, PCPP reverts and does not discuss it. When I ask for discussion and revert back, PCPP reverts again without discussion. When Zujine tries to achieve a middle ground and explains his reasons for doing so, PCPP reverts again, making even more changes, and does not discuss them. When he is pressed for explanations, he accuses other editors of malice, and when he is asked to refrain from personal attacks, he responds with "go away." This is what makes his behavior tendentious—it's not simply that he edits while discussions are ongoing.Homunculus (duihua) 03:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Olaf Stephanos

I have been involved with these pages on and off for the past 5-6 years. During this period of time, the pages have undergone huge changes, and their balance has been periodically altered by people who have sought to advance their own ideological agenda. Having a post-graduate background in cultural studies and comparative religion, I have been pleased with many editors' willingness to search for highest quality sources and engage in scrutinous, policy-compliant discussion on the talk page. Unfortunately, PCPP has not been one of these editors. Ever since he appeared a few years ago, his struggle to whitewash the Communist Party's human rights violations and create a tabloid style "exposé" of Falun Gong has been highly disconcerting for a large number of Wikipedians. The active group of editors has varied over the years, but no matter who they have been, the people who stand in favour of a scholarly, well-sourced and encyclopaedic article have been frustrated by PCPP's ideological edit warring, lack of reasoning, overall inability to discuss his modifications, and outright dismissal of sound arguments. The above editors (Homunculus and Zujine) were not at all involved in the fierce debates and arbitration cases that I went through several years ago, but I am in no way surprised that they seem to have formed an equally negative impression of PCPP and his misdeeds. Considering that PCPP has already been topic banned for several months and has apparently not learned his lessons, I leave it up to the arbitrators to decide whether he is capable of editing this group of articles at all. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 14:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will briefly comment on how OhConfucius seeks to discredit me below. Firstly, the articles in their present state do not contain a single sentence added by me. Secondly, I have always, always insisted on scholarly sources, preferably peer-reviewed journals. I don't remember ever adding anything from Clearwisdom or the Epoch Times; correct me if I'm wrong. Thirdly, I have a degree of academic competence in this area, and that certainly qualifies me as someone who can and should take part in editing these articles. Fourthly, my discussions on the talk page have been scrutinous and intelligent, and I have apologized for and refrained from the sarcasm and occasional incivility that lead into my ban more than two years ago. My main interest is in editing Falun Gong related pages on this encyclopedia, but I hope you can recognize that a spiritual believer is capable of making valuable contributions to pages on their religion, just as a Chinese person has unique insight in and may exclusively concern themselves in editing pages related to China. I hope that my personal beliefs will not be used as an ad hominem means of discrediting me, as that would seem to be in contravention with WP:NPA. I have not edit warred or engaged in disruptive behaviour, and my discourse is academic. Fifthly, this arbitration enforcement case is not about me. It has been initiated by editors who are not Falun Gong practitioners and were not involved in our previous grudges. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 15:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find your attitude towards me rather condescending. My edits alone shows that they're not simply limited FLG articles, as you claim, and in no way had try to "whitewash" the CCP nor "expose" FLG. Furthermore, presenting yourself as a having "degree" means little as far edits are concerned, considering the anonmity of the internet and the Essjay scandal.--PCPP (talk) 18:21, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ohconfucius

Olaf lacks all credibility. He is a self-admitted Falun Gong practitioner who constantly wikilawyers for acceptability of sources favourable to the FLG cause, and tries to disqualify or otherwise remove those that are even remotely critical, yet he has the temerity to say he stands "in favour of a scholarly, well-sourced and encyclopaedic article", and accuse PCCP of attempting to "advance their own ideological agenda". Olaf himself is a strong advocate for Falun Gong, and one of the movement's most durable contributors; he seems incapable of accepting any position about Falun Gong other than what emanates from Clearwisdom or Epoch Times. An examination of his contributions history shows Olav is solely interested in Falun Gong articles. Over the years, he has aided and abetted other radicals such as Dilip rajeev (talk · contribs) and asdfg12345 (talk · contribs) in turning the family of articles into glossy brochures for the movement. Olaf has not made any demonstrable attempt at integrating or interacting with the community at large, except at Arbcom-related venues, where he himself has been topic-banned for six months. His comments should be looked at in context. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you don't mind my commenting on your comment here, and I also hope that this does not distract further from the issue at hand, which is PCPP's disruptive behaviour. Both you and PCPP have attempted to use Olaf's "self-admitted Falun Gong practitioner" status to discredit him. PCPP takes this a step further, claiming that Olaf is a self-declared Falungong activist (I have not seen Olaf claim to be an activist. Maybe PCPP can direct me to it?). As I pointed out to PCPP before[39], this might be construed as a personal attack ("using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views"). I think it's a fine line. In my view, it is not necessarily a COI for an editor belonging to a particular religious group to edit articles on their religion, as long as they strive for neutrality, adhere to policy, and are able to work collaboratively; in fact, it seems religious adherents are encouraged to participate to ensure the articles on their respective religions are fair. (The same holds for people of a given ethnicity, nationality, etc.) Olaf on his user page appears to declare that he practices Falungong. Whether or not you think this is a potential conflict of interest, WP:COI states that "When someone voluntarily discloses a conflict of interest, other editors should always assume the editor is trying to do the right thing. Do not use a voluntarily disclosed conflict of interest as a weapon against the editor." Doing so contributes to incivility on these pages, and takes us away from the task of improving them. This is as much directed to you as PCPP. Thanks. —Zujine|talk 16:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I might refer you to Olaf's own AE case [40]. The closing admin noted He also rather often indicates that he is a practicioner of the movement, indicating a very realistic WP:COI concern--PCPP (talk) 17:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Zujine: In reality, I am much happier dealing with people who lay their cards on the table, rather than those who do so whilst under some hidden agenda. I did not "attempt to use Olaf's 'self-admitted Falun Gong practitioner' status to discredit him"; his own actions do that in sufficient measure. I was merely pointing out the facts, so that the admins don't take Olaf's comments at face value. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Olaf: Please read my comment again. I never accused you of any of those specific points you eagerly rushed to defend yourself against. You continue to lawyer, skate, and obfuscate. Were I in your shoes, I too would probably consider PCPP a thorn in my side, and wish to be rid of him so that I could further my agenda of spreading "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance" [sic]. I would also probably harbour a silent admiration of his tenacity which must equal that of the most resilient FLG advocate who has ever passed through Wikipedia, although I might never admit it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you didn't. Just to get things right: the closing admin had nothing to say about a COI. It was John Carter, an editor/administrator who was heavily involved in the Falun Gong content disputes at the time and who wrote a comment as an ordinary editor. ~~Please check your references before you rush headlong into quoting your candidate.~~ (It wasn't OhConfucius but PCPP who misattributed the quote both in his own statement and above. I apologise.) Of course, the fact that John Carter seems interested in atheistically oriented topics [41] would, by the same problematic reasoning, present a "very realistic COI" in matters related to spiritual beliefs. I would never dare to make such allegations. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 09:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I never mentioned COI, and I'm truly baffled by the above comment. Whether I am "rush[ing] headlong into quoting [my] candidate" or not, I'll happily let others be the judge. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:39, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I run into an edit conflict with you when I was correcting my mistake above. It was PCPP whose signature I missed in between the comments. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 09:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't just Carter. I would remind all that Olav's 'efforts' were also criticised by Shell Kinney (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – respected admin and former Arb. As to your "Of course you didn't", I'll leave others to interpret it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't look to me like Shell Kinney was being especially critical. It looked like Olaf was asking him for guidance and clarification, and Shell provided it. Ironically, Olaf asked whether he will forever be haunted by the sanction that was brought against him two years ago, regardless of any steps he takes to remedy his behaviour. I appears he has his answer; one would think this was an arbitration request against Olaf. Let me remind everyone that it is not.—Zujine|talk 05:09, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dilip rajeev's own tendentiousness and disruption are a matter of record – his antics at Sathya Sai Baba and at the collected family of Falun Gong articles would have earned him an indefinite site ban had it not been for the intervention of SilkTork (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) and Jayen466 (talk · contribs). It would have been characteristic of Dilip to wade right in and instantly be at loggerheads with PCPP, if not for the noticeable change in his behaviour since the case, and the non-binding supervised editing agreement he entered into. He continues to make unsavoury accusations against me, and send my private emails asking me why I make "hatred inducing statements against a group of peaceful, innocent people being tortured to death for no reason".
On the other hand, I have a track-record of producing articles of quality concentrated on but not exclusively about China. I am particularly proud of my contributions to July 2009 Ürümqi riots and Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident. I have nothing against Falun Gong; what I object to is their insistence on blind advocacy and proselytism. The Falun Gong movement is, as has been noted by scholars and experts as well as other commentators, inordinately sensitive to criticism. Thus, if by 'hatred of Falun Gong', Dilip means not being afraid of inserting negative material about the movement to produce a balanced article, then I am guilty as charged, M'lud. I am also guilty of strongly disliking the FLG practitioners and apologists who edit the article as they have made my life there a misery on WP – it shouldn't be like that at all. It is absolutely true this problem is chronic. In January 2010, having tolerated a very hostile ambience since July 2007, I succumbed. I could not take any more of the stresses of personal attacks and continuing to buttress the loyal blind advocacy, proselytism and whitewashing of the Falun Gong. I was able to walk away from the subject area as I was completely free of any personal interest in the group or the subject. In summary, what I am saying is that FLG 'supporters' here need to examine their own actions. And if PCPP is to be sanctioned over this, then admins need to be even-handed in dealing with the other parties in this dispute. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OC, On my talk you make a post saying you appreciate the gesture of friendship. What was unsavory in my mail? You have been repeatedly[preemptive-ly?] attacking me here before I even made any statement here. The last email[one of the two in the past few years] interaction with you ended with you posting on my wall saying: "Thank you for your email with the link[42], and for trying to patch things up. I sincerely appreciate the gesture. However, I really have no interest in further continuing the Falun Gong saga in any way, shape or form. Forgive me for not replying to you by email, but I am not interested in continuing any such discussion with you on- or off-WP."[43]. And then you come and attack me here on this discussion with no apparent reason, as if you are a completely different person. In another instance, you made a ridculing post with apparent research on my personal life on my wall [44] and attacking me the basis of "things" you dug up online. And when I asked you why after a few weeks, you said you had no memory of doing it and repeatedly blanked my posts on your wall. A mail I wrote to you yesterday, the second interaction with you in the past few years, was on friendly and kind terms, I believe. People are not pro or anti, and other editors here are not the "opposite" of PCPP, an "opposite" whom you claim must be settled as well if action is taken against disruptive patterns of the user under scruitny. PCPP has been engaging continually in disruption, as partially documented here:[45] and above. The question here is how to deal with them. My contributions have been sourced always to western academia, etc. Please take a look at PCPP's edits, before saying thing like he is the last "vanguard" of something here: [46]

Dilip rajeev (talk) 04:57, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa, you all have a complicated history with each other. Unless it's relevant to this discussion, you might want to consider taking it offline for now. Just a suggestion.Homunculus (duihua) 05:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry. I have said all I wanted to say, and had no intention of adding anything further. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with Colipon, and would gladly offer myself up for an indefinite topic ban. If they do topic ban us all, it'll be highly symbolic message that there is zero tolerance of religious devotees and sceptics trying to disrupt wikipedia and drive coaches and horses through WP:NPOV through repeated lawyering, tendentious editing, edit warring, incivilities and personal attacks. If they don't the only solution would be to lock down the articles permanently. Topic bans for all wouldn't need to go back to Arbcom. But do they have the guts... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect to SilkTork, whom I admire greatly for his efforts in Wikipedia, I believe that he is naive in his belief insofar as this concerns religious devotees, particularly Falun Gong ones. Of course, we know of various problematic areas in WP, from climate change to Scientology to other arenas where strong advocacy is known to be present. Each one of these cries out for admin "supervision", but invariably flares up repeatedly; none is ever a long-term solution. Let us not forget that FLG articles have been under arbcom purview since before I got involved with these; problems recur like the summer rain or the winter snow. ST said he doesn't mind doing it, if nobody is prepared to step forward, but I see from his talk page that he already has his plate rather full, and often does not respond to posts in a timely manner. Also, we must seriously consider if we going down the route of placing peacekeepers in each potential war-zone? Not only does ST's proposal stretch the resources of Admins thinly, it also stretches the defined scope of their work to breaking point in favour of one group of problematic editors and not others, to the extent that WP can be accused of being more favourable to Falun Gong, compared to the global-warming deniers/anti-global-warming activists, Scientologists, or other agenda-driven editors. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Zujine, I think you have a fair point about notification and defence, but the presiding admin has not yet pronounced although has issued preliminary conclusions which are capable of being discussed further, particularly by the others to be sanctioned. You seem wholly sympathetic to FLG; I do not know if you have reviewed all the horrendous reams of article history, but the fact you were not around until quite recently means that you may have not enjoyed The Full Experience® that could potentially alienate you from the FLG as a human rights cause [always in the WP context] as it did me. The point I was trying to make by comparing FLG advocates [here on WP] to climate-change deniers was perhaps a bit lacking in the right examples. I have redacted the text above accordingly. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quigley

I am often alerted to PCPP's disputes with various Falun Gong disciples through the various RfCs he brings.[47][48][49] PCPP is not unwilling to use the talk page, but he tries to address the fact that such discussions often feature the same people, same arguments, and same personal attacks against PCPP that we see here (of his being a Communist Party stooge, etc), in ways some more polite than others.

The picture that the submitter paints of some aggressive, uncompromisable ideologue is not one that people outside of the dichotomous Falun Gong worldview usually find through interaction with PCPP. To take myself as an example, PCPP's reverts at Expo 2010 are portrayed by Zujine as having driven Homunculus away from the page. But as the two sections of expired RfC discussion show, all uninvolved commentators, including myself and excluding a Falun Gong SPA, agreed with PCPP's decision, and a substantial portion of us believed that Homunculus had manipulated the source and weight in his erstwhile addition.

The key is that PCPP is not a unilateral editor. As the last vanguard of a knowledgable perspective on Falun Gong independent of the religious and political interests that seek to bolster its image, every one of his edits are scrutinized and his talk page littered with threats, demands, and ultimatums enough to drive any user to rash editing. Yet throughout all of this, PCPP has no habit of breaking consensuses on content controversies established with the input of outsiders; in fact he tries to facilitate such consensuses through RfCs.

The limit of PCPP's "tendentious" editing is changing text while it is under discussion (most Falun Gong topics, it seems, are under perpetual discussion). Zujine can't take the moral high ground there, as he used the same tactic just a day before filing this request. The fact that Zujine and Homunculus can't interact civilly with PCPP says more about them than it does about PCPP. Quigley (talk) 01:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dilip Rajeev

As a user who has contributed significantly to these pages, and has played a major role on building articles like the Kilgour Matas Report, in my opinion, the user under scrutiny should be carefully judged based solely on the evidence presented and evidence from previous RFCs on him/her. Deviating attention from this, saying another editor is such and such - is of little or no use, unless one is trying to defend the clearly disruptive behavior for which evidence has been presented.

Even if it be the case that there are genuine concerns on other editors, we can address them in separate RFCs. In my experience with PCPP what I have experienced is repeated, whole-scale blanking of content added to pages on issues related to Chinese communist violations of human rights - which includes a lot of highly sourced content I have attempted to add to certain topics related to China. The user refuses to give any explanation, and tends to blank out info under edit summaries that mislead. To claim the user has "no habit of breaking census" is a bit of a stretch. The number of users active on these articles who have raised concerns along similar lines as the user who files this complaint isn't few. The number of RFCs raised against the user, and the evidence presented there-in is sufficient un-substantiate arguments made in support of the user, And every time cases were raised, attention was deviated from the user's disruptive patterns of editing through personal allegations raised against contributors, allegation which attack them personally, ignoring the merit of their contributions, ignoring the extent of the quality academic research that went into their contributions, and the quality of their contributions that has played a major role in making these articles reflect academia, rather than the [ communist propaganda machine]. I hope a similar attention-diversion to an impertinent debate does not happen in this thread. That the substance of the concerns raised will be objectively weighed, based on recent and old evidence, and concrete action taken, as found necessary.

Among the many articles, PCCP has worked to remove information critical of the CCP, is the [610 Office] article. Here, Quigley, an editor who supports PCPP above, entirely distorts the lead of the article 50 Cent Party, to make it sound "softer" to them and quite distorting an objective lead.

It is also to be noted that both Oconfucious and PCPP maintains hatred inducing rants against Falun Dafa, a peaceful practice for mind body cultivation, whose adherents are persecuted to death in China. Is it humane to do that? Is that what wikipedia userpages are for?

Here is a collation of evidence I had presented against PCPP on March 2010, which I request is please reviewed. A lot of evidence went unanalyzed: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&oldid=348756921#PCPP , which includes content blanking on 6-10 Office 6 times, in a short period, with no explanations given. The thread went unattended for some reason, back then.

Evidence from a previous RFC on the user under scrutiny, which went unanalyzed by other editors,.. edits which I have found to be disruptive, and hence wish to bring to the attention of this community while this RFC is on.
This entire set of evidence which document characteristic behaviour on the part of pcpp, and are all edits in the window of a few months...was entirely missed, apparently because the request wasn't filed properly: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&oldid=348756921#PCPP All edits below are in a time-window of a few months, close to March 2010: "What I present below is but a sample of such behavior, all from within the past few months, by the user. 1. Article:6-10 Office Nature of disruption:Repetitive blanking of sourced and centrally relevant material with no discussion presented.Concerns raised are ignored by the user. The below content, drawing upon one of the few sources available on the topic, has been blanked 6 times by the user since its inception into the article. "According to the 2008 Congressional Executive Commission Report on China, "Publicly available government documents detail the central role of the 6-10 Office in the persecution of Falun Gong."^[1] The report states: ""6-10 Offices throughout China maintain extrajudicial 'transformation through reeducation' facilities that are used specifically to detain Falun Gong practitioners who have completed terms in reeducation through labor (RTL) camps but whom authorities refuse to release. The term `transformation through reeducation' (jiaoyu zhuanhua) describes a process of ideological reprogramming whereby practitioners are subjected to various methods of physical and psychological coercion until they recant their belief in Falun Gong."^[1]" The diffs:[50][51][52][53][54][55]. Concerns raised regarding this behavior, on the talk page[56][57] is met with no response from PCPP, other than repeated blanking. Together with the blanking, supported by neither discussion nor edit summary, the user distorts the lead of the article. The statement sourced to Congressional Executive Report on China, 2008: “This entity was charged with the mission of overseeing and carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong, which commenced on July 22, 1999.”, is distorted by the user to “It is responsible for monitoring, studying and analyzing matters relating to Falun Gong, and recommending policy measures for against Falun Gong, and also what the government calls "heretical cults" and "harmful qigong organisations"; and for promptly notifying municipal party committees of trends and developments within "cults".”[58]. The commentary added by the user is mis-attributed and not supported by any source. 2. Article: Propaganda in the People's Republic of China Nature of disruption: Blanking of 12 paragraphs of sourced, centrally relevant material, with no discussion. Shortly following the expansion and addition of sources to Propaganda in the People's Republic of China, PCPPalmost all the content added. He offers no explanation for this act. And his edit summary runs “rv POV material.” 3. Article: Propaganda in the People's Republic of China Nature of disruption: Blanking The above was preceded by a similar blanking of content here. Before this, an editor who has continually supported, worked with, and encouraged PCPP, blanks a portion of the content added to the article[59] with an argument to the effect that its good enough for the article to remain a “catalogue.” 4. Article: Propaganda in the People's Republic of China Nature of disruption: Whole-scale blanking In the same article, the user, despite attempts to engage him in discussion, continues to blank a quarter of the article - 10K of content. He attacks the sources themselves, alleging their origin in US makes them anti-China and hence not RS. Kindly review the comments regarding this on talk:[60]. The blanking takes place in these edits: [61] 5. Article: Falun Gong Nature of Disruption: Blanking. Three paragraphs deleted with no explanation offered.[62]. 6. Article: Falun Gong Blanks almost the same content as above , this time labeling the sources “questionable” in the edit summary – no supporting discussion on talk. [63]. Concerns raised regarding this can be seen on talk of the article:[64] 7. Article: Media of the People's Republic of China Nature of Disruption: Blanking of material under a misleading edit summary Content removed in edits with misleading edit summaries: [65] 8. Article: Mass line Nature of Disruption: Repetitive addition of unsourced material and blanking of sourced content. Adds several paragraphs of unsourced content [66]. And here he reverts ( with misleading edit summaries) contributions by other editors removing well sourced and centrally relevant content[67] ( he offers no explanation for his blanking). The issue was raised here on the talk of the article: [68] 9. Article:Thought reform in the People's Republic of China 'Nature of disruption: Removes an entire section. Edit summary makes no mention of it and no discussion on talk. [69] 10. Article:List of campaigns of the Communist Party of China Comparatively minor disruptions such as repetitive changing of “Persection of Falun Gong” ( term used by academic sources, HRW, UN, Amnesty, US Congress reports, etc) to “Banning of Falun Gong”[70][71][72]. Attempts to get the user to present a rationale for his insistence on using the word “ban” can be seen here:[73] 11. Article: Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident Blanks a para while falsely claiming in his edit summary that the content he blanked is a “misattribution”:[74] 12. Attacking reliable sources on talk to justify blanking of material . The editor routinely attacks sources which do not align with his POV. Here, as a justification of his blanking of content from that source, the user attacks a Freedom House source with claims that : "a) is not a suitable academic source as most of its material relies on original research b) is from an organization funded by the US government, and the countries reported happened to be political opponents of the US c) used as such that claims made by the report is presented as factual evidence in disproportionate amounts"[75] and here he attacks a Reporters Sans Frontiers source on 'grounds' that: " A bunch of rhetorics froma CIA funded organization can hardly meet WP:RS"[76]. The user continues to blank the Freedom House material despite RS discussion[77]. The user also continually engages in personal attack on those attempting to contribute to the article. -- The above are just a few instances illustrative of the kind of the disruption the user engages in. The arguments the user presents on talk are often of a disruptive nature as well, and often invovles personal attacks on those contributing to the article. PCPP also repeatedly changes the words from sources to weaken or distort the claims they make, the case often being the latter - distortion of the perspective of the source. These edits he labels: "clarifying", "per WP:NPOV", etc.[78],[79],[80]. In all these cases, the sources said those precise words as were in the article. He provides no other explanation for the changes he makes to them. PCPP also rarely, if ever, adds any research to the articles. He focuses is often on pulling apart these articles and simultaneously discrediting the contributions of others. This behaviour of his has gone on for a long time and above are but recent instances. I request admins to kindly review PCPP's contribution history. In it is apparent a clear pattern of removal of material critical of the CCP from articles through out wikipedia. In addition, I would also like to draw attention to a systematic blanking of critical content and images on articles related to the CPP and its human rights violations which, I notice, has been happening on articles throughout wikipedia. Academic and news sources state that the Chinese Communist Party employs an army, hundreds of thousands strong, targeting Web 2.0 technologies such as Wikipedia, Twitter and youtube[81]. My intent is not to imply that editors involved in such removal of material are all directly related to the CCP, but, to point out that the presence of research and reports, which uncover such activism by CCP’s propaganda departments, makes the issue deserving of further attention of the Wikipedia Community. I humbly request a careful analysis of the issue be done, before any judgment is made on the merits of this concern I raise, and if evidence is found of such activity, the necessary steps be taken to counter it. A lot of evidence exists in Falun Gong related pages themselves. For instance, the Persecution of Falun Gong article has had almost all information regarding the persecution( sourced to Amnesty, HRW, UN CAT, Congressional Executive Reports, academic sources, etc.) , blanked from it. Blanking has been done to the point that in the lead of the article itself, it is made to seem as if this major international crisis is but a mere claim made by practitioners. I point out the issue here on talk[82] In the past, these articles have witnessed attack from self-declared propagandists such as User:Bobby_fletcher. Identified by David Kilgour, and David Matas, and articles such as the ones here: [83][ http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/article.php?id=2436], as a major online activist for the CCP, “Bobbly Fletcher” engaged in presenting CCP propaganda on talk, de-tracking discussions, removal of content from the articles, etc. His presence on Wikipedia, and his disruptive activities were continually encouraged and supported by User:PCPP, who himself, as evidence above clearly demonstrates, has blanked vast amounts of info critical of the CCP from these articles.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Editors have to be judged by the merit of their contributions. If you would kindly take time to go through edits outlined in the expandable box above, you may understand why I present them here. If I may be banned for edits dating over a year,from 2007, why is it so outrageous to present evidence just a few months old? As for maintaining what they call "rants" on their talk pages, there are strong violations of wiki policies there, including against living people. How about maintain a rant against Jews or Christians on the user page? You must know better than me what talk pages are for and are not for. For all the evidence presented here, against a particular user - the consequence is a bunch of other editors are banned for what has been stamped "POV" pushing. Their contributions have consistently been sourced to western academia, and western press. They come across as the opposite of a bunch who insists on using sources from communist party propaganda, sources which may even involve things like Dalai Lama "looting temples" and "eating babies"[ source:[84], People's Daily ]. They are for sure pushing a point of view starkly opposite to that of the so called "anti" bunch of editors, and they are doing so by virtue of insisting on sources in the western press, and western academia at large. If pushing that "POV" is a crime they stand guilty as accused. Editors who are constantly attempting to get others banned [offering them on the woodblock and whatever to make demonstrations of their "neutrality," if you could see through it, are merely desperately attempting to get a bunch of editors banned, and they will be back on socks and through other channels]. "50 cent party" is a term used by the press "pejorative" or not is a subjective thing, and depends on perceptive. What they are and what they do is what matters. The above users' comparison of groups persecuted by a regime to Scientology, etc., are not substantiated by any academic research, and conflicts with academia, and amounts to mere labels slapped here to rally opinion against people who do not align in the "POV" with communist propagandistic viewpoint. If there were evidence of strong misconduct I would have accepted a 1 year ban on myself - not for pointing out things like reverts involving blanking of 22K of sourced material, and then refusing to give any explanation, whatsoever.

The so called pro group has been, when it comes to edits, consistently insisting on use of western academia, human rights sources like Amnesty, HRW, independent experts in the field, and avoid communist party propaganda on Wikipedia. There has been another group who attempts to define themselves as the opposite of this group - and what they oppose is their insistence on the use western sources, in aligning the articles to western research - not to claims made by a Chinese propaganda apparatus, which include things like comparison to Scientology and stuff made by the same set of editors here. They have in their interactions on wikipedia, openly rallied for "war" against this "pro" group of editors. And there exist plenty evidence of their forms a cabal, making baseless accusations, opposing even sources like Amnesty, calling it a mere "advocacy group[claim from OConfucious]," slandering people like David Matas and David Kilgour ( User:PCPP ) . Of course I have opposed all that, and sometimes I have done so in a strong manner. But I have adapted my approach more and more into avoiding any conflict, with any other editor. And if for that reason you must ban me, I would rather not be contributing to a place where the rules work such.

OConfucious, PCPP, Colipon, Quigley, and a couple of others have consistently worked to attack people contributing to this pages - worked to systematically remove, and remove evidence of their removal [ through page moves, page renaming, etc.], almost all well sources content on these pages including from the most respected human rights sources in the western world. They are the ones who have an agenda - and if I hold an agenda here, it is one of aligning these pages to the western academia, and I am by no means ashed to admit it. And the evidence there of, is in my edit history. They define themselves as my "opposite" because its very same set of sources they seek push out of the article in favor of things from what has been labelled by Reporters Sans Frontiers, as the world's biggest propaganda machine. Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Colipon

I could not help it but revisit this and give you administrators some suggestions. I was involved with the article sometime in 2007 and again in 2009-10. I stopped editing all Falun Gong related articles in early 2010, much like user OhConfucius, because I could no longer stand the SPAs, edit wars, personal attacks, and lengthy sessions of ideological battles veiled as "policy" or "content" discussions. Many other editors report the same experiences.

I could not care less if you sanction user PCPP. He has edit warred. He has broken WP rules. He has exchanged personal attacks with Falun Gong supporters. He is not always civil. What have you. Ban him from the site. Or from China-related articles. In fact, ban User OhConfucius too, from editing the Falun Gong family of articles. He would probably be thankful. Hell, ban me from editing these godforsaken articles.

Let me put it out there for you that this is not a battle of Pro-Falun Gong and Anti-Falun Gong. It is merely an article that badly needs work and revisions from committed third parties who are totally uninvolved in its history, who have no emotional attachment to its content. I have been trying to put forth this suggestion since 2007, and Wiki adminstration and bureaucracy has been woefully ineffective in taking action. We've visited noticeboards, put up arbitration requests, sanctioned a slew of users, put up ANIs, and pulled all parts of wiki-bureaucracy into the storm. But nothing has been done. Why? I attribute this to the fact that most Wiki administrators know little about Falun Gong, whereas a similar case involving Scientology years earlier proved decisive because of its cultural proximity to Wikipedia's home base.

That the committed Falun Gong team of editors has come to portray this as a war of "pro" and "anti" Falun Gong is a victory for them in and of itself. Please do not be fooled. The problems on this article will not be solved until you ban all the problematic users for good, and I am even offering myself up to the chopping block just so Wikipedia can achieve NPOV on this sensitive topic. For those who say that I am an "anti-Falun Gong" editor, I hope the message is clear. I have enough faith that third-party editing to the article will achieve the same degree of neutrality that I myself have tried to achieve during my involvement there, that I am able to opt out of such an editing process altogether. Can any "pro-Falun Gong" editors say the same? I dare you to say yes so you can prove yourselves to be "neutral" parties. I hope after reading this you will get some sense of who is "right" and "wrong" in this case, and act boldly to fix this problem once and for all. Colipon+(Talk) 00:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not getting into Colipon's possible COI apart from mentioning that he is Mainland Chinese and used to state on his user page that he was formerly involved in politics. Unfortunately, this revision history is no longer available, as he requested User:Rjanag to delete his account on 17 September 2009 and restore it on the same day. [85]

However, there is one thing we have in common. I do not consider this a battle between "anti-FLG" and "pro-FLG" viewpoints either. It's a content dispute about whether mainstream scholarly accounts on Falun Gong should predominate in the article and whether due weight, per NPOV, should be given to less prominent views. That is what I stand for. The Chinese editors, including OhConfucius, you, PCPP and others, have always been mad at the fact that the sharpest pens of Western academia consider Falun Gong a harmless spiritual practice whose practitioners are being brutally terrorised by a totalitarian Communist government. You utterly dislike the fact that Falun Gong has been thoroughly researched on the field.

You, dear Colipon, have been so very involved and soaked in these content disputes that a brief look at the older archives will demonstrate how you always wanted to define the "degree of neutrality" yourself. I understand you don't want to be involved any more, and it is easy for you to demand that everyone just steps aside. If you take a look at my edit history, you'll see that I, for instance, have edited the Falun Gong family articles only five times over the past year (not counting my contributions on the talk pages). Asdfg12345, bless his retired soul, hasn't been around for ages. Previously uninvolved neutral editors, such as Zujine and Homunculus, have come in; from what I can tell, they've never practiced Falun Gong and certainly cannot be construed to have a "conflict of interest". But you're still not satisfied. The most reliable sources don't agree with your personal views. It must be terribly hard. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 08:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please check your facts. I'm about as close to the PRC philosophically and ideologically as you are. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't mean your political or ideological stance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do remember that you've expressed grief over the fact that Wikipedia relies on Western (English) academic accounts on Falun Gong. Let's not get into that discussion here. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 09:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My perennial grief, IIRC, is about picking of Prunus Cerasus. Oh and by the way, a rather famous Chinese subversive is accused of "abandoning persecuted members of the Falun Gong". --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Olaf, I am so confident that committed third-party commitment to the article will fix it, that I am willing to ban myself from editing the article. If this still makes you think I am some sort of sinister operative working for the Communist Party's propaganda department, fine. I don't really care. I'm happy not ever touching Falun Gong again. Colipon+(Talk) 13:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zujine

I am as ready as anyone to put this issue to rest and get back to regular editing, but I just want to make sure I understand proposal below. Are you saying that three editors—against whom no evidence of recent wrongdoing has been presented, and who were not given a chance to defend themselves—are being banned indefinitely? One of the Falungong editors was not involved in this AE, and has not been even been notified that he/she is being scrutinised for a ban. Is that normal? I suppose they will be in for quite a shock when they awake one day to find that they have been banned for, what, being inactive for a long time? Engaging in talk page discussions on Falungong? Only one editor has engaged in disruptive behaviour here; the others, while still SPAs, have not been disruptive; they have largely (if not entirely) confined their contributions to talk pages, from what I can tell. OhConfucius, I think a more appropriate parallel would be to compare Falungong editors to members of other historically maligned and persecuted religious groups. Jews and Bahai's, for instance. I assume the analogy you drew to climate change deniers was not a deliberate attempt to marginalise people on the basis of their religious belief, because that would not seem very conducive to a positive or welcoming editing environment.—Zujine|talk 03:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning PCPP

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

Under the authority of WP:ARBFLG#Discretionary sanctions, pending final disposition of this request, the article Falun Gong is placed under a 1RR/week restriction. All editors are restricted to one revert per rolling 168 hour period, excluding reverts of IP edits and clear vandalism. Violations of this restriction is to be dealt with by escalating blocks, starting at 24 hours. Notice of this restriction will be given on the article talk page and via editnotice.
I'll examine the request later (it's past 4AM here), but the edit warring must stop now. T. Canens (talk) 08:21, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
After reviewing the edits and this thread, I'm getting the feeling that this topic area is filled with agenda-driven accounts on both sides, and needs a thorough review.
I propose the following principles for admin discussion:
- Whether an individual edit, "pro-FLG" or "anti-FLG", is in compliance with our content policies and guidelines, such as NPOV, is usually a content question that is outside the jurisdiction of AE. Exceptions may be made for exceedingly obvious cases where no reasonable editor would have believed otherwise.
- However, a pattern of persistent pro-FLG or anti-FLG edits, especially over multiple articles and subjects, and over a long period of time, is extremely unlikely to arise out of genuine NPOV editing. Rather, such a pattern is strong evidence that the editor is either unwilling or unable to follow NPOV, and is, as such, sanctionable misconduct. T. Canens (talk) 17:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - I certainly agree with the second proposition. I largely agree with the first although think it might be put a little high. Source falsification (a common POV-pushing tactic), for instance, is a user conduct issue as well as a content issue. So are BLP violations. I think the better distinction between "individual edits" (proposition 1) and "patterns" (proposition 2) is that isolated incidents only lead to discretionary sanctions in aggravated circumstances. These are general comments: I lack the time now to wade through the extensive evidence presented at this request. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'd imagine that BLP violation and source falsification usually pass the "no reasonable editor" exception, but that is a relatively academic issue for the purposes of this case. My sense here is that the second point should be sufficient to resolve this case. T. Canens (talk) 20:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The quarreling above is entirely unhelpful and should stop immediately, or I'll lock this thread down. I'm going to review the edits over this weekend. Evidence in the form "X has consistently edited FLG-related articles to make them more favorable (less favorable) to FLG: [diff] [diff] [diff] [diff]..." (compare the "battlefield conduct" findings in WP:ARBCC) may be emailed to me, since apparently most of you cannot be trusted to do this on-wiki without doubling the size of the thread. The diffs should preferably cover a long period of time and a number of articles. T. Canens (talk) 09:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Writing up some conclusions I've reached:

Olaf Stephanos (talk · contribs): Topic banned for six months in August 2009 for POV pushing. Virtually all edits since then are related to FLG. Called an NYT writer's work "propaganda pieces for the CCP", a claim with serious BLP concerns, but does not seem to have been supported by any citation other than a vague wave to "scholarly accounts of Falun Gong."; edits have consistently made articles read more favorable to FLG and less favorable to CCP.
HappyInGeneral (talk · contribs): From Sandstein's review in an AE thread in January 2010:

As with Asdfg12345 above, the evidence submitted (especially the edit counter) and a review of his contributions indicates that, when HappyInGeneral (talk · contribs) is not making automated vandalism reverts, he edits articles with a view to making them more sympathetic to Falun Gong. Like Asdfg12345, he is also involved in edit wars on the topic, which matches the finding of a majority of arbitrators voting on the case back in 2007 ([86]). In addition, it is of great concern to me that in this very forum he is making comments ([87]) that can be reasonably read only as insinuating that those who disagree with him are agents or tools of the Chinese Communist Party. This is in direct conflict with the Committee's reminder, at WP:AFLG#Wikipedia is not a battleground, that "Use of the site for ideological struggle accompanied by harassment of opponents is extremely disruptive."

Very limited edits since topic ban. Involved in a complicated revert war in August 2010, then almost entirely dormant until October 24 of this year. I find this edit to be rather tendentious, as it is seeming pushing an agenda without any regard to the quality of the prose.

Dilip rajeev (talk · contribs): Narrowly escaped an indefinite topic ban in March 2010: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive57#Dilip rajeev. No edit since September 2011, and then suddenly awakened and commented at this AE, dumping a whole lot of material from a March 2010 (!) RfC/U against PCPP (which seems to have been inconclusive) and a couple edits from October 2010. Also makes a rather inflammatory statement ("It is also to be noted that both Oconfucious and PCPP maintains hatred inducing rants against Falun Dafa, a peaceful practice for mind body cultivation, whose adherents are persecuted to death in China. Is it humane to do that?") Previous edits generally tend to make articles read more favorable to FLG and less favorable to CCP. In June 2011, made the rather curious claim that the term "50-cent party" is not "pejorative, unofficial".
PCPP (talk · contribs): Topic banned four months in February 2011 for intensive revert warring. Another burst of reverts led to this request. Edits generally tend to make articles read more favorable to CCP/unfavorable to FLG.

This case involves a serious intractable dispute between several editors, dating back to 2007. My review convinces me that the dispute can possibly be resolvable through the usual editorial process, if the POV-pushing elements and the battleground behavior are removed. I'm also highly concerned about how several dormant editors suddenly returned to comment on this thread. To me this suggests either off-wiki canvassing, or serious battleground behavior. Neither is acceptable. This dispute has gone on long enough, and it needs to end. Judging from our experienced with timed sanctions in this area, I don't think they were very successful. The four editors listed above were all topic banned before, but all we got seems to be more of the same. Unless an uninvolved admin objects, I plan to impose the following sanctions (the minimum length below doubles the length of their most recent topic ban, except for Dilip rajeev, for whom I'm convinced that one year is the appropriate minimum considering the history):

Olaf Stephanos (talk · contribs), HappyInGeneral (talk · contribs), and Dilip rajeev (talk · contribs) are each banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to Falun Gong, broadly construed across all namespaces, for a minimum of one year. After one year, and every six months thereafter, they may apply to have this sanction reviewed at AE. They may also appeal this sanction to AE once within the next year, and may appeal to the arbitration committee at any time. The topic ban shall remain in force until it is lifted on appeal.
PCPP (talk · contribs) is banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to Falun Gong, broadly construed across all namespaces, for a minimum of eight months. After eight months, and every four months thereafter, they may apply to have this sanction reviewed at AE. They may also appeal this sanction to AE once within the next eight months, and may appeal to the arbitration committee at any time. The topic ban shall remain in force until it is lifted on appeal. T. Canens (talk) 18:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My experience of working with Falun Gong related editors is that what they want most of all is uninvolved admins to help them edit the articles. And that when this happens, the articles do develop - even up to FA level. Over the years I have been asked to help out by editors classed as "pro-Falun Gong" as well as editors classed as "anti-Falun Gong". These editors cry out for help. What an outsider might see as POV pushing, they would see as attempting to redress the balance. My assessment is that the involved editors want a fair and balanced picture of Falun Gong; where the problem lies, is that they are sometimes too involved themselves to judge what is fair and balanced - though I think they generally recognise that, which is why they want an independent viewpoint.

I can understand an approach which is to ban the lot of them, though the result of that may be the Falun Gong articles remain unedited until they return and the whole thing flairs up again. Another approach may be to put them all under supervision. They are given strict terms under which they may edit and conduct themselves, and if they break those terms the bans suggested above come into immediate force. Each editor has an uninvolved admin to monitor their editing and behaviour, and to whom they can consult. It's a more labour-intensive approach with no guarantee of success; and is unlikely to get off the ground as I don't think enough admins would step up to make it work; however, I feel it appropriate to suggest it, and - of course - I would (reluctantly) offer myself as one of the supervising admins. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"the result of that may be the Falun Gong articles remain unedited until they return and the whole thing flairs up again" - which is why they are banned until such time they can prove that they won't be POV-pushing. These are indefinite bans. I really don't think the alternative approach is workable. Perhaps it may be sound in theory if we have unlimited admin time and a consistent supply of admins to supervise, but I seriously doubt that we will have the manpower to make it work. These editors are not newbies, they are adults who had months or years to learn to behave well and full warnings as to the consequences of misbehavior. Enough is enough. WP:CIR, and it doesn't matter if an editor is intentionally POV-pushing or unintentionally so. The fact remains that s/he is either unwilling or unable to comply with NPOV, and that is ample ground for excluding that editor from the topic. T. Canens (talk) 14:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zujine: They now have notice that sanctions are being contemplated, and they will have the opportunity to respond if they choose to. POV-pushing on talk page is every bit as disruptive as POV-pushing in the article. One distorts and disrupts the consensus-building process that determines the content, the other disrupts directly the article content. T. Canens (talk) 14:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Russavia

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

Request concerning Russavia

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Biophys (talk) 16:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Russavia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Russavia-Biophys#Russavia_restricted

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

25 October 2011. Russavia reverts this edit by Vecrumba with whom he has interaction ban. Note that Vecrumba did not revert any previous edits by Russavia at this page. Hence he is not at fault.
26 October 2011,
26 October 2011. Russavia reverts edits by Marek with whom he has interaction ban. This is also a violation of interaction ban by Marek, which does not excuse Russavia.
September 24 Russavia reverts completely my edits in article Aeroflot. Note that I did not revert any previous edits by Russavia at this page. Hence I would not be at fault even if I had an interaction ban with Russavia. Neither I reverted Russavia later.
September 24 - He invites Igny for help (also a violation of his interaction ban with several users mentioned in the diff)
October 15 He responds to my question addressed to other users (which he is not suppose to do per WP:BAN) and explains that he does not care about his ban.
October 15 He complains to Giano about his interaction bans and asks him for for help against "EEML".
October 23 and October 23. Arbcom rejected an amendment about lifting the interaction ban between Russavia and Martin. Now Russavia makes an edit in article frequented by these users and starts discussion. They respond, apparently unaware that they violate WP:BAN, something that Russavia knows very well because I reminded him about this just a few days before [88]. I can not interpret this in any other way than willingly bypassing his editing restrictions. Now Russavia tells below [89] something like "please sanction these editors together with me". In his comments Russavia paints himself as someone who works towards collaboration with Martin, Vecrumba and others (October 27). Well, if violating his editing restrictions, demanding sanctions for Martin and Vecrumba, and reverting their edits is his idea of productive collaboration, I have only one suggestion for them: please keep away from Russavia and do not reply to his posts, exactly as your interaction ban requires. [I removed the diff because this is not a violation per se. We should not be in the business of speculating about motivations, "provocations" and other things like that even when they look like WP:DUCK)]. Biophys (talk) 00:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Just to summarize, not only Russavia willingly violated his ban, but he gamed other people in violating their bans.~~

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Looking at statements by Russavia, I do not see any indications that he is going to improve. He only asks to sanction others and paints himself as an innocent victim of harassment. How come? Editing articles is not harassment, unless this is edit warring. But I did not revert any edits by Russavia in Aeroflot. It was him who reverted my edit. Asking Russavia to self-revert and comply with his editing restrictions is not harassment. Reporting to AE is not harassment because this request has merit. What remains? "Attention, EEML!"? Can you drop the stick please?

Here are some facts related to my interactions with Russavia during last year. First, I did not revert any edits by Russavia anywhere, including two articles where we had serious content disputes in the past and Aeroflot where we had no previous disputes with him. Second, I did not even talk with Russavia for a long time except one case when he reverted my edit in a similar situation a month ago. Third, I never asked for sanctions for Russavia, prior to submitting this request, even when he reverted my edits in two articles. In essence, I did not interact with Russavia, even though I do not have an interaction ban with him.

Finally, even now I gave him an opportunity to self-revert and have the issue closed [90][91], but it was clear from his response and actions (reverting edits by Marek) that he is not going to comply. This is actually the problem: Russavia honestly believes that he is "above the law" and has no obligation to comply with Arbcom decisions [92] and follow WP:BAN ("editor X is not permitted to ... undo editor Y's edits to any page"). Hence I had no other choice, but to submit this request.

@Greyhood. The i-bans do not prevent Russavia from editing any article he wants, as I tried to explain here, second paragraph. He can also post a comment at article talk to explain his edit, without addressing any editors with whom he has an i-ban. However, it prevents him from: (a) talking with certain editors and commenting about them, and (b) reverting their edits. This brings him only one problem: he must be able to tolerate edits made by editors with whom he has an i-ban. This is a very mild restriction, compare to a topic-ban, but he apparently was unwilling or unable to tolerate it. After thinking more carefully about this, I have to strike through my diff 8. Biophys (talk) 00:13, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Future Perfect at Sunrise. I am not under interaction ban with Russavia as was discussed here. As should be clear from my statement, I reported two people: Russavia and Marek. That was not exactly a partisan filing. You also tell: "dispute originating only between Russavia and Vecrumba". But as should be clear from the diffs above, that was a case of multiple violations of his interaction ban by Russavia with respect to several editors. It was also Russavia who stalked edit by Vecrumba, not the other way around. Finally, I can stop commenting about problems in this area at AE and other noticeboards if that is what you suggest. Not a problem. I thought it was a serious multiple violation that needed to be reported. Sorry. Biophys (talk) 23:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- @FPS. There is a question you and other admins should answer: was my AE request made without merit. If I filed an ungrounded frivolous complaint, then I certainly deserved any sanctions you deem appropriate: an interaction ban or whatever. As about the previous interaction bans by Arbcom, I think this should be clarified by Arbcom, and I now asked them directly. But I certainly understand your point: just ignore Russavia and others (whatever they do), and you will be safe. Yes, I agree. Biophys (talk) 13:42, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. What would be a reason for issuing me interaction ban? Just for the sake of symmetry? There is no such provision. I had only a couple of conversations with Russavia lately, and they were very much civil, at least on my part. Biophys (talk) 21:04, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have one constructive suggestion. Can someone close this thread, please? If anyone has any problems with me, he can start new AE thread, provide some evidence of my alleged misbehavior with diffs, and discuss everything in orderly fashion. What we have right now is a bunch of mutually contradictory statements unsupported by any diffs. Russavia now demands an interaction ban with Colchicum [93]. That's fine. He is very welcome to start new AE thread(s) after coming back from his block. Biophys (talk) 13:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Statement by Russavia

Please note, that there is likely to be collateral damage in relation to both User:Vecrumba and User:Tammsalu. Given interactions at Talk:Estonian_Soviet_Socialist_Republic#Dubious, and given Vecrumba's revert of problems here, as per Talk:Courland_Pocket#McAteer.27s_book. If interaction ban sanctions are placed on me for my edit on Russia Today, then interaction ban sanctions should also be placed on these two editors.

However, one will notice that I havnot reported anything to AE in these recent instances, because I refuse to use interaction bans and AE as a battleground tool to get sanctions placed on other editors, and there is a somewhat informal agreement between us to interact in instances which are productive. This is backed up by Vecrumba or Tammsalu not filing AE reports either.

Biophys and Marek, on the other hand, have questions to answer in relation to their stalking of my edits. And using interaction bans as a battleground weapon.

Biophys' arrival at Aeroflot, an article which I have been working on expanding and improving, was a case in point of Biophys using an interaction ban as a battleground weapon. Talk:Aeroflot is where the discussion is at. Note, that my removal of information is also supported by WP:BLP. His inclusion of Ivanov’s being in FSB insinuates that this position is somehow related to his position as Chairman on the Aeroflot board. This is a BLP violation, so my revert was more than warranted on that basis alone.

I did post this on Igny’s talk page, but not as a call to arms, but rather exactly what was written; for advice on how to deal with Biophys’ obvious harrassment/hounding of myself. Given Biophys' continued veiled assertions to other editors that I am employed by the Russian government, and his provocative edits on Aeroflot, I did in fact retire. But, I refuse to be hounded from this project.

Biophys has not edited the RT nor Controversies and criticisms of RT in the past, nor has he commented on the talk page. After his hounding of myself on Aeroflot, and his stalking of me to (article started by TLAM which I nommed for deletion), it is obvious he continues to stalk and hound me. He has admitted to stalking me in the past.

Given Biophys’ further hounding at User_talk:Russavia#Hi, and given interactions by other editors with myself, one should ask Biophys why he has not also posted such messages on Vecrumba’s and Tammsalu’s talk pages. One can fairly assume he is using the interaction bans as a weapon.

Therefore, I ask that Biophys, under WP:DIGWUREN discretionary sanctions, also be placed under a likewise interaction ban with myself, and given his blatant hounding, and BLP violation on Aeroflot, a topic ban from Aeroflot (and all associated articles, broadly construed).

Marek is exactly the same. He has never edited the RT or Controversies article before, nor has he used the talk page. His appearance at Controversies and criticisms of RT is obvious stalking and baiting, in addition to a violation of his interaction ban, as per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list#Radeksz and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list#Editors_restricted.

Claims of how they found articles should be dismissed, as per previous precedent at Wikipedia:EEML#Improper_coordination, and Biophys’ admission of past stalking. Marek’s assertion of myself stalking Vecrumba should also be dismissed outright, as I have edited the RT article before, and it is one of the few articles still on my watchlist, as I have plans in future to do some rewriting (in addition to trying to get video released under CC licence).

I do concede to the point raised by Marek in there not being anything on the talk page of RT, this was a ‘’mistake’’ on my part, in that I did write up an explanation of why I removed information from the article, and also why I merged the POVFORK back to the main article, however due to having a million tabs open, and working on different things at the same time, it appears that I forgot to save it. It was an honest oversight on my part, and I apologise for that.

If admins don’t see my ‘’partial’’ revert (this is not an outright revert of this) on RT as disruptive, and given that there have been continued mutual interactions between myself, Tammsalu and Vecrumba recently, I ask that the request against myself be dismissed as an obvious attempt by Biophys to use interaction bans as a weapon, and for WP:BOOMERANG to apply to him as per above evidence. If blocks for interaction ban violations are placed on myself, then it is not fair in any sense for this to only apply to myself, but on all editors. Russavia ^{Let's dialogue} 20:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WOAH, talk about total battleground misrepresentation by Biophys here. Vecrumba last edited the article on 20 July 2011, and previous to that his last edit was on 2 November 2009. Nug (aka Martintg, Tammsalu) last edited the article on 1 September 2009. Yet somehow, these Biophys is portraying my edit on 23 October 2011, and my placement of information on the talk page as stalking, and battleground behaviour. And Biophys introduces this shocking and damning information here at AE by saying "this is even worse than I thought". If it isn't clear by now that AE is clearly being used as a battleground tool by Biophys, et al, and that sanctions on Biophys, et al are more than warranted, it damned well should be. Russavia ^{Let's dialogue} 02:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Tothwolf for your comments. As I have been subjected to severe harrassment in the past by these editors, I try my best to stay calm, but sometimes it is hard. Unless another editor has been under such extreme and systematic harrassment in the past, they don't know what it can do to you. I also agree with your other comments, but I do refuse to be driven away from editing by certain editors who are intent on hounding, sometimes in the most civil way.

Thank you Estlandia (formerly Miacek...nice new username by the way) for your comments as well. I do understand that I should have probably come to AE to deal with Marek's stalking, hounding and baiting on the Controversies article, but you are right, that I posted what I did is indicative of a major underlying problem. I made it clear on my talk page that I would explode given the harrassment by Biophys---it is plain to see that Marek used that opportunity to revert me to provoke a reaction. It was a clear baiting attempt on his part, and unfortunately, it was successful. It is also quite concerning that Marek also engages in personal attacks on yourself, as you showed from your talkpage.

It is most disappointing that Marek has resorted to a most egregious personal attack on myself in this comment. Even though this is AE, it is below the pale for him to refer to myself as a sociopath. It is evident to myself that Marek isn't happy with the turn that this vexatious request is taking, and he is now resorting to deplorable attacks on myself. Taken in with his clear stalking, it would appear that he may need an extended time out to consider whether he is here to collaborate, or to engage a personal war that I have no intent of being a willing part of. Russavia ^{Let's dialogue} 15:48, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following was copied from from Russavia's talk page:

Colchicum is wrong regarding the obvious insinuations of me stalking other editors. He makes the assertion that Vecrumba edited the article before me, and by extension is accusing me of stalking Vecrumba. This is wrong, as I have edited the article before as per [94] and [95] and [96]. I also stated in my statement above that it is one of the very few mainspace articles I have left on my watchlist, because of the reasons stated above. So please Colchicum, do not make groundless accusations against me again.

He also states that quite erroneously that Vecrumba is a major contributor to Courland Pocket and Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, and again insinuates that I have stalked Vecrumba. On the contrary, Vecrumba's last edit to Courland Pocket previous to his interaction ban breach of reverting me, was on 12 May 2011. My edit to the article was made on 3 September 2011. How could I have stalked him to this article? Vecrumba's last minor edit to Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic was on 20 July 2011, and previous to that back in 2009. My edit was on 23 October 2011. It is a far stretch to accuse me of stalking any editor here on WP.

Colchicum has done this time and time and time again, and frankly, I am tired of his partisan and untrue comments in relation to myself. I am somewhat inclined to ask for an interaction ban be placed on Colchicum as well, given his long history of combative behaviour in relation to myself, which I am happy to provide if required. Russavia ^{Let's dialogue} 12:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copied by So Why 15:11, 29 October 2011 (UTC) [reply]

While I have been blocked for breaching my interaction ban, the issue of stalking/harrassment/hounding/baiting by both Biophys and Volunteer Marek is still active; even though Marek has been blocked for a week for breaking his interaction ban, the above is a separate issue that needs to be dealt with appropriately.

In considering this, it is inherently going to be claimed that previous harrassment upon myself is an unproven meme. If one reads Wikipedia:EEML#Improper_coordination, it states:

Much of the traffic on the list that is material to the case was members coordinating in order to protect each other and their point of view in articles against a perceived "Russian cabal". This included coordinating around the three revert rule, commenting in process along "party lines", supporting each other in disputes even when otherwise uninvolved in them. Tactics organized on the list include baiting, harassment and vexatious complaints against specific users in order to have them sanctioned or driven away from participating.

Wikipedia:EEML#Editors_restricted is an indication of who was harrassed. Previous harrassment on myself is not a meme, it is evidential fact.

To the current harrassment, information has already been provided in the request. I also am not assuming that there is any EEML-type co-ordinated harrassment on myself, but rather Biophys and Marek have each acted independently in their stalking/harrassment/hounding/baiting. FPaS has also noted that claims by Marek are unfounded. Marek's breach of the interaction ban on myself is a separate action to his stalking/baiting that needs to be dealt with.

I would like this separate issue with both editors dealt with accordingly at this AE request. Russavia ^{Let's dialogue} 17:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC) copied by Jab7842 (talk) 01:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Russavia

Comment by Volunteer Marek

It was my understanding after the last round that "content edits" did not fall under the interaction ban. This was the excuse Russavia used last time, for his perennial kicking over of ant hills, and that is why he was let off the hook previously. But if that is true then the edits above are not part of the interaction ban.

However, Russavia posting threats and insults to my talk page (he spared me the personal emails this time) [97] IS a violation of his interaction ban.

And no, there was no "stalking" going on here. I noticed the page because of edits made by User:Galassi [98] and User:Lvivske [99] (note that these are two more editors whom Russavia is essentially reverting here)

As to the content of the dispute, basically Russavia is trying to delete an article he doesn't like by first gutting it [100], [101], [102], [103] and then saying "oh look this article has hardly anything in it, let's just merge it into another article [104], tooh tooh dooh, nothing to see here, nope". Of course the proper thing to do in such situations - especially with controversial articles such as this one is to either start an AfD (which Russavia is not doing because he knows nobody will agree with him) or put an "Request for merge" tag on the article (ditto).

Russavia claims that there's some discussion about this but I see nothing on the original talk page [105] and no comments by Russavia at the other article's talk page either [106]. All I see there is a discussion between Vecrumba and Galassi on one hand and User:Voyevoda and some fairly new user who's making personal attacks at Galassi, on the other. So if there's stalking going on, it's Russavia stalking Vecrumba not other way around.

@TC: Nowhere have we allowed so-called "content edits" to be an exception to an interaction ban, and for good reason. - ah, ok, then I confess that I am honestly confused as to what does and does not fall under interaction bans. Last time I thought the argument was that content edits are not covered by them which is why Russavia was allowed to go around reverting people he has an interaction ban with. But if it is as you say, then that's actually a good thing - I very much agree that "content edits" should NOT be an exception to the interaction ban. Volunteer Marek 17:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Tim - If you think that was an interaction ban violation, ok fine. But as Colchicum and Collect point out below, Russavia has been making these kinds of "interaction ban" violations (and even worse) for weeks and months, and nothing has been done about it. In the few times that somebody brought it up here on AE, AFAICR nothing was done (except OTHER editors were threatened), Russavia was not sanctioned for this behavior and there was some discussion somewhere about how content edits are not part of the interaction ban. So forgive me if all that past history gave me the wrong impression.

If due to this report this interaction ban is finally going to be taken seriously and actually enforced (and this means allowing editors to bring these issues up without fear that Russavia's going to do his best to turn the whole thing around on them) then this positive - if it is real - trumps whatever (hopefully short) block you want to slap me with. As far as I'm concerned putting a stop to this bi-weekly practice of Russavia's of stirring shit up just to see if he can get away with it and in order to provoke others (so that he can turn around and cry about how they're stalking him), is the key here.

If I could, I'd self revert that edit, now that apparently it seems IT IS an interaction ban violation. But Russavia's already done that for me. Volunteer Marek 20:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Tothohwolf - Ok. Let's get this straight. NOBODOY'S HOUNDING OR STALKING RUSSAVIA. What has been happening over and over and over again over the last few months is that Russavia has decided that the interaction ban doesn't apply to him, and/or, that he wants to use it as a way of provoking conflict. So he has REPEATEDLY gone out there and made some very provocative edit which is at the same time a violation of their interaction ban - nominating another editor's article for AfD, going to articles another person is working on and slapping it up with nasty tags, and this time around deleting out-of-process an article by gutting it then changing it into a redirect.

Then, when somebody says "you shouldn't do that, you violated your interaction ban", Russavia freaks out, starts launching threats and attacks at the person who brought up the interaction ban violation, screams to high heavens that he is being persecuted, posts to a whole bunch of people that he is being hounded, wraps himself in a cloak of victimhood, threatens everyone with boomerangs, and engages in embarrassing to watch displays of self pity.

Then if it looks like all the above is not going to work to prevent a sanction, Russavia does things like claims that 'content edits are not covered by interection ban' or say "I will reply in the future, I have lots of evidence to show you" - and then stall for a week, present nothing except more hysterical accusations and have the request closed as "stale" (it freakin' works too! Ask TC)

And if that doesn't work put up a "Retired" template on their talk page for a week.

Let's get this crystal clear, cuz I'm so sick of having to put up with this sociopathic behavior: Russavia is the aggressor here, not the victim. He has been in all these past cases over the last year. And if you let him get away with, he will continue to do this to people.

(My favorite is when he starts demanding that people 'assume good faith' towards him, in the very sentence in which he demands that the person who's supposed to agf him is banned from wikipedia)

And as an aside, the way Miacek/Estlandia is trying to pursue personal grudges here is very disturbing. Volunteer Marek 14:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@FP@S - no, let's get something straight here. Neither myself, nor Vecrumba nor anyone else ever goes into articles which compromise something ilke 95% of Russavia's edits (stuff about aviation and diplomatic relations between countries) and starts fucking with him there. I, and others actually observe the interaction ban up to and including making "accidental" edits to articles Russavia edits. Every single one of these instances over the past year has involved Russavia going into an article that somebody else (that he has an interaction ban with) is active on and doing some big provocative edit just to stir up trouble or, hell, I dunno, because he can't help himself or something.

Then you can argue about whether subsequent comments and edits AFTER Russavia kicked over yet another ant hill are also "interaction ban" violations or not. But jeez christ guys, this has been going on for at least six months now, the pattern of how this unfolds is obvious, and has been the same each time, so it's not like it's hard to tell who the instigator here is (hint: the same person in all these cases).

So it's simply NOT TRUE that These people will edit the same articles, and they will have disagreements over them. - I stay away from topics Russavia is really interested in as do other people. It's ALWAYS Russavia coming in to mess with someone else's work. Just because Russavia is incapable of observing the interaction ban does not mean that interaction ban simply doesn't work - by saying that you're just legitimizing his actions here, which have been atrocious. Interaction bans would work just freakin' fine if the admins here had the commons sense and the will to enforce them, rather than letting it turn into this stoopid drama each time. This is why I'm perfectly fine with Timothy slapping a block on be for my revert of Russavia, as long as from now on - and you better believe I'm going to hold you to it - the interaction bans are actually enforced. This nonsense has to end.

@PF@S - oh for christ sake, did you actually look at the history of the page or just bought in 100% into misinformation that Miacek/Estlandia fed you? The whole thing started because Russavia went into the article to revert Vecrumba (interaction ban violation but only if content edits fall under the scope) and then Russavia decided to pour salt on the wound by gutting the article and turning it into a redirect - apparently it's not enough for him to just revert somebody he has an interaction ban with but he also HAD TO make sure Vecrumba got the message by shatting all over that article.

And yes I find this kind of vicious behavior - by somebody who's not even supposed to be anywhere near Vecrumba's edits - disgusting (asterisk). Which is why, after seeing it for unrelated reason, I reverted Russavia's out-of-process-deletion of the article. Which was an interaction ban violation only if content edits fall under the scope of the interaction ban. If Tim is right below, then yes, I shouldn't have done it. Doesn't change the fact one bit that this was another instance where Russavia started up shit and everything else was/is just a response to it.

Here, let me spell it out, since some people have trouble seeing the pattern:

An algorithm for perpetual trouble at AE

1. Russavia goes in and does some kind of big provocative edit to some article as a display that he is flaunting the interaction ban. Some instances of this have involved:

a. AfD'ing somebody's (who he has an interaction ban with) article

b. Slapping somebody's (who he has an interaction ban with) article with nasty tags

c. Posting to outside people's tag pages insults and comments on people he has an interaction ban with

d. Reverting somebody (who he has an interaction ban with) and then making extra edits to make sure they get the point. Can't just revert them. Have to revert them with prejudice.

There's more examples but I don't feel like looking through the history (lest I be accused of stalking). See comments by Colchicum and Collect below.

2. The person who is being reverted/attacked is not sure what to do. If they revert back that could be an interaction ban violation. If they report it to AE Russavia will start with his accusations, hysterics, demands for BOOMERANG and this kind of stupid drama will ensue. Based on previous experience (iterations of this algorithm) they know that AE is a spin of the roulette wheel (ever since Sandstein left anyway). If they do nothing and ignore it then go back to step 1, as Russavia is only encouraged to try his luck further.

3. If the person who is being reverted/attacked decided to take it to AE it goes to AE. If they decide to revert or comment on it it still goes to AE because Russavia (who's lying above about the fact that he doesn't use AE to get his opponents banned. He's filed quite a number of AE reports over the years) or one of his friends files a report on the revert. If they decide to leave a polite comment - as Biophys (who doesn't have an interaction ban with Russavia) to the effect that this was an interaction ban violation - Russavia responds with threats, attacks, and insults. Calls people "fools" and worse. One way or another it still winds up at AE.

4. At AE it always starts simple and then turns messy very fast. Usually Russavia stalls by claiming he has some "evidence" or is "in contact with ArbCom" or some other nonsense which never seems to pan out. People who have no clue comment. People who should have a clue but don't comment. Sometimes Arbs get involved. Drama ensues. Eventually either Russavia gets a slap on the wrist (that has actually only happened once so far), somebody says something confusing like making a claim that content edits are not covered, it gets closed as stale or Russavia puts up a "Retired" tag on his talk page and waits out the storm.

5. Fast forward two weeks. Go back to step 1.

Seriously, you could program bots to both generate this drama and admin it it's so repetitive and predictable by now.

(asterisk)(and the fact that some people are keen to enable this behavior and then they turn around and shake their heads and say "oh these Eastern Europeans, they'll always fight amongst each other, there's no hope" after they pretty much ensured that these problems don't get solved, is hypocritical, self-righteous and frankly deeply misguided. Let me go into Macedonian topics, spent my time defending whoever happens to be causing the most trouble there and pontificate about how Future Perfect and his Balkans are just predisposed to perennial trouble. Please!)

Comment by Colchicum

This is not restricted to RT (TV network). Not sure about the others, but Russavia has been violating his interaction bans for weeks, behaving as if they didn't exist. Look at this comment. Such a comment on a partisan user's talkpage certainly cannot be construed as an instance of necessary dispute resolution. See also his edits at Aeroflot and Talk:Aeroflot, in particular this one: "I really don't care if I am banned from interacting with you Biophys.". See also this amendment request. Colchicum (talk) 19:25, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neither Courland Pocket nor Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic are within the scope of Russavia's day-to-day editing. Vecrumba, to the contrary, has been one of the main contributors to these articles. So Russavia's edits look very much like yet another example of the behavior described by VM here, which was found concerning by several arbitrators. Colchicum (talk) 20:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@FPS (1) And you are wrong here. Vecrumba edited RT (TV network) before Russavia arrived there with his merge of Controversies and criticisms of RT (2) Biophys is not subject to any interaction ban. Colchicum (talk) 22:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Collect

Russavia has done her best to make those who were willing to give her leeway (such as I) rethink that position. I have always spoken against Draconian solutions, but Russavia has operated on the misapprehension that all who do not back her are her enemy (sigh). In the case at hand, "blocks all around" would reward her behaviour, which I fear is unwise. The iterated debate system of saying that one will respond at a future date, or that one is "retired" for some small period of time, especially when such a responses is not then made, is also a problem. Collect (talk) 19:44, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Lothar von Richthofen

Blocks, bans, and other assorted sanctions aside, I think that Russavia is in dire need of a wikibreak. The language used in his posts here and the pages brought up by other editors is alarmingly aggressive and paranoid. I can understand perhaps that he is feeling rather stressed by what he perceives to be stalking and hounding, but editing here has clearly become a major psychological stressor for him, and it will make him difficult to deal with here. Maybe a block would have the effect of forcing him to take a break, but I can't imagine that said break would do anything to ease the tension evident here; more likely, it would just make things worse. A voluntary break from all of this, on the other hand, would I think be the best way for him to cool off. IMO.... ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Greyhood: There are no editing "rights". Only editing privileges. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Greyhood: Notice that the page is actually titled Wikipedia:User access levels—WP:User right is just a redirect. A "User right" in this case refers to just such an access level: admin, rollbacker, etc. ("specific access and ability permissions that can be assigned to customizable groups"). I stand by my original response; the ability to edit the wiki is not some fundamental right. If you misbehave, you get warned, blocked, banned, or otherwise sanctioned. You get de-sysopped, you get rollback stripped from you. Editing is a privilege that everyone starts out with, but sometimes that privilege gets altered or removed because you keep breaking things or scribbling on the walls with marker. Or because you can't seem to play nice with the other kids.... ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 14:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@FPaS: Waving hands about "implied interaction bans" is rather sketchy. The fact remains that Biophys is not under an interaction ban at present. Thus, one cannot rightly block him under such a ban. If you think such a ban should be ~~implied~~ implemented, that is another matter entirely. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 05:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Greyhood

As far as I understand, Russavia is perfectly entitled to edit the articles he wants to edit, including the article RT (TV network). But the interaction ban as interpreted by people here effectively bars him from editing certain articles, which means depriving him of a basic editor's right. Or perhaps he is just not expected to make edit summaries addressed to the people he is prohibited to interact with? But the edits on contentious subjects should be properly explained, and it doesn't make sense when upholding the interaction ban leads to the breaking of a basic Wikipedia policy. And doesn't the necessary edit summaries fall into the category of the "necessary dispute resolution", which is stated in the restriction? GreyHood ^Talk 21:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Lothar von Richthofen: What about Wikipedia:User rights and Manual:User rights and the permission to "edit any page which is not protected" for everyone except the blocked users? (also, there is no topic ban in the case discussed). @Biophys: do not misspell my username, plz. The point of my questions regarding that last part of the guideline is that it contradicts general editing permissions and allows to game the system too nicely and easily, making more harm than progress. It basically means that any editor A with an interaction ban with an editor B could go to any article where B is a major or primary contributor, write there almost any kind of stuff, and be happy with B having few to none of legitimate ways to revert such edits. GreyHood ^Talk 09:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Vecrumba

Given various requests against myself including my violation of the interaction ban (I have my reservations about interaction bans according at least temporary article ownership between two editors, but another topic), Russavia would be fully aware of the consequences of his revert. Regarding the content at RT, indications of state ownership had been removed and replaced with RT publicity statements some time ago. I had re-inserted cited content from unbiased, non-aligned sources which appropriately indicates RT is Russian state owned and state controlled media, a reference for each aspect: both ownership and control. IMHO, Russavia's revert (any mention of the Russian state from the lead) is compounded by his deletion of appropriately sourced content with unsourced allegations of POV, that is, classic WP:BATTLEFIELD edit warring.

As for "hounding" allegations, that would appear to be any content edit that disagrees with Russavia's personal POV. I resent Russavia's continuous blatantly false and tiresome victimology that paints myself and others out to have nothing better to do than to attack him—and that such conduct continues to be coddled and even excused by other editors. (While I don't like bringing up EEML, I did read through my personal archive at one point and I mentioned Russavia less than a handful of times and never in regard to anything other than his editorial content contentions.) Russavia has clearly and repeatedly proven themselves incapable of civil conduct regarding any content having to do with the Soviet legacy. (PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 00:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Russavia can continue to edit outside the Soviet geopolitical/historical legacy and representations of official Russia all he likes, I have no desire to ban constructive contributions of content. No one is seeking to "hound" Russavia from anything. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 13:48, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.P.S. As for "partisanship", it doesn't get much more partisan than Russavia immediately reporting me for editing Aspic. So let's not go there and let's please stick to the topic. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 14:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@FP: Question. The implication of your i-ban interpretations appear to enforce that whoever misbehaves preemptively (grossly POV content) gets a free ticket. Don't shoot the messenger when they are reporting violations; for example, no one shot Russavia for partisanship policing my "violating" edit at Aspic while topic banned. If you're going to widen to embrace (ascribed) partisanship, then you need to add a whole host of editors to the i-ban list. Then we can deal with any EE/Soviet legacy disputes by merely assigning article ownership to whatever (alleged) clique gets to it first. It would be far better to dispense with the i-bans and simply enforce CIVILITY for a change, or am the only one offended by Russavia's incessant chest-pounding vituperative rants? I'm sorry, but Russavia's attitude deleting sourced content based on personal allegations of POV backed by nothing else and his use of victimology as an instrument of aggression is egregiously counterproductive especially in view of other editors having clearly demonstrated a desire to move on to resolve long-standing conflicts (e.g., Holodomor mediation). My comments here are protected by their necessity for dispute resolution. A better place to start building a collegial environment would be to enforce a collegial attitude, no? I'm tired of the WP subculture that has developed that excuses offensive spewing by a whole range of editors because "that's how they are" or "they're just blowing off steam, let them be." That's bullshit. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 15:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I have no objection to editing with Russavia on topics touching on the Soviet legacy, past and present (likely contrary to popular opinion, there are some examples of constructive dialog between us), but all the vituperations and personal attacks alleging a POV agenda have to go. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Tothwolf: Thank you for taking the time out to add an uninvolved perspective. Do not, however, take the "findings" and "convictions" @ EEML at face value. (For example, except in one or two cases I had not yet even read the "canvassing" Emails I was declared guilty of responding to; regardless, my WP activity was completely based on watchlists and following recent activities in my primary area of interest. Arbcom refused to even acknowledge my statement to that effect.) PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I struck my comment on welcoming debate and dialog as the allegations of harassment and hounding continue. Let's just stick to Russia Today for the moment.

When is deletion of an article (critical of official Russian state media) not a delete? When it is the "undoing of a POV fork" created without "discussion and consensus"--a complete and gross misrepresentation, as no content fork/duplication was ever involved.

The dedicated controversies and criticisms article was created by editor Sleetman (not an "involved party") on May 5, 2011.

That same day, Russavia was already in at the article with several edits, including tagging it as POV with no prior discussion, as indicated in the revert of said undiscussed (and therefore WP:IDONTLIKEIT) tagging.

As already mentioned, the criticisms article was not a POV FORK (that is, duplicating content to make a POV point), it was the result of removing said content from the RT article to (IMHO) not overburden the RT article with criticisms, which could leave it open to charges of coatracking.

Eventually, Russavia reintegrated the content (note the prior edit summary comment, after calling my noting in multiple source that RT is state owned and controlled "presenting a particular POV"--and what would that be? That RT is state owned and controlled is an opinion?) and then in a series of edits removed pro-Putin bias, and re-tagged as POV the controversies and criticisms--all flaunting the interaction ban at this point, and again, no discussion as to what POV was being tagged--in fact, Russavia's last comments there are back in May.

Russavia rants about POV FORKS in his edit comments, and uses his rants as cover to delete separate articles, to merge content and tag said content without a single comment at article talk, etc., etc., etc.

Clearly Russavia stalked my edit at RT and decided to deal with his dissatisfaction that I reputably indicated RT was state owned and controlled with a full frontal assault, IMHO, then waiting for the first person to note his disruptive behavior and then attack that individual or individuals for "hounding." That's rich. Talk about your classic victim-blaming load of utter and complete bullshit. Any further wielding of EEML as a shield for gross misconduct should WP:BOOMERANG. My well of WP:AGF regarding Russavia where the Soviet legacy and Russian politics are concerned is exhausted. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 21:36, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved Tothwolf

I'm pretty much as uninvolved as it gets with regards to Russavia and their fan club, but having seen this flare up from various user talk pages and having witnessed the original EEML case, I have a few things I'd like to add myself.

As some of the community and current ArbCom members know, I had my own very bad experience with being "hounded" here on Wikipedia, which after an ArbCom case that basically resolved nothing, included (among other things) a number of attempts to game AE to further harass. It was only after a lengthy AN/I discussion and a final attempt to game AE that it turned into a WP:BOOMERANG and was more or less resolved. What I gained from the awful experience was the understanding of just how easy it is for someone to game the system, and especially when more than one person is working together to do so. I made some comments about this during the AESH case which can be found here and here. (Further background for those interested can be found via the links at the top of my talk page.)

My own background out of the way, if Biophys (or another editor) is indeed hounding Russavia, then it absolutely needs to be dealt with right away because speaking from first hand experience, ignoring such problems makes things much worse down the road. With regards to various interaction bans, if multiple editors are violating their editing restrictions, then either all need to be sanctioned, or none should be sanctioned. If they can collaborate and not be disruptive to the larger project (including being mindful of WP:BRD), then perhaps the editing restriction itself needs to be modified? Editing restrictions should (ideally) exist only to prevent disruption to the project and not to "punish" someone. On the other hand, if disruption of the larger project is still occurring, then various topic bans for all involved might be the only way to resolve things.

Russavia, as far as "hounding" goes, I wish I could offer more advice, but about the only things I can suggest is keep your cool (I know, it's very hard), avoid the areas where the hounding occurs (yes, those who wish to hound will purposefully choose topics which you contributed to the most), work on something else (commons, etc), and keep an off-wiki timeline with diffs, dates, usernames, and notes (including hounding towards editors other than yourself by those who've hounded you). On the advice of a number of administrators and other community members, this is what I finally did, and I wish I had done it earlier on. Having that material available later was the beginning of finally getting my own "hounding" problem resolved because it allowed uninvolved members of the community a means to actually have a view of the larger picture and see the underlying behavioural patterns. --Tothwolf (talk) 07:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following comment by Tothwolf was originally posted in the uninvolved admins section: -EdJ

I have to agree with this. Biophys is explicitly named as a member of the original EEML mailing list and the Remedies section of the Russavia-Biophys case states: "Russavia is prohibited from commenting on or unnecessarily interacting with editors from the EEML case, except in the case of necessary dispute resolution." While Biophys' topic ban was lifted by amendment in June, the amendment also states "Biophys is reminded that further disruption related to this case may result in the topic ban or other remedies being re-imposed by the Committee."

If Biophys was not directly involved in the disputes between Russavia and Marek, this would not be a case of "necessary dispute resolution". Given the history between Biophys and Russavia, and given Russavia's interaction restriction with those involved with the EEML case, it would seem to me Biophys should be steering well clear of Russavia. Biophys doesn't seem to be doing that though, as this AE request itself is evidence of.

Given all this, to me this AE request itself appears to have been little more than an attempt to game AE in order to "get one over" on Russavia by getting him blocked for his interactions with Marek and others. This would be very different had either Russavia or Marek, or someone completely uninvolved in the EEML case filed this AE request, but in this case the motivation behind Biophys filing this request seems to be quite clear.

Perhaps this needs to also be put in front of the current Arbcom for clarification and a possible amendment? I certainly can't see anything good coming from Biophys following Russavia's edits in order to look for something to use for an AE request. --Tothwolf (talk) 01:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Estlandia

I noticed Russavia's comment on Volunteer Marek's talk page, as I watchlist both VM's and Russavia's user (talk) pages and I decided to take a cursory look on the issue. As Volunteer Marek had indeed never edited the Russia Today or Controversies and criticisms of RT article before nor did he use the talk page, his appearance at Controversies can be seen as stalking, besides it was in violation of his interaction ban with Russavia (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list#Radeksz and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list#Editors_restricted). Whilst Russavia's reaction at VM's talk page was inappropriate, given the interaction ban, and he should have used proper channels, it was still a a reaction hinting to a problem. I suggest the arbitrators consider this issue carefully, since as Tothwolf has rightly said, ignoring the problem would let the matter get worse over time. Especially so, if we consider the chronic problems associated with some of the above mentioned accounts, Volunteer Marek included (tag-teaming and national POV pushing - as per Arbcom findings of 2009 -, nasty personal assaults to the point of comparing his opponents with Holocaust deniers [107] [108] (“I only have a problem with authors, German or otherwise, who engage in historical revisionism and Holocaust denial”), editors who make Molobo's/Volunteer Marek's unpalatable article more compliant with our guidelines supposedly produce “extremist right wing propaganda bullshit” [109] and so on and so forth). Ever re-surging problems with Volunteer Marek have been the subject of a number of arbitration enforcement requests [110], last time discussed in an arbitration enforcement thread just a couple of weeks ago, where it was decided not to take any action that time. I suggest taking action this time. Estlandia (dialogue) 12:41, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Piotrus

Self-censored per [111]. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 01:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I admit that I too have never been entirely clear on what an interaction ban is meant to be encompass. Can you start a discussion at WT:BAN so we get work out a nice standard definition? NW (Talk) 17:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by BorisG

By blocking Russavia and another editor, the admins have asserted that the AE request has merit. Thus I cannot see why they are crticising Biophys for his action. Seems he has done the right thing. We are not here to analyse motivations, only actions and their consequencies. It would be a different story of course if he was under an i-ban. Does this make sense? - BorisG (talk) 15:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Russavia

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

This dispute concerns RT (TV network). Russavia reverted an edit by User:Vecrumba, a person from whom he is interaction-banned. Though the content of Russavia's edits causes me no great concern, we are expected to enforce the interaction bans. Arbcom recently declined to undo one of Russavia's interaction bans, so he must be very familiar with the issue. Since this violation is not inadvertent, I suggest a one-week block. EdJohnston (talk) 17:30, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Blocks all around, it seems. Nowhere have we allowed so-called "content edits" to be an exception to an interaction ban, and for good reason. T. Canens (talk) 17:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Timotheus, can you clarify the 'blocks all around?' Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 19:09, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking about this diff. T. Canens (talk) 20:30, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I think we can proceed with the block. Even if the alleged hounding exists, Russiavia should have used the proper channels (e.g., an AE request). It's certainly not an excuse to break an interaction ban with impunity. T. Canens (talk) 20:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I can see your reasoning is formally impeccable, I'll say here that I personally wouldn't take any action, because what this whole fracas shows (for the 100th time) is that this interaction ban simply doesn't work. These people will edit the same articles, and they will have disagreements over them. An Arbcom decision which on the one hand allows them to edit the same articles but on the other hand prohibits "interactions" just cannot work, ever. It is impossible to draw the line between where accidentally editing the same article ends and where entering prohibited "interaction" starts, and this means that any such contact runs the risk of mutual escalation of the type seen here. The interaction ban has been creating far more bad blood on its own than it has ever prevented. This Arbcom measure is actively harmful. We admins should simply ignore it and refuse to enforce it; if no admin is willing to enforce it, then it doesn't exist. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@VolunteerMarek above: Your claim that "[e]very single one of these instances over the past year has involved Russavia going into an article that somebody else (that he has an interaction ban with) is active on" doesn't seem to accord with the facts in the case Controversies and criticisms of RT, where you clashed with him. You went there after him, not the other way round. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@VolunteerMarek: Warning: dial down your rhetorics please. And you are wrong: There is no previous edit by Vecrumba or any other interaction-ban party in the history of Controversies and criticisms of RT, before first Russavia and then you went there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:03, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note to admins: I have posted on EdJohnston and T. Canens talk pages advising them that the harrassment is going to be dealt with at this request. I am also asking other admins that, as per the big banner at the top of the page, all issues (read: harrassment) raised in this AE request be dealt with right here, right now. Unclean hands and all that. Russavia ^{Let's dialogue} 02:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Russavia and Volunteer Marek each blocked 1 week for violating interaction ban. Should that cover it, or did I miss someone? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:14, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since we're handing out blocks now: what about the original poster himself, Biophys/Hodja Nasreddin? Under the interaction ban rules, he had no business inserting himself into a dispute that wasn't his own but a dispute originating only between Russavia and Vecrumba. His posts [112] and [113], as well as his filing of this complaint here, certainly were in breach of the restriction. (To forestall any misunderstandings: the restriction comes with an exception for "necessary dispute resolution", but that implies a "mind-your-own-business" rule: participation in dispute resolution is never "necessary" for somebody who isn't himself an originating party of the original dispute that is being discussed. If there is one domain where this interaction ban really does make sense, and ought to be enforced, it is this pattern of groups of people habitually supporting each other on the dispute notice boards.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further about Biophys: I now realize that formally Biophys is not currently under an interaction ban with respect to Russavia. Given the context, this seems just bizarre to me. The EEML case imposed an i-ban on the core members of the EEML group; the subsequent Russavia-Biophys made that i-ban mutual, and added Biophys to the lot. The idea that all i-bans should be mutual had been a central part of the discussion in that case. Given these circumstances, I can hardly read the omission of an explicit rule of mutualness as anything other than an oversight on the part of Arbcom, caused by the fact that Biophys was at the same time also given a much harsher sanction (full topic ban) that was making his part of the i-ban moot at least for the moment. If Arbcom simply forgot to include him in the i-ban rule, and the consensus among other admins here is that the whole set of i-bans generally should continue to be enforceable, perhaps we should simply impose the analogous i-ban on Biophys now ourselves by way of discretionary sanction? Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference CER was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[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.

[CER-3] Cite error: The named reference CER was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[a]

[b]

[1]

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