Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Zimmarod (talk | contribs) at 20:40, 26 February 2012 (→‎Nagorno-Karabakh article). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

    Arbitration enforcement archives
    1234567891011121314151617181920
    2122232425262728293031323334353637383940
    4142434445464748495051525354555657585960
    6162636465666768697071727374757677787980
    81828384858687888990919293949596979899100
    101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120
    121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140
    141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160
    161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180
    181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199200
    201202203204205206207208209210211212213214215216217218219220
    221222223224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240
    241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260
    261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280
    281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300
    301302303304305306307308309310311312313314315316317318319320
    321322323324325326327328329330331332

    Samofi

    User spoken to. NW (Talk) 21:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

    Request concerning Samofi

    User who is submitting this request for enforcement
    Nmate (talk) 11:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    User against whom enforcement is requested
    Samofi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    Sanction or remedy to be enforced
    [1] [2]
    Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

    On 07:48, 20 October 2011 Samofi got banned from the topic of Hungarian-Slovak ethnic and national disputes, indefinitely:

    "Having reviewed your continued conflicts with other editors over Slovak-Hungarian topics, I have become convinced that your role among all the editors that have been contributing to the overall disastrous editing atmosphere in this topic domain has been among the most unconstructive. Under the discretionary sanctions rule of the WP:DIGWUREN Arbcom decision, I am therefore banning you, indefinitely, from all edits relating to Hungarian and/or Slovakian ethnic and national disputes (including but not limited to: naming issues, issues of ethnic/national characterization of historical personalities, and historic conflicts involving these nations"

    Some days ago, Samofi inquired about how his topic-ban can be lifted [3] [4] and then began editing within the domain he is topic-banned from, even before it is successfully appealed:

    1. 07:45, 22 February 2012 Explanation: Hungarian and/or Slovakian ethnic and national dispute
    2. 08:24, 22 February 2012 Explanation: Hungarian and/or Slovakian ethnic and national dispute
    3. 08:19, 24 February 2012 Explanation: Hungarian and/or Slovakian ethnic and national dispute
    Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
    1. Warned on 15:16, 28 September 2011 by EdJohnston (talk · contribs)
    Additional comments by editor filing complaint

    To avoid further wiki-drama, I do not want to comment on whether Samofi should be blocked ,or should not.

    Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

    [5]


    Discussion concerning Samofi

    Statement by Samofi

    Comments by others about the request concerning Samofi

    Result concerning Samofi

    This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
    • I left him a warning, because I didn't see a need to block just yet. If he continues to violate his topic ban, he should be blocked. NW (Talk) 14:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I spoke further with the user and don't think any more action is necessarily warranted. Let's leave it as is for now; a report may be opened again if Samofi violates his or her topic ban in the future. NW (Talk) 21:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Anonimu

    Don't do that. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

    Request concerning Anonimu

    User who is submitting this request for enforcement
    Codrin.B (talk) 22:02, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    User against whom enforcement is requested
    Anonimu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    Sanction or remedy to be enforced
    Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anonimu, Conditions to provisionally suspend Anonimu's ban, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive86#Anonimu
    Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
    1. 05:24, 11 February 2012, 20:45, 11 February 2012 - 1RR, incivility violations at Moldova
    2. 12:44, 20 January 2012, 16:38, 20 January 2012, 16:54, 20 January 2012, 14:04, 25 January 2012 - 1RR, incivility violations at {{History of Romania}}
    3. 16:14, 17 January 2012, 11:04, 19 January 2012, 12:32, 30 January 2012 , 07:07, 1 February 2012 - edit warning, article locked for edit warring, 1RR violation at Communist Romania
    4. 10:33, 21 January 2012, 10:43, 21 January 2012, 10:45, 21 January 2012 - multiple 1RR Violation at Victor Ponta
    5. 17:00, 4 January 2012, 15:26, 5 January 2012 - Edit warring,1RR violation at Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
    6. 02:10, 9 September 2011, 18:11, 12 September 2011, 11:41, 12 June 2011 - Edit warring, removal of relevant content, near 1RR violation at Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism
    7. 13:46, 14 February 2012 15:28, 15 February 2012 - Edit warring, cleverly dodged 1RR violation (timed it to be 24h + 1h42min later) at Moldovans
    8. 07:04, 4 February 2012, 15:04, 9 February 2012, 15:23, 15 February 2012 - attack on WP:ROMANIA main project page, edit war, cleverly dodged 1RR violation, vandalism, WP:STALK
    Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
    1. Warned on 3 October 2011‎ by The Last Angry Man (talk · contribs) (his response was to remove and ignore the warning)
    2. Warned on 14 January 2012 by Darkness Shines (talk · contribs) (his response was to remove and ignore the warning)
    3. Warned on 20 January 2012 by Codrinb (talk · contribs) (his response was to remove and ignore the warning)
    Additional comments by editor filing complaint

    This is a briefer repost of the February 17, 2012 request for enforcement, per the closing admin suggestion.

    Below is a list illustrating some of the most aggravating edit wars, extreme attitudes and conflicts entertained by Anonimu which violate the civility parole/impeccable behaviour conditions from the previous ban. It is a significantly smaller subset of what was previously reported on February 17, 2012:

    1. [6], [7], [8], [9] - Edit warring, WP:OWN, WP:POV pushing at Fântâna Albă massacre, removal of valid templates like Template:Anti-communism in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, shocking "dialogs" on the Talk:Fântâna Albă massacre, considering this is an article about a massacre
    2. [10], [11], [12], [13] - Attack on, later removal/redirect of article, on Valeriu Boboc, a recent victim killed by the Pro-Russian Communist regime in Moldova during 2009 riots; also trying to downplay the involvement of the government in the victims death
    3. [14], [15], [16], [17], [18] - Removal of sourced content, edit warring against multiple users, WP:OWN, blatant Soviet WP:POV pushing/WP:PUSH at Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
    4. [19], [20], [21], [22] - Conflict with User:Darkness Shines (insults, incivility)
    5. [23], [24], [25], [26] - Conflict with User:The Last Angry Man (reverts, insults, incivility)
    6. [27], [28] - Conflict with User:Man with one red shoe
    7. [29], [30] - Conflict with User:Constantzeanu
    8. [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36] - Conflict with User:Vecrumba (insults, incivility)
    9. [37], [38], [39] - Conflict with User:Octavian8, reverts, insults, no communication
    10. [40], [41], [42] - Conflict with User:Estlandia, reverts, insults, no communication
    11. [43], [44], [45], [46] - Very negative attitude towards newcomers/inexperienced editors/IPs in stark contrast with WP:BITE; mostly reverts, insulting comments; no welcoming, no coaching; no dialog

    Please also note that a significant number of users already made statements in the February 17 report.

    User has violated each provision of his reinstatement with impunity and repeatedly: 1RR, no edit warring, civility parole. He creates constant conflict and strives in it.

    Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

    Original notification diff, Repost notification diff


    Discussion concerning Anonimu

    Statement by Anonimu

    Comments by others about the request concerning Anonimu

    I would have thought that Codrinb would have gotten the last closure, instead they have chosen to come back to AE, yet again, and have filed very much the same grievances from the last report. The diffs as displayed do not stack up to scrutiny, and in most cases are stale. I will again state, that this is obviously a case of editors attempting to throw enough shit in the hope that some of it sticks -- as noted to Anonimu on his talk page, this is an old tactic with new participants, and it should not and must not be allowed to continue to occur on this project. As Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive86#Anonimu, FPaS noted, in relation to Codrinb, I must be missing something. What has an edit war back in August 2010 to do with a need for a block now? – On the other hand, what we indeed should consider is to hit the reporting party with a silver carp, for falsely accusing his opponent of "vandalism" in his complaint above, and of the bad-faith move of citing Anonimu's actions in the "Dacian script" case as an instance of disruption, when he knows full well that consensus was on Anonimu's side, not his. Codrinb has clearly accused Anonimu of incivility, creating disputes and the like, not once, but twice, and they just do not stack up to scrutiny. As this obviously seems to be a problem on the part of Codrinb, I suggest closing this off with no action against Anonimu, but with that "silver carp" coming back at Codrinb; as Codrinb is clearly using AE as a battleground tool against a supposed opponent, and because of problems raised at the last request (for example, wilfully falsely accusing Anonimu of sockpuppetry, and canvassing and the like), a ban on Codrinb (and perhaps canvassed editors) from filing AE requests on Anonimu should be implemented. Russavia ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) 22:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Result concerning Anonimu

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

    Nagorno-Karabakh

    I'm not going to file a request against one particular person, because we have a situation where disruption is caused by more than one user. I would like to draw the attention of the community to what is going on in the article Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a very troubled article that was a subject to a number of arbitration cases. For quite a while now it is an arena of endless edit wars, which are waged by a number of recently created or brand new user accounts, which try to push a version, originally created by the banned user Xebulon, who has been disrupting Wikepedia for years. What is going on there was described in much detail by the admin Golbez, who has been watching this article for many years: [47] I will not repeat here what Golbez has already said, please check his account of the events. The CU showed no connection between the accounts engaged there, yet it is quite obvious that something is going there, and that actions of all those accounts are coordinated. The most recent example, the account of User:23x2, who never edited Nagorno-Karabakh, pops up out of nowhere to rv: [48] And it is nothing unusual, this happens in this article all the time. The edits of the banned user are restored by users who have been inactive for a long time, or who have never edited this article before. I listed a number of edit warring accounts at my own SPI request that I by coincidence filed at the same time as Golbez did: [49] All those accounts look pretty much the same, act the same, and edit the same. I have a strong impression that they are all operated by the same person, who somehow manages to evade the CU. But even if we assume that it is not one person, but different ones, it is still quite obvious that their actions are well coordinated, and they keep on bringing in new accounts to edit war. I think this article should be placed under some sort of community control, and no edits that have no consensus should be allowed. Also, the activity of accounts that previously never edited this article should be restricted. I would even recommend that only well established accounts with at least 1 year of active contributions to Wikipedia, including outside of AA conflict, should be allowed to edit such contentious articles as Nagorno-Karabakh. I was advised to raise this issue here, which is what I do now. Grandmaster 23:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I endorse this because these articles need help and I'm tired of trying to hold them together alone. I would love for some form of enforced edit restriction on these articles. --Golbez (talk) 01:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    One possibility is some form of sanctions similar to that employed by Sandstein on Mass killings under communist regimes, but I'm not sure how practical it is. T. Canens (talk) 08:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    That is actually quite a good solution for the problem. I would support something similar to what was done at Mass killings under communist regimes. Grandmaster 10:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Opening a structured thread below, with the standard AE format adapted to this situation. Further discussions should be had there. T. Canens (talk) 10:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    76.102.173.102

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

    Request concerning 76.102.173.102

    User who is submitting this request for enforcement
     Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    User against whom enforcement is requested
    76.102.173.102 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    Sanction or remedy to be enforced
    Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European articles (TBA)#TBA
    • Kiefer.Wolfowitz has trouble finding the Eastern European discussion in Signpost, and needs to sleep. Below, another editor suggested that this editor may be a banned editor, who has had his own ArbCom case, DigWuren (sic.). 00:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
    Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
    1. 25 February 2012 Editing warring, re-inserting nationalistic claims without references
    2. 25 February 2012 First personal attack from this account, alleging that User:David Eppstein is a pro-Russian, pro-Putin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western, etc.
    3. 25 February 2012 Edit warring in Stefan Banach article: Changing name of then Polish University to the name of a present Ukrainian University, without reference, again.
    4. 25 February 2012 Edit warring at Lviv University (also a conflict in the Banach article), reinserting anti-Polish, anti-semitic, and ultra-nationalistic bullshit.
    • All of this IP's edits seem to be disruptive editing with the same agenda.
    Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)
    1. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Tgeairn (talk · contribs)
    2. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Tgeairn (talk · contribs)
    3. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Sodin (talk · contribs) (Sasha)
    4. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk · contribs)
    5. There are other warnings on the related talk pages of articles and David Eppstein, of course.
    Additional comments by editor filing complaint
    • I suspect that this is just a bored teenager-troll posing as an ultra-nationalist.
    • This sounds like the fellow who called David a "commisar-stein" last year.
    • I read about the EE case in the SignPost. Another precise reference for enforcement is suggested below (DigWuren). Thanks,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

    The user has been notified.


    Discussion concerning 76.102.173.102

    Statement by 76.102.173.102

    Comments by others about the request concerning 76.102.173.102

    Just use WP:DIGWUREN -- this would clearly fit this area. Also this edit is enough to show that this is nothing more than a wannabe-troll. Oleh Antoniv -- really? Block IP, and be done with it. Russavia ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) 00:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    FYI, I wasn't suggesting that this is User:Digwuren, but rather that it could be handled under the Digwuren case, as is the standard for EE topics...in particular Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Standard_discretionary_sanctions. Russavia ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) 00:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Result concerning 76.102.173.102

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

    Obvious troll is obvious. I'm blocking the IP for 5 days for the obvious NPA violations and will issue a WP:DIGWUREN notification. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Request concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

    Relevant article
    Nagorno-Karabakh (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
    Sanction or remedy to be enforced
    Wikipedia:ARBAA2#Standard discretionary sanctions
    Notes

    Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xebulon/Archive#08 February 2012 has a fuller description of the issue, courtesy of Golbez (talk · contribs). See also #Nagorno-Karabakh, above. Opening a formal report to allow for fuller discussion as to potential sanctions to address this situation. T. Canens (talk) 10:48, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Notification
    [50]

    Discussion concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

    I have two objections against this idea, and one proposal.

    1. The text of standard discretionary sanctions says
      (i) that the subjects of discretionary sanctions are some particular users, not articles;
      (ii) that the sanctions are applied after the user has been properly warned.
      In connection to that, the very idea to impose editing restrictions on some article as whole is not in accordance with the discretionary sanctions concept, because
      (i) that means that all users (not only those who edit war in this area) appear to be sanctioned, and
      (ii) the Sandstein's sanctions had been applied without proper warning. For example, if we look at the Mass killings under Communist regimes and at the WP:DIGWUREN, we see that I had never been formally warned (I have never been mentioned on the WP:DIGWUREN page). Nevertheless, my editorial privileges (as well as the privileges of overwhelming majority of the Wikipedians) appear to be restricted. That restriction of my editing privileges is almost tantamount to topic ban and I do not understand why have I been placed under such topic ban. Similarly, although I have no interest in the Karabakh area, however, I cannot rule out a possibility that I may decide to edit some Karabakh related area in future. In connection to that, I do not understand why should my editing privileges to be restricted in advance, despite the fact that I committed no violations of WP policy.
    2. Whereas the Sandstein's sanctions made the admin's life dramatically easier, the result is by no means satisfactory. The article appeared to be frozen in quite biased state, and tremendous work is needed to fix a situation. If we look even at the very first opening sentence, we will see that it starts with the data taken from The Black Book of Communism, arguably the most influential, and the most controversial book about the subject. Do we add credibility to Wikipedia by using such sources without reservations? My attempts to move this statement to the article's body and to supplement it with necessary commentaries had been successfully blocked by the users who, by contrast to myself had been already sanctioned per WP:DIGWUREN, and the only reasons they appeared to be able to do that was masterful usage of formal nuances of the Sandstein's sanctions. As a result, I (as well as other reasonable editors) decided to postpone our work on this article, because the efforts needed to implement even small improvements are not commensurate with the results obtained. As a result, we have the article, which appeared to be frozen in totally unsatisfactory states. This fact does not bother the admins, because there is no edit wars any more, but the fact that some article gives a totally biased picture (and that this situation cannot be fixed) is extremely dangerous for Wikipedia. Yes, there is no visible conflict, however, the most harmonious place in the world is a graveyard.

    By writing that, I do not imply that no sanctions are needed. However, these sanctions should be in accordance with the discretionary sanctions' spirit, i.e. they should be directed against the users who had already committed some violations in this area, and who had alrfeady been properly warned. In the case of WP:DIGWUREN, we already have a list of such users, so it would be quite natural to restrict only those users (more precisely, those who had been warned during last 2-3 years). For other users no restrictions should exist (although, probably, article's semi-protection to exclude IP vandalism would be useful). For Karabakh articles, I suggest to create a similar page (if no such page exists yet): starting from some date, every user committing 3RR or similar violation is added to this list, so s/he cannot make any edit to this article until the change s/he propose is supported by consensus as described by Sandstein. I fully realise that that may initially create some problem for the admins, however, that will allow us to develop Karabakh related articles, which is much more important.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    PS. In addition to the MKuCR, we have other articles that were placed under restrictions (such as Communist terrorism, which is under 1RR). This is also not in accordance with the discretionary sanctions spirit: nowhere on that page can you find a statement that the admins are authorised to place unspecified number of users under edit restrictions without proper warning. I think by applying these sanctions the admins exceeded their authority. In my opinion, such a restriction may exist only for some concrete users, and should be implemented in a form of the list which is being permanently modofied by adding those who abuse their editing privileges, and by excluding those who committed no violations during, e.g. last 2-3 years.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I see you point, and understand your concerns. But the problem in this article is caused not by the established editors. Those are known very well, and more or less behave. The problem here are new and recently created accounts with very limited history of contributions, which pop up one after another just to rv or vote. Some are quacking very loudly, but nothing is done. For instance, I mentioned in the CU request the account of Spankarts (talk · contribs), which was created only to vote for deletion of an article. Do we need a CU for such accounts? As for sanctions, those affecting only the established users are not effective, because such measures benefit only those who use socks to evade restrictions. For instance, the sanctions imposed on Caucasian Albania clearly did not work. The edit warring there was waged by User:Vandorenfm and User:Gorzaim, both of whom eventually turned out to be socks of the banned User:Xebulon (btw, the edit warring on Nagorno-Karabakh was started by the same 2 accounts). At that time Sandstein imposed a sanction that read: All editors with Armenia/Azerbaijan-related sanctions are banned from editing this article and its talk page. For the purposes of this ban, these editors are all who have at any time been the subject of remedies, blocks or other sanctions logged on the case pages WP:ARBAA or WP:ARBAA2, irrespective of whether or not these sanctions are still in force or whether they were imposed by the Arbitration Committee or by administrators. But since all long time editors in AA area were at some point under some sort of sanctions, this pretty much opened the doors for sock and meatpuppetry, since new accounts were not under any prior sanctions. The result is that the article reflects the views of the sockmaster, who was free to make any edits he wished, and established editors could not remove even unreferenced OR claims. This is why the article about Caucasian Albania is in such a poor condition now. The sock account even managed to place an established user on a 1 year topic ban: [51] Note the complaint of the sock: The immediate concern is his editing of the article on Caucasian Albania, where User:Twilight Chill continues waging an edit war against 5 (five) other unrelated editors (Aram-van, Gorzaim, Vandorenfm, MarshallBagramyan, Xebulon). 4 of 5 accounts that he mentioned turned out later to be socks (User:Aram-van, User:Gorzaim, User:Vandorenfm, and User:Xebulon). Nice, isn't it? I have a reason to believe that the sockmaster is happily editing under a new account now, and having a good laugh at arbitration enforcement. Something similar is now going on in Nagorno-Karabakh. I don't know whether they use socks or not, but clearly a lot of SPAs are being engaged. Therefore I think the solution implemented by Sandstein on Mass killings under communist regimes is much better. At least something should be done to prevent mass edit warring with the use of new accounts. Otherwise this is not going to work. Grandmaster 18:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    No. You simply don't understand what those sanctions mean. Such sanctions may work well only if they are directed against a limited set of users who, despite being warned, continue their disruptive activity. It is ridiculous to effectively block WP community from editing of some particular articles simply because a limited amount of users appear to be unable to collaborate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    @ T. Canens. Thank you for providing a link to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 discussion. Unfortunately, I overlooked this discussion and was not able to present my arguments timely. Let me point out, however, that Kirill's idea that "(a) that the editnotice on the article constitutes a sufficient warning as required by ¶2" is not fully correct: ¶2 implies that a warning is issued to the editor, who "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia". In other words, the full sequence of the events that lead to discretionary sanctions is:

    1. Some editor working in the area of conflict "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia";
    2. A warning has been issued for him (obviously, this warning is supposed to contain a reference to some wrongdoing)
    3. If violation continues, sanctions are imposed.

    However, in a case of article wide sanctions the edit notice is being issued to everyone and in advance, so the user appears to be sanctioned simply by virtue of his interest to this topic. That is a blatant violation of our WP:AGF principle. Moreover, whereas one can speculate if 1RR itself or block for its violation is the actual sanctions, the article's full protection is already a sanction, which has been applied to whole WP community. I have a feeling that the idea of a possibility of article wide sanction should be re-considered as intrinsically flawed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Statement by Winterbliss

    This report filed by User:Grandmaster represents yet another spasm of endless bad-faith, baseless complaints pushed over, over, and over again by a tightly-knit team of Azerbaijani users who target unrelated accounts in a coordinated fashion with the purpose of limiting editing activity on specific pages. They falsely accuse unwanted editors in sockpuppetry and try to discredit their productive work by making false statements about their editing practices. Now these efforts are getting really desperate and disruptive because Grandmaster’s earlier pranks to discredit his opponents and filibuster consensus-building on talk Nagorno-Karabakh pages are failing. But regardless of Grandmaster's filibustering and manipulating (e.g. WP:WL) discussion and consensus building on Nagorno-Karabakh talk pages proceeds as planned and according to Golbez's earlier recommendations (despite his declared exit from the scene). Various issues and parts of the texts are discussed one by one, and neutral, third-party and high-quality sources are used to support write-ups. This may not be am super-ideal process but most people involved seem to try hard to comply with the earlier guidelines set by Golbez. All participants were CU-checked and are unrelated. Golbez asked to "re-own" earlier texts and one of the participants (Zimmarod I beleive) did that promptly, explaining rationale of every good-faith addition that was deleted → [52].

    Grandmaster’s report is based on lies, and he came to AE forum with unclean hands. One is that User:Xebulon “has been disrupting Wikepedia for years.” Xebulon’s account was created 10.24.10 and closed on 7.7.11, and no connections between him and earlier accounts were established.

    Grandmaster filed and SPI request [53] accusing as many as 9 (!) editors of being sockpupptes but not only his effort went bust but his SPI was categorized as disruptive when CU showed lack of any relation among the editors by User:Tnxman307. Furthermore, per User:Tnxman307’s comment [54] “As far as I can tell, the same group of users accuse the same opposing group of being sockpuppets. Nothing has ever come of this. Frankly, I think it's disruptive and pointless and am inclined to decline these on sight.”

    It has been known that Grandmaster was coordinating editing of a large group of Azerbaijani user in Russian wiki from here information on meta-wiki and here [55] by being the head of 26 Baku Commissars. There is also evidence that Grandmaster uses off-wiki coordination on the pages of English wiki as well: take a look at this curious exchange - [56], [57], which are requests of off-wiki communication between Grandmaster and User:Mursel.

    In the recent past such reports, mainly AE and SPI requests, were routinely filed by Grandmaster’s friend User:Tuscumbia, who got recently topic banned for one year on the charge of WP:BATTLEGROUND and racist comments about ethnic origin of academic references [58]. Just a few examples of Tuscumbia's fishing trips: [59], [60], [61], [62], [63]. That is how Tuscumbia’s practice of harassing SPIs was described by an independent Lothar von Richthofen:

    • "Checkuser is not for fishing. If you can present actual evidence other then "they make edits that I don't like and it makes me mad so I want to harass them with SPIs on the offhand chance that they will turn up to be the same people, then maybe a new Checkuser might be in order. Otherwise, your invocation of phantom sockpuppeteers is borderline disruptive.[64]

    User:Grandmaster who was so far editing on an on-and-off basis with rather long periods of absence from WP suddenly hit the Nagorno Karabakh talk pages one day after Tuscumbia’s removal from AA area, picking up right where Tuscumbia left off [65]. Grandmaster’s and Tuscumbia’s behavior is identical: conspiratorial accusations in sockpuppetry, repeating the same points over and over again, a method of filibustering a consensus used most recently by User:Tuscumbia in talks on Murovdag. User:Grandmaster acts as User:Tuscumbia’s placeholder, if not as his loudly quacking meatpuppet who came to man the post of his banned comrade as soon as Tuscumbia got into trouble.

    It is high time to restrict Grandmaster’s disruptive conduct by limiting his access to editing AA-related topics.


    Zimmarod's point of view

    User:Paul Siebert said it well above [66]. Sanctioning simply by virtue of someone's interest in a topic, or because of loose suspicions that there are some users who are proven not to be sockpuppets in multiple SPIs but can theoretically be found socks or meats in an unspecified time in the future is a blatant violation of the WP:AGF principle. This is in fact total absurdity. Imagine a court issuing a verdict clearing the accused of charges; but then the complainant pops up and suggests to incarcerate or execute the formerly accused right away simply because of his lingering suspicions or because in the future the accused can be found guilty of something else. It is like I may suggest to run a CU on Golbez or T. Canens accusing them in being Grandmaster's socks, and when it turns out that they are not socks, I will propose to get rid of their administrative powers on WP:DUCK charges simply because I am not happy with the results of SPIs and want to get rid of Golbez or T. Canens anyway. We on the Nagorno-Karabakh article try to be as constructive as possible and work toward a consensual input of edits after discussion. I now own the old edits, not some Xebulon. Many are tempted to restore the old edits at once but we decided not to do that and be selective and work incrementally, discarding non-consensual parts as we go. What is the problem? Ah, I know. All this runs counter to the strategy of User:Grandmaster who is unhappy. Instead of him writing long passages on this topic he could be more succinct, and say honestly: "I want to own the article Nagorno-Karabakh by excluding everyone from editing. I tried to play the old game of accusing a bunch of users in being socks, and that did not work out. Now I want them all excluded on absurd excuses simply because I exhausted my arsenal of disruptive tricks, and my meat-pals like User:Tuscumbia cannot help me since they are (again) banned for racism and wp:battleground." Zimmarod (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Result concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

    This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
    • The Sandstein sanction (the one used on Mass killings under Communist regimes) is a rather drastic remedy, so I'd like to hear from other uninvolved admins before taking any action on that front.

      Also, the status quo is rather...unsatisfactory, and I have a feeling that this thread will take a while to conclude. I'll be interested in hearing suggestions as to any temporary sanctions on the article while this thread is pending. T. Canens (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't see what a sanction like that will achieve, because if an article is already in poor shape (and it usually is when it is a BATTLEGROUND topic), then all it's going to do is empower POV pushers to prevent improvement to the page. That certainly seems to be the case with the Mass killings article mentioned - after more than a year under this sanction, I don't think that article could be described as either neutral or well written. In fact, I'd say there's probably a good case for vacating that sanction at this point.
    As regulars at this page will probably be aware, I did start work on an alternative "lightweight" AE-type process about a year ago, although other commitments have prevented me moving forward with it. I still think it would be worth a tryout, but it needs a rewrite and I haven't been able to find the time yet.
    I'm not sure what else might be done in the meantime to improve articles in contentious topic areas, but one possible option would be to require anyone who wants to edit such pages to have, say, 500 mainspace edits outside the topic area before editing within it, as well as at least half their ongoing contribution outside it. A restriction like that might at least put a break on sockpuppetry, and hopefully encourage erstwhile POV pushers to make positive contributions elsewhere on the project. That is one option.
    Another might be to give one or more respected admins draconian powers over particularly troublesome articles, allowing them to make decisions about what content is or is not permissible. An option like that would of course run the risk of the article coming to reflect the particular bias of the admins in question, but an article controlled by a couple of responsible administrators should still end up better than one in the control of POV pushers and their socks. There would still be some problems to resolve however, such as how to choose the admins in the first place, and what method of appealing their decisions might be put in place. Regardless, whatever method might be chosen, I think there must surely be a widespread recognition by now that current methods of dispute resolution are not doing the job and that new approaches must be tried. Gatoclass (talk) 14:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Having now read through the Xebulon sockpuppetry thread linked above, I think Grandmaster's suggestion of permitting admins to simply block any account per the duck test, as Moreschi did on previous occasions, might be the simplest solution for the current problems with this article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm inclined to agree with you on that last suggestion; that's de facto what happens in some places already (Chinese-Taiwan issues, for instance), so formalizing it might not be a bad idea. I have enough faith in our admin corps to know it when they see it. The other ideas are certainly worth discussing, but I think that would require broader community input. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    That's true. Sandstein's sanction pretty much froze that article because nobody can get consensus on anything, and that is pretty unsatisfactory. DUCK blocks don't need AE authority though; they have always been allowed. We could hand out a bunch of sock/meatpuppetry blocks (which is which doesn't matter since we treat them identically). However, SPI didn't see enough evidence for a block and that does concern me. Another possibility is to put this group of editors under a collective revert restriction. T. Canens (talk) 19:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]