Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

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request administrative action against editors violating a remedy (not merely a principle) or an injunction in an Arbitration Committee decision, or a contentious topic restriction imposed by an administrator,
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Appeals and administrator modifications of contentious topics restrictions

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

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

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

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

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

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Changing or revoking a contentious topic restriction

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

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

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

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

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

Standard of review
On community review

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

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

On Arbitration Committee review

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

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

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

Appeals and administrator modifications of non-contentious topics sanctions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications and appeals state:

Appeals by sanctioned editors

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

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

Modifications by administrators

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

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

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

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

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

Important notes:

For a request to succeed, either

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

(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA

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

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

Information for administrators processing requests

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

A couple of reminders:

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

This needs to be resolved. While I generally agree that the 'consensus required' restriction has some drawbacks, attempts to remove it have met no consensus, the admin who imposed it has come back from a seven-month absence to endorse it and, per TonyBallioni below, the restriction was in place, the editor was very aware of it (having been reported for the same thing only a month ago) and it should be enforced. If someone wants to try crafting a new restriction to replace it, they are welcome to post a new section here or at AN to start a discussion which could replace it. In the middle of a complaint about a violation is not the place to have that discussion. Moreover, the disruption around this subject needs to stop. Therefore:

James J. Lambden and VolunteerMarek are banned from all articles and edits related to Donald Trump, broadly construed, for one month and warned that further such disruption will lead to longer sanctions.
James J. Lambden and TheTimesAreAChanging are banned from interacting with Volunteer Marek for three months and vice-versa, per the normal terms of an interaction ban. The only exception, apart from the usual ones is that they may make reports of violations of this sanction (the IBAN) to this noticeboard. They are counselled against the use of the exemptions for vandalism and BLP violations except in the most obvious of obvious cases.
TheTimesAreAChanging, James J. Lambden, Volunteer Marek and SPECIFICO are warned to edit collegially and assume good faith.

GoldenRing (talk) 10:31, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Request concerning Volunteer Marek

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: TheTimesAreAChanging (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 05:50, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2#Discretionary sanctions (1932 cutoff) :

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

05:34, 8 November 2017: Volunteer Marek adds content sourced from Business Insider to Donald Trump–Russia dossier.
06:21, 8 November 2017: James J. Lambden reverts the portion of Volunteer Marek's edit sourced to Business Insider, stating: "trim; rm Business Insider, if accurate a reliable source should not be hard to find".
05:36, 8 November 2017: Having been reverted for WP:BOLDly changing the lead in the middle of an ongoing RfC on November 2, Volunteer Marek again tries his hand at rewriting the lead to reflect breaking news.
06:20, 8 November 2017: Volunteer Marek's BOLD lead changes are reverted by James J. Lambden, stating: "revert lede changes; consensus on talk is against". (James J. Lambden's concurrent edits at 06:20 and 06:21 count as a single revert.)
06:39, 8 November 2017: Volunteer Marek reinstates the Business Insider source and all of the disputed content derived from it, violating the Discretionary Sanctions requirement that "You ... must not reinstate any challenged (via reversion) edits without obtaining consensus on the talk page of this article". Volunteer Marek also reinstates his preferred lead, apparently claiming immunity from DS because "Lede change [is] based on new info".

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

Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 13 December 2016.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Volunteer Marek was just let off the hook for another clear-cut DS violation in October because—while all parties acknowledged the violation—no admin was actually willing to sanction him. Rather than admit error in this case, Volunteer Marek personally attacked James J. Lambden, calling him "obnoxious and creepy" and responding to James J. Lambden's DS warning as follows: "fuck off you creep you know you're not welcome". (James J. Lambden did not respond in kind to these and other aspersions by Volunteer Marek.) Volunteer Marek also belittled me and suggested that I was acting in bad faith for pointing out that his repeated DS violations are not appropriate, thus prompting me to file this report.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:50, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

MastCell, I did not allege that Volunteer Marek violated 1RR. James J. Lambden's second revert was arguably exempt from 1RR because otherwise the "consensus required" and 1RR requirements cancel each other out whenever the editor making disputed edits reverts once. While I agree that the "consensus required" rule that Volunteer Marek violated is archaic and enables tendentious WP:GAMING, as long as it is on the books it should be enforced consistently: Admins often seem eager to interpret Volunteer Marek's actions in the most charitable light possible, but I do not think that such courtesy is generally extended to other editors in similar circumstances. I support rescinding the "consensus required" warning from the article if it is not enforced in this case. I have also amended my earlier timeline for greater clarity.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:12, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's ironic that Volunteer Marek is simultaneously accusing James J. Lambden of blindly reverting him and maintaining that because James J. Lambden's edit was only a partial revert specifically challenging the reliability of one Business Insider opinion piece that he couldn't have known it was a revert at all. Compare that with his comments at this same venue just last month, in which he similarly claims that his DS violation was unintentional because "it's sort of hard to understand the objection" and attacks the filer of the report for "playing some 'gotcha' game." As GoldenRing says, Volunteer Marek's recidivism is relevant to this case. Personally, I thought that Volunteer Marek's position was far more credible last time around.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:12, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[1]

Discussion concerning Volunteer Marek

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

Statement by Volunteer Marek

First, I want to note that I made a proposal to remove the "consensus required" provision from the template here. Several administrators in the past have stated that their intent was just to add the "1RR restriction" DS to a page but inadvertently added the "consensus required" provision ONLY because it comes "packaged" into the template. When asked about enforcing it they've expressed no interest in doing so, as has been noted below.

Second, and relatedly, yes, that provision is stupid for a whole host of reasons, one of which is that a tendentious user can just jump in, blindly revert and then "demand consensus" (which they have no intent of working towards). This is more or less what's happened here. I don't know if I've violated the provisions - Lambden changed the wording and removed a part of my edit. He did not entirely remove my edit. I can't tell if that's an over all "challenge" to my edit (it wasn't a revert but a rewrite) or just a rewording. I guess it's a "partial challenge". Or something. The "consensus required for challenged material" provision is stupid.

There's no BLP issue here and nobody's ever raised a BLP objection. Business Insider is fine as a source.

Regarding the "unverified" wording. The removal of that info occurred before Nov 2 (late October), and the info that and the testimony by Page which, according to sources, explicitly verified some info. Basically, the information that's out there in sources changed and hence an update to the article was needed. If you update an article with brand new sources, is that a revert? However, if this was all there was to this disagreement, I'd be happy to wait on it.

My comment to Lambden, which TTAAC brings up, was NOT in response to his DS warning. It was in response to his continued posting of taunting comments on my talk page. I have asked him MULTIPLE times before not to post on my talk page. He knows that I regard his actions regarding me as constituting WP:HARASSMENT - he follows me to articles he's never edited before and makes blind reverts just to mess with me. Other users (User:SPECIFICO, User:Snooganssnoogans and I believe User:NorthBySouthBaranoff have made similar complaints regarding Lambden, so it's sort of a general problem with his WP:NOTHERE editing on Wikipedia; he has trouble interacting with editors whom he regards as having wrong political views). Hence his posting to my talk page JUST AFTER I removed his previous comment was pretty clearly made with an intent of ... being annoying.

As for "consistent enforcing" of the "consensus required" provision. I don't believe I personally ever filed a report on anyone for violating that provision (if I did it was so long ago that I've forgotten). Precisely because I think it's a stupid provision. I'm also pretty sure that the sanction is NOT generally enforced, except in cases where there's some other form of chicanery going on. So ... "consistent enforcing" here would be to ignore it. Volunteer Marek 12:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@TTAC - nothing ironic there. What constitutes a revert is pretty clear cut. What constitutes a "challenge" (which is what I specifically discuss) is not. That's part of what makes this "consensus required" restriction so confusing. Volunteer Marek 16:34, 9 November 2017 (UTC) [reply]

Just wanted to point out that while I may or may not have violated the "consensus required" provision (which is inane and easy to forget about since it goes against the spirit of Wikipedia's BRD guideline) unlike Lambden I did not violate 1RR. Furthermore, once the DS violation was pointed out, I did not restore the part of my text (it's still not in there) - and personally, whenever *I* see someone violating this particular provision or even the 1RR provision I do them the courtesy of reminding them of it first, rather than running off to WP:AE to try and "score points" and agitate for sanctions. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've performed this courtesy for the filing editor, User:TheTimesAreAChanging on several occasions - there have been several instances, where I could have reported him here but instead just approached them on their talk page and said "hey, remember there's that DS sanction, be careful". That is why it's so disappointing that the courtesy is not being returned and that TTAC has instead chosen to revert to the type of WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior (and yes, filing WP:AE reports when not needed is exactly that) which characterized his editing before his (now expired (lifted?)) topic ban in this area. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. Volunteer Marek 14:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC) [reply]

Here is the last example of what I'm referring to above [2]. TheTimesAreAChanging violated 1RR on the article Donald Trump on social media. I could've run here and reported him. Instead I went to his talk page and just reminded him of the restriction. When he replied I indicated that I was happy to assume good faith and let it go [3]. I'm pretty sure there have been similar situations elsewhere and I've acted in a similar manner (though I think my comments were on talk). Now I'm saying to myself "you've been here 12 years, you know how Wikipedia often works, why did you try to be nice, why didn't you just go report him when he violated the sanctions - then he wouldn't be here today reporting you". Such is life on Wikipedia I guess. Volunteer Marek 14:32, 10 November 2017 (UTC) [reply]

Another 1RR violation by Lambden

[4] (first) revert of [5]
[6] (second) revert of [7]

So first that second revert is indeed a revert since it concerns the contentious quote by Goodin. Now, I'm guessing Lambden is gonna argue that it's not a revert because he didn't "EXACTLY" restore the same text (he's tried using this argument before). But compare "Dan Goodin, of the technology site Ars Technica, said he was disappointed in the report which provided "almost none of the promised evidence" linking Russia to the DNC hack" to "Ars Technica security editor Dan Goodin wrote that, "The US government's much-anticipated analysis of Russian-sponsored hacking operations provides almost none of the promised evidence linking them to breaches that the Obama administration claims were orchestrated in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.". It's the same thing, just paraphrased.

Second, Lambden knows this is a revert and knows that there was no consensus to include it because he participated in the discussion and attempted to (unsuccessfully) have this piece of text added before [8].

Third, and in light of second, it seems strange that Lambden would actually restore this text and violate 1RR in doing so. I'm guessing - and pardon my lack of good faith here - that the revert was made to provoke a revert from someone else (prolly myself, maybe User:Geogene or User:SPECIFICO) which could then be leveraged into a sanction-seeking report. It seems Lambden has adopted the "I'm willing to go down, as long as I take someone with me" tactic here (and GoldenRing's suggestions sort of play into that kind of strategy). Volunteer Marek 18:49, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So Lambden, instead of explaining why you violated 1RR for the second time in, what?, two days?, you instead drag out some old diffs and pretend they're 1RR/3RR violations by me (they're not, and this was already covered at the time). Man, talk about Whataboutism. This is like some Wikipedia version of "But her emails!!!!" - when your own disruptive behavior is brought to light, don't even bother denying it, just try to deflect it and change the subject. Volunteer Marek 01:51, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OKay, this is pretty desperate.

"that VM is now calling a 1RR violation" - Lambden, are you saying that [9] [10] was NOT a 1RR violation? It's not me "calling" it, it IS a 1RR violation. Your second one in two days.
What in the world does this edit have to do with this 1RR violation? It's a completely different article that has nothing to do with anything here. Lambden just looked for some instance of somebody saying something "negative" about me so he could add it here. It's a smear.
As to the 1 year old WP:AE report I filed against that user [11], which Lambden falsely calls "frivolous". Yeah, I'm actually wondering why the admins dropped the ball on that one. In that instance the editor in question changed "it was reported she gained too much weigh and rumors began to circulate", which was bad enough, to "it was reported that she swelled to more than 160 pound", a pretty straight up and very obnoxious BLP violation (there were also other BLP violations. The article in question, on Alicia Machado was subject to a coordinated attack (organized off wiki, on reddit and 4chan). Look at all the edits to the talk page [12] that had to be rev del'd between September 30 2016 and October 6 2016 and on the article itself during roughly the same time [13]. Yeah, I would love to know why there was no action taken - I'm assuming it's cuz the archive bot got to it first or something. It was anything than "frivolous". I mean, unless you happen to think that attacking women and making fun of their weight is what Wikipedia is for (Lambden might be thinking of twitter or reddit. KotakuInAction is it?)
Lambden says "Comments about VM's behavior by all editors in that request are just as valid " - would these be the comments by "User:Paul Keller", the sock puppet (one of dozens) of another serial harasser and stalker User:Lokalkosmopolit, that's been indef banned?

Lambden's violated 1RR on two articles in two days. The second violation was made while this report was already open. It's a pretty clear cut case of "I don't care about rules and I intend to be disruptive". He can bring up some irrelevant AE report from one year ago, or post diffs to some edits on completely different articles, and make up whatever nonsense about these he wants to, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still two 1RR violations in two days, AFTER being made aware of the first one. This is sort of how Lambden operates. Whenever the facts/sources/evidence is against him, he tries to deflect and when someone points out that they're engaging in disruptive behavior he employs the "uh uh, I know you are but what am I" tactic, basically ensuring that no productive discussion can be had. THAT "is not how consensus editing is supposed to work". Volunteer Marek 20:23, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Softlavender

I can't speak to the actions of James J. Lambden or what to do regarding him, but I would recommend against a topic-ban for VolunteerMarek unless the situation gets out of hand. I say this because, although over-zealous at times, he does excellent work in the political sphere. I would also recommend that the "consensus required" dictum re: replacing cited info be removed from the posted sanctions, as we've had complaints about it here and agreements to fix that, but it hasn't been done. Also, as GoldenRing has noted, Coffee isn't going to be returning to Wikipedia, so another admin needs to step up and change the sanction or initiate a proceeding to officially decide to change it. Softlavender (talk) 12:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by James J. Lambden

MastCells' characterization of my 1RR accusation against VM as an "aggravating factor" assumes it's groundless or insincere which is it not. I presented it clearly twice, here again:

16:16, 3 November 2017 - Original edit: "a combination of some verified and some as yet unverified allegations"
05:36, 8 November 2017 - VM's first revert, restoring essentially the same text: "allegations ... some, but not all, of which have been independently corroborated"
06:39, 8 November 2017 - VM's second revert: "allegations ... some, but not all, of which have been independently corroborated"

This occurred while an RfC to settle this exact question - whether "some" or "partially" should be used - was in progress violating consensus required as well as RfC procedure. VM has repeatedly ignored RfC procedure in political articles, most egregiously at Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials where he repeatedly restored disputed text during an RfC (@D.Creish:)

VM's use of language offensive not just in verbiage but meaning, and aspersions which have persisted for months ("fuck off you creep", "Please fucking stop stalking my edits you creep", "obnoxious and creepy stalker", "You're freakin' obsessed and it's creepy as fuck. Get a life") should be addressed.

Immediately following this dispute VM made a "revenge revert" at Daily Caller then proceeded to Uranium One (an article he had never edited) to restore text that I had removed a week earlier. This behavior should be addressed.

These topics are covered by DS with the expectation of higher scrutiny. I am seeing the opposite and it has created an atmosphere of unproductiveness and hostility.

The rules of the page in question specify consensus required and 1RR, so we have one the one hand:

A violation of consensus required in two instances
A violation of 1RR
A restoration of disputed text during an RfC

and on the other:

A violation of 1RR

The suggestion below is the latter be sanctioned and the former ignored.

I reverted a straightforward consensus required violation (and a poorly-sourced edit which has not been restored) specifically because it violated DS. It is not preventative to mislead editors with a provision posted in authoritative language, disregard it after the fact to eliminate justification, then hold them responsible for an unjustified revert. If the consensus required provision will not be enforced it should be made clear. Had it been I would not have reverted. James J. Lambden (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: A day ago I filed an edit-warring complaint against an editor who made 6 reverts claiming a BLP exemption to remove the word "bipartisan" in the description of a lobbying firm. Although no source was provided (the claim was in the lede) it was easily sourced and the article now includes it. That complaint was dismissed and the BLP defense accepted.

Here I removed an inaccurate BLP claim* The claim is not included in our current article because it's incorrect. I made 2 reverts to remove it yet that is not seen as justification and no mention is made of VM's edit-warring to reinsert an inaccurate BLP claim by anyone but GoldenRing.

* The inaccurate BLP claim is the line: "The meeting [with Andrey Baranov] was also documented in the dossier and confirmed in Page's testimony, as well as by US intelligence sources." Neither the Steele dossier nor the intelligence community document a meeting with Baranov. They claim a meeting with Sechin which is not confirmed by Page's testimony. James J. Lambden (talk) 04:37, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Volunteer Marek: That discussion was painful to re-read. I had forgotten the extent of obstruction in that article. I don't share your interest in "gaming" strategies. I don't have the time and more importantly I rarely file complaints so it would do me no good. If you want to get picky about reverts then your violations are even more clear:

Two under 1RR: (this of that), (this of that)
Five under 3RR: (this of that), (this of that), (this of that), (this of that), (this of that)

That is just what I could find easily. You often remove the default edit summary from your reverts even when character count is not an issue, making them difficult to track. Maybe that is more so-called "strategy." James J. Lambden (talk) 23:47, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the text I added (that VM is now calling a 1RR violation) was restored by a 14 year old account. Examining the editor's history I see this edit-summary from a week ago - "Self rv i forgot it's marek... i'm not touching this with a 10 foot pole" - an established editor reverting what he considers an improvement solely because of VM's hostility. That is not how consensus editing is supposed to work.

I wondered about their previous interaction so I followed that comment to this frivolous AE complaint VM had filed against him. So frivolous that not one administrator commented before it was archived. Scrolling down I see my own comment, which I had forgotten - comment.

Comments about VM's behavior by all editors in that request are just as valid now as they were a year ago. His behavior has not changed nor I suspect has the inability of our processes to deal with it. James J. Lambden (talk) 18:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by power~enwiki

For those suggesting a topic ban: would it be for all of AP2, or just "Trump/Russia" topics? power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:04, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I don't think that a healthy serving of WP:TROUT will be enough here. A TBAN on Trump/Russia-related issues (narrowly construed to include only AP2 pages with "Trump" or "Russia" in the title, and for about a month) applied to Lambden and Marek equally seems reasonable. Contentious editing is a dis-service to the encyclopedia, and if they can't avoid that, something must be done. I feel a full AP2 ban would be too severe here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:09, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by My very best wishes

I think this is just the latest episode when James J. Lambden persistently follows VM on various pages to get him banned, while VM is working very hard to improve the content everywhere, and specifically in the area of US politics. Also, I think this "consensus required" editing restriction is extremely unhelpful and should never be used. It does not really help to establish consensus, but prevents quick improvement of pages on recent controversial events. My very best wishes (talk) 18:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SPECIFICO

TTAAC and James Lambden have demonstrated on this AE thread what editors in American Politics see every day. Each of them appears incapable of discussing facts and policy without personalizing their remarks, disparaging other editors, and mounting irrelevant and dismissive aspersions. They both have a long history of stalking and harassment of other editors. In TTAAC's case, he has already received a TBAN per ARBAP2, he socked to evade the ban, and he squandered the good faith extended by Sandstein, who lifted his ban based on TTAAC's promise not to resume his personal disparagement and battleground rants. And that's just in calendar 2017.

This AE complaint is over a trivial matter that's typical of the dozens that arise -- which may or may not entail technical violations -- that are never escalated to this enforcement page. Marek has consistently refused to take the bait from TTAAC and has tried to collaborate courteously with him Marek has repeatedly asked Lambden to stop his harassment.

I recommend a TBAN for James B. Lambden for his ongoing stalking and harassment of Marek and others. I recommend that TTAAC's TBAN be reinstated due to his manifest failure to reform his disruptive battleground participation in American Politics articles, in effect violating the terms of his parole. Black Comedy: TTAAC's AN complaint on me within days of promising Sandstein he would not resume his battleground rants [14]. It's disturbing that TTAAC appears to have stepped back and waited until another AN complaint about him was archived the day before he posting the current pointless AE complaint about Marek. [15]. SPECIFICO talk 02:04, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Volunteer Marek

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

I‘m of the view that the admins who add these sanctions templates to articles should address violation complaints. Pinging @Coffee: could you take a look? Sandstein 06:14, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein: Since Coffee last edited in April, I think you're unlikely to get much help from this. GoldenRing (talk) 10:00, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This complaint is confusingly presented; the diffs are not in chronological order, which makes it difficult to assess their legitimacy. Additionally, diffs #3 and #6 both link to the same edit, yet are presented as if they were two different edits and two different violations. I'm going to assume that this was an honest oversight rather than an attempt at deception, but it should be corrected by TheTimesAreAChanging (talk · contribs).
Looking at the article and dispute in question, there is a clear-cut 1RR violation by James J. Lambden (talk · contribs) (06:21 and 06:44, 8 Nov 2017). Given the black-and-white nature of the violation, and the aggravating factor that he accuses others of violating 1RR in the second edit summary, I would propose a block of the appropriate length for him.
As far as the complaint against Marek, I'm less clear. I see one clear-cut revert by him (06:39), and several other edits which appear to add new information or wording. It's possible that there's a 1RR violation there, but I don't quite see it and the complaint is not well-constructed enough to clarify. Does anyone else see one?
As for violations of the "consensus required" provision, it seems to me that there's a general reluctance to aggressively enforce this on all sides. Which makes sense; the provision seems like a good idea in theory, but easily game-able in practice (by reflexively reverting and then demanding "consensus", one tendentious editor could use this provision to basically hold a page hostage). I'm going to defer to other admins to interpret and, if appropriate, to enforce that remedy here. It's not immediately clear to me that the provision has been violated from the diffs provided in the complaint nor from my own review of recent editing on the page, but if others feel that there is a violation then they can certainly place the sanction that they think is appropriate. I would argue that if we (collectively) don't intend to enforce the restriction, then we should explicitly remove it to avoid confusion.
In summary, I'd propose a block of James J. Lambden (talk · contribs) for a clear-cut 1RR violation (aggravated by hypocrisy in accusing others of a violation), and will defer to anyone else's interpretation of the "consensus needed" provision. Thoughts? MastCell ^Talk 06:49, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the complaint is not put very clearly. Here's the history from this morning:

In these two consecutive edits at 05:34 and 05:36, VM added some fairly controversial material, sourced to Business Insider and a change to the lead.
In these four consecutive edits between 06:20 and 06:36, JJL reverted the change to the lead and significantly changed the other material added by VM, including removing everything sourced to Business Insider.
At 06:39, VM re-instated the changes to the lead.
At 06:44, JJL reverted the changes to the lead again.
In these three consecutive edits between 07:54 and 08:14, VM re-added a substantially reduced/toned-down version of the controversial material, this time sourced to USA Today and Newsweek.

I think it's pretty clear that JJL has violated 1RR here and some sort of sanction is appropriate. IMO topic bans are more appropriate than blocks in these situations - editors getting on with editing something else is helpful to everyone, so long as the disruption doesn't also carry over.
I think it's also pretty clear that VM has violated the consensus required provision. I argued against enforcing it last month because it's easy to be inadvertently tripped up by them and basically assumed good faith. I think a second violation a month later is rather stretching that good faith and some sort of sanction is appropriate here. It also seems to me that whether VM's first edit counts as a fairly serious BLP violation hinges entirely on your view of Business Insider as a reliable source. On a quick scout through RSN, I didn't find immediately obvious "never use this source" but I did find a lot of caution and scepticism and feel VM should know better than this.
In short, I think sanctions on both are appropriate and would favour topic bans over blocks. GoldenRing (talk) 09:59, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Softlavender: It's been tried - see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive218#Consensus_Required_restriction_in_American_Politics. A significant number of administrators there were opposed to simply removing it, and for what look to me good reasons. It's all very well for VM to oppose the restriction and think what he likes about it; he still has no excuse, given the history, for violating it. GoldenRing (talk) 12:42, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Power~enwiki: I'd be inclined towards a relatively narrow ban, perhaps from articles and edits related to Donald Trump. Also relatively short in both cases - one or two months perhaps? GoldenRing (talk) 10:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC) @Power~enwiki: fixing ping, sorry. GoldenRing (talk) 10:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I don't see how this edit of VM's is supposed to be "fairly controversial". Blocking Lambden after the fact is blocking after the fact--I think rather that considering the lengthy and tendentious career Lambden has had in that area they should be topic-banned, at least for three months. Drmies (talk) 13:13, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't changed my mind since that discussion. I think it should be removed. Yes, I said that I liked User:BU Rob13's suggestion that we replace it with "Editors cannot restore edits which they have introduced within 24 hours if the edits have been reverted", but I don't think "consensus required" is fit for purpose and the uninvolved administrators at that discussion seemed to agree. I think it should be treated like a lame duck and put out of its misery (sorry, I think that's a mixed metaphor). Other than that I've got no comment on what should be the outcome here. Doug Weller talk 15:46, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that behind the back and forth and history of the pair here, that there's any immediate action that can be taken outside a healthy dose of trouts, but I think all editors in this topic need to keep in mind that WP:NOT#NEWS is policy, and we strive to avoid WP:RECENTISM - just because it is widely reported does not mean it has to be immediately added to WP. A lot of the conflict in the AmPol area would be cut back if editors were not on a race to insert the latest-breaking political scandal news before the information has had a chance to make its course through a news cycle, to at least get a sense of how "serious" it is, or at least to make sure we're using the best sources possible if this is contentious information. Eg, if VM had waited 24hr, after which other sources that are considered more reliable than Business Insider came about with corroborating stories, then we wouldn't be here - the content sourced to works like Newsweek seems reasonable then to include. Even if it is the case that the NYTimes brought allegations to the forefront, waiting a bit (24hr) to understand how it fit into a larger picture, potenitally initiating discussion on the talk page pre-addition, would be helpful to reduce conflicts here. --MASEM (t) 16:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I endorse the removal of the "consensus required" provision, which I'm beginning to think should be removed from all articles. As Coffee hasn't edited in some time, I don't feel we are stepping on any toes by doing this here and now, for this article anyway. I doubt it need replacing with anything, but will accept modification rather than flat removal as a second choice. I would opt out of opining on any other merits herein. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:16, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus required provision is to stay, as has been discussed by ArbCom. Just because I've not edited in a while, is not a logical argument for the removal of a working concept. Also, no Sandstein... all administrators should be able to handle these concerns. But, I do think it would be encouraged to talk to an admin familiar with the matter first (yes this would obviously include the imposing admin). Coffee (talk) 23:41, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I typically stay out of AE, but I will say this: consensus required makes sense and should not be removed: it already has a basis in policy (WP:ONUS) and having it as a sanction, like 1RR is only designed to be a bright line in making sure that policy is followed. I recently intentionally imposed the sanction on Roy Moore for this very reason, and I'm sad to see it brought up here that it should be removed from all pages. I have no thoughts on this particular case, but refusing to enforce a valid sanction based in well-established policy is a bad idea. Coffee's restriction was correctly placed, and if it has been violated, that should be taken into account here. While the sanction can be gamed, 1RR with multiple editors can also be very easily gamed without this restriction, and it is important to remember where this sanction is applied: typically to high profile and visible US politics pages, where there are going to be many editors watching. It helps to force talk page conversation and avoid edit wars, which is a net positive.TonyBallioni (talk) 02:04, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thucydides411

Thucydides411 is banned from all edits and pages related to US-Russia relations for three months. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes matters related to the question of Russian interference in US elections. GoldenRing (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Request concerning Thucydides411

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: MrX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 19:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Thucydides411 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBAPDS :

Wikipedia editors are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other editors; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.
All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view. Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarized sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view.
When there is a good-faith dispute, editors are expected to participate in the consensus-building process and to carefully consider other editors' views, rather than simply edit-warring back-and-forth between competing versions.

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

November 12, 2017 Restoring blatant personal attack after it was removed by another editor. (Edit warring)
November 12, 2017 Restoring blatant personal attack after it was removed by another editor. (Edit warring)

November 12, 2017 Restoring blatant personal attack after it was removed by another editor. (Edit warring)

November 12, 2017 Blatant personal attack and personalizing disputes.
November 12, 2017 Assumption of bad faith: "This just looks like an attempt to hide the mainstream view of the JAR from readers. Given the discussion above about "purging" the article, the intent of this RfC is quite clear."
November 12, 2017 Assumption of bad faith
November 12, 2017 Assumption of bad faith
October 11, 2017 Personalizing content disputes
July 4, 2017 Refusal to accept consensus

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

February 18, 2017 Blocked for violation of discretionary sanctions restrictions
May 7, 2017 Given a discretionary sanction by Lord Roem (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

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

Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on February 18, 2017 by Coffee (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).
Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on January 23, 2017
Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on February 25, 2017.
Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on May 7, 2017 by Lord Roem (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Thucydides411 has persistently made assumptions of bad faith, personal attacks, edit warring, refusal to abide by consensus] and general tendentious editing at Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections for nearly a year as part of his campaign to inject his fringe POV [16], that election interference by Russia didn't happen, into the article. He has been warned several times at several venues to stop but he continues to exhibit a pattern of behavior that is disruptive and a drain on everyone's patience. These last personal attacks on Volunteer Marek are way over the line.

@James J. Lambden: That's news to me. Please list the diffs corresponding to my examples above that show Thucydides411 being attacked. And no, let's not close this. We all know that ANI is useless for resolving these types of issues which is why there were two Arbcom cases for American politics, and why there are discretionary sanction which I am asking to be enforced.- Mr X 00:39, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[17]

Discussion concerning Thucydides411

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

Statement by Thucydides411

I'm not going to comment here further than to say this: I think this report is part of a campaign of intimidation and harassment. I really don't have the time to respond - getting down in the mud over the insane situation on American Politics articles isn't worth it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by slatersateven)

There is an ongoing ANI [18] launched by me. We should close this (or that) and only have one running.Slatersteven (talk) 19:59, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please close this, statements are being made here I feel I should respond to, but have no wish to be accused of forum shopping.Slatersteven (talk) 10:48, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As this is obviously not going to be closed I have asked for the ANI to be closed. I note that he has never informed anyone of DS, but was informed in the last 12 months.Slatersteven (talk) 14:45, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

At ANI I asked for a topic ban after the user rejected the simple request by another edd to just step away for 48 hours. I fell that if the user is not given some kind of sanction they will in fact continue to be disruptive and provocative. As to the comments about him being provoked. In the last interaction the first "about a user statement" made by anyone was this [19], whilst not aimed at A user it is an attack on anyone who disagrees with him as being politically motivated. Maybe I am missing where he was provoked into making that statement, As far as I can see he was the one deliberately trying to provoke people.Slatersteven (talk) 14:54, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also not only was he not hated alone, but he attempted to move his comment out of the hat (whilst keeping others hated) [20].Slatersteven (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There was nothing stopping Thucydides411 from removing PA's, that would have been well within policy, edit warring to include his is against policy in a number of ways. It was this fact that led to my ANI, not the PA's themselves.Slatersteven (talk) 18:20, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by James J. Lambden

Thucydides411 has been the target of a harassment campaign. It follows the pattern of:

Attack him
Wait for in-kind response
Option A: use his response as evidence of hostility
Option B: remove or hat his response alone, to annoy

Regardless, Slatersteven is right. One complaint is enough. Close this. James J. Lambden (talk) 00:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@MrX: I did not mean to suggest every editor is a witting participant but the pattern is predictable and repeating. See the comments above this diff November 12, 2017 which you linked in your complaint and subsequent removals. I will leave it to Thucydides411 to present previous examples if he chooses to respond here. I believe WP:FORUMSHOP precludes two open complaints. James J. Lambden (talk) 00:49, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Seraphim System

If this is enough for ARBCOM to get involved, there are at least three complaints I want to make - anyone else? Seraphim System ^(talk) 10:57, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Anythingyouwant

~~I advise any further comments to be put at ANI, pursuant to this comment by an administrator. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)~~[reply]

Statement by SPECIFICO

I'm copying some of the evidence I presented at the ANI thread:

Admins have sanctioned Thucydides411 twice already for violating DS on ARBAP2. first sanction and then the second sanction Whenever this is mentioned, he responds with a personal theory as to why one or both of these did not really happen, citing among other things his unsuccessful appeal. He's done that several times, and it demonstrates that the sanctions have not caused him to reconsider his behavior. Recent example: [21].

He routinely mischaracterizes good faith content disagreements as POV-pushing by the majority of editors on the Politics articles who are collaborating to reflect mainstream description of facts and events. He accuses editors of following their personal opinions and engages with disparagement and denigration rather than discussion of content, sources, and policy. This behavior is not only at the Russian Interference article; it's on other related articles as well. For those who are not familiar with his conduct, here are some threads that demonstrate his personalized battleground style:

[22]

ANI

[23]

And meanwhile he’s been going after Marek on a long list of pages for a long time and has been politely asked over and over to stop.:[24]

What's particularly weird, to me, is why Thuc would think that these years-old irrelevant ad hominems against Marek would hold any sway over the current editors Thuc is presumably trying to win to his POV? It seems to me he is so invested in personalizing routine editing communications that he doesn't even realize that the overwhelming majority of editors thinks these ad hominems are pointless and offensive. SPECIFICO talk 18:28, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent incident v. Marek may have precipitated this complaint, but it is only the most recent incident for Thucydides411. His participation on article and user talk pages and Noticeboards has consistently devolved into accusations of personal POV bias and then the further accusation that Admins and the entire WP project overlook policy violations and POV editing that fits a certain political stance. I linked three threads above that give a glimpse of this behavior. I know, TLDR, but you can read any 6-12 inches of it and it all comes in focus. This is a WP:NOTHERE account fighting a crusade against the bias of WP for relying on the weight of mainstream sources. SPECIFICO talk 19:01, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Darouet forgot to post Thucydides' next move after that thread he excerpted. The follow-up was that, because I later referred to Russian psy-ops in trying to ingratiate themselves to members of the Trump team, Thucydides started a complaint about me at BLPN, claiming that my mention of the term psy-ops was a BLP violation.[25].

Here he is disparaging the motives of editors who disagree with his POV. [26] Here he goes after patience-of-a-saint MelanieN [27] SPECIFICO talk 01:21, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's not right for Darouet to cast aspersions on me and Marek and call each of us hypocrites, citing as his justification the fact that MrX filed this complaint. SPECIFICO talk 01:26, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Volunteer Marek

I was not going to comment here but since User:GoldenRing can't drop this and continues to try and get me for some reason I feel compelled to respond. GR references this comment of mine and says that I am "casting aspersions and personalising this dispute". Nonsense. First, this is AN/I NOT an article talk page. On AN/I we discuss EDITOR'S BEHAVIOR and not content. There's no "personalizing the dispute" here. I mean, if I'm "personalizing the dispute" so is everybody else who's ever commented on ANI including GoldenRing himself. As for "casting aspersions" - again, this is AN/I. We discuss editor's behavior. And yes, if you look at edits by Thucydides411 since mid-December 2016, it's something like 90% on this one article on Russian interference in the US election. Hold up, I can actually give you a more precise number... ... (excel loading) ...

Between Dec 20 and Feb 16, Thucydides made 383 edits. Of those, all but ... FOURTEEN, were related to the article Russian Interference in US election. So that's actually 96.3% of edits related to this one article (that does include edits which are to related articles like Julian Assange but even those are a small % of his over all edits). I mean, if you click on his edit history it freakin' looks like this ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

For the next 500 edits, between Feb 16 and June 88, he did a little better in terms of diversifying his interest with "only" 88% of his edits on Russian interference or related. I can calculate the % for the rest of the edits since then but I'm pretty sure you get the picture.

To claim that "it doesn't take much of a look through Thucydides411's edit history to make the SPA characterisation look pretty thin" is absurd. It means that the person "looking" is, well, NOT looking or that they are pretending something is true when it's not.

I'd really appreciate it if GoldenRing started bothering to actually look at the diffs and the evidence before opinin' or administratin' in the future. So far their words and action suggest a very cavalier attitude towards both. Volunteer Marek 17:46, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My statement quoted below quoted by Darouet (16:33) is most certainly NOT a personal attack. "Clearly" or otherwise. It's simply a statement describing why Thucydides411 actions on the article have been disruptive and why he has never managed to get a consensus for any of their edits. This is a user who rejects the idea of the article itself full stop. And correspondingly they reject what virtually all reliable sources have to say on the subject. Unsurprisingly then, whenever reliable sources are presented, he simply rejects them. That is not my problem. That is Thucydides411 problem.

Note also that Darouet disingenuously omitted the first part of my statement which discusses the content under discourse directly. This is a straight up attempt at misrepresentation and constitutes WP:ASPERSIONS

I also don't appreciate Darouet making this false accusation. Accusing others of making personal attacks when they're clearly not, is itself a personal attack.

All that Darouet's statement shows is that there have been multiple editors (several more could easily be added) who have gotten extremely frustrated with Thucydides WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior on the talk page. This also addresses the point raised below by MASEM - yes, the talk page is for discussing. But when you keep discussing, and discussing, and discussing, and discussing and can never get anywhere... well, there's obviously a problem. And dollars to Deutschemarks say that it's the one guy who keeps bringing up the same stuff over and over and over and over again, well after everyone else has moved on. And that'd be Thucidedes411. Volunteer Marek 04:44, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also look at Darouet's claim that " Also note that MrX accused Thucydides411 of WP:TE, when in the course of the RfC, a majority of editors on the page would agree with Thucydides, and not MrX". This is also completely FALSE. At the time the comment was written there were TWO "Supports". There was one "ironic" Support (a violation of WP:POINT in fact). There was one editor (Slatersteven) who was on the fence. Then there was myself and Mr.X who both expressed support although neither one of us had yet to !vote. Then there was Thucydides411, a lone "oppose". That is most definetly not a situation where "a majority of editors on the page would agree with Thucydides, and not MrX". Quite the opposite in fact. Given the blatant falsehood of this claim, and the previous one, I don't know if ANYTHING Darouet claims in his comment should be taken at face value. Volunteer Marek 04:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Darouet

At the end of August, MrX stated that they had begun a case against Thucydides411. That was on the same day MrX launched an RfC, asking if communications between Felix Sater, a Putin aid, and a Trump lawyer should be in in the article [28]. Thucydides411 voted to oppose inclusion and ultimately, Sandstein closed the RfC noting that there was no consensus to include the communication.

I think the discussion that occurred at that RfC is fairly representative of the vitriol Thucydides411 has faced by a few editors on the page (notably by the complainants here). James J. Lambden writes that Thucydides411 is repeatedly the target of harassment by 1) a personal attack, 2) Thucydides’ response, which is then 3) removed or 4) used against them in an enforcement proceeding. Every one of those events occurs in the RfC. The RfC discussion also demonstrates that what GoldenRing and Masem write is spot on about how this issue is not one-sided.

On the same day MrX launched the RfC, Thucydides411 described the Sater communication in the “Threaded discussion” section of the RfC,

16:19, Thucydides411 [29]: “It also doesn't seem to involve any actions taken by the Russian government. Russian actions are, after all, the topic this article purports to cover.”

This is the response by Volunteer Marek, MrX, and SPECIFICO:

16:33, Volunteer Marek [30]: “…The problem here for you is that you reject the idea of Russian interference a priori. So to YOU whenever a source tries to explain the WHY and HOW Russian interference happened, of course you're going to think it's not irrelevant because you don't such a thing happened in the first place. But that is YOUR own POV, that is YOU trying to impose your personal opinions on the article, that is YOU refusing to follow the policy of reliable sources. That is YOU breaking Wikipedia policy and now, edit warring in contravention of it. Not clear why we should put up with this.”

VM’s comment is clearly a personal attack. It’s not horrible in the context of American Politics, but it personalizes the dispute and is clearly disruptive.

17:01, Thucydides411 [31]: "Capitalizing random words doesn't make your point any clearer. This material isn't relevant, but you're trying to coatrack it into the article. And really, you're the last person who should be throwing around accusations of POV-pushing or policy violation."

(SPECIFICO removes Thucydides411’s comment as a personal attack but not Volunteer Marek’s [32]; Thucydides411 restores their comment [33])

Demonstrating exactly what Lambden describes: removing Thucydides' response defending themself, but not the attack on them.

21:13, Volunteer Marek [34]: "They're not "random". The capitalization stress the "YOU", as in Thucydides411, for a reason - to emphasize that YOU are trying to cram your own personal opinions down everyone's throat here, rather than relying on reliable sources per WP:RS. It's gone on long enough."

17:25, MrX [35]: "Volunteer Marek is exactly right. Thucydides411 is engaged in long-term tendentious editing on this article. His conduct should be reviewed at WP:AE. I began documenting a case three months ago, but unfortunately, I've been too busy to complete and file it."

Note that MrX created this sandbox page dedicated to Thucydides411 in May 2017 (the initial documentation included zero diffs), promising some kind of future enforcement action without evidence. MrX left that creepy page, User:MrX/T, in their sandbox for 5+ months (it’s still there). Also note that MrX accused Thucydides411 of WP:TE, when in the course of the RfC, a majority of editors on the page would agree with Thucydides, and not MrX.

23:08, SPECIFICO [36]: "Thuc, please keep your "personal opinions" off this page. WP editing is not about anybody's opinions. It's about conveying the weight of RS discourse on the subject. And by "subject" we mean the subject of this article, which -- as you know -- is not "alleged Russian interference..." RS tell us in some detail that psy-ops to create chatter among folks in Trump's circle is Russian interference. I'm not going to repeat the details here, because the current discussion is more limited in scope. All these Russian-Trumpan connections are understood by RS accounts to be elements of the extensive and wildly successful psy-ops campaign."

This isn’t easy to parse, but it’s a totally unconstructive response to Thucydides411’s comment.

The full exchange (including comments made on other days) can be viewed here.

In brief, all of these editors — those making a case here against Thucydides411 — have been quick to turn content conversations into personal attacks in the past, have failed to assume good faith, and this conduct has helped produce a toxic environment on the page. In that context this complaint comes across as hypocritical, and an effort to force Thucydides411 to stop interacting at the page when plenty of editors there (and the editorial board of the BBC) agree that allegations of Russian interference, whatever their merit or whatever the extent of interference, be described as such. -Darouet (talk) 00:02, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Objective3000

I fear I won’t be a useful contributor to this complaint – but wanted to add my one penny. Thucydides411 has spent just shy of a year attempting to weaken the article Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections by suggesting that there is little evidence of such and that those that will not accept their view are biased. The editor has consistently claimed that RS use the word ‘’alleged’’. Only, one by one, RS have dropped use of that word. I think we’re down to one out of the six sources that the editor has continued to claim use the word. And yet, they still claim it is in general use. The editor has also spent this time attempting to add a criticism from a writer against one of the pieces of evidence. All of these attempts have failed to gain consensus. But, we are drawn into the exact same debate time and time again. The original report is now just a tiny fraction of the evidence, and yet the editor continues to argue this one point. I’d give diffs; but this is difficult considering the 622 edits the editor has made to this articles talk. This represents a time-sink that doesn’t appear to have aided the article in nearly a year. O3000 (talk) 01:48, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Thucydides411

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

This thread was temporarily closed between 18:12, 14 November 2017‎ UTC and 14:31, 17 November 2017 UTC. In the meantime, the related AN/I thread was closed without action. I have not read it because most everything at AN/I is a mess. The conduct reported here is in and of itself not terribly bad, but the user has two previous related sanctions. Their personal attacks and edit-warring about them constitute sanctionable misconduct. I recommend a three-month topic ban from Russia-US relations including election-related matters. Sandstein 16:08, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree sanctions are appropriate here, though I'm less convinced it's one-sided. VM's comment Thucydides411 was responding to in the edit warring linked above is perhaps a borderline case, but comments like the last paragraph of this are pretty clear that VM is casting aspersions and personalising this dispute (it doesn't take much of a look through Thucydides411's edit history to make the SPA characterisation look pretty thin).
VM is already subject to a one-month topic ban from everything Trump-related and I think that is sufficient as topic bans go for now; I'd also be in favour of an IBAN between Volunteer Marek and Thucydides411 for a bit longer than the topic bans, to make them ease back into the topic without immediately rubbing against each other. GoldenRing (talk) 17:14, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As I mentioned at the AN/I thread, while Thucydides411 should not be edit warring on talk pages in this manner, there are concerns that the removed comments made by Thucydides (which are clearly PAs) had been made in response to other clear PAs by VM and others, which those admins monitoring the page did not remove along with Thucydides. This creates understandable frustration which leads to the EWing behavior if one is singularly being picked out. The actions of several editors all around created a bad situation that it is hard to singularly take Thucydides' actions alone as the problem, hence trouts all around and warnings to all that PAs need to be avoided, period.

I will also note particularly in comment to VM's point that Thucydides' has overwhelming spent a lot of time at the talk page for the article, that's exactly what a talk page is for. I know exactly the situation that Thucydides is in from my own experience with GG where I was being criticized for using the talk page as a talk page, primarily because I was not arguing along the lines of the majority of users on the page and required some significant review of the circumstances to present the topic. That's the whole purpose of talk pages to try to resolve issues and not just simply a !vote or who can shout the loudest. Now, there is the WP:TE issue, I agree Thucydides' is clearly engaging in that type of behavior and per my own experience strongly recommend taking a voluntary break from that topic, if a topic ban/block is not otherwise engaged. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the admin comments above, there seems to be little interest in sanctioning Thucydides411 alone, even though their editing is considered problematic. I don't think that we have the basis, in the form of a well-presented case, for sanctions against others at this time. Accordingly, unless admins object, I'll close this as no action soon. Sandstein 10:00, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Sandstein: I do object. I think your proposed topic ban of Thucydides411 is good and necessary for this topic at this time. I don't think it would be helpful for this to just be closed with no action. Others who are part of the same general dispute have recently been T-banned for one month so maybe you might argue proportionality urges a similar duration, but I don't think no action is the right outcome here.
  Speaking of others who are part of the same general dispute, unless I'm very much mistaken, Volunteer Marek is subject to a one-month topic ban from all edits and articles related to Donald Trump and as far as I can see his edits here are a blatant violation of it. He hasn't even made an attempt to claim that they are covered by BANEX, and anyway they are not. As I proposed an IBAN we might eek out a small exemption for discussing that, but any more general discussion of Tnucydides411's actions should result in a short block (48 hours?) to enforce the ban. GoldenRing (talk) 10:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll add as well that I'm not very impressed with VM cherry-picking another editor's history in an attempt to substantiate a personal attack. Curiously enough, I had looked at Thucydides411's edit history before making that remark; what I didn't do was go back to January to find the worst-looking bit of it. What I looked at was this. Yes, he edits AP2 articles quite a bit; so do lots of editors. That doesn't make them SPAs. GoldenRing (talk) 10:59, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - @GoldenRing: Then as far as I'm concerned you're free to close this with any sanctions concerning Thucydides411 you deem appropriate. As to Volunteer Marek, they are banned "from all edits and articles related to Donald Trump". As far as I can tell, their edits here are not related to Trump, but to Thucydides411. Sandstein 11:16, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - I also object to closing with no action, and support the three-month topic ban from Russia-US relations including election-related matters which Sandstein originally proposed. I don't see Volunteer Marek's comments here as warranting a sanction; it's far-fetched to suggest they violate his topic ban from Donald Trump. Bishonen | talk 11:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]

Huldra

Withdrawn, and considered non-actionable by reviewing admins. Sandstein 08:49, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Request concerning Huldra

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Shrike (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 08:49, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_3#Neutrality_and_sources :

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

14 November NPOV violations Usage of terms like "segregation wall" and using ARIJ site without clearly attributing who make the claim about land ownership.
14 November 2017 NPOV violations Usage of terms like "segregation wall" and using ARIJ site without clearly attributing who make the claim about land ownership.
12 November 2017 Making claim by ARIJ in wikipedia voice
12 November 2017 NPOV violation
10 Novemeber 2017 Usage of POV term "segregation wall"
2 November 2017 Usage of POV term "segegration wall"
13 October 2017 Falsifying Ben-Gurion quote

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

Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 26 September 2017 .

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Usage of term "segregation wall" in Wikipedia voice is clearly POV violation we have article named Israeli West Bank barrier this name was decided after many discussions as the most WP:NPOV using the term segregation with term wall is clearly to promote one sided agenda.Just for reference the BBC and UN use the term barrier[37]
ARIJ source is Palestinian think tank that make claims about land confiscated by Israel.Those are claims made by Palestinians and should be attributed as such if be used at all.In latest RSN it was noted by at least one uninvolved editor that the source is not reliable other editors opined to the very least it should be used with attribution.Usage of such POV source in Wikipedia voice without any attribution is clearly a POV violation per WP:BIASED.
Diff 3 : While Haaretz [38] is WP:RS and article is negative on Israel but we not allowed to selectively quote a source to suit our agenda.To fulfill the WP:NPOV requirements the civil administration reaction from the source should be quoted to the claims made.
Diff 5:Except usage of "segregation wall" she also deleted negative information about Palestinians like "security concerns" and "uprising in 2000"
Diff 7 I understand that last diff maybe a little stale but it needed to show POV pattern of this user the quote "these villages are in our pocket [...] We can act against them also after the [reinstitution of the] truce. This will be a police action... They are not regarded as enemy forces as their area is ours [i.e., in Israel] and they are not inhabitants of the state...[and] these villages do not represent a military danger."^[1].While the original quote missed the word "not"(mine emphasis) thus changing the meaning of the quote and putting Ben-Gurion in negative light.I think such clear disregard of source is not acceptable in Wikipedia.Many sources that she quote are without online access we cannot trust such user to edit such sensitive area

@User:GoldenRing The user is editing from 2005 and clearly editing from one sided agenda while we all have our POV per WP:YESPOV.I think as old time editor she clearly understand that usage of term "segregation wall" have negative connotations toward Israel and its not neutral term Such not neutral language to promote one sided POV is not acceptable in my opinion. Our article about the barrier says while Palestinians call it a racial segregation or apartheid wall.[1][2][3].Would be OK to use if I use "anti-terrorist fence" in Wikipedia voice?--Shrike (talk) 10:30, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing: I still think we should expect differently from user with 12 years of experience in the area contrary to new user or that edit rarely in the area but I understand what you saying and in future I will engage in conversation first--Shrike (talk) 15:00, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Zero0000 No one ask to use Israeli name i.e "Anti-terrorist fence" but usining WP:NPOV name "barrier" like BBC and UN use is a reasonable request from a user with 12 years of experience in the area--Shrike (talk) 13:44, 15 November 2017 (UTC) Given Huldra expalantion I will WP:AGF and withdraw the request.--Shrike (talk) 07:26, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Morris, 2004, p. 439

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[39]

Discussion concerning Huldra

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

Statement by Huldra

Whaw. Firstly, this is the first time I have ever heard anyone protesting my use of "Segregation Wall" ...which is the name I used when using the ARIJ source, as ARIJ uses that name. The Israeli West Bank barrier have no less than 27 redirs: it is difficult to know which ones are not acceptable if nobody says anything about it. I am no mind reader!
Diff No. 7: as for "Falsifying Ben-Gurion quote" (where did AGF go?): yes, I absolutely made a mistake there, in my quoting Ben-Gurion, I missed a "not." Did I do it on purpose? Heck, no! But I do make mistakes...if you look at the above diff #5 [40], you will see that I am correcting another one of my mistakes: I had given palgrid=158/176, instead of the correct palgrid=151/176. Did I "falsify" the palgrid number? Apparently I did...if you use Shrikes language. (PS: I make mistakes....90% of the time I am the one discovering them. Here I stupidly wrote that the inhabitants paid 0,000 akçe in taxes... (Correct was 2,000 akçe). It took me 2 years before I discover it. Here I falsely wrote that the village had 220 inhabitants in 1945...it took me 6 years before I got the correct 270 inhabitants. And here I falsely wrote that Guérin found a village to have 300 inhabitants, when he actually wrote 350 inhabitants....etc. etc. etc. I have added about 10,000 sources to Wikipedia, and yes, some of those sources I have misquoted first time around. But never on purpose.)
As for using Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem, or ARIJ, with attribution, yeah, you could, BUT: there are 960 links to arij.org on Wikipedia, while there are, say, 3648 links to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel). If we need to write "according to ARIJ" for each ARIJ link, then we also need to write "according to Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs" for each mfa.gov.il link. Now that might not be a bad idea, but I totally object to only one side having to attribute their sources. Huldra (talk) 20:43, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kingsindian

The request is weird. What is the supposed policy which is being violated? Also, for some reason, there wasn't any talk page discussion about issues of content and phrasing, prior to bringing this to WP:AE. There are several issues here, and I'll deal with them in order:

The wall in the West Bank has many names, and some variant of "separation fence" is used by many different authors. For instance, here is Barak Ravid in Haaretz: After Terror Attacks, Israel to Complete Separation Barrier Construction Around Jerusalem, Southern West Bank. See Hafrada for many other sources. Indeed, there exists a redirect Segregation Wall. One of the expressly stated purposes of the wall is to separate (both land and people), so it's weird to say that the term shouldn't be used. If the term is considered non-neutral, one can discuss on the talk page and get a consensus on the default term which is to be used.
As an aside, if someone consistently uses Temple Mount instead of Haram Al-Sharif, are we going to haul them up for NPOV violation as well?
The use of ARIJ as a source: I don't see any consensus in the RSN discussion, which was archived after a few days. There aren't very many detailed sources on West Bank villages; one commenter who opined in the RSN discussion said that other sources could be used, but failed to provide any alternative ones. This matter should be decided by discussion on the talk page, and if necessary, by an RfC. In the meantime, it would perhaps be good to attribute the claims.
That a quote from Haaretz should be balanced by including Israeli administration response, is a strange requirement, as well as an isolated demand for rigor. If we are going to make a practice of banning people who quote one source and not add balancing opinions, we might as well go ahead and ban everyone from this area. I'll make a deal with anyone here: pick any person in this area, and I'll find you at least five instances of them selectively quoting sources.
The last point is about the stale diff about the Ben-Gurion quote. Shrike has not said why this should be regarded as falsification and not a simple error of transcription. What happened to WP:AGF? But good faith in this area is very scarce, so let's investigate whether the claim makes sense. The part of the sentence just before the allegedly falsified part is They are not regarded as enemy forces as their area is ours [i.e., in Israel], which implies that "they are inhabitants of the state", and not that "they are not inhabitants of the state". In addition, the fragment preceding this sentence talks about "police action", a term which is used for actions which the government deems to be internal to the state (foreign actions are called "military action"). Any way we read the passage, the alleged fabrication makes no sense. Therefore, the most likely explanation is an error in transcription, not deliberate fabrication. It is good that Shrike checked and corrected the error, but their conclusion of malfeasance is not tenable. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:47, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zero0000

Huldra can make transcription errors like everyone else, but in more than a decade of close observation I haven't once seen her fail to correct such an error immediately when it was pointed out to her. Deliberately doctoring it would be 100% out of character. As for "segregation wall", why should the Israeli name have priority over the Palestinian name, especially in an article on a Palestinian town? (Incidentally, for quite a few years "separation barrier" was the official Israeli name, which is essentially the same.) Finally, I've said elsewhere that I think ARIJ should be attributed, not because it is inherently unreliable but because it is good practice in this corner of Wikipedia to attribute practically everything that has a political component (including most pronouncements of the Palestinian or Israeli governments). But this opinion cannot be said to have general consensus yet. Zero^talk 12:30, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nishidani

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem is an internationally recognized research institute. The fact that it is 'Palestinian' should not raise eyebrows of concern. It is funded by the European Union; it is used all over google books in scholarly works without attribution (Google 'Arij +Jerusalem 'and you get 5,500 results there), and just broadly googling yields 143,000 hits. It is one of the primary sources used on most Israeli settlement articles which, when not citing ARIJ or the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics for real history or data, use such egregiously eyesore non-RS sources as Keneged Kol HaSikuim, Harmodia, Arutz Sheva,israeltown.com. Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing, The Temple Institute,torahalive.com Nefesh B'Nefesh, etc.etc.etc., without a murmur of worry or concern by pertinacious NPOV/RS monitors of the sister Palestinian articles. If your concern is NPOV, Shrike, there's a lot of work out there on settlements begging to be done, along the lines of what Huldra does with Palestinian villages with extraordinary patience and meticulous erudition. Almost none have datum-by-datum RS sourcing, they are free compositions, and totally unencyclopedic.

That said, it is true that where Arij uses its preferred term, segregation barrier/wall, it should be used, if at all, with attribution. There are no neutral terms to describe the security/separation/apartheid -barrier/wall/fence as one can see from specific studies like that of Richard Rogers, Anat Ben-David,Coming to terms: a conflict analysis of the usage, in official and unofficial sources, of ‘security fence’, ‘apartheid wall’, and other terms for the structure between Israel and the Palestinian territories, Media, War & Conflict vol. 3, No.2, 2010 pp- 1–28. You make far too many frivolous complaints against editors with an outstanding record here Shrike.Nishidani (talk) 13:15, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Huldra

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

I tend to agree with Kingsindian's analysis here. I think the Ben Gurion quote issue is better explained by error than malice. Perhaps the use of "segregation barrier" is not ideal if there is a more neutral term that could be used, but I'd expect to see some attempt to discuss this before requesting sanctions (if someone can point me to such a discussion then go ahead; I spot-checked a couple of user and article talk pages where you might expect it to happen and didn't find anything).
My biggest problem is with the use of ARIJ as a reliable source; Huldra started the discussion at RSN regarding it and, while the result was not blazingly clear either way, that should have been a signal to be cautious in its use. If you can only find a single, not-very-reliable source for something that proves controversial, then it's probably an indication that that material is heading into UNDUE territory. I'm still not in favour of sanctions here, but perhaps a warning to tread carefully in the use of sources. GoldenRing (talk) 10:06, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Shrike: Yes, I think the use of a (more) neutral term would be a reasonable request. But as far as I can see, you didn't make that request, you brought it straight here. This is not a situation where a bright line has been crossed; in the matter of choosing one term over another for better neutrality, I don't think it's unreasonable of me to ask you to have raised the matter with the editor first. I asked above for pointers to any such discussion and, since you've not provided any, I assume I was right the first time and they haven't happened. GoldenRing (talk) 14:45, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. All diffs but the last are mainly content disputes, and the last diff is stale. Whether a source is reliable or partisan is a content issue, except perhaps in extreme cases. Repeatedly using an apparently POV term for the wall/barrier/thing that Israel built, instead of the presumably consensual article title, is also potentially a conduct issue, but as GoldenRing says this should have been a matter of discussion before bringing it to AE. I would take no action. Sandstein 17:57, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Volunteer Marek

By consensus of administrators, the appeal is granted. The interaction ban of Volunteer Marek with respect to TheTimesAreAChanging is lifted. Other sanctions are not appealed here and remain in force. Sandstein 15:52, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

Appealing user: Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Volunteer Marek 16:35, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sanction being appealed: "You are banned from interacting with (...) TheTimesAreAChanging for three months" [41]

Administrator imposing the sanction: GoldenRing (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator: [42]

Statement by Volunteer Marek

As of right now, I'm just going to appeal this one provision - the interaction ban with TTAAC. There's no reason for it. It's dumb. There was no consensus for it, hell, it wasn't even MENTIONED in the relevant AE report [43]. Not a single admin, including GoldenRing, brought it up. In short, where the hey did this one come from?

The only connection in that report between TTAAC and myself is that he is the one who filed the report. So it looks like the only reason GoldenRing imposed this sanction is that - that a user brought an AE report against another user. So apparently now, bringing a report to AE automatically (and I mean "automatically" because there's no other reason given for this iban) results in an iban between the two users involved. Ummm.... what??? How does that make sense? This looks like a case of a trigger happy admin who didn't bother reading the diffs, didn't bother reading the comments by his fellow administrators, didn't bother actually familiarizing themselves with the topic area and the users involved at anything more than a superficial level, just decided to slap some random sanctions on folks because s/he could.

More to the point, my interactions with TheTimesAreAChanging have been nothing but cordial. And I mean that. I even mentioned that in my response in the AE report. I even went out of my freakin' way to assume good faith when he violated 1RR [44] (which should be a lesson to everyone who assumes good faith it seems - you do that at your own peril). At least since his topic ban expired, he's never complained about any problems with me, never accused me of incivility or personal attacks and vice-versa. I mean, come on GoldenRing, can you provide at least ONE diff which would support your i-ban? As the kids say, diffs please.

I do want to note that this is the second instance that GoldenRing has fumbled the ball in their attempts at placing weird sanctions on me. In Sept 2017 they placed a topic ban on me from immigration related articles which was quickly removed by another admin (User:Fram) which then was reinstated cuz of technicalities, which he then had to rescind [45] due to criticism from other administrators (User:Floquenbeam, User:Drmies, User:Boing! said Zebedee, User:Black Kite, User:Neutrality, User:Chris Howard ... I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, there was a ton of admins disagreeing with GoldenRing). ~~It's sort of hard to avoid the impression that this sanction is a bit of payback for that fiasco. Even if not however, at least~~ the iban with TTAAC provision is completely absurd and unjustified.

I have no problem with the IBAN being removed bilaterally (i.e. TTAC shouldn't be banned from interacting with me either). Like I said, there's been absolutely no interactions either way which would warrant this ban. And since I-BANs are (well known) minefields and very easy to violate accidentally, this should be removed for both of us.

(Note: I have no idea if the interaction ban prohibits me notifying TTAC of this appeal so I'm just gonna ping'em here @TheTimesAreAChanging: ping!. Volunteer Marek 16:39, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing - "VM's protestations ring a little hollow when the complaint in question accused him of belittling and assuming bad faith of the complainant" - TTAC's claim that I was "belittling and assuming bad faith" towards him was based on this comment of mine. Let me quote it in full:

"Even though nobody will gimme credit, I *do* actually try to assume good faith to the extent that is possible. But yeah, here on Wikipedia, very often it very quickly becomes impossible. Visitors, shmizitorz."

Where exactly does this comment "belittle" TTAC? Where does this comment assume bad faith? For that matter where does this comment even mention TTAC"????? It says

That *I* assume good faith
That it can be hard sometimes
That people ("visitors") have been vandalizing my talk page.

If you based the Iban on that comment then you either a) didn't read the freakin' comment, b) ... I have no idea. You seem to have taken TTAC's claim at face value, either because you were too lazy to actually fact check it or because you just wanted to impose a sanction. Either way. Not good. Volunteer Marek 17:43, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Spike WIlbury - I know how it works. And I'm appealing it. Nobody brought up a topic ban with TTAC (and if it wasn't even mentioned, it's sort of hard to even BEGIN talking about consensus). There is no basis for it. It came out of nowhere. If I can't bring that up, what exactly am I suppose to base my appeal on? Grovelling and whining? Volunteer Marek 17:47, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear - I don't care about the IBAN with Lambden. Volunteer Marek 20:16, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That VM objects to TTAAC's characterisation of his comments so vehemently is evidence in favour of the IBAN, not against it." - that is the, um, silliest thing I've read on Wikipedia in awhile. Somebody makes a false accusation. The subject of that accusation objects. BOOM! IBAN! What kind of logic is that? Volunteer Marek 20:18, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, does this grave dancing on my talk page require a separate AE report or can it just be handled here? Volunteer Marek 20:24, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GoldenRing

I think the IBAN is necessary and proportionate for the smooth running of the project and this is the standard required under WP:AC/DS. VM's protestations ring a little hollow when the complaint in question accused him of belittling and assuming bad faith of the complainant, and his appeal here indicates he feels victimised by TTAAC ("which should be a lesson to everyone who assumes good faith it seems - you do that at your own peril").

For the rest, the assumptions of bad faith and canvassing are so transparent that I don't think any more needs to be said.

I don't regard informing TTAAC as a breach of the IBAN; it comes under the provision for "addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an appropriate forum" of WP:BANEX. GoldenRing (talk) 17:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein and MastCell: The IBAN between TTAAC and VM is mainly about the interaction that VM links above. VM pretends above that it didn't involve TTAAC at all yet the title of that section is a link to a diff of VM responding to TTAAC. As for his other questions (Where exactly does this comment "belittle" TTAAC and so on) - it wasn't me that characterised the comment that way, it was TTAAC. That VM objects to TTAAC's characterisation of his comments so vehemently is evidence in favour of the IBAN, not against it.

Moreover, the point of these sanctions is to reduce disruption in the AP2 topic. VM appears to have taken the IBAN rather personally when it wasn't entirely intended as such; it was meant to separate editors who clearly don't get along, not punish VM for negative interactions with TTAAC. It is, in fact, preventative, not punitive. If I believed in one-way IBANs I would have seriously considered making the IBAN one-way; I don't, so I didn't (I'm still not sure what the result of such consideration would have been).

While I understand some of MastCell's reasoning in his second paragraph, it appears to be an argument against ever imposing IBANs under DS, since in virtually every case they involve editors who edit in the same topic area. Yet IBANs are specifically authorised by WP:AC/DS. These are not the only editors active in this area and if something needs comment or removal, other editors can do it. GoldenRing (talk) 18:28, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (involved editor SPECIFICO)

I was surprised to see Marek banned from interaction with TheTimesAreAChanging. The nasty behavior was entirely one way, from TTAAC. I posted two diffs in the AE thread to illustrate Marek's good faith water-off-a-duck's-back responses to TTAAC:

Marek has consistently refused to take the bait from TTAAC and has tried to collaborate courteously with him.

Regardless of whether he might have expressed it correctly, I also feel that Marek has a point that Golden Ring was not the best fit to close this complaint. Yes, GR may have been allowed to close it. I don't know what the formal standard is. But GR and Marek have had a recent problem interaction, and GR might be viewed as "involved" with respect to Marek. I'm not talking about a formal definition of involved, just that it would have looked better to the community if one of the other Admins had closed this. Since we have many Admins who volunteer their efforts at AE, it was not necessary to risk the appearance of any question as to the close. SPECIFICO talk 17:54, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TheTimesAreAChanging

As Volunteer Marek says above, the two of us generally get along just fine. He was disappointed that I filed the earlier AE report, and I was disappointed that he accused me of acting in bad faith, but you would have to go back nearly a year to find any truly uncivil interactions between the two of us. (I hope that GoldenRing was not influenced by SPECIFICO's diff-less aspersions referring to "nasty behavior" and "baiting"; SPECIFICO has some sort of personal beef that motivates her to follow me around and cast these false aspersions wherever I go, but neither Volunteer Marek nor I is aware of anything akin to what she described, sans evidence.) Volunteer Marek states: "he's never complained about any problems with me, never accused me of incivility or personal attacks and vice-versa. ... there's been absolutely no interactions either way which would warrant this ban." That is accurate.

I can also give you numerous examples of Volunteer Marek and I interacting cordially despite disagreements:

The current version of a paragraph in Stephen Miller (political advisor)#Trump administration was essentially authored by Volunteer Marek and I, in what I would call a healthy back-and-forth: [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55] (This is highly contentious stuff, yet even the worst edit summaries express only mild exasperation.) See also this thread, which was not pursued further, and this RfC, on which Volunteer Marek and I agreed.

After a similar back-and-forth, Volunteer Marek and I resolved a dispute and implemented a compromise text that still stands at Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Here is the thread, and here are some excerpts: "Volunteer Marek and I are often able to compromise, and I would like to think that we're not very far from doing so in this case."—TTAAC; "I'm okay with this version. I don't think it's ideal but it will work as a compromise."—Volunteer Marek (Note also SPECIFICO's childish trolling in an attempt to poison the well and prevent any agreement.)

That's all I feel like documenting right now, but I'm sure Volunteer Marek can attest that the two of us have similarly agreed, disagreed, and compromised at Dismissal of James Comey without resorting to incivility (and that Volunteer Marek has thanked me for edits to Zbigniew Brzezinski even if we didn't directly interact on that page).

In sum, James J. Lambden and Volunteer Marek have derailed a number of talk pages with mutual accusations of stalking and harassment, but I was not involved in any of it—and taking my concerns to AE does not, in fact, render me involved. With regard to my earlier statement that "Volunteer Marek also belittled me and suggested that I was acting in bad faith for pointing out that his repeated DS violations are not appropriate, thus prompting me to file this report," a.) SPECIFICO started the relevant thread in order to cast yet more aspersions, suggesting that it is ludicrous to treat me as a good faith contributor, and I was understandably dismayed that Volunteer Marek did not push back against (and, indeed, seemed to implicitly accept) SPECIFICO's mean-spirited remarks; and b.) The bit in bold was intended more for Volunteer Marek's consumption than for administrative eyes. I knew that Volunteer Marek would likely be surprised by my filing the report in view of our generally productive exchanges, particularly when he cited me agreeing with him on the merits during his prior AE this October (he may even have anticipated that I would comment in his defense—I made no statement during that process precisely because it would not have been favorable to Volunteer Marek's cavalier approach to the "consensus required" restriction), and believed that I owed him some explanation. In full context, then, the evidence does not support GoldenRing's extrapolation that Volunteer Marek and I simply cannot get along. The IBAN should be rescinded.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:11, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gabriel syme

Been following this for a few days now, agree with above. The user who he was banned from interacting with even came here to advocate.Gabriel syme (talk) 18:13, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by My very best wishes

As someone who interacted with VM and TheTimesAreAChanging on numerous occasions, I must tell: there is no any reason to impose the interaction ban between them. Moreover, I think there was no consensus among admins to use the "consensus required" sanction as a reason for the topic bans.

That sounds funny: there was no consensus to use the "consensus required" sanction. But there is more irony here. By placing this editing restriction on a page a single admin imposes his will on the entire community. What consensus? Yes, Arbcom allows it. But it would be fair (per WP:Consensus) to never use this complex and controversial type of sanction if there was at least one another admin who considered this type of sanction as generally unhelpful. But we had several highly respected admins who expressed such position during the previous discussion. My very best wishes (talk) 19:54, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Volunteer Marek

Result of the appeal by Volunteer Marek

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

@Volunteer Marek: The nature of this board allows admins to apply sanctions unilaterally. The closing admin isn't required to get consensus for individual sanctions. I find it hard to believe you don't already know this considering your number of appearances in this venue, but since you're raising it as a complaint, there you go. Additionally, I wouldn't even begin considering your appeal until you remove or hat the various comments on Golden Ring as an admin including unfounded insinuations about their motives. Your appeal should simply state why you shouldn't be banned from interacting with TTAAC --Spike Wilbury (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think that Volunteer Marek's request that GoldenRing indicate which specific edits by Volunteer Marek are the basis of the ban under appeal is reasonable. I do not see such diffs, or a rationale for this interaction ban specifically, in GoldenRing's closure of the AE thread above. @GoldenRing: could you please provide diffs of the edits by Volunteer Marek that you think merit this ban? Sandstein 18:04, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While admins can indeed impose discretionary sanctions without consensus, and without prior discussion, such sanctions need to have a rational basis. I can't find one here. GoldenRing, above, appears to suggest that the interaction ban was in response to this talk page thread. I can't find anything in there that warrants an interaction ban. Accordingly, I would grant the appeal and lift the interaction ban as concerns Volunteer Marek. I have no opinion as concerns the other sanctions; they would need to be examined in separate appeal(s). Sandstein 19:11, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have a couple of concerns about the interaction ban. First, despite significant administrative input on the thread in question, no one so much as suggested (much less advocated for) an interaction ban. Spike is entirely correct that an admin can impose sanctions unilaterally, so GoldenRing does have the technical authority to place the interaction ban, but it's a question of should, not can. In general, when closing an AE report where there's been significant administrative discussion, the close should attempt to reflect that discussion. A range of solutions were proposed in the initial thread, and given the lack of administrative consensus, it would be justifiable to apply any combination of them. But I don't think it shows great judgement to tack on a new—and very broad—sanction which never even came up in administrative discussion.
My larger concern is that an interaction ban in this setting is a) unworkable, b) counterproductive, and c) likely to create much more drama than it prevents. Marek, TTAAC, and Lambden all edit in the same topic area. How are they supposed to avoid interacting with each other? The terms of an IBAN (as linked by GoldenRing) prohibit an editor from replying to each others' comments. How is that going to work when both editors are working on the same page? They need to be able to respond to each other in order to work through any content disputes. If any or all of them can't handle that sort of discussion productively, then they should be topic-banned. But I don't think an IBAN in this situation has been thought through at all. I see it creating a lot of AE reports for violations: let's say Marek makes an edit and Lambden disagrees, but can't revert it, mention it, or even mention Marek? Doesn't this give a massive first-mover advantage to whomever jumps in fastest, and effectively exclude the others from the pages in question? I'd advocate lifting the interaction ban on all sides. MastCell ^Talk 18:09, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with MastCell, for all the reasons. Drmies (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree with MastCell, and I am worried by this from GoldenRing "If I believed in one-way IBANs I would have seriously considered making the IBAN one-way; I don't, so I didn't." It doesn't matter what you believe in, you still have to have the evidence for the sanction. I can see no reason for this to be a two-way IBAN. Black Kite (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with my colleagues above that I don't see a justification for an IBAN on Volunteer Marek at this time. MastCell has explained the reasoning, so no need for me to say more. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:31, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer Marek has only appealed the IBAN with TTAAC, but my colleagues above (MastCell, Drmies, Black Kite, TonyBallioni) appear to be protesting against any IBAN involving Volunteer Marek, i. e. the IBAN with Lambden as well. I agree with them, especially on account of the "first mover advantage" MastCell outlined. It is indeed a question of whether the IBANs should have been imposed, not whether they technically could, and it wasn't the right occasion for using single-admin discretion the way GoldenRing did. Please rescind them. Bishonen | talk 19:52, 15 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]

To be fair I only looked at the one with TTAAC, because that was the one that VM was appealing. I will have a look at the one with JJL, but I have been involved with that editor recently so I probably won't opine on it. Black Kite (talk) 20:10, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree with MC and others above. Jonathunder (talk) 00:45, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closure: There is clear consensus among reviewing uninvolved admins that the interaction ban of Volunteer Marek with respect to TheTimesAreAChanging should not have been made. That ban is accordingly lifted. The other sanctions imposed concurrently by GoldenRing are not being appealed here. Consequently, they remain in force until they are successfully appealed. Sandstein 15:49, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by TheTimesAreAChanging

Granted. Was implied in the last case, but not expressed. Any other sanction would not be affected. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:40, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

Appealing user: TheTimesAreAChanging (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:26, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sanction being appealed: "You are banned from interacting with Volunteer Marek for three months."

[56]

Administrator imposing the sanction: GoldenRing (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator: [57]

Statement by TheTimesAreAChanging

Volunteer Marek's three-month interaction ban with me has just been lifted, but the IBAN GoldenRing imposed on me with respect to that user remains in force, rendering it a one-way IBAN. In his original appeal, Volunteer Marek noted: "my interactions with TheTimesAreAChanging have been nothing but cordial ... he's never complained about any problems with me, never accused me of incivility or personal attacks and vice-versa. ... I have no problem with the IBAN being removed bilaterally (i.e. TTAC shouldn't be banned from interacting with me either). Like I said, there's been absolutely no interactions either way which would warrant this ban." To support Volunteer Marek's appeal, I provided a list of examples of the two of us collaborating without acrimony in controversial subject areas. GoldenRing has stated that the IBAN is based "mainly" on this one diff, which can be interpreted as Volunteer Marek questioning my good faith, although he doesn't name me directly and I am not a participant in the discussion. That does not seem like a rational basis for a three-month ban to me.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:35, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GoldenRing

Statement by Volunteer Marek

I mean, yeah, of course this should be granted. Swiftly. Volunteer Marek 22:00, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by TheTimesAreAChanging

Result of the appeal by TheTimesAreAChanging

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

I'm closing and logging as an obvious extension of the last case. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:43, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Groupuscule

Groupuscule is indefinitely topic-banned from from genetically modified organisms. They are invited to appeal the ban after three months and explain how they intend to change their approach to editing in this topic area. Sandstein 08:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Request concerning Groupuscule

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Kingofaces43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 23:30, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#Casting_aspersions

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#Discretionary_Sanctions

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#1RR_imposed

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

Oct. 2 The evidence strongly suggests that Monsanto has not abandoned its practice of using sockpuppet identities (and paid shills) online to promote their point of view. Unfortunately, then, this is not only an important topic for an article, but an existential threat to Wikipedia itself . . .
Oct. 10 More aspersions of Monsanto shills: Do they suppose that Monsanto's notorious public relations operatives are inactive on Wikipedia?
Oct. 13 Industry influence on GMO articles: I suppose you know that Monsanto historically uses a sophisticated system of internet sockpuppets to control public discourse on topics of interest? and two replies regarding glyphosate and apparent industry influence on genetic engineering articles
Nov. 18 Edit warring (initial addition by Groupuscule, I reverted with explanation, Groupuscule reverts it back in with no attempt at discussion. This note during Arbcom stated the combo of DS and 1RR were supposed to prevent exactly this type of gaming.
Nov. 18 Battleground mentality directed at editors: Your actions here lead me to suspect that you simply don't want this noteworthy and verifiable information included on Wikipedia. . .

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

Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.[58]

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This editor, who has somewhat recently re-entered the topic, has had long-term problems with WP:ADVOCACY in the GMO/pesticide topic as noted in a recent AfD made by Groupuscule (pinging jps, Capeo, and Delta13C since your posts are being mentioned at AE). The AFD is essentially a WP:SNOW keep in part due to editors noting the POV issues by the editor in the nomination, which shows we're getting some wider community frustration with this editor's behavior.

Special note should be taken of the WP:ASPERSIONS principle we wrote at the GMO ArbCom because we were having problems with editors engaging in the shill gambit, a common problem with fringe advocacy in this topic, and also because editors with that mentality also tend to be otherwise disruptive. SageRad[59], David Tornheim[60], EllenCT[61], and Cathry[62] are good examples of editors topic-banned or eventually site-banned under the aspersions principle or related to this kind of mentality.

In the diffs and edit summaries above, there is a lot of mention by Groupuscule of Monsanto controlling articles, etc. As a reminder, David Tornheim was topic-banned for doing exactly the above while purposely avoiding mentioning editor names to try to game the aspersions principle. This diff also shows they consider the scientific consensus on GMO safety "mythical" (establishing part of the editor POV problem). Given that we're getting this acute of issues now that Groupuscule is editing in the topic again, I would suggest a standard topic-ban (worded the same as the DS notice topics) to prevent further disruption. We've seen this behavior unfold many times already in the topic, and the DS and aspersions principle were meant to tamp down hard on the disruption and POV editing caused by this. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:30, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein, Bishonen, GoldenRing, and other admins, two things I'd ask to consider about a potential 3-month topic-ban:

One is that Groupuscule has more of a sporadic but acute editing history in the topic. 3 months wouldn't really be outside the range of breaks they normally take from the topic.

The other is whether we can realistically expect the behavior to improve in the topic after 3 months? Your conversation so far has to some degree paralleled the admin discussion at the David Tornheim case[63] where lesser sanctions were at first considered for similar behavior until admins realized the problem was too likely to just resurface later given the editor mentality.

Maybe to address those issues if a 3-month time period is ultimately the consensus is to require an active appeal at 3-months showing the editor is actually recognizant of the behavior issues rather than passively letting it expire? That would seem to balance behavior concerns with this being a first sanction. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:33, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[64]

Discussion concerning Groupuscule

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

Statement by Groupuscule

Readers can judge for themselves who indeed has cast aspersions. All the best, groupuscule (talk) 00:54, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, please allow me to clarify a few things and give my perspective on some of these new allegations.

1. The decision on "casting aspersions" says "an editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence". I have done nothing of the sort. I have commented in general—not even in the course of content discussions, but on user talk pages where the discussion came up— that I think the biotech industry's PR apparatus probably extends to Wikipedia. This is not the same as avoiding or poisoning discussion by calling one's interlocutor a shill.
2. Jps accuses me of misrepresenting the sources about Monsanto's online sockpuppets. Three articles and a book. I take such an accusation very seriously, and I would encourage people to read the articles and the passage in the book. Monbiot wrote that "the Bivings Group, a PR company contracted to Monsanto, had invented fake citizens to post messages on internet listservers". He also traced one of the accounts to the Monsanto domain itself. "Here's a link to the book on Google Books; see what you think. If I didn't represent this source falsely, I think that casts the situation in a different light, especially considering Kingofaces and jps's insistence on deleting this information. Notice that they deleted it wholesale rather than trying to clarify something they thought was inaccurate.
- Notice that Kingofaces followed, one might say stalked, me to the page on sockpuppets specifically to revert me. And now jps has done the same.
- Notice also that during this process both the above users have cast some rather more pointed aspersions at me, for example accusing me of making a "shill gambit" (which I did not do, as part of any argument over content) and linking to an outside page with a crazy-looking Alex Jones riding on a magic carpet. I find this insulting and inappropriate.
3. I didn't create the article on Monsanto's public relations activities in response to the discussion at "GMO conspiracy theories". I have been planning to do it for a while, as I wrote in the October 2 quoted by Kingofaces above! So in this case the accusation is not only baseless but demonstrably false.
4. The userpage on scientific consensus was created four years ago as part of a discussion over the well-known "scientific consensus" statement on genetic engineering articles. It was deleted from a talk page so I moved it to userspace and expanded it. It represents research and argumentation concerning how Wikipedia should deal with this topic. It's not a manifesto. It's not my personal opinion on the subject. It was nominated for deletion back then and survived.

So, I really think I am not guilty of breaking any policy, and furthermore, that anyone examining my edits as a whole will find that I have been polite, diplomatic, and generally undisruptive throughout. Thanks for taking the time to examine this issue closely. groupuscule (talk) 20:01, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Capeo

Just to clarify why I felt the AFD nomination was pointy at best: a quick perusal of Groupsicle's editing in the GMO area, including the large section currently on their talk page, make's their POV on the subject is clear. Having a POV is not an issue of course. Editing solely from that POV is though. Nominating a long-standing article for deletion, without even an attempt to first suggest improvements on the talk page, is pointy. When it's clear it's going to be a SNOW keep then proceeding to instead make a POV-fork article is even pointier. A topic ban from GMO's is probably warranted here. Capeo (talk) 17:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The edits to Sockpuppet (Internet) have now really fell into pointy-as-all-hell territory. As an aside, when it comes to GMO related articles now, I'll always defer to the opinion of Tryptofish. After the Arbcom case, the RFC, I've lost all taste for dealing with same arguments over and over, the same accusations, the same bad sources. I still watch the pages, and may revert obvious bad edits, but what watching those pages has really shown me is that Trypto has the patience of a saint. Trypto is pretty much always trying to find some area of conciliation, some area where common ground can be met and a beneficial edit can be made, to a degree I couldn't. I'd be likely be an asshole in my frustration of dealing with same thing over an over. Point being, Tryptofish's suggestion of a topic ban here, to me, just solidifies my opinion that it's warranted. Capeo (talk) 03:06, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The edit that JPS points out has moved into the realm of pure fabrication. There is nothing in those sources, which are not great to begin with, that support the accusatory edit made. Capeo (talk) 04:08, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by jps

If you want to learn about the user's WP:ACTIVIST agenda, read no further than this manifesto written by the user:User:Groupuscule/GMO. It's an obsession to skew Wikipedia with respect to this subject... seems clear to me. I find it particularly interesting that the sources cited are very poor (many are to journals that are predatory, and references to discredited research abound). It's a real waste of time. jps (talk) 19:04, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I just removed this addition by Groupuscule to the Monsanto page which was sourced to articles that never made the full accusations as was put in plain text. I'm not a big fan of people trying to mislead readers like this. Is this an attempt to flame out before the banhammer comes down? jps (talk) 03:51, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tryptofish

I'm inclined to cut editors a lot of slack as to what they say in user talk, so the question for me is whether personal opinions have spilled over into content in a disruptive way. And what that comes down to is (1) making an AfD nomination that was snow-rejected by the community, (2) creating a sort of tit-for-tat article as an obvious rebuttal to the not-deleted page, and (3) making the edits at Sockpuppet (Internet), which, while not violating 1RR, also disregard WP:BRD under DS conditions. The first two have been time-wasters for other editors, and the third, although a single incident that by itself probably doesn't warrant sanctions, is not encouraging. I can see an argument for letting this go with a stern warning, and I can also see an argument, given the statements of intention in user space, including an obvious belief that other editors are "shills" as well as an obvious disdain for the ArbCom decision, that a topic ban now will avoid an inevitable topic ban later. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:23, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Capeo: thank you very much for the kind words, much appreciated. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Admins: I think that Sandstein correctly describes the situation as weighing conduct so far, that really hasn't been that bad, against a high probability that future conduct would likely just end up back here at AE. I feel too involved to be able to tell you how to balance that. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:28, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by dialectric

Kingofaces’ filing seeks to associate Groupuscule with other editors who have been topic banned from the GMO area since the 2015 arbcom case. This attempt at association ignores significant differences between this case and past cases in the area.

1. 4 of 5 diffs in the filing are from Groupuscule’s talk page. User talk pages are generally given more freedom than WP pages, and this editor’s very general comments on their own talk page about possible Monsanto promotional activity are not equivalent to SageRad or David Tornheim’s comments which were (A) on article talk pages and dispute resolution forums, and (B) called out specific editors and edits.

2. Groupuscule has long been inactive from the GMO area, and may have been unaware of the arbcom case; the 1st diff in this filing predates the Discretionary Sanctions notice by 8 days. Groupuscule’s single revert on Sockpuppet (Internet) does not violate 1RR, and in that instance Kingofaces43 did not provide a coherent, policy-based rationale for his revert, or an explanation on the talk page. Nominating a single page for deletion is not disruptive behavior, even if the result is a snow-keep. If there is a pattern of pointed afd's, that could be actionable.

Groupuscule is a valuable contributor with 3000+ edits over 10+ years. This user at least deserves a warning prior to a subject block, when the call for that block has been drawn largely from comments posted to that user's own user space.Dialectric (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Groupuscule

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

In and of themselves, the edits aren't terribly problematic, but as a group and together with the other evidence in the complaint I do get the impression that Groupuscule is here primarily to promote their own view of the issue, often in a confrontational manner and by insinuating that other editors with a different view are paid sockpuppets. This conduct is not compatible with editing in a high-tension topic area subject to discretionary sanctions. I am therefore considering a 3-month topic ban. Sandstein 10:06, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Persistent shill aspersions in this area are unacceptable, and there's obviously tendentious editing generally. I support a topic ban of at least three months. Bishonen | talk 12:03, 20 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]
- Following Kingofaces43's new comment above, I would now like to propose an indefinite topic ban from genetically modified organisms, broadly construed, with an ~~option~~ invitation to appeal here after three months. (I crossed out "option" because appealing is always an option.) Bishonen | talk 16:57, 20 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]
I agree with Sandstein and Bishonen; a TBAN is appropriate here. If this were not a first sanction I'd argue for longer than three months, but it is their first so I think they should be given a chance to learn from it; two to three months seems appropriate. I also think we should delete User:Groupuscule/GMO; it is at least skirting NOTWEBHOST and it's unlikely to be helpful in the context of a topic ban (though I note it hasn't been edited in more than two years). GoldenRing (talk) 12:53, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Taking into consideration the above, Groupuscule is indefinitely topic-banned from from genetically modified organisms. They are invited to appeal the ban after three months and explain how they intend to change their approach to editing in this topic area. Sandstein 08:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

[3] Morris, 2004, p. 439

[a]

[b]

[1]

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