Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive146

Blippy

Blippy is topic banned from all fringe and pseudoscience-related topics on all pages of Wikipedia for a period of 6 months. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:52, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
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 Blippy User who is submitting this request for enforcement TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:03, 25 January 2014 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Blippy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Sanction or remedy to be enforced Standard discretionary sanctions on pseudoscience and fringe science topics, per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary sanctions and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cold fusion 2#Discretionary sanctions Blacklight Power (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is an article about a company that claims (and has claimed for a couple of decades, now) to have developed remarkable new technology to extract energy from hydrogen atoms using a non-standard theory of physics. The topic falls squarely within the bounds of fringe science and arguably falls under 'cold fusion' as well. Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it In a long series of edits around 15 and 16 January, Blippy edit warred extensively to include favorable content and claims from a Blacklight Power press release. This edit warring resulted in 72 hours of full protection of the article. While the article was protected, it was discovered that Blippy's additions included a substantial copyvio. As a result of the ensuing AN/I discussion (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive826#Breach of copyright in a locked article) several revisions of the article were deleted, and Blippy's edits were removed by an independent admin while the article remained fully protected. Over a period of just under four days, Blippy engaged in slow edit warring by making daily reverts to re-add certain claims to the article. These scientific claims were sourced, rather dubiously, to The Village Voice (a tabloid newspaper). This edit warring began less than a day after the previous full protection of the article had expired. 20 January 22 January 23 January 23 January Four separate editors disagreed with the use of the source and independently removed the claim from the article: Bhny, Noformation, Alexbrn, and AndyTheGrump. Several editors tried, and failed, to explain their concerns to Blippy at Talk:Blacklight Power#Village Voice addition. When Blippy was cautioned (by me, TenOfAllTrades; see diff below) about edit warring on the content, he decided instead to start edit warring to add a {{POV}} template to the article. So far, we're up to three attempts – in less than 24 hours – to 'spite tag' the article since he couldn't get his way. 24 January 24 January 24 January On the talk page, he justifies his action by claiming that "many of the editors [t]here seem to be justifying their removal of such material based on personal animosity toward BLP [Blacklight Power]": Talk:Blacklight Power#NPOV. Once again, on the matter of the tag he is a lone holdout against the consensus of several different editors, including Alexbrn, Roxy the dog, and Jim1138. Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) On 18 November 2013 Blippy was notified of the discretionary sanctions applying to pseudoscience topics by Bbb23 (talk · contribs). On 23 January (yesterday) Blippy was explicitly cautioned by me – TenOfAllTrades (talk · contribs) – that edit warring could lead to a block or topic ban; he then immediately began edit warring to add a {POV} tag to the article. Additional comments by editor filing complaint At this point, it doesn't seem likely that this editor will be able to contribute positively on this topic, as he has been edit warring continuously and making baseless insinuations of bad faith ever since the article's full protection expired—protection which was the result of Blippy's own earlier edit warring. While Blippy's only recent edits have been to Blacklight Power and its talk page, I very much doubt that encouraging him to bring his approach to any other articles in this topic area would be helpful. I would therefore recommend a topic ban on cold fusion and fringe energy topics, broadly construed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:05, 25 January 2014 (UTC) @Sandstein: Fair enough; his recent edits have essentially all be related to his editing (and edit warring) at Blacklight Power. Looking a bit deeper into Blippy's contribution history – something that I hadn't really taken the time to do until now – is interesting-bordering-on-informative: Blippy's last 500 edits. Blippy was a relatively prolific editor back in August 2009, but received a 24-hour 3RR block for edit warring over a {POV} tag (sound familiar?) during some heated editing at Sense About Science, and then disappeared from the project – at least as a logged-in editor under this account name – for four years. In November 2013 Blippy made dozens of contentious edits at Rupert Sheldrake and its talk page (and on a few noticeboards related to that dispute), apparently edit warring just as vigorously then as he is now (per Vzaak's evidence below). His editing on Sheldrake virtually stopped when he was warned about discretionary sanctions, leading to another hiatus—this time for just two months. From mid-January to the present we have the extant edit warring and IDHT behavior at Blacklight Power, only briefly interrupted by a page protection. All of the pages involved relate to fringe and pseudoscience in some way, with Blippy attempting, against consensus and using the same disruptive tactics, to weaken Wikipedia's reporting of the mainstream scientific position. Based on his pattern, a page ban will solve the problem at Blacklight Power, there will be a reprieve for a few weeks or months, and then Blippy will find another fringe-science article that he feels is unfairly skeptical and resume his disruptive editing. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:39, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested Notified. Discussion concerning Blippy 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 Blippy This disagreement revolves around the second & final lede para which reads (with my proposed addition in italics): The proposed theory is inconsistent with quantum mechanics and critics have ruled it out on those grounds, with some labelling it "fraud", "extremely unlikely", lacking corroborating scientific evidence, and a relic of cold fusion. In 2009 IEEE Spectrum magazine characterised it as a "loser" technology because "most experts don’t believe such lower states exist, and they say the experiments don’t present convincing evidence", however other scientists have expressed interest in exploring his work further. My proposed edit attempted to provide a summary of relevant material that appears further down in the article (that some scientists consider BLP's claims worthy of investigation) which is not otherwise represented in the lede viz.: By 2000, Mills raised $25 million in funding for the company, recruiting several researchers to sit on the board, which subsequently included representatives of venture capital firms, a former CEO of Westinghouse and turnaround expert Michael H. Jordan... In 2013 BLP was one of 54 applicants to receive ~$1.1M grant from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and was awarded a Trailblazer award by the New Jersey Technology Council. Around 2002 the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) granted a Phase I grant to Anthony Marchese, a mechanical engineer at Rowan University, to study a possible rocket propulsion that would use hydrinos. In a 2007 review of cold fusion research, researcher Edmund Storms put forward the hydrino model as a possible explanation for cold fusion. In 2012 after investigating the BLP process, both Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary of Rowan University and Professor of Chemical Engineering at University of California, Santa Barbara, W. Henry Weinberg claimed that the BLP process is legitimate. I believed that adding something along the lines of however other scientists have expressed interest in exploring [BLP's] work further was a reasonable summary of this content. The fact that BLP have had independent investigators supportive of their claims, and they (and others) have published many articles in peer reviewed journals, are some of the most notable things about BLP (as compared to other 'free energy' types), and this information is an important part of the BLP story which I believe should be reflected in the lede of any fair WP article on them. I have engaged with other editors on the Talk page, but often they would revert and/or make broadly dismissive comments - often ad hominem in nature - but then not respond to the responses I made to their criticism (the editor lodging this complaint being a case in point). I accepted that the consensus was not to include my (or a similar) edit in the lede, but I believed this consensus to be in violation of NPOV, so introduced the POV tag in the hope of attracting the attention of more editors beyond those who - in their comments - had been expressing hostility toward BLP in a way which seemed to colour their perspective on my proposed edit. However, the tag was also deemed inappropriate. I was half way through seeking some different views via the dispute resolution form when I received notification of this process, which I believe means that avenue can no longer be pursued. Hopefully this process will generate sufficient interest from disinterested editors to resolve the matter one way or another - I'm always open to learning from mistakes I make (the copyvio business for instance), and readily acknowledge that being in the midst of a disagreement can skew one's perspective and judgement beyond what is reasonable, so I am very open to the advice of those who have no strong views either way on BLP. Cheers, Blippy (talk) 01:55, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by (username) Statement by Alfonzo Green TenOfAllTrades not only fails to demonstrate edit warring in the diffs provided but doesn't seem to be understand WP:Consensus. "After someone makes a change or addition to a page, others who read it can choose either to leave the page as it is or to change it." Simply reverting the edit at this stage is not an option. "When editors do not reach agreement by editing, discussion on the associated talk pages continues the process toward consensus." Before reverting, editors are to discuss the added material. Yet Bhny reverted the edit in question without prior discussion. In his comment he justified the revert with the claim, "(need better source than Mills...)" indicating that he didn't know Blippy's source was a major US urban weekly, The Village Voice, which is cited in countless articles throughout Wikipedia and undeniably a reliable source (and no, WP:RS doesn't set a different standard of reliability for science articles). Yet TenOfAllTrades carries on the charade, claiming in his request that the material is "rather dubiously" sourced, though he knows it's the Voice, not a press release from Mills, as Bhny apparently believed. Bhny additionally claimed in his revert that he "removed weasely 'some scientists.'" Again, WP:Consensus: "An edit which is not clearly an improvement may often be improved by rewording." One way to fix the problem would simply be to quote from the cited article, which reads: "More quietly, however, some scientists are taking notice." This way the reader knows the "weasel word" is in the source itself and not a poor characterization on Blippy's part (and yes, "some" is a useful word, meaning neither "none" nor "all"). Instead of leaving the added sentence alone or changing it into a direct quote, Bhny chose to edit war. Not content to see Bhny have all the fun, Noformation jumped in and reverted with the same (weaselly) non-justification. 91.221.58.5 later supplied the third revert with no comment whatsoever. Seems that once a couple of reverts have occurred, the fact that they're not based on policy is no barrier to adding more. The final member of the tag team was AndyTheGrump, who justified his revert by noting a failure of consensus on the talk page. Yet the talk page discussion reveals no willingness on the part of the dissenting editors to base their objections on actual policy. Aside from declaring himself "a little uncomfortable with using the Village Voice" as a source, Noformation claims we need to know why "any particular scientist is interested in this technology," implying that the editor, Noformation, is more of an expert on this sort of thing than the scientists in question. It goes without saying that no Wikipedia policy justifies Noformation's demand for extra information. According to Jim1138, "one can almost always find 'other scientists' who support a dubious claim." The point, however, is that a reliable source reports that some scientists, even if Jim1138 knows better, aren't convinced that Mills' claim is dubious. TenOfAllTrades steps into the breach with the following zinger: "The problem with 'some scientists believe' and variations on the theme is that it is true for virtually any assertion you might wish to make." Guess what, Ten, the claim is legitimized by the presence of a reliable source. By contrast, "virtually any assertion" doesn't have sources backing it up, so we don't have to worry about "virtually any assertion" worming its way into Wikipedia. Alexbrn chimes in to claim the edit is "not neutral," as if accurately paraphrasing a reliable source could somehow be construed as POV. It's POV when it's not sourced, when it's the editor's opinion. Again, what we have here is a complete failure to comprehend policy. According to Andy, the "viewpoint isn't 'significant' if it is held by a tiny minority, by definition." And this takes us right to the heart of the problem. The defining characteristic of science is that no final answers are ever given (and no deity exists to ladle them out). The assumption is always that some of what we think we know will turn out to be false. It's because scientists can sometimes get it wrong that we don't call them priests. Scientists are all too aware of how easily orthodoxy crumbles in the fact of continued questioning and investigation, and it appears that in this case at least a small number of them think they may have found a crack in the wall. Thanks to Blippy, Wikipedia is now in possession of a source making this claim. The other editors' job was to make sure the sourced material was accurately conveyed in the article. Instead they engaged in pointless chatter while brazenly triggering an edit war and, worse, blaming it on the injured party. "Edit warring," according to WP:EW, "is unconstructive and creates animosity between editors, making it harder to reach a consensus," or in this case impossible since the dissenting editors plainly refuse to rationally engage Blippy's edit. At the very least, they should receive a warning that blocking consensus is unacceptable. No rational observer would grant this request. To rule in favor of the dissenting editors is to demonstrate contempt not only for Wikipedia policy but the scientific project. Appeals to WP:ARB/PS only serve to distract from the real issue. This isn't about pseudoscience; it's about a clique of clueless editors misrepresenting science. Discretionary sanctions, intended to "tackle misconduct," are instead applied by administrators at the behest of science-confused editors so as to preempt usual Wikipedia policy and remove editors who don't share their ignorance or tolerate their misconduct. Alfonzo Green (talk) 07:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by vzaak Blippy warred extensively at Rupert Sheldrake. Warring to remove reference to the Sokal hoax: [1][2][3][4][5][6] Warring to give Sheldrake the title of "biologist": [7][8][9][10] Warring to add a hearsay Dawkins quote: [11][12][13][14][15] Warring to add the POV tag: [16][17][18][19] I had implored everyone to read the instructions for the POV tag[20][21], but despite the instructions saying Do not use this template to "warn" readers about the article, Blippy added the tag with comment, "we should warn readers".[22] There was a competency issue as well: syntax problems in wikitext, adding a quote that appeared in the very next section, and basically warring without understanding what is being warred.[23] Blippy had also jumbled up the timeline, introducing errors, which was very time-consuming to fix.[24] Please consider extending this request to cover pseudoscience and fringe science. vzaak 02:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC) The recent comment by TenOfAllTrades reminded me of my other run-in with Blippy at Mars effect, where he made a short push against the scientific consensus,[25][26] claiming "the statistical correlation exists".[27][28] Looking back further, there is some wild warring at Arthur C. Clarke; relevant phrase is "about 50 cases that are hard to explain": [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] And warring at Scientific skepticism: [37][38][39] And apparent warring at Ian Stevenson too, though I haven't looked into the details. In all cases I've seen, Blippy's warring is a push against policies such as WP:PSCI, WP:FRINGE, WP:GEVAL. Blippy is a time sink on editors who could be doing something more productive than fixing Blippy's policy-violating edits. As TenOfAllTrades describes, there is a long term pattern of behavior here which is unlikely to change. I might call it "push and run": cause just enough disruption to fall short of serious administrative action, then leave. Sandstein is looking for recent edits, but we should also learn from history. vzaak 17:37, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by Barney the barney barney (talk) 18:53, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Vzaak (talk · contribs) summarises the issues at Rupert Sheldrake above, but there appears to be a wider problem. Looking at special:contributions/Blippy it is apparent that Blippy (talk · contribs) is either unwilling or unable to understand and implement WP:FRINGE, WP:NPOV, WP:MAINSTREAM, and therefore anti-Wikipedia per WP:NOTHERE, and I think a ban on all fringe and pseudoscience-related articles broadly construed is unfortunately necessary. Barney the barney barney (talk) 18:53, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by Enric Naval in BlackLight Power Blippy edit-warred to keep his changes to the article. Later he edit-warred again to put a POV tag (diffs were already provided by TenOfAllTrades). If you look at his changes, he is removing negative material and introduceing promotional material. One of his removals of negative material[40] was not noticed by other editors, and the material was absent from the article during 14 days. Note the snarky and unhelpful replies [41][42]. The assumption that editors who oppose his edits are "hostile"[43]. He broadly dismisses all arguments, saying the editors are not being intellectually honest: "(...) yet so far the responses to my NPOV concerns have included personal attacks ("POV-pusher", "credulous"), broadbrush dismissal (WP not a platform for nonsense), whimsy, and unilateral declarations of truth ("there is no neutrality problem"). How about some intellectually honest engagement with the issue?"[44]. This is a battleground mentality. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:14, 25 January 2014 (UTC) in Rupert Sheldrake See Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake/Archive_12#Snowstorm_of_drive_by_edits_by_Blippy. Blippy provides 3 sources, and other people tell him that there are problems with his suggestion. Blippy displays WP:ICANTHEARYOU the whole section, and uses snarky and unhelpful replies near the end. Other editors give up on reasoning with him. He gets told to go to WP:RS/N, but he never does it. When challenged about it, he plays the victim [45]. Soon, the thread died down without any improvement to the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:02, 26 January 2014 (UTC) in Arthur_C._Clarke Looks like a long-term problem. Back in August 2009, he gets told that his last edit has a lot of issues, and he plays the victim "I shall endeavour to ignore your hostility and provide a civil response. "[46]. When he gets told of a lot more issues, he dismisses all of them and tells the other editor that he is assuming bad faith, then makes a condescending comment that he will take the suggestions into account [47]. Later, his proposed edit keeps being rejected and he makes unconstructive comments on the other editor [48]. In the end, the other editors re-wrote the discussed paragraph. My impression in general Always attempts to give undue weight to quotes and sources that are positive towards fringe subjects. Maybe he feels they are treated unfairly in wikipedia, or something. When told about weight and POV, he reacts badly (see diffs above). When he can't counter the other editor's arguments, he seems to resort to civil accusations of bad faith and non-neutrality. The ones I have seen were enveloped in exquisite civility, and they were baseless. They feel like a technique to avoid discussion and get his edits introduced despite the objections. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:40, 26 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by Johnuniq Blippy is unable to discuss issues in the terms required at Wikipedia, as shown in my recent interaction at Talk:BlackLight Power#NPOV. At "00:18, 25 January 2014" (diff) my brief comment focuses on a single policy link (WP:SYNTH). After a reply by Blippy, I asked for a response to the substance of my comment. Blippy then replied "It's hard to know which of your claims you think is substantive" (diff) in a comment that again deflects from the point, namely that an article should not be padded with text that suggests there may be scientific support for the claim that the company has a new energy source. Johnuniq (talk) 01:14, 26 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by 76.107.171.90 As of the moment I am writing this Blippy has made 150 edits to articles since he returned to Wikipedia in early November. Of those edits: 88 (58.6%) are POV pushes 23 (15.3%) are arbitrarily rearranging articles and rephrasing sentences 19 (12.6%) have been redacted 11 (7.3%) were actual edits 8 (5.3%) fixed errors (many of which were his own errors) 1 (0.6%) tried to fix an error, but failed. I would also like to point out that some of his edits have rather dishonest edit summaries. [[49]] Changed scientists to some scientists. Marked it as a copy edit. [[50]] Changed journal to journals (implying more than one). Marked it as a copy edit. [[51]] Called Sheldrake a “Research Fellow of the Royal Society”. Marked it as a copy edit. [[52]] Called morphic resonance a theory. Marked it as a copy edit. [[53]]. Changes “advocacy” into “research”. Marked it as a copy edit. In determining Blippy’s future on Wikipedia please consider the fact that he has done more harm than good. Though he certainly doesn’t approach User:Abd in terms of magnitude or length of disruption, Bilppy’s combination of POV-pushing, incompetence, and a generally foul attitude make him a textbook WP:RANDY. 76.107.171.90 (talk) 16:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC) comment by User:TheRedPenOfDoom As context for why IP 76.107.171.90 would classify some the edit summaries as "rather dishonest", Whether or not to call "morphic resonance" a theory had been the subject of several protracted discussions on the talk page such as Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake/Archive_8#Discussion:_theory_.2F_hypothesis_.2F_concept and so swapping back in that controversial language under the edit summary merely indicating "copy edit" is misleading at best. likewise, the appropriateness of the Research Fellow was/had recently been a topic of editorial concern and disagreement Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake/Archive_4#Sheldrake_is_not_a_Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society the others are pretty clear in their effect to create the impression that Sheldrake's work is more highly regarded than it actually is and are not merely copyedits for grammar or clarity. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom Result concerning Blippy This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above. In arbitration enforcement, we cannot resolve content issues, such as whether the article should be modified the way Blippy wants it to be. What we can address is editor conduct, and the complaint demonstrates that Blippy has engaged in edit-warring, in violation of WP:EW. On these grounds, I believe a ban from the article Blacklight Power and its talk page is appropriate. A broader topic ban, such as the sanctions TenOfAllTrades and Vzaak suggest, might be considered if there is evidence of recent disruptive conduct with respect to other articles. Vzaak's evidence concerning Rupert Sheldrake is from November 2013 and therefore probably too old to be actionable now.  Sandstein  09:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC) If one reads through Blippy's list of contributions, one does get the impression Vzaak describes: Blippy seemingly only edits a variety of fringe- or pseudoscience topics, and almost always does so by edit-warring with others over matters such as "POV" tags. It seems he is only here to make Wikipedia portray an array of fringe- or pseudoscience topics in a more positive (or less negative) light. Agenda-driven editing of any sort is not welcome on Wikipedia (see WP:NPOV, which also applies as a conduct rule). I'd welcome other admins' opinions about whether this is a basis for a ban from the whole field of fringe- and pseudoscience.  Sandstein  19:14, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Blacklight Power is proposing to generate power through a mechanism that contradicts well-accepted physics. If this really happened, it would be epochal. The fact that no mainstream publications give their hypothesis credence is what should matter for Wikipedia. It's well within the domain of WP:ARBPS to issue sanctions to an editor who insists on wanting our articles to recognize a scientific hypothesis that hasn't received mainstream notice. If people working for Blacklight Power get an article accepted in the Physical Review then we should start paying attention. I support Sandstein's proposal for a ban of this editor from fringe and pseudoscience-related topics on all pages of Wikipeda, including Blacklight Power. EdJohnston (talk) 21:22, 26 January 2014 (UTC) I find the request to be quite convincing, in that action is needed to prevent the disruption. Whilst I agree with Sandstein that edits from Nov 2013 aren't actionable, in this case they do from a pretty convincing pattern of behaviour. Given the long running history of disruptive edits I agree that a topic ban from fringe and pseudoscience-related topics would be appropriate, however I'd prefer it had a 6 month expiry date. After the initial 6 months, if Blippy begins disruptive editing again it won't be difficult to make a case for a longer or indefinite TBAN. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:04, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by HouseOfArtaxiad

HouseOfArtaxiad's appeal is declined. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
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 HouseOfArtaxiad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – HouseOfArtaxiad (talk) 18:26, 24 January 2014 (UTC) Sanction being appealed Topic ban from the subject of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, imposed at [here]. Administrator imposing the sanction EdJohnston (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) Notification of that administrator The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification. Statement by HouseOfArtaxiad I would like to appeal a six month ban I was given three months ago. The requester cites a dispute on the Shushi article. He says I was ignoring the discussion on the talk page, but I was very active in it. He also claims I was edit warring, but I had only undone two edits, the same amount as he himself, and did not violate the three per day rule or anything that directly merited punishment. I feel the request to ban me was more like a ban for having a different opinion and EdJohnson rushed to place a ban. I think this was a relatively small incident that was reacted to too harshly. Considering almost all of my edits are focused around Armenian topics, most of which aren't controversial, I think half a year is too long of a sanction and that three months is plenty. Having already spent half the time banned, I want to request it be removed now. I promise I will not do any undoing during my next talk regardless of if the other editor does it or not. --HouseOfArtaxiad (talk) 18:26, 24 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by EdJohnston HouseOfArtaxiad has done very little editing since the closure of the original AE in November 2013 that led to his ban. So this should be viewed as though it was an immediate appeal in which he challenges the grounds presented at AE for the sanction. For reference, the original AE discussion was here. The prior ANI discussion was here. The bottom line of that ANI was summarized by User:Drmies as: "HouseOfArtaxiad, you are hereby warned that your behavior is unacceptable and blockable". In my opinion, the appeal should be judged on whether HouseOfArtaxiad effectively refutes the points raised in the above two discussions. To save following a lot of links, here was the original argument I presented: My statement in the November 2013 AE The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. HouseOfArtaxiad has now edit warred at two articles: List of massacres in Turkey and Nazim Bey. Look at the massacres article first because it's easier to check, even though HOA only reverted twice there: List of massacres in Turkey: First check the talk page and notice that HouseOfArtaxiad hasn't posted there at all. Then note these two reverts: No edit summary, 1 November 2013 "Undoing vandalism. Most of these don't have sources, and the rest are sourced to people such as Justin McCarthy, whom was declared unreliable in the talk.", 4 November 2013 One of the massacres that he removes is called 'Massacres in the Çoruh River valley', which has an academic source in a book by Robert Gewarth et al. published by Oxford University Press, “War in peace: Paramilitary violence in Europe after the Great War”. This was a massacre where Armenians are said to have participated. Another is Yıldız assassination attempt, which describes an attack carried out by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. It's reasonable to have low tolerance for edit warring on obvious ethnic hot-button articles like this one. The other article where HOA engaged in warring is Nazim Bey. Nazim Bey: HouseOfArtaxiad made nine reverts here that occurred between Sept 18 and Nov 4. See the summary by User:Drmies Here: "What a fine mess. HouseOfArtaxiad is (besides the personal attacks and false claims of vandalism) very clearly edit warring here; I just slapped a warning on their talk page. Their suggestion that the Ungor book is unreliable is based on nothing at all, and at any rate such a discussion ought to take place on the article talk page or on WP:RSN, not with some sneers in edit summaries.." I didn't look into the claims of edit warring at Shusha, a dispute which has now led to full protection of the article by User:Ymblanter. My recommendation for a sanction is given in the admin section below. EdJohnston (talk) 20:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC) Regarding HoA's claim that 'EdJohnston rushed to place a ban', please note that User:Sandstein and User:Drmies also supported this action. In terms of 'rushing', the complaint was opened on 8 November and closed on 15 November. EdJohnston (talk) 19:24, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Statement by (involved editor 1) Statement by (involved editor 2) Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by HouseOfArtaxiad Result of the appeal by HouseOfArtaxiad This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above. This appeal isn't going anywhere, and may be archived, if the sanctioning administrator is not notified of the appeal by the appellant, as instructed in the template. Then we normally wait for the sanctioning admin to make a statement.  Sandstein  09:43, 25 January 2014 (UTC) I now see that I voiced support for the ban in the discussion about the enforcement request that led up to the ban. But this appeal does not require us to examine whether the ban was appropriate to begin with. That's because HouseOfArtaxiad does not contest this. They only want the ban to end now rather than in three months. In my view, this appeal should be declined. First, on procedural grounds: such a request should have been made to the sanctioning admin first. Second, because HouseOfArtaxiad's assumptions about how sanctions work are mistaken. Sanctions are preventative, not punitive. They should end as soon as they are no longer needed to prevent problematic behavior, not sooner and not later. This means that one can't argue that a less serious infraction (which HouseOfArtaxiad believes this was) must automatically result in a sanction of a shorter duration. In order for us to be able to determine whether the ban is no longer needed at this time, HouseOfArtaxiad would need to address their misconduct that caused the ban, and explain why it will not reoccur (see, by analogy, WP:GAB). Because HouseOfArtaxiad doesn't do that here (instead, they attempt to play down the significance of their misconduct), and because their lack of an editing record since the imposition of the ban doesn't allow us to infer that they will edit non-disruptively if unbanned, I don't see an argument for why the ban should be lifted now rather than later.  Sandstein  21:04, 25 January 2014 (UTC) I agree with Sandstein on this one. Given that HouseOfArtaxiad has been mostly inactive there is no evidence that they would be able to edit constructively in this topic so the appeal is, in effect, that there was no evidence to ban and hence that the administrators acted outside the DS policy. I find both of these to be groundless so recommend declining the appeal until HouseOfArtaxiad can present evidence that the ban is no longer needed. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:12, 27 January 2014 (UTC) If HouseOfArtaxiad had established a pattern of unproblematic editing in a different subject area over the last three months, I'd look very favourably at ending the topic ban early or perhaps replacing it with a looser restriction. As it is, HouseOfArtaxiad has hardly edited at all since the topic ban. The idea is not that a sanctioned editor simply waits out the duration of the sanction (this isn't some virtual game of chicken), but that when the sanction ends, the editor comes back with a clear idea of where they went wrong and how to avoid doing so in future (preferably informed by editing something less controversial). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:57, 28 January 2014 (UTC)