User:Colipon/My Stuff/Sandbox

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

Request concerning Olaf Stephanos

 * Note: I have been preparing this over the space of a few days. I am still trying to familiarize myself with arbitration. Never done it before and hope to never do it again. Apologize for the length or mistakes in format, I tried my best.

User requesting enforcement: Colipon+ (Talk) 15:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested:

Sanction or remedy that this user violated: Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it:
 * Central to these diffs is one pervasive, consistent issue - the editor's tendency to always want to tip the article POV towards Falun Gong's favour, no matter the situation. This user certainly goes out of his way to remove, restructure, move, or otherwise tone down reliably sourced content critical of Falun Gong followed by extremely lengthy argumentative rants on the talk pages.
 * 1)  Serious POV editing. This was the user's first comprehensive rewrite of Falun Gong after article probation - he adds undue weight to the article's intro, highlighting Falun Gong's "plight", and then adds an entire section of selective academic sources, advocating the "good nature" of Falun Gong in the section "Theoretical background", while removing all well-sourced information about Li's claimed supernatural status and apocalyptic claims - claiming it was to "rv Sam Luo's ravings". Modified "Criticism" heading to "Third-party views". Deleted several paragraphs of critical information; replaced it with favourable information.
 * 2)  Serious POV editing. Attempting to discredit the source of the critical content, not a legitimate refutation or rebuttal against critical commentary. Also, another paragraph is awkwardly inserted (copied from another article, originally also drafted by himself) its only purpose seems to attack the American Anti-Cult Movement in defense of Falun Gong. User did not attempt to seek consensus before or after the edit, merely attempting to justify it with a long rant that he is "right". A chronic issue is that whenever any critical content is added to the article, he POV edits with "criticism of the critics" to "balance out" the article.
 * 3) In the same edit, he also forcibly inserts that Patsy Rahn is a "Bachelors of Arts" to discredit her published works (he lobbies for it here, discrediting her ad hominem with "Patsy Rahn is a former B-class soap opera actress, who has nothing but a BA in political science". On the talk page, Olaf continues to allude to a single source to justify that the Anti-Cult movement in the United States as "unreliable" and a "lackey of the Communist Party of China".
 * 4)   Other attempts at discrediting sources critical of Falun Gong, very clear POV editing similar to previous instance.
 * 5)  Another instance of discrediting sources critical of Falun Gong in article body, an unsourced POV edit that aims to "balance out" criticism.
 * 6)  A deletion of various critical sites, including all Chinese government-related sites in "External Links", saying it gives "undue weight". (Eventually almost all critical links were deleted, but by other users - see below).
 * 7)  Inserting paragraphs about human rights reports on Falun Gong, including a selective claim from a UN report which was later refuted. These edits aim to advocate for Falun Gong's "plight". Note also he adds quotation marks around words like "illegal act" to make them sound less credible.
 * 8) In Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital, an article that has been a focus of Falun Gong advocacy (and since deleted/redirected after attention from uninvolved editors):
 * Restored removal of peripheral comments about whether the allegations are considered by FG to be closed, with the comment "disagree; no reason to remove only this paragraph and leave the three others intact; are you sure you didn't try to make the case look 'closed'?" effectively giving Falun Gong 'the final word' while the dismissed allegations are left hanging - a common tactic by FG editors.
 * Blanking entire section because he cannot get his way.
 * Covert edit warring under guise of restoring "balance", by introduction of a weaseley phrase, and misrepresentation of source that the allegations have been "found credible by Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine", and re-adding removed problematic material with no substantive discussion (relying on edit summary).
 * Introduction of material tangential and not specifically related to the article's subject as a method of 'counterbalancing' the removal referred to immediately above - again, so he could have final say on what is "right".
 * All of these edits reflect POV and disruptive editing, aimed at stalling neutral good-faith edits by User:Ohconfucius.
 * 1)  Deleting Mrund's edits about Falun Gong's controversial aspects from lead sourced from TIME and James Randi Educational Foundation. Here is his justification for deleting, and here he deletes it again without consensus.
 * 2)  This is a lengthy talk-page response to an uninvolved user who suggested that the article was extremely biased in favour of Falun Gong and there have been efforts at erasing critical content. This is a form of very direct advocacy, which is prohibited according to the arbitration. Other talk page advocacy edits include    (Rants about personal experiences, personal meeting with founder Li Hongzhi, calling him a "humble man" etc.), (Extremely lengthy advocacy about why the word 'cult' doesn't belong in article, despite reliable sources, and other dissertations); advocating for Falun Gong through blockquotes taken from official Falun Gong website faluninfo.org, with attached personal experiences; More advocacy on the talk pages against the Anti-Cult movement.
 * 3)  Removing NPOV tag on a revision that clearly favours Falun Gong, while the NPOV dispute has not been resolved, with justification: "The disputed content and concrete alternatives have not been explicated on the talk page."
 * 4) Here Argues that James Randi, another critic of Falun Gong, is "partisan" and "not an expert on Falun Gong", branding Randi's educational website a "personal blog", saying it cannot be included in the article. Here he calls Randi a "good illusionist" and "does not have an academic background", and that "sometimes he's just plain wrong".
 * 5)  In one of his few edits outside the realm of Falun Gong-related articles, he inserts unsourced lines ("imprisoning Falun Gong practitioners to detention centers and labor camps and torturing many of them to death") on the page of Chinese president Jiang Zemin, when the paragraph already has a "citation needed" tag. In contrast, his edits (, as part of a protracted edit war with User:Simonm223) on Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Gong, promote Li's benevolence and positive image. These edits clearly reflect pro-Falun Gong, anti-Chinese government POV editing.
 * 6)  Removes quote directly sourced from Li Hongzhi to hide Li's more outlandish dissertations, with justification "it doesn't fit in well with the other [quotes]".
 * 7)  This edit is a restoration of Original Research conducted by User:asdfg12345, in defense of Falun Gong's more 'outlandish' claims, reflecting clear advocacy.
 * 8)  The user persistently edit wars to keep Falun Gong critic and cult expert Rick Ross out of the article, labelling him a "self-contained cottage industry"; here he deletes Ross again using the term "former criminal" to discredit the source. In this typical revert, he modified all instances of the word "repression" or "ban" to "persecution" and added praise for Falun Gong including: "while others say 'there could no gentler religion than the Falun Gong.'[...] In 1999, the Chinese government said it considered Falun Gong to be a cult; though scholars see this as merely a 'red-herring'." This reflects pervasive anti-critic, pro-Falun Gong POV editing by said user.
 * 9)  Delete well-sourced content on "homophobic" teachings, justifying with "Anonymous IP inserting a new section, using substandard sources and ignoring criticism just doesn't work.".
 * 10) He expressed that 'forced labor camp' or 'brainwashing center' are in general appropriate "plain English words" to describe prisons to which supposed FG practitioners are sent, aiming to sensationalize these events.
 * 11) He harasses me while I prepare for this very arbitration case, first posting a lengthy pre-emptive defence on Talk:Falun Gong; he then brings it up in an unrelated disucssion stating: "[Colipon] is at this very moment preparing to lose his face by blatantly misusing the arbitration enforcement process against me to gain an upper hand in content disputes..."
 * 12) Numerous diffs on personal attacks, which severely violate WP is not a battleground listed below:

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction):
 * Topic ban or complete block.

Additional comments by Colipon+ (Talk) :

My first impressions with the article was that it was similar to ongoing disputes at Scientology, with a group of dedicated apologist editors making blatant POV and disruptive edits and making real work on the articles very difficult. Falun Gong is a bit more complicated. There is a protracted, large-scale propaganda war between the spiritual movement and the Communist Party of China. Two polarizing sides of the issue make it much, much harder to deal with, as there are activists on both sides. Both sides use exaggerated 'evidence', borrowed 'experts', sensationalist claims and other forms of propaganda to attack each other. Because both sides clearly have an agenda against the other, "NPOV" becomes very delicate - there will be routine disruptions from both sides. No revisions of articles is ever stable.

The propaganda war manifested itself on Wikipedia in 2006, with anti-Falun Gong activists and pro-Falun Gong practitioners constantly opposing each other and engaging in disruptive editing. To my knowledge, after arbitration, all of the anti-FLG editors (Sam Luo, Tomanada, etc.) were banned or have left. As a result, since June 2007 and until mediation in July 2009, the Falun Gong family of articles have become unmistakably dominated by pro-Falun Gong activists. These articles all suffer from serious POV issues heavily biased in favour of Falun Gong, are readily being used as a direct form of advocacy for the Falun Gong movement, and users from all backgrounds (including those who are anti-Chinese gov't) have raised concerns - but all have been either discouraged by the drama, or their attempts at other means of dispute resolution have failed.

Conflict of Interest The user I mentioned above is undoubtedly a single-purpose account and has been editing Falun Gong-related articles since 2006 (along with a team of 3 other very easily identifiable FLG activist editors -, , and ). After the ban of Anti-FLG users Sam Luo and Tomanada, he and a very consistent group of Falun Gong practitioners have seemingly taken over all Falun Gong-related articles. All four users, to varying degrees, erase critical content, engage in lengthy advocacy commentary on talk pages, tag-team against other editors, and two users in particular (Olaf, dilip rajeev) show very little respect for any users who wish to bring balance to articles, hurling ad hominem accusations and personal attacks.

They are also known to invoke Wikipedia policy whenever it works to their favour. Misrepresentation of sources has been endemic, and these four abovenamed editors are known to engage in tag-team edit warring, and backing up each other's problematic edits, but occasionally conceding when it is clearly demonstrated that the misrepresentation has occurred. More often than not, the neutral revision provokes another flurry of introducing "highly sourced material" ostensibly to restore the balance of bias in favour of Falun Gong. Adding, removing, restructuring, moving, or otherwise changing any material that appears to upset the pro-FG bias in any of the articles is met with the same tactics.

Pervasive personal attacks; hostilities User:Olaf Stephanos has become especially hostile of late and severely violates the principle that "Wikipedia is a not a battleground", constantly attacking other users. Just in the last month alone, for example, he cagily disparaged the efforts of new non-aligned User:John Carter by alluding to the fact that he edits "things that are widely considered either as parodies or otherwise ridiculous topics"; he made numerous personal attacks against me, including telling me to "stop being a martyr" and calling me "one raging anti-FLG bull", and when I asked him to stop his personal attacks, this was his lengthy reply accompanied with more personal attacks; On the same talk page, Olaf tells User:Mrund: "I have not attacked you personally"; in the same edit, he writes, "The face of your ideological struggle just looks so much better with a faux moustache and a gargantuan plastic nose". He later asserted his personal attacks to be "satire" and "humour".

In addition, Olaf persistently disparages my character and neutrality by repeatedly making references to my post over two years ago on the talk page of now banned user (and anti-FLG activist) Sam Luo, and wrote a sarcastic comment which began with: "I merely proved through direct quotes that your shining helmet of neutrality seems to be made of cheap Chinese tinfoil. If you weren't peacocking around with phrases like 'neutral-minded editors calling on the pro-FLG side to adhere to NPOV', there would be no need to point out your double standards. Why don't you start playing your cards openly?."

Moreover, in response to my call for investigation on Falun Gong articles and related commentary from a wide range of editors that the article is poorly written, biased, and whitewashed of any criticism, Olaf wrote a lengthy 4-paragraph rebuttal which opened with: "'Guys, guys, here's a handkerchief to wipe your foaming mouths [...] I will be here keeping you in check, and there is no way to get rid of me, because I know what I'm doing [...] I'm not going to burn myself, nor is there anything in my edit history that would incriminate me.'"

All Falun Gong related articles are currently on probation, this is by no means the first time I have encountered problematic users who violate terms of the arbitration. Because serious arbitration enforcement cases are time consuming, they have not been filed until now. This cannot go on. It is imperative that any or all problematic conduct should result in conclusive action against any guilty party. My suggestion is that admins conduct a thorough investigation on Falun Gong and its related articles, investigate all the regular users who edit the pages, and enforce a wholesale ban on any user (including myself) that they find possess a clear activist agenda, whether on behalf of the Chinese gov't or on behalf of Falun Gong. My belief is that because of the chronic nature of the problems and because activist users are increasingly becoming adept at weasling out of WP policy violations, that a ban will be the only effective measure to end these chronic problems.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested: User has been notified here.

Statement by Olaf Stephanos
First of all, I would like state what I suppose will be obvious by examining the diffs provided above: this is an attempt to misuse WP:AE to gain an upper hand in a content dispute.

I have been editing these articles for several years, and my stated intent has always been to respect the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Whenever there have been problems or disagreements, I have engaged in extensive discussion; I have taken matters to the community noticeboards, especially after the latest mediation case was initiated; I have absolutely no intent to keep away "critical" sources just because they are critical, as long as they are given due weight and meet the requirements put forth in WP:RS and WP:V; and I have done my very best not to break WP:3RR, or to engage in prolonged edit warring, even though the articles have faced numerous assaults and occasionally even outright vandalism.

I assume there will be a group of editors leaving their comments on me before the ArbCom gives its final judgment. Some of them will probably try to make me look negative; others will undoubtedly defend me. My argumentative and articulate style of speech, along with my knowledge of the policies and guidelines, has made me a demanding opponent in the eyes of those who support direct action and try to take over these pages by force, or who insist on substandard sources, undue weight, and original research. (On a side note, the main Falun Gong article was recently protected after our mediator's WP:BRD model was breached.) I also initiated the original Falun Gong arbitration case that ended up with the topic ban of User:Samuel Luo and User:Tomananda. In my view, these are the real reasons for singling me out.

Before I go into details about the accusations against me, I would like to point out that Colipon is blatantly misrepresenting some of the diffs (such as this one), and that it is not an accident on his side, because already on August 7 he has read an initial list of rebuttals that is now available on my talk page. In addition, he knows that many of the removals (such as Rick Ross) have been approved on a community noticeboard, but he still chooses to use them as "evidence".

I will also highlight the fact that the following diffs are relatively old: #1 (8 June 2007), #5 (21 June 2007), #6 (12 June 2007), #7 (14 June 2007), #9 (10 March 2008), #10 (2nd & 3rd: 12 January 2008, 4th: 10 March 2008, 5th: 11 March 2008, 6th: 14 July 2008, 8th: 7 March 2008), #11 (15 July 2008), #12 (1st: 12 March 2008, 2nd: 12 March 2008), #14 (15 July 2008), #16 (4th: 4 July 2008), #18 (17 March 2008).

Point-by-point discussion of the alleged violations

 * 1) I don't think there's much to say here. User:Free456 is a sockpuppet of Samuel Luo, and I reverted him.
 * 2) In this edit, I have merely pointed out that Margaret Singer cannot be taken to reflect the academic consensus on the matter. She had been given an extremely prominent place in the "Reception" section. There was discussion on this wording, I took part and did not try to enforce it, agreed to removing all the references to the court decisions, and have even spoken on behalf of Singer's inclusion as a significant minority viewpoint here. I still think it is acceptable to mention her, as long as she is not given undue weight and is presented in the proper context.
 * 3) Pointing out Patsy Rahn's academic credentials with a sourced reference to her biography (on the website of the host of the conference in question) shouldn't be a problem, especially since I did nothing to enforce that edit. Just a little while earlier, Colipon had inserted this edit that appealed to Margaret Singer's credentials, but apparently he doesn't see any problem there (frankly, I don't, either). Lastly, I have not called the ACM a "lackey of the Communist Party of China"; I have only mentioned that a peer-reviewed source discussing the ACM discourse and Falun Gong contains these words: "By applying the ['cult'] label and embracing theories that posit passive followers under the mental control of a dangerous leader, the government can aggressively destroy the group, all the while claiming to be protecting religious freedom. In this respect, the Western Anti-Cult Movement has served, unwittingly or not, as a lackey in the party's efforts to maintain its political dominance."
 * 4) The first diff is admittedly an attempt to restore the primary sources about Singer and her expertise. This was my only revert. See point #2. On the other hand, posting the second diff as a piece of "evidence" is preposterous. In my next edit five minutes later, I revert my changes and say "Sorry, my bad. Seems like another organisation has taken over the name "American Family Foundation"." Colipon knows this by reading the rebuttals on my talk page, but he still chose to include this diff. In my humble opinion, that is quite indicative of his approach to this arbitration enforcement case.
 * 5) This is nothing but a link to a section that discusses the anti-cult movement in light of reliable sources.
 * 6) My rationale is apparent, see the edit summary. At the time of the edit, the External Links section looked like this.
 * 7) Adding sourced information shouldn't be a problem. Adding quotation marks around the words "illegal acts" means that they are the words of the Chinese Communist Party.
 * 8) All of this is done in good faith. See the edit history of the article to see what User:Ohconfucius was doing, as well as the article's talk page. Also note my words, "I'm not going to start an argument. Let's see what they say here."
 * 9) The edit summary directly points out the problems: "1) The word 'controversial' is not even found in the article. 2) James Randi website is a personal website; see Sources. 3) The third sentence was not attributed to anyone." In addition, I don't see what's the problem with my talk page justification that was mentioned by Colipon.
 * 10) I see this as good faith discussion on the talk page, pointing out issues with undue weight, among others. I admit that some of these edits are not directly discussing the article contents; but they are argumentative replies to people who have raised questions, or to personal attacks such as User:Mrund's "Please just act like a grownup, Olaf, OK? I suggest you go and insert some useful material into some other article instead of sabotaging my attempts to improve this one." (The latter comment was related to edit disputes surrounding point #9.) The "advocacy" for what faluninfo.net says about the issues at hand is directly relevant to this article, as self-published sources can be used as sources about themselves. The "advocacy" against the anti-cult movement simply presents some academic arguments against the ACM ideology, and ends with the words, "But here we mostly focus on a careful scrutiny of the editors' contributions and evaluate them against the official policies. I wrote the above to introduce some of my own views on these matters, and I am ready to continue discussion, but we shouldn't stray too far from the actual purpose of this talk page."
 * 11) The tag was removed simply because tagging an article must be followed by discussion on the talk page. On these pages, it has been almost a norm that editors have refused to discuss the bones of contention, yet they want to leave a tag and never tell others what exactly needs to be done to get it removed.
 * 12) Randi's website is subject to WP:SPS. As long as his views on Falun Gong haven't been published by a reliable source, I don't see why they should be included in an encyclopedia.
 * 13) The first one is a good faith edit on the Jiang Zemin article – never reverted by anyone and apparently not contested (it's still there!). In the first diff on the Li Hongzhi page, my edit summary expresses the intent: "Some edits were justified, such as removing mentions of some obscure proclamations. But systematic removal of positive third party references is not acceptable. The things I restored are notable." I tried to engage User:Simonm223 in discussion here, but he wasn't really up for it.
 * 14) The section is named "Theoretical background", and the rest of the references deal with academic issues.  Apparently, nobody considered this quote very important, since it hasn't been restored to this day.
 * 15) The idea of this edit was to point out the discrepancy between the sources. It was discussed on the reliable sources noticeboard, and third party editors approved of it.  There might have been a better way to express the same thing.
 * 16) First of all, Rick Ross has been discussed on the reliable sources noticeboard in this thread. It was agreed that his personal website is subject to WP:SPS, and that his inclusion can only be considered if his views on Falun Gong have been published by a reliable source. Secondly, I did not label Rick Ross "his own self-contained cottage industry"; it was quoting User:Vecrumba who said these words on the RSN. The "typical revert" is merely restoring sourced content whose removal was not discussed on the talk page. The word "persecution" had been changed by User:PCPP in his previous edits.
 * 17) I was trying to get the anonymous IP to discuss these changes, instead of adding a new subsection and presenting a synthesis of material from various sources (including a private website). Needless to say, the IP wasn't really up for discussion.
 * 18) A short comment I wrote on the talk page. Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned in brainwashing centers and forced labour camps; there's nothing "sensational" about it, it's just extremely frightening. See the article Persecution of Falun Gong in the People's Republic of China. I feel that choosing this diff as "evidence" against me really expresses something profound about Colipon's mission on Wikipedia.
 * 19) I quickly moved the "pre-emptive defence" posted on the Falun Gong talk page to my private talk page, as soon as I was pointed out that Talk:Falun Gong was an inappropriate location. However, as I said before, some of the fallacies in Colipon's evidence were clearly indicated in this version, yet he chose to ignore most of them. As for my comment regarding the misuse of WP:AE, I think the ArbCom can decide for themselves.
 * 20) Comments on the so-called "personal attacks":
 * there is absolutely nothing that can be interpreted as hostility towards User:John Carter in this diff.
 * "Yeah. Stop playing a martyr, Colipon, and stick to the work at hand. I'm not going to get involved with your strawmen. Let's just agree to disagree." was a reply to this rant posted by Colipon on the article's talk page.
 * "raging anti-FLG bull" was a humorous allusion to a 1980 film by Martin Scorsese. The whole thread is available here. My comment reads in its entirety: "Do you expect to convince me, Colipon? Actions speak louder than words. In my eyes you have come across as one raging anti-FLG bull – but let's leave open the possibility that I'm wrong. Whatever the case, that doesn't mean you wouldn't be welcome here, as long as you follow the rules."
 * Colipon left out the strikeout in my comment "The face of your ideological struggle just looks so much better with a faux moustache and a gargantuan plastic nose", another example of carnivalesque Bakhtinian satire that I've found an amusing way to point out the sheer absurdity of some arguments.
 * the reason I have reminded Colipon of this edit are my simple requests to make him retract his words. Despite numerous attempts, he has refused. Personally, I think it is somewhat worrying that Colipon has openly expressed sharing a similar agenda with User:Samuel Luo, who was banned indefinitely during the previous arbitration case.
 * originally, Colipon finds my comment "I merely proved through direct quotes that your shining helmet of neutrality seems to be made of cheap Chinese tinfoil" humorous, as intended ("haha. I like it. :)" ), but now uses it as evidence against me.
 * when I turn User:Mrund's insinuation of pro-FLG editors being similar to banned scientologists, and Colipon's comment "After reading the archives and history here it is a little naive to go on believing that if we keep this group of Pro-FLG users on this page, that it will be possible to improve it. Therefore my opinion is that a "wholesale ban" is more than necessary", into full-blown satire by beginning my reply with a link to a humorous picture that is so overboard that it's clearly a joke, he takes the whole sentence out of context and even claims it is a response to something different, namely to the "commentary from a wide range of editors that the article is poorly written, biased, and whitewashed of any criticism".

Final words
I find this arbitration enforcement case a real waste of my precious time. I suggest that the ArbCom issues a warning to User:Colipon to prevent him, as well as other like-minded editors, from further misusing the dispute resolution process in the future.  &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  12:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S. A lot of accusations were hurled at me in the comments below. I would point out the following:
 * No additional evidence was presented against me, and the Falun Gong "critics" mainly relied on vague rhetorics and spurious claims (such as saying that I favour the Epoch Times or Clearwisdom as sources).
 * The few diffs that they offered merely recycled Colipon's arguments above, or had absolutely nothing to do with the description they gave (for instance, see the link offered by User:Edward130603 that allegedly "turned away a newcomer to the FLG discussions"). My words: "I'm afraid that any discussion on other matters (apart from improving the article) is bound to carry us further away from our goals. It might only lead the regular group of editors to hurl accusations at each other of misrepresenting the difficult issues, i.e. 'whitewashing' or 'denigrating' Falun Gong."
 * A perfectly matching description of the 'wikilawyering' allegations can be read here: Wikilawyering. Their offenses are not argumentative, but generalising and dismissive. Instead of producing evidence, the term is used as a mere shortcut to some unidentified behaviour.
 * Being the defendant in an arbitration enforcement case, and in light of the patent frivolousness of the "evidence", I find this comment extremely bizarre: "I believe his targeting of Colipon in this way is to create wriggle-room for himself and his fellow FG practitioners/advocates."
 * User:Vecrumba's comment was attributed to the RSN, and a link was given: "See the discussion on the reliable sources noticeboard." Looking at the thread, there is no way anybody could interpret these as my words.
 * Looking at the talk pages of the editors who have excoriated me, it appears they have exchanged e-mails outside Wikipedia and discussed their tactics in this arbitration enforcement case. See the following comments:
 * Seb az86556 on Ohconfucius' talk page: "you did well in keeping the this Olaf-guy at bay, and I can see now why the Falun Gong thing you emailed about will be "total war"..."
 * Colipon on Edward130603's talk page: "Anyway, do you have e-mail?"
 * Colipon on Mrund's talk page: "I'd sent you an e-mail today. Please check! :)"
 * Ohconfucius on Mrund's talk page: "I'm glad you're back. Drop me an email, I'd like a private chat with you."
 * I will take no stance on whether such behaviour is inappropriate; I just want to make sure that the ArbCom is aware of it.

 &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  08:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments by other editors

 * Olaf's style in discussions is extremely hostile and supercilious. He constantly works to present Falun Gong in a positive light, justifying his POV-pushing edits with endless wikilawyering. He hardly touches any non-FG articles though, which means that a topic block and a complete block would amount to the same thing. Either would be most welcome. I support Colipon's suggestion. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 09:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment by PerEdman I can't get my head around this editor. He occasionally inserts quirky comments into ongoing discussions where it's very unclear to me what he's trying to say, but if I try to ask for clarification, I get more of the same. He would also post long ..harangues with multiple references to more or less relevant policy or guidelines without specifying how he believes those references are relevant. I would classify this style as disruptive to the constructive discussions of the talk page, making consensus-building very difficult. I have believe I have seen a propensity to more strongly oppose the inclusion of anything potentially critical of Falun Gong, than he opposes the inclusion of anything positive, sometimes even when dealing with a single author/source who has both positive and negative comments on Falun Gong. His arguments against such sources are occasionally contradictory or irrelevant. PerEdman (talk) 11:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Clarification: If this were any other article, I would suggest no action taken. But the articles in which this author is active are on probation, which for me puts the behavior over the limit of acceptance. PerEdman (talk) 22:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Pretty much a compilation of distortions are what I see in what User:Colipon presents above. I am not getting into even trying to refute them point by point. Looking into individual diffs, the larger context of the edits, their sourcing, etc., ought to convince the evaluating admin(s) that these are legitimate edits and the majority positive, highly sourced, well-written contributions to the wikipedia project. Further, these distortions are are based on stuff nit-picked from the user's contributions which span a couple of years at least. I request admins to kindly evaluate things in depth and, if found necessary, to please let User:Colipon and a few other users running this campaign of attack against editors know of its inappropriateness. Also, I see the user making an allegations against me as well claiming that I "show very little respect for any users who wish to bring balance to articles, hurling ad hominem accusations and personal attacks." I request admins to please go through my comments on the talk of the article and judge for themselves how my interaction with other editors on the topic have been. If colipon's  allegation is found baseless, kindly urge user Colipon to refrain from repeatedly making such attacks.Dilip rajeev (talk) 13:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * What is there to say, really? This is a content dispute. I am sure in the time to come, given the current editing on the pages, that there will be real Arbitration Enforcement cases brought to the committee. Yesterday's blatant violation of the WP:BRD model springs to mind, where one third (about 20kb) of the article was blanked with no consensus, then reverted several times, until the page was locked. I was going to make some remarks about Martin and PerEdman's responses, but I suppose there's no use.--Asdfg12345 13:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment by Edward130603 I agree with Peredman and Martin. Olaf is a single-purpose account who often uses satirical comments to mock and confuse his opponents. For example, recently, his comments have turned away a newcomer to the FLG discussions as you can see here, . User:Seb az86556 who has just followed the discussion for barely 24 hours. Olaf constantly uses these tactics to keep Wikipedia showing FLG in a positive light.--Edward130603 (talk) 13:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment by HappyInGeneral This is Wikipedia so there are some rules. The first I would like to mention is WP:NPA. Now I would not even like to mention who started it (although I guess a much better case could be easily built against Colipon, PCPP, Bobby Fletcher, Martin Rundkvist, etc...) yes, this is stroked through because if we would go on this route we would do nothing else but fuel WP:NPA and generate a destructive editing environment and that is BAD!, because it's much more important to see who is keeping it alive. With this in mind I would prefer if our mediator User:Vassyana and/or some of the uninvolved editors like: User:John Carter‎‎, User:Maunus, User:Richardshusr (who are also administrators, with some recent edit history on the talk pages), would issue warnings with notes, basically educating each user who they notice that is engaging in personal attacks (or reply's with other personal attacks to a personal attack), making them thus aware, that yeah, this can actually be seen as a personal attack, so better refrain from it and better foster a consensus based building of the articles, like one that is suggested here, and which basically would come to ease the WP:BRD process. As I see it what Colipon did here is just another example of WP:NPA by misusing evidence, proven by Olaf above, to influence the ongoing content dispute. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:43, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment by Seb az86556 Since I was mentioned in one of the above comments, I feel obliged to give my own view. On the one hand, this user's comments have not "turned me away;" I am merely not into sitting here 24/7 answering every personalized comment thrown at me since the time I have completed kindergarten. Having said that, I have been witness to a style of argumentation and evasion that quickly borders on what is maybe not personal "attacks" but rather personal discrediting in the manner of who-are-you-and-what-do-you-know-anyways. The fact that the user discribes himself as a "demanding opponent" (see above) can be taken as either confidence or arrogance. As for his self-cited "knowledge of the policies and guidelines," I can testify that even though I followed this tit-for-tat spiel for barely 2 days, it has become obvious to me that the user frequently insists on legalistic wikilawyering, which can at times, no doubt, be warranted, but can at other times be disruptively abused as a form of filibuster. In addition, the user insists on bringing in "uninvolved editors" but brands anyone new to the talkpage as involved or partisan within a matter of just a few short hours. This fate is likely to strike anyone who wishes to join the discussion, and this tactic makes any attempt to neutralize the environment futile. As I said in the beginning, I am not quick to leave because of one or two remarks, but others might be, and in the interest of bringing some neutral voices to the editing-process and in the interest of wikipedia, this has got to stop, no doubt. As I see it, this report was filed in order to find out how. Seb az86556 (talk) 21:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment by Ohconfucius:Fully endorse Seb's commemts directly above. Olav has proudly admitted that he instigated the Arbcom case which removed his dedicated but not so clever opponent Samuel Luo, giving Falun Gong devotees a free run of Wikipedia. Olav seems to be implying that a CCP-led assault on FG is happening again, and is trying to discredit Colipon whilst trying to claim all the good faith for himself. The reality which he finds uncomfortable, is that several editors with solid track records (thus a lot harder for him to discredit than just Colipon alone) on other articles have seen the problems with the FG family of articles, and appear to be out to correct the problem. I believe his targeting of Colipon in this way is to create wriggle-room for himself and his fellow FG practitioners/advocates. I stopped editing Falun Gong family of articles back in the third quarter of 2008 because I was stressed out by the single purpose accounts running around which were hell bent on giving Falun Gong a whitewash with added peroxide. I was one person fighting three or four dedicated followers, and that was before I had any experience dealing with him (Olav). Now that several 'rational' WP editors have reacted to this blatant point pushing by Falun Gong, I am not going to take a back seat. This edit encapsulates the problem well: "I will be here keeping you in check, and there is no way to get rid of me, because I know what I'm doing. I know how dispute resolution works, what are my rights as an editor, and what kind of behaviour entails punishment. I'm not going to burn myself, nor is there anything in my edit history that would incriminate me." He categorically states that he knows the system inside-out, and implied he will will outsmart any editor/enforcer out to get him. His biggest weakness, IMHO, is his arrogance and his propensity to make personal attacks. Olav is a wikilawyer par excellence- His attempts to sidestep allegations of personal attacks by saying he was quoting someone else is just gutless; saying he was exercising "humour" or "satire" are just lamentable tactics where ownership of words typed out on his own keyboard suddenly morphs into someone else's when his balls are on the block. Note how, all of a sudden, User:Vecrumba (and not he) now said to Colipon that Rick Ross was "his own self-contained cottage industry". All WP editors know the importance of attribution. Brevity is the enemy of the Falun Dafa – it's a common tactic by Falun Gong editors to demand that everything be sourced to the hilt; they resist any attempt at removing text which praises or defends FG because it is sourced, and it soon becomes a tug of war as to which side is capable of flooding the article with enough sourced coatracks, creating undue emphasis. The other side of the two-pronged approach is to discredit sources offering the opposing viewpoint. In one sentence, Olav objects to sourcing James Randi's comments to his blog on the grounds that it is a WP:SPS, and then he happily defends citing Clearwisdom (CW) or The Epoch Times (ET) when it suits him (as if these latter were highly respected sources and not SPS). Incidentally, FG devotees apply arguments to Xinhua that they ought to be applying with the same fervour to CW or ET; needless to say, they don't. The Falun Gong machine churns out numerous "studies", "reports" – which are hard to match for any editor in competition to add text from reliable sources – and the FG editors manage quite successfully to sideline criticism through a liberal application of WP:UNDUE. I would add that the misuse of sources and the use of ironic quotes is endemic. My allegations of misquoting of sources is from personal experience; these are however easy to sidestep because it's the encyclopaedia which 'anyone can edit'. I am not saying that Olav is directly responsible for all the above, but think it important that Arbs realise the general unhealthy climate which exists in FGverse, and the game which is being played out within these servers.  These two edits and this revert are another example of the FG approach. The allegations have been found to be somewhat wanting in hard fact, yet the Dafa continues to voice opposition to it (as if this opposition is sufficient to render the accusations valid) - this goes with the maxim: 'you throw quantities of mud often enough, and some of it is bound to stick'. When he failed to repel my reasoned deletion, and to avoid breaching WP:3RR, he inserted this paragraph with no direct relevance, without comment. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment by John Carter - In the comparatively short time I have been involved in the article, Olaf has regularly violated the talk page guidelines, which probably qualifies as disruptive editing as per the Arbitration Committee ruling. He also rather often indicates that he is a practicioner of the movement, indicating a very realistic WP:COI concern. He gives the impression to me, frankly, of a rather boorish college boy who has developed a bit of a following and on that basis thinks he can get away with what he wants. This includes being opposed to content which I belive wikipedia content guidelines demand. I ascribe at least part of this to the fact that based on his editing history, he has never really edited anything which is not related to Falun Gong, and I believe that this lack of understanding of the project here may well be one of his most serious and basic problems. My own history of what some might call leniency regarding bans and blocks is one which might well indicate to others that I believe virtually any editor with a history with the project is someone we would prefer not losing, and this is true. I think Olaf might be one such editor. On that basis, for what little it might be worth, I think that what might be the best option here would be for an indefinite ban to be placed on the subject, which could be reviewed and reconsidered after the editor involved has spent a possibly predetermined length of time involved in working on any content not related to this topic. If over that time he displays improvement in his current problems, which seem to me to be an almost self-righteous arrogance and what I can only call truly appalling interaction with other editors, particularly those he disagrees with or dislikes, then the ban might be lifted. It might not be unreasonable to ask of him that he seek a mentor as well. Alternately, if such an arrangement is too complicated, I wouldn't myself have any serious objections to a topic ban of six months or so, with the proviso that should his conduct continue in like manner thereafter the ban be restored. John Carter (talk) 15:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Result concerning Olaf Stephanos

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


 * Six month topic ban from Falun Gong and related articles. I would suggest that Olaf Stephanos use this time to experience other areas of Wikipedia and focus on calmly and civilly interacting with other editors.  If the hostility and POV pushing are not resolved, it is likely that the topic ban will be extended or reinstated. Shell   babelfish 16:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Permanent ITN formatting

 * Actress Elizabeth Taylor (pictured) dies at the age of 79.
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 * Nikolai Andrianov, winner of the most medals in men's Olympic gymnastics, dies at the age of 58.
 * Voters in Egypt approve a new constitution at a referendum, as a part of the overall reform.
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 * French, British and American forces launch attacks on pro-Gaddafi troops in Libya in support of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.