Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Betacommand 3/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 500 words and 50 diffs. Giving a short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 500 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those will have changed by the time people click on your links), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to refactor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by ASCIIn2Bme (formerly Have mörser, will travel and ʔ)
First, let me say that I don't feel qualified nor am I particularly inclined to judge an extensive edit history like that of &Delta; which antedates my own by many years. So, I'll limit my comments to my own experience interacting with &Delta;. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 03:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Impressions from my brief encounter with &Delta;
I came in contact with &Delta; in September when he added some Google Books links and publication dates (month, day) to some citations found in an article on my watch list. Although I was not aware of &Delta;'s editing restrictions at the time, the edit did look fairly automated to me and a bit indiscriminate as the links were to the book cover pages, and may of those GB entries did not have preview available to me. &Delta;'s edit was pretty similar to what http://reftag.appspot.com/ produces in that respect. The talk page discussion, which quickly involved more than two participants, can found at User talk:Δ/20110901 and subsequent sections; it is a bit disorganized probably because several other editors decided to complain and did not scan the previous sections before commenting there. A few days later, there was an AN thread Administrators' noticeboard/Archive227 opened by someone else, and which seemed to be a general concern about use of [semi-]automated tools by &Delta;. As I had looked at a few other edits of &Delta; in the mean time, and because yet another editor had complained about the Google Books links while AN thread was ongoing, I was rather dissatisfied and concerned about &Delta;'s prolonged non-consensual edits in that respect. However in the AN thread, &Delta; agreed to cease adding those links, so the mattered was settled amicably. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 03:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Betacommand's accounts

 * - Bot account, indef blocked in June 2008 to enforce sanction against running bots.
 * - Sockpuppet account, indef blocked in May 2008. For a period of time, Betacommand was banned from Wikipedia, and used this sock account to evade the ban. See Administrators'_noticeboard/Betacommand_blocked_for_sockpuppetry.
 * - Previous main account, not used since 2010. Extensive block history.
 * - Alternate account, not currently blocked, not used since June 2008. Previously blocked for misuse of alternate accounts.
 * - Current main account, used since 2010. Extensive history of short blocks.
 * - Current bot account, used to update Sockpuppet investigations.

Those new to this problem may find reading the block logs useful. Also see Administrators'_noticeboard/Betacommand, the centralized ANI section for Betacommand-related problems. --John Nagle (talk) 05:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

June 2011 Incident
Almost all of my involvement with Delta and AN/I threads involving Delta was in June 2011. The incident in question (I am referring to multiple threads in a short period of time as one incident) began in the middle of June and continued through to the middle of July. The first AN/I thread was "Questionable block of Δ" (archived here), which was followed by "Inappropriate edit warring by Δ over NFCC issues" (archived here), and concluded with several more threads, beginning with "User: Δ / Betacommand violating community imposed sanctions" (all archived here). All three of those discussions should be read in full, as it's just too easy to get a distorted picture without doing so.

I'll be the first to admit that I was not a model of civility during these discussions. I believed, and still maintain, that Delta was wronged over the course of this incident (the initial block was overturned as a bad block, for starters). I stand behind the comment I during the discussion observing that the repeated blocks for minor offenses was serving as a de facto indef ban, something that the community was not in agreement over (diff).

As to my other comments, while I still believe that threads against Delta, Damiens.rf, and Future Perfect (all NFCC inforcers) all in a short amount of time is suspicious, had this discussion happened today, I would not have pegged it to a group of bad faith actors working together to take out NFCC enforcers. Looking back, that part of the statement was pretty off. I also owe Crossmr an apology for being outright hostile to him back then.

Finally, I'll note that about halfway through the discussion, I realized that it was becoming a massive flame war, and I didn't like it, or how I looked in it. I dropped out halfway through the discussion and haven't really made any Delta related comments since, until the Request for Clarification was started. This whole thing is uncomfortable, and so unless someone has specific questions/comments for me, I will now follow it only from afar.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  09:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Response to evidence presented by 69.149.249.38
Because it would take me over the word count, I'm posting this on the talk page.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  07:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Community concerns leading to the imposition of the current sanctions
I was a member of an "ad-hoc committee" that wrote the sanctions in 2008. Chronic problems led to a situation where Δ would either be sanctioned or banned. Ad-hoc committee proposal

Failed proposals to lift sanctions:
 * October 2010
 * June 2011

Two further opinions  from a thread  in October 2011 with substantial opposition to many requests by Δ

Community sanction
I can find only three requests by username "Δ" on WP:VPR:. Two of these are responses to warnings after he violated the sanction.

Warnings about tasks performed without approval: These don't include edit rate violations (e.g. ) or NFCC image removal.
 * September 2010
 * October 2010
 * 16 Jan 2011
 * 18 Jan 2011
 * 13 May 2011
 * 27 May 2011 - more "cleanup" edit summary
 * 25 Sep 2011

Block logs showing pattern of violations:
 * Log of blocks on arbitration case page
 * Block log: '&Delta;'
 * Block log: 'Betacommmand'

Skirting NFCC topic ban
Δ has skirted his topic ban on NFCC enforcement.
 * He prepared |this list of files for other people to delete; see for his comments on the purpose of the list.
 * On 2011-11-8, Franamax blocked Δ. As Franamax said, the only plausible purpose of this edit [] is NFCC enforcement.
 * Note from Xeno
 * Δ again voluntarily enters an NFCC discussion on User talk:Franamax (!).

Pre-block communication

 * Tristessa de St Ange contacted Δ to warn about the "cleanup" edits..
 * I now realize exactly the same issue was discussed in May 2011. I explicitly warned Δ to get permission for suchjobs. . I didn't follow up on that, assuming in good faith that Δ would request permission before continuing. In particular and the two comments above it in the diff.

Edit summaries
In September–October 2011, Δ made 1,981 edits in main namespace with the identical edit summary "Cleanup".

Examples of AGF
Comments by me, spanning 12 months, where I give Δ another chance or de-escalate a situation:. Even in the last diff, I offer him the chance to prove he followed his restriction, rather than assuming he didn't.

Queries on Δ's talk page: . In the last one, May 2011, I intentionally didn't block him to give another chance.

This diff, listed by Δ, is a follow-up to. Arbcom later banned Δ from NFCC enforcement for this sort of edit. "Careful editor" is directly from the edit restriction.

Previous mentorship arrangements
In the August 2008 discussion other editors, including me, had to defend Δ's edits. In December 2008, a different editor was designated for policing Δ's edits. In 2009, two other editors were appointed "mentors" to supervise Δ. During the recent block, another editor defended Δ while Δ made inflammatory remarks.

Failure to "get the point"
My position in this RFA was shaped by observing, over years, how Δ has failed to improve his editing despite many attempts at dispute resolution.


 * 1) Compare diffs from 2008 and last month . Δ fails to acknowledge why people are complaining about his edits.
 * 2) The community sanctions, written by the ad hoc committee, were accommodating, so Δ could easily work inside them. He hasn't done so despite warnings and blocks documented above.

Evidence presented by Δ
I am going to keep my evidence short, Anyone familiar with me can see an ongoing case of stalking, harassment, assuming bad faith, and personal attacks. For the most part 99% of those issues go un-addressed. This pattern of ongoing abuse directed towards me has led to drama and countless pages of discussion. However it as also created an environment where people can completely abandon the core values of Wikipedia, Civil, Assume Good Faith, and other policies when they are interacting with me.
 * 1) CBM points to a diff where I reference http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&oldid=452780109#.CE.94_.28Betacommand.29_and_community_restrictions and where I get frustrated. Its a classic example of how a group of editors including CBM have done their best to get me banned/drive me away from this project. 27 September 2011 (UTC) it was determined that my actions where not an issue in regards to my general article cleanup. However on 23 October 2011 (UTC) I was blocked for the exact same actions that where acceptable less than a month before.
 * 2) As to make some points Ive made 8,193 edits with the summary "Cleanup" of those 983 are still the most recent revision or ~12%. Ive earned several thank yous and at least one Barnstar for doing that.
 * 3) User:Δ/Example is proof that my edits are viewed prior to me saving them. It provides 23 diffs. One on the left is my original edit and the one on the right is just the script edit.
 * 4) CBM has posted repeatedly to my talk page even after asking him not to.
 * 5) repeated troll like behavior
 * 6)  example where CBM twists the meaning of my restrictions to mean something that it doesn't.
 * 7)  CBM states that adding dead link should be done by a bot, and that I cannot do it (No such bot is doing this task). in a special position compared to all the editors  I wasn't asking for special treatment rather just to be treated like a normal editor. CBM has repeatedly tried to degrade/disrespect and insult me by attempting to make me a third class editor who shouldn't be allowed it edit
 * 8) see below for Hammersoft's evidence for yet more examples of bad faith and miss-conduct by CBM

Evidence presented by Fram
Δ uses as evidence of the quality of his cleanup edits the fact that some 12% of them are still the last edit to that article. Considering that this includes pages where errors he made have been pointed out to him over a month ago, not much value should be given to this "last edit = no problem" theory. This is an example of such pages: he adds a defaultsort to a page that previously had two cats sorted one way, and two sorted another way. The effect is that e.g. in Category:Political riots the other Jos Riots are sorted by year, but the 2008 ones by "Jos". He did attempt to correct another error I pointed out in that same comment, but this for some reason still uses cite book for a magazine article, adding the name of the magazine as author, title, publisher, even though the original (badly formatted) ref had the correct name of the author and the title in it. So, even after an error is pointed out, the following, supposedly checked "cleanup" edit gets it completely wrong again...

In a follow-up post the next day, I noted further problems, e.g. here he changes the year of a book from 2001 to 1975. That error is still in the article today. Here he changed the capitalisation of a book title, an error which also still is in the article today. This is another example of an instance where his cleanup is still the latest edit, but the error that I pointed out in September (turning two different books into two identical citebook templates (somehow mixing up the two along the way) is not corrected.

In general, many of his cleanup edits don't contain errors, one or two useful things, and many unnecessary or even unwanted changes (like adding quotes around all refnames). However, a significant number have errors which often go undetected or aren't even corrected after being pointed out. The problems caused by the errors often seriously outweigh the minimal benefit of the cleanup. Coupled with the long history of similar problems with his semi-automated editing, I don't see any benefit in lifting or even lessening the restrictions. Making them clearer, fine, but not by giving him more room to create problems. Fram (talk) 08:53, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

New evidence: it looks as if he is violating his editing restriction, "He is prohibited from running automated programs to make edits (or edits that appear to be automated), on either a bot account, or his main account." (from Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2). Both this and this edit indicate that they were made by a (buggy) robot, but were run from his main account. Apparently the bot he ran at the Spanish Wikipedia and the Catalan one (and the Walloon one and many others) also edited here. Does he have a globally authorized bot? Or is he now running an unauthorized bot on many Wikipedia versions, including the Engish one, at the same time? Fram (talk) 10:48, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Reply to Farmbrough. Fram (talk) 11:52, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

#1 inaccurate
Block inappropriately applied for conducting edits that a month earlier were ok.

#2 inaccurate
I wasn't "forced to defend" Δ. I volunteered. Effort applauded by member ArbCom.

#3 inaccurate
Violation of restrictions for "pushing the limit"? Limit established in restrictions; no qualifiers about coming close.

#4 inaccurate.
NFCC enforcement? No. About improper use of OTRS pending.

ArbCom Failure
This section moved here.

Δ has done a considerable amount of good work on Wikipedia
See User:Hammersoft/Δ vitae.

ArbCom failed in its self assigned mentorship duties
In July of 2009, ArbCom assigned two mentors to Betacommand who were to make monthly reports to ArbCom. As attested, both Hersfold (here) and MBisanz (here) admitted to failing to making the required monthly reports. ArbCom never did anything about it. ArbCom has, to date, never admitted their failure in their self assigned task. In effect, ArbCom says "We'll unban you, with mentors, to assist with communication difficulties. Oh gee, we failed to mentor you and you still have communication problems so we'll ban you. Not our fault!"

ArbCom failed to address sockpuppet contributions to this case
One or more sockpuppets have made more than 100 contributions to the various pages of this case. ArbCom has failed to take any action to curtail this activity, and has even based some of its proposals on evidence provided by sockpuppets.

Lack of good faith assumption towards Δ even while under restrictions
It is understandable that Δ is going to be under deep scrutiny while under community and/or ArbCom editing restrictions, and such many of the times Δ has been blocked since the last case were for going over his edit rate (40 edits in 10 minutes) restrictions, and that, one can't defend Δ for. But as evidenced by the events leading up to this case, there appears to be a number of editors that refuse to even assume that Δ is trying to improve the encyclopedia from these edits. Yes, he still makes errors (Fram's points above are well-taken) and that's not perfect, but the restrictions are not there to make him edit perfectly, but "edit like a human".

Consider the latest instance. Δ was blocked by for violating the first editing restriction, making a "pattern of edits" on over 25 articles without seeking VPR approval. However, part of Tristressa's block reason was for purported "lack of communication", but the user never approached Δ about the specific edits in question, instead assuming on past history that Δ would be unresponsive. Regardless of whether the edits were a pattern of edits, assuming that Δ would not communicate is bad faith. Further exampled by this is the discussion that broke off, initiated by, to outline what tasks Δ could do at VPR as to comply with the community restriction regardless if these were a pattern of edits or not. As you can read through the comments, there are clearly editors that believe Δ is unsuited to do any of the tasks listed, and even questioning if the VPR was valid, despite this being part of the community restrictions and assuming bad faith on Hammersoft's part. And even when these tasks are ones that are difficult to screw up on editing, there are editors that believe since a bot can do it, Δ shouldn't be doing it at all.

If we are going to put restrictions on an editor, we should not be assuming that every action they make is in bad faith; if that's the case, then you might as well ban the editor to remove the issue altogether. But when this bad faith is taken, in addition to what is becoming obvious as vague restrictions, you get situations exactly like this. I don't believe the restrictions can be lifted, but strong clarity is needed to assure that Δ's attempts to edit within them in good faith are not treated as bad faith and willful disruption of the work. --M ASEM (t) 16:12, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Adding in this most recent block by, in response to this specific note that Δ made to Hammersoft on the generation of a list of NFC problematic images generated by Toolserver, but otherwise taking no steps to actually enforce the NFC policy. When "broadly" is used in these resolutions, and there is lack of good faith, this is what happens. --M ASEM (t) 03:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Black Kite
The latest block of Δ by User:Franamax, currently being discussed on WP:ANI, is an example of how polarised this situation is becoming. Franamax, in the said thread, makes his view on WP:NFCC enforcement clear ("A group of editors uses this report to start NFCC battles") - a completely bad-faith observation of many more editors than Δ - yet still feels he is uninvolved enough to block. Unsurprisingly, later heavy consensus is that Δ hasn't violated his restrictions and the block is overturned. If ArbCom is going to look at this case from both sides, they need to be very clear that;
 * Yes, it is clear that Δ has his group of defenders, and sometimes they may be a little too forgiving of him;
 * However there is also clearly a number of editors that are determined to ensure that Δ is banned, and whilst those that are doing so purely because they've had previous run-ins with Δ are obvious (and can be safely ignored), I am starting to wonder whether there is a more concerted campaign starting to emerge. It would be useful if this latest particular block (amongst others) could be looked at by ArbCom, I think.  Black Kite (t)   15:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

CBM

 * At this point, I note that CBM's mention of Franamax's block of Δ does not mention that it was undone and vast community consensus agreed that the block was incorrect. Black Kite (t)   19:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

There was not community consensus to unblock
I hesitate to enter this fray again, as I've been opposed to beta/delta on a number of occasions, but there was not community consensus to overturn User:Franamax's block. (In reply to Black Kite re CBM). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Refusal to cooperatively work with Δ by Fram
refuses to collaboratively work with Δ and instead of fixing problems himself insists on others fixing them for him, as is evident here. Here he claims that the edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ablun_Mal%C3%BCss_108&diff=prev&oldid=452522645 "makes the articles worse". He does not even base his assumption that changing * Droban-Apherna's Facebook to * Droban-Apherna | Facebook Droban-Apherna's Facebook is bad for the article on any actual policy or guideline. No explanation is given exactly how this edit "makes the article worse". Another example is this edit where he claims it "decreases the actual usefulness of the link". I cannot see how that is the case. Yet Fram bases his assertions that Δs semi-automated cleanup edits are causing problems as pointed out here on those diffs. I cannot see how that is in line with assuming good faith and I am not aware of any sanction that exempts Δ from WP:AGF. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 11:14, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Failure to assume good faith and personal attacks against Δ
Assumptions of bad faith without evidence like here and even things from outside Wikipedia are carried in like here. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 20:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom incompetence
Per Arbitration/Requests/Case/Betacommand 3 the purpose of this case is Review of Δ sanctions. Per Arbitration/Requests/Case/Betacommand 3/Proposed decision a majority of arbitrators seem to disagree with the validity of the current sanctions. Also it weakens the perceived validity of statements such as this one. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't ordinarily interject on the evidence page but this is a misreading. See paragraph 1.7 of the proposed decision which is passing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Replied here. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 22:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Pre-occupation / Failure to assume good faith

 * Fram - in presenting evidence here without consulting Δ first what other reasons for that edit may exist (Fram shows lack of understanding later), and/or dismissing other reasons as implausible or impossible.
 * CBM "But I think it is more likely that he simply was not trying to follow the rules."

Holding to a higher standard

 * Regarding remark by 67.119.3.194: "I'm not sure what to think of edits like (link fixed) where the bot goes and messes with a user archive page.  It fixes a redlink in the archive, but I think I'd have asked the user first.": diff by Skier Dude, diff by SoxBot, diff by CommonsDelinker, diff by Materialscientist, diff by Explicit, diff by Edgar181, diff by Nytend, diff by OgreBot, diff by Lucasbfrbot; Nobody owns material in 'their' userspace, I'd like you to show where they asked for permission and show where that permission is required.

Evidence presented by 69.149.249.38
Despite multiple warnings and blocks, Δ has violated his speed restriction 35 times. Warnings are simply ignored, or sometimes reverted by his friends.

List of speed limit violations
(This list does not include overlapping ranges of which there are many, just distinct ones)
 * 2011-09-17 14:05:40 - 2011-09-17 14:11:22 (max edits in 10 min period: 43)
 * 2011-09-17 13:09:48 - 2011-09-17 13:13:21 (max edits in 10 min period: 42)
 * 2011-07-14 13:14:33 - 2011-07-14 13:23:48 (max edits in 10 min period: 42)
 * 2011-07-08 00:53:46 - 2011-07-08 01:00:01 (max edits in 10 min period: 43)
 * 2011-07-07 23:42:45 - 2011-07-07 23:47:20 (max edits in 10 min period: 42)
 * 2011-07-02 04:31:53 - 2011-07-02 04:50:13 (max edits in 10 min period: 54)
 * 2011-06-27 11:23:42 - 2011-06-27 11:32:54 (max edits in 10 min period: 43)
 * 2011-06-20 16:29:04 - 2011-06-20 16:42:17 (max edits in 10 min period: 51)
 * 2011-05-30 10:02:47 - 2011-05-30 10:12:53 (max edits in 10 min period: 43)
 * 2011-05-18 11:05:39 - 2011-05-18 11:25:23 (max edits in 10 min period: 95)
 * 2011-05-18 08:43:06 - 2011-05-18 08:52:23 (max edits in 10 min period: 112)
 * 2011-05-12 13:35:20 - 2011-05-12 13:54:17 (max edits in 10 min period: 63)
 * 2011-05-12 11:06:53 - 2011-05-12 11:17:08 (max edits in 10 min period: 45)
 * 2011-05-11 20:59:58 - 2011-05-11 21:23:14 (max edits in 10 min period: 74)
 * 2011-05-11 20:27:46 - 2011-05-11 20:53:06 (max edits in 10 min period: 83)
 * 2011-05-11 19:55:52 - 2011-05-11 20:15:16 (max edits in 10 min period: 81)
 * 2011-05-11 18:53:32 - 2011-05-11 19:14:10 (max edits in 10 min period: 67)
 * 2011-05-11 16:43:32 - 2011-05-11 16:48:21 (max edits in 10 min period: 45)
 * 2011-05-11 16:05:55 - 2011-05-11 16:33:17 (max edits in 10 min period: 80)
 * 2011-05-11 13:48:13 - 2011-05-11 14:04:14 (max edits in 10 min period: 57)
 * 2011-05-10 04:32:31 - 2011-05-10 04:44:01 (max edits in 10 min period: 55)
 * 2011-05-10 03:58:48 - 2011-05-10 04:19:11 (max edits in 10 min period: 99)
 * 2011-05-10 02:49:23 - 2011-05-10 03:03:36 (max edits in 10 min period: 63)
 * 2011-05-09 13:00:31 - 2011-05-09 13:09:38 (max edits in 10 min period: 61)
 * 2011-05-07 20:26:27 - 2011-05-07 20:41:14 (max edits in 10 min period: 49)
 * 2011-05-07 16:33:39 - 2011-05-07 16:47:13 (max edits in 10 min period: 47)
 * 2011-05-02 11:48:33 - 2011-05-02 11:59:33 (max edits in 10 min period: 49)
 * 2011-03-19 04:10:18 - 2011-03-19 04:26:33 (max edits in 10 min period: 75)
 * 2011-03-19 03:32:07 - 2011-03-19 03:45:08 (max edits in 10 min period: 102)
 * 2011-03-19 02:28:07 - 2011-03-19 03:05:08 (max edits in 10 min period: 126)
 * 2011-03-18 05:39:10 - 2011-03-18 05:47:21 (max edits in 10 min period: 44)
 * 2010-12-31 06:19:13 - 2010-12-31 06:29:59 (max edits in 10 min period: 49)
 * 2010-10-18 00:21:18 - 2010-10-18 00:31:37 (max edits in 10 min period: 42)
 * 2010-10-12 01:17:45 - 2010-10-12 01:31:26 (max edits in 10 min period: 52)
 * 2010-10-08 20:28:27 - 2010-10-08 20:38:18 (max edits in 10 min period: 53)

Tristessa ddos'd

 * 

Note: I posted to the workshop page from 69.111.194.36 but my address changed. 67.119.3.194 (talk) 08:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC) (Now 67.117.144.140)

Editing speeds
Because of some doubts or errors regarding the edit speeds in 69.149.249.38's section, I did an independent calculation, which may have its own errors. There are multiple ways one can throw out overlapping edits, so I don't expect to get a perfect match with the other editor. Below is purely bursts of >40 edits that fall within a 10 minute window. I didn't try to list clusters averaging > 4 edits/minute but that were longer than 10 minutes. This goes back only to the beginning of 2011 and counts all namespaces. I'm not sure what to think of edits like (link fixed) where the bot goes and messes with a user archive page. It fixes a redlink in the archive, but I think I'd have asked the user first.

Added: that link above appears to be part of a lot of such link rewrites following a bunch of pagemoves of images containing percent signs, as a workaround for. I wonder if there was some prior discussion about those pagemoves. Absent other info I would have thought fixing the bug on the server side to be a less disruptive way to deal with this. I also wonder why files were moved without leaving redirects (maybe moving files doesn't work the same way as moving wiki pages).


 * 1) 2011-03-18T05:39:10Z to 2011-03-18T05:47:18Z, 43 edits
 * 2) 2011-03-19T02:30:05Z to 2011-03-19T02:39:59Z, 124 edits
 * 3) 2011-03-19T02:47:11Z to 2011-03-19T02:56:50Z, 84 edits
 * 4) 2011-03-19T03:33:52Z to 2011-03-19T03:43:46Z, 101 edits
 * 5) 2011-03-19T04:16:02Z to 2011-03-19T04:25:57Z, 73 edits
 * 6) 2011-05-02T11:48:33Z to 2011-05-02T11:58:22Z, 48 edits
 * 7) 2011-05-07T16:37:52Z to 2011-05-07T16:47:04Z, 46 edits
 * 8) 2011-05-07T20:29:33Z to 2011-05-07T20:39:13Z, 48 edits
 * 9) 2011-05-10T02:49:23Z to 2011-05-10T02:58:21Z, 62 edits
 * 10) 2011-05-10T03:58:48Z to 2011-05-10T04:08:31Z, 41 edits
 * 11) 2011-05-10T04:09:30Z to 2011-05-10T04:19:08Z, 98 edits
 * 12) 2011-05-10T04:34:25Z to 2011-05-10T04:43:57Z, 54 edits
 * 13) 2011-05-11T13:50:29Z to 2011-05-11T13:59:45Z, 55 edits
 * 14) 2011-05-11T16:09:33Z to 2011-05-11T16:19:18Z, 78 edits
 * 15) 2011-05-11T16:23:07Z to 2011-05-11T16:33:02Z, 68 edits
 * 16) 2011-05-11T16:43:32Z to 2011-05-11T16:48:17Z, 44 edits
 * 17) 2011-05-11T18:53:32Z to 2011-05-11T19:03:23Z, 66 edits
 * 18) 2011-05-11T19:03:38Z to 2011-05-11T19:13:27Z, 54 edits
 * 19) 2011-05-11T19:57:07Z to 2011-05-11T20:06:59Z, 80 edits
 * 20) 2011-05-11T20:07:10Z to 2011-05-11T20:15:11Z, 53 edits
 * 21) 2011-05-11T20:34:19Z to 2011-05-11T20:44:10Z, 82 edits
 * 22) 2011-05-11T20:44:58Z to 2011-05-11T20:53:04Z, 57 edits
 * 23) 2011-05-11T21:02:26Z to 2011-05-11T21:12:16Z, 59 edits
 * 24) 2011-05-11T21:13:30Z to 2011-05-11T21:23:09Z, 73 edits
 * 25) 2011-05-12T11:06:53Z to 2011-05-12T11:10:53Z, 44 edits
 * 26) 2011-05-12T13:40:35Z to 2011-05-12T13:50:27Z, 61 edits
 * 27) 2011-05-18T11:14:05Z to 2011-05-18T11:23:51Z, 93 edits
 * 28) 2011-05-30T10:02:47Z to 2011-05-30T10:12:42Z, 42 edits
 * 29) 2011-06-20T16:29:04Z to 2011-06-20T16:38:19Z, 50 edits
 * 30) 2011-06-27T11:23:42Z to 2011-06-27T11:32:52Z, 42 edits
 * 31) 2011-07-02T04:38:07Z to 2011-07-02T04:48:04Z, 53 edits
 * 32) 2011-07-07T23:42:45Z to 2011-07-07T23:47:19Z, 41 edits
 * 33) 2011-07-08T00:53:46Z to 2011-07-08T00:59:57Z, 42 edits
 * 34) 2011-09-17T14:05:40Z to 2011-09-17T14:11:13Z, 42 edits

67.117.145.9 (talk) 07:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Rich Farmbrough
''Words - more than I should spare. Diffs - none, there are plenty already'' I have watched this form afar, except for a brief involvement when both WormThatTurned and I made proposals likely to resolve the issue, which were sadly scuppered by Xeno's Arbitrator motion. (If anyone needs diffs, ask.)

I notice that among the "usual suspects" CBM and Fram are wading into the fray. Fram lists a bunch of concerns, in his usual style. I expect a good proportion of the underlying data is valid, however I picked one at random, relating to a date of publication. Very simply, according to the ISBN, Fram is wrong and Δ is correct. The book was published 1 March 1975. As Fram has pointed out, according to the title he is correct and Δ is wrong. So this is not an egregious error by Δ. For this reason, which is pretty much representative of Fram, all his assertions, even on a factual level (that this is an egregious error), have to be taken with a liberal dose of salt. Once we move to conclusions the accuracy level drops even further, since poor reasoning is compounded with poor data. Then layering on this a bunch of assuming bad faith, and considering rules more important than the encyclopaedia, the value approaches zero. For example "appearing to make automated edits" - it is evident from the context of examples that these are not automated edits, therefore they do not "appear" to be automated edits, unless you haven't a clue. It is even more evident (and this really is the crux) that those edits did not cause problems for the encyclopaedia. Therefore they are not relevant.

CBM, on the other hand, would probably be correct if he listed specific article diffs. Unfortunately he chooses to go to other topics, missing the point, for example, that the reason given for asking Δ not to do NFCC was his interaction with other editors - therefore creating a list of problem files for someone else to deal with is an unmitigated Good Thing. CBM also rather shoots himself in the foot by pointing to a diff where he block-warns Δ for a perfectly correct action. While I do feel we can be slightly overzealous about fair use images (and many other things) those of us who wish to be more gentle have the option of taking on the task, or encouraging from the sidelines. Block-threats against being bitey are creating the culture they are trying to avoid.

Δ would be well advised, on the other hand, not to assume that CBM is motivated by bad faith, however much it may seem that way, and regardless of the evident bad faith displayed by others in this matter.

Rich Farmbrough, 11:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC).

Δ's username
A number of users have mentioned that interaction with Δ is rendered needlessly complicated by his choice of username. Indeed a template DELTA has apparently been created in response to this issue. I think it is appropriate for the Committee to consider whether he should be required to return to editing under a more suitable username. Evidence in relation to this issue: In the circumstances, Δ was aware that editing under the name would be controversial and likely to make it harder for users to interact with him. He should not therefore have continued to edit under that name. WJBscribe (talk) 18:57, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Original request in June 2007 to usurp User:Δ: Declined by three bureaucrats -, and.
 * Despite this, in July 2010, Betacommand requests that the account Δ be renamed (I believe on the basis that he by then held the global rights to the name). The request is made on IRC and the previous discussion not referred to. See Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 20#User:Betacommand now editing as Δ.
 * has never been renamed to, the former account has simply been abandoned in favour of the latter.

Δ is not the disruptive editor some have described
I maintain the position I published here.

Evidence from an involved perspective
I was advised that Betacommand is a purely disruptive account. I was convinced to avoid interacting with Betacommand. By accidentally confusing Delta to be Delta-Quad. I did interact with Betacommand. The reality of having interacted with Betacommand was so opposed to what I had learned, I decided to review Betacommand's contributions myself.

I found a dichotomy betwixt allegation and truth and determined that prejudicial imputations have accumulated against Betacommand. Considering this case is sufficient to this end. Consider:
 * Evidence to show Betacommand's disruptive pertinacity. A review shows this to be civil discourse.
 * The community imposed restrictions have been synthesized to strengthen an allegation.
 * "He is prohibited from running automated programs to make edits (or edits that appear to be automated)" which then allows the allegation "Apparently the bot he ran ... also edited here"
 * This modification does not preclude Betacommand from contributing constructive input at a talk page discussion yet he is charged "again voluntarily enters an NFCC discussion" I anticipate the "formal reminder" to follow "the civility restriction and other terms" of "the provisional suspension" is impetus but offer in advance that the also included prose "which they are still subject" excludes item 2 which had expired.
 * Weasel words which would not be allowed as content, particularly to justify inclusion of contentious information about a living subject, are freely used to cast aspersion on Betacommand.
 * "A number of users have mentioned"
 * "the following, supposedly checked cleanup"
 * Policy/guidelines are synthesized to seemingly apply.
 * "If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them." becomes "improvements must be unequivocal"
 * "A clean start is when a user sets aside an old account in order to start fresh with a new account" becomes "It implicitly presumes that the problem is not with Betacommand himself, but with users who are harassing him" or "this presumes the main problem is with users harassing Betacommand, instead of with his editing"
 * He is accused of "imposing your own preference over other accepted methods" without one example showing he reverted some edit to impose his.
 * He is given bad advice, "you simply remove three references (two to Wikipedia, one to Commons) instead of converting them to Wikilinks". This would leave the suggested wikilinks precariously out of context and it belies the spirit of WP:RS.

I do not suggest Betacommand is the model wikipedian for others to emulate. But he's not a trophy either, which award goes to the one finally able to make something stick. And the justifications to call he be banned, 3000 mistakes in one year, poor communication skills, are attributable to others who also shouldn't be banned, namely I reject the extrapolation that I should be banned. ArbCom appears to be moving with propriety and the best interest of the encyclopedia at core. Hopefully this evidence will help in deliberations.

Past mentorship
I was asked about this on my talk page just now; I feel it's appropriate to note here, for the record.

In July 2009, Betacommand was released from his community ban on a provisional basis. As part of the conditions of this release, he was placed under the mentorship of myself and User:MBisanz. As part of that mentorship, we were expected to provide monthly reports to ArbCom on Betacommand's progress. I failed to send any such reports, having just now double-checked in the ArbCom mailing list archives to confirm. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 22:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}
before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.