Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 75

Clarification request: Toddst1/Holdek (March 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Someone not using his real name (talk) at 18:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Link to relevant decision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration_motion_regarding_the_Toddst1_request_for_arbitration

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)

Statement by Someone not using his real name
Apparently Toddst1 was desysopped in some drama I have not followed closely, and consequently Holdek (originally blocked by Toddst1) was unblocked (by Worm that Turned/ArbCom). Holdek now seems to claim that his block for socking was overturned. Has the committee decided that Holdek was not socking? Someone not using his real name (talk) 18:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

@Writ Keeper: Worm That Turned, in his rather convoluted write-up there, does not clearly say there whether he thinks Holdek was not socking (to harass Ymblanter). Also, I want to know if this was a committee decision. The "not socking" IP is still blocked for about two years, by the way. Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Writ Keeper
Looks like. Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 19:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Holdek
I have made an unblock request so that the IP's block log, where my username is mentioned as "clearly a sock" (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=&page=68.50.128.91&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=&hide_patrol_log=1&hide_review_log=1&hide_thanks_log=1), is updated. I'm not sure if that was the best venue to make the request, but I couldn't find any instructions for an alternative. Holdek (talk) 20:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Update: Request was accepted on March 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:68.50.128.91&diff=598082168&oldid=598006520. Holdek (talk) 21:41, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * The subcommittee only overturned Toddst1's extension of the block duration to indefinite. We did not decide that the original 1-month block was unsupportable, and our recent decision (which Worm That Turned implemented) should not be interpreted in that way. AGK  [•] 19:18, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * To be clear, and to reply to Carcharoth's point, I do consider this a BASC action. WTT may have acted in his own capacity, but he unwittingly had the backing of the subcommittee. However, as Newyorkbrad observes, at this point it hardly matters. AGK  [•] 00:37, 16 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I've probably mucked up a little, because I've implemented the unblock off my own back rather an as a BASC decision. As I say, I did discuss this on the BASC list, and there was agreement to this solution. I believe the 1 month block was good and necessary, though the indef was excessive. I've explained it at Holdek's talk page, my talk page and ANI now. Hopefully that's clear enough. Worm TT( talk ) 09:58, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Not sure what is going on here. I thought this was a BASC decision. I commented on the appeal and supported what WTT did, but this is the first I've heard that it was done as an individual action. If so, shouldn't a statement be made above by WTT if it was a non-arbitrator action? Since you were acting after a BASC discussion, I think it was in fact a BASC decision, even if you don't think it was. AGK, do you agree that this was a BASC decision? Carcharoth (talk) 08:48, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Holdek indicates that his request for an unblock of the IP was granted on March 4. It seems to me that resolves the issue such that there's nothing else we need to do here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:50, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Clarification request: Article titles and capitalisation (March 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  NE Ent at 01:48, 19 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator) (I am aware of this request.)
 * notified
 * notified
 * (notified via e-mail by SMcCandlish, since Noetica probably doesn't get e-mail notices of talkpage messages)
 * notified (in e-mail also; uncertain if receiving talkpage notices]
 * notified

Statement by NE Ent
Back in December Arbcom '13 declined an appeal of a warning issued under the existing [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case&oldid=585479964#Discretionary_sanctions discretionary sanctions], and my read on the situation is that the committee really doesn't anyone wasting time arguing about whether an editor being notified was actually guilty of misconduct (a reasonable position). In a recent [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=600246827#Reverse_Sandstein.27s_false_accusations_and_destructive_warnings ANI thread] SMcCandlish indicated that an arbcom page linking to an accusation that he felt unable to defend himself against was interfering with his ability to contribute to the encyclopedia. Sandstein stated during the December filing "I recommend that the appeal is declined because warnings or notifications are, in my view, not in any meaningful sense subject to appeal or revocation. Their purpose is not to restrict their recipient in any way, but to inform them about future possible sanctions, as required per WP:AC/DS#Warnings." Therefore, to satisfy both SMcCandlish's desire to be free of the badge o' shame and Sandstein's point there be a record of notification, I renotified the four editors with the most neutral statement I could come up with [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SMcCandlish&diff=prev&oldid=599749694] and substituted those notification in the log [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation&diff=prev&oldid=599750394].

Sandstein however objected to this awesome solution on the AC clerk's board [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3AArbitration_Committee%2FClerks&diff=599844812&oldid=599784761], so it appears that is not the notification which is important but his notification with its finding of fault. So I'm asking the committee to simply decide whether the finding of fault must remain on the case page, or whether a simple drama free neutral notification would do.

Note: if you review the case there's a minor conflict between myself and because I screwed up and totally forgot a prior discussion we had had, which is why I put his prior notification back here [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FCase%2FArticle_titles_and_capitalisation&diff=599847887&oldid=599826396]

Statement by Johuniq
Please re-think this issue because the claim that "it's just a warning" are totally incorrect. A simple solution is available—issue a motion that the original warnings are vacated and are replaced with something new—something which does not declare that the recipients are guilty of a wikicrime. A simple "reminder of the importance of civility" in the motion would be sufficient.

There were exhausting discussions regarding titles, and one editor argued and argued and argued in multiple locations regarding the outcome of the discussions. That editor was not alone in believing that the original decision was flawed and so was encouraged to continue beyond human endurance. Despite the opposition, there was a clear consensus for the previous decision (and a larger consensus that the outcome should not be further challenged because any decision was better than indefinite arguing). The dispute was extremely problematic, but it continued on an on because it was "civil".

As part of the battle, an AE request was brought against an editor: Apteva, 22 January 2013.

A counter-claim followed: Noetica, 27 January 2013.

It was decided that the second claim should be closed with standard warnings issued to four editors: diff + diff + diff + diff. An extremely problematic log of the issue was then made here. The last puts the four editors who were defending the consensus decision in the same public stocks as an [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3AApteva indeffed user].

The "warning" is unduly pompous and includes the following text:
 * against an editor who repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia
 * If you continue to misconduct yourself on pages relating to this topic ... blocks ...

The warning strongly implies that each of the four editors had failed to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, and asserts as fact that each had misconducted themselves. That is not a reasonable interpretation of the saga. Johnuniq (talk) 05:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein
In December 2013, the Committee declined an appeal against these warnings, which I made in February 2013 per current procedure (WP:AC/DS) using the then-current version of the standard warnings template. Yesterday, an arbitration clerk,, restored as a clerk action the version of the case page that contains these warnings in the form I logged them, after they had been variously changed or removed by and , as can be seen in the page history. Likewise, a few days ago, an uninvolved administrator closed a, shall we say, slightly overblown ANI thread containing complaints against the same warnings with a finding that they violated no policies. This matter has therefore been discussed (to death) in all possible fora, including earlier ANI threads and ARCA requests, and has been conclusively addressed by the competent functionaries. Continuing to make complaints about these warnings is, in my view, therefore pointless and bordering on disruptive. In my view, the log entries in the current version correctly reflect the warnings as they were made at the time they were issued. Should the Committee now prefer that the log entries be changed in some way, they are of course free to instruct the clerks to make whatever changes they consider appropriate. In addition, it is not clear to me what business of NE Ent's (who is neither an administrator nor an arbitration clerk) it is to make any alterations to arbitration logs created by administrators. The same goes, of course, for Neotarf, who has also been editing the case page to remove logs of the warnings at issue. I recommend that the Committee restricts NE Ent and Neotarf from changing arbitration case pages, or that it adopts a general rule of procedure that restricts all but clerks and uninvolved administrators from creating or changing log entries.  Sandstein  11:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't particularly oppose NE Ent's approach, in the abstract. That's why, in view of the repeated changes to the log page, I only asked the clerks to determine how the log entries should read, which they did. I think this places the responsibility for the format of the entries on the Committee and its clerks, rather than on me. What I do object to is the unruly and confrontative manner in which these warnings are contested by some of their recipients, that is, by dragging the issue from forum to forum for more than a year, in a strident and accusatory manner, with unilateral changes to log entries by involved parties and random passersby, generous doses of bad faith and allegations of misconduct on my part, and never taking no for an answer. I am disinclined to take complaints made in this manner seriously, and I think the Committee should be similarly reluctant to – if you don't want to set the precedent that even if the Committee declines an appeal, all one has to do is to make enough noise until they get their way. In general, I think it's up to the Committee to determine whether and how warnings, notifications and the like should be logged. To date, the Committee has not made any rule about this, but the generally observed practice is to log such actions in a format like "User:Foo warned/notified per AE thread, signature." If the Committee prefers a different format, I think that it should say so and require the use of this format for all log entries, rather than only in this one case. That's also because I consider, as I have said in the many previous proceedings, that particularly in SMcCandlish's case the warning was merited on account of his conduct. I issued it because of his overly aggressive and personalizing comment to the AE thread, in a manner specifically forbidden per WP:ARBATC, such as: "His (and [name]'s WP:TAGTEAM) tendentious-to-death-and-beyond nonsense". The other commenting administrators agreed that a warning was appropriate. For these reasons, any accusation of misconduct that SMcCandlish believes to be implied by the warning and log entry at issue is, in his case at least, merited. That said, Salvio giuliano, if you think that my work at WP:AE does more harm than good, I'm happy to quit it if you would like me to. I'm not interested in helping out where I'm not welcome to, and I really have no time for all of this.   Sandstein   16:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Ohconfucius
I certainly don't enjoy wasting my time here, whether writing or reading War and Peace, and I don't want to be accused of being disruptive. But I'm fed up with Sandstein's stonewalling and hiding behind the technicality that once a person cannot be "unwarned" once they have been warned, so I'll just thank Johuniq for summing it up so very nicely. Please Arbcom, don't conflate the warning with the unfair accusatory part that I would like to see withdrawn. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 12:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I forgot to thank NE Ent for not cowering to the Mighty Sandstein and for once again bringing the matter here. Yes, I would support expunging the diffs from the "notifications" as suggested, being undoubtedly the simplest and cleanest way about it. The ever elusive apology or retraction would be nice but I'm not holding my breath – I think would be like getting blood from a stone anyway. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 08:31, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by SMcCandlish
My preliminary reaction to this, it's not gamed and distorted yet again, is:. I am the very one who proposed this solution to begin with (and kudos to NT Ent for getting this ball rolling). The recent ANI request about this generated simultaneous suggestions to take the ethical dispute with Wikipedia to the level of an RFARB case, and the behavioral issues with Sandstein to an RFC/U.

Yet, if Sandstein's falsely accusatory old ARBATC threats/warnings are removed entirely or at worst replaced with neutrally-worded ARBATC, like what NE Ent used, the #1 issue all four affected editors have raised is just instantly , painlessly. Regardless of Sandstein's intent, his warning/accusation/threat text being interpreted (not just by the accused) as accusations without proof, i.e. personal attacks, in direct contravention of the very ARBATC discretionary sanction conditions ostensibly being warned about! The clearly reasonable, ethical thing to do is to remove problematic wording like this, no matter why it was put there or by whom.

This fix would not necessarily resolve every issue each of these editors may have with Sandstein (and they differ), but it resolves the very serious problem for ArbCom and for WP more broadly of WP:ARBATC's notification log being misused (inadvertently or not) for blatant character assassination instead of for ARBCOM's case-administration needs. It's wrong to allow a formal WP dispute resolution procedural page like that to be used as an admin dirtlist of accusations of "continue[d]" "misconduct" with no proof (and only against certain specially targeted editors – Sandstein himself doesn't log all editors he formally gives ARBATC warnings to, like these two, and clearly hardly anyone else ever bothers logging anyone there at all. It has set a very bad precedent and cost the project a ton and a half of good-faith, productive editorial contributions. For nothing helpful in any way. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  13:27, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

PS: I think you're forgetting that at least for those of us who edit under our real names here, false accusations that appear to anyone but WP policy experts to be official condemnations by Wikipedia for wrongdoing have more than on-wiki potential consequences. For the others, I'm not sure you get to decide what their honor is worth. How would you feel if I ran an online newspaper and one of my journalists wrote a convincing-sounding but made-up article labeling you (even just under your WP username) a sadist who likes to kill kittens [or whatever], and I refused under some convoluted procedural rationale to remove the baseless accusation, and left it up for an entire year? And people told you were overreacting if you objected? :-) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  15:11, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @Roger Davies: While what seems to be a proposal to only remove "continue to" could, maybe, sorta fix the wording issue, The proposal to remove "continue to" would fix the wording issue. I think it's clear that it won't really fix the broader make-an-example-of-these-punks attitude issue, which still comes off as attacking.  But that's a severable matter.  It  Failing to address that aspect would not be a resolution in spirit.  Aside from fixing the text as you suggest, The real, equitable solution is to just replace the warning/threatening character of the entire log entries with something totally neutral, as NE Ent used , or remove them entirely.  I am fairly certain that a failure to treat us with neutrality will lead to one or another of the parties going the RFARB and RFC/U route, because Sandstein being in the wrong in multiple ways on his initial action is actually very easy to demonstrate. I've already done so, several times, in different places.  Sandstein was not in a position to issue a "warning" (which automatically implies a finding of wrongdoing) because did not have the facts to determine any wrongdoing. He did not read the prior AN or RFC/U that led up to the AE request.  I and others repeatedly pointed him to this evidence of the now-indef'ed user's previous and quite recent cases, and he refused to look at it or consider it, every time. He's bringing a Swiss court procedural rule about evidence admissibility from his lawyer day job, to an informal administrative role on a volunteer website. It's an un-wiki bureaucratic proceduralism that is worse than unhelpful here. Issuing his warning/threat without evidence of wrongdoing –  the evidence – is still palpably a false accusation by Sandstein, just one less flagrantly worded.  Retaining it here, after all these attempts at resolution, would be kind of like sanctioning civil PoV-pushing simply because it's polite and because you like the guy who's doing it. Also, he applied ARBATC logic about arguing over style/title matters, to a dispute at AE over editor behavior, despite the fact that the ArbCom has said many times that such restrictions, even direct interact bans, cannot be used to deny editors legitimate use of our dispute resolution processes.  All discussions at AE (and AN, ANI, etc.) are pre-"personalized" because they're about editing behavior, not content! — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  13:38, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * PS: Part of why I've remained silent for so long was an expectation that surely ArbCom would just see the light and fix this, quickly. Hasn't happened.  "I'll try this week to write some motions to resolve these issues. AGK [•] 23:16, 10 February 2013 (UTC)" (at ARCA over a year ago). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  13:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC) Revised 14:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @Carcharoth: Neotarf was active just yesterday and probably would want to comment here, and has been notified. Don't know what time zone they're in. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  13:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @Salvio: I support NE Ent's solution (and originated it, as a possible last-ditch compromise), and have issues (noted just above) with the Roger Davies version, however well-intentioned. Your alternative, "we remove the diff of the warning from the log, leaving the rest (i.e. the date and the identity of the administrator who logged the alert)" is even more wholeheartedly supported by me, and I know for a fact from all previous discussions that it's the version all four of us have always asked for (meanwhile, only I have endorsed the NE Ent solution so far.) Given that you're suggesting our original request is actually feasible, to have this controversial accusatory material voided from the log entirely, and given that Sandstein has done everything he can to obstruct resolution of this problem for a year, .  That will completely resolve this issue, without any further question, in the most equitable way. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  13:58, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The points you raise are mostly irrelevant to the question raised in this ARCA, so I'm hatting this response. The Arbs themselves have been seriously divided on appeal procedures for such AE measures as your accusatory log entry, including ARBCOM, AE and AN/ANI as suggested venues. Your insinuation of tendentiousness is without merit here; you have no reasonable basis for opposing our use of the suggested venues, nor being angry with us that each venue keeps passing the buck, due to the unclear guidance. And I've been largely just absent and content to be "retired". have mostly been reopening this dispute, and I end up getting notified about it by someone digging me up on Facebook or whatever. I agreed to try again this time because I see some hope, which I had totally lost, of this actually finally be resolved. Here, however, you now seem to be complaining at me over Neotarf frequently bringing the dispute back up, but Neotarf isn't an active party (yet?) at this ARCA request, which neither of us opened, but which was opened because of your own totally unnecessary Clerks Noticeboard request along related lines. That seems to be casting imprecise, off-topic, projective aspersions to be combative, which is pretty much exactly what your "warnings"/accusations against us were ostensibly for to begin with. As you've been repeatedly informed, the parties whose names we're eliding were in fact already found at WP:AN to be tag-teaming, and tendentious, and pursuing anti-consensus, frivolous and obsessive WP:LAME disputes (i.e. nonsense), which is exactly what I said, and what you said I said. To this day you still pretend that the AN and RFC/U against the editor who filed the AE in question isn't relevant or isn't there; to the contrary, it collectively the very evidence your accusations claimed did not exist for what the four of us were warning AE about with regard to that editor's WP:PARENT-shopping request there! You admitted to not having read that or any other relevant AN case: "I have not participated in, or even read, any AN thread related to this matter." (smoking gun proof your warning/accusation was missing the facts and ignored the evidence). Third, a number of editors, admins among them, have questioned your faith in this matter, not because of failure to good faith but due to the WP:DUCK/WP:SPADE effect eventually wearing those assumptions down, because of your insistence on your own infallibility here, relying on your tenure and standing as an admin to evade corrective action, including for AGF issues of your own. The one and only reason this has dragged out, that this project has lost so much productivity over your false accusations, and probably permanently lost a very good contributor, is that you just will not stop fighting every attempt to resolve this, even when I and others go out of our way to suggest a remedy that can be made without it even being a direct critical reflection on you. I bet that Salvio taking you up on your offer would lead to happier days for everyone, including you. I actually see that you perform work that few others want, and that AE would have a backlog if you quit. But I think you need to seriously rethink your approach and the effect it can have on people who are not vandals or nuts, just differently motivated than you are.


 * — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  19:02, 19 March 2014 (UTC)  Revised: 14:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @AGK: I hope this gets resolved before you make up your mind on this ARCA request, if you participate in it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  23:13, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @Carcharoth: Sandstein's accusations, added to the ARBATC log instead of neutral logging of a notice, were about specific misinterpreted edits made at one place and time. This ARCA is about resolving that; it is not a fishing expedition to see if someone can dig up something elsewhere that Sandstein's accusation might arguably be valid about if retroactively misapplied to it. I understand your concerns about my post in Oct., the tone of which I regret in some places. When I wrote it I was not expecting to return at all, was responding to being personally attacked in grave-dancing ways that triggered someone else to track me down off-WP and notify me about it, and the entire point of the post was to get people in that debate to stop enganging in the very things ARBATC is supposed to be curtailing.   My post is also over five months old now, and no one filed a complaint about it then. If someone wants to use old evidence to launch an RFARB about my Oct. post to punish me again for a non-extant dispute, fine (I say "again" because Sandstein and another admin were planning a block/ban against me for a supposed editwar that .)  I was, back in March of 2013, boomerang-banned at AE (by Sandstein, no surprise, in a case raising serious WP:INVOLVED and other issues, like misapplication of DS to censure participation and meta-discussion in dispute resolution) for filing a request there based on old evidence and on my claims that a pattern was evident and would continue, as you do with regard to me here. (The user I made the request about and I have recently come to a better understanding, BTW.)  It's inappropriate to reverse the principle here just to be punitive toward me, to make sure that my effort to vacate Sandstein's accusation is replaced with a new one, on the basis that I "might" engage in proscribed editing some time in the future. Note that the inappropriateness of "quintessentially punitive" Arb actions is not taken lightly by ArbCom. It's also unfair to make threats of out-of-band punishment for old posts in a narrowly-focused ARCA nearing resolution, where brevity and focus has been specifically requested, as it prejudices the proceedings against me, either by necessitating that I post more in renewed defense than Arbs want to read, or leave accusations undefended and presumptively conceded.  I've removed several other issues I raised with your using recent good faith efforts of mine as places to try to dig for something incriminating, to shorten this response. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  08:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @All: There's a surplus of ARBATC enforcement aimed at me, but it's rarely used against anyone in fractious style/title debates, no matter how those rage or for how long. Look how short the logs at ARBATC are, and how much they focus in uncharacteristic detail on punishing me in particular (despite my clean block log), as Georgewilliamherbert notes below – not content debate on style/title matters, ARBATC's actual purview.  Something is not right here.  This enforcement is very selective, punitive and personal (i.e. vindictive and "personalizing of style disputes" - ARBATC's enforcement tends to violate what it's supposed to be enforcing).  This ARCA should not take any further steps in that direction, especially since it was filed by someone else to resolve a simple matter, not further complicate it. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  07:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * : I appreciate that you're aiming to eliminate the problematic log entries, very much. I also understand your concerns about my Oct. ranting.  I cannot apologize "to" a wikiproject, which is just a page editors use to collaborate, not an entity unto itself with its own hive-mind feeling (and in that one, the regular participants don't have unanimity on the issue that was being argued about).  I've already cited WP:DICK against myself here in the course of apologizing for that outburst, which was not typical of my output, and won't be repeated (it was a "leave me alone and quit fighting about this crap" message by a former editor, not a normal post).  Not sure what else I can do.  I'll apologize for my tone in user talk to anyone in that debate who wants me to.  I hope that is sufficient.  But my post there generated no actual controversy/dispute, ill-conceived and reactionary as it was. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  14:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * : Having read the current DS review material in detail, I've re-thought this, and unreservedly support your solution here, to delete the "continued to" text. It's not a total solution to every issue raised here, but they're severable, and what you mean to do is clearly a necessary part of the set of solutions to the problems.  I also continue to support the idea that the DS logs on case pages should be un-diffed, and that these particular log entries be deleted as unsupported accusations.  Your and Salvio's and Carcharoth's proposals are compatible, and together form the best solution. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  14:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you all for dealing with this! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  20:40, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Noetica
[I speak independently, and it would be utterly unfair to visit consequences upon anyone else for the detailing or the tone in what follows.]

As noted on this page, I have retired from editing Wikipedia. I thank SMcCandlish for informing me by email of the present action.

For myself, I am indifferent to the outcome here, having from the start of this sordid and desperately mismanaged affair noted Sandstein's intransigence and systematic failures of insight. I understood immediately, and said explicitly enough, that the best response when he is involved is to withdraw to another environment where reason, balance, and natural justice prevail. That was easy for me, and I have left Wikipedia well behind. If vindication were needed for this stance, the evidence is right here on this page, or linked from it (astonishingly insensitive statements so far by Sandstein, Roger Davies, AGK, and Carcharoth).

No, I am here for the editors who innocently spoke up when I was taken to WP:AE by a vindictive and now indeffed editor (Apteva) who caused immense wastes of time for dozens of Wikipedians – aided by deeply involved ex-admin SarekOfVulcan. The editors and admins who spoke up for me were ignored. Three editors were sanctioned when they spoke up for me (I had overtly withdrawn from my own defence, so manifestly and hopelessly biased was the WP:AE process, as were involved admins who commented in the guise of uninvolved admins, turning the decision against me). I feel a responsibility to speak plainly about the matter now, when it may help editors who suffered at Sandstein's hands.

I wholeheartedly support the idea of "an un-diffed log", so that Sandstein's mistake is removed as an embarrassment to the Project and a continuing slander on hard-working Wikipedians – or indeed, on those ex-Wikipedians whom Sandstein has casually swept from the Project in the interest of simplistic obedience to simplistic rules (his own, essentially) and a superficial appearance of good order. I may one day consider returning to offer my expertise: if Sandstein is removed as an admin, or shows recognition of his errors and apologises without reservation for his mistakes and relinquishes any connection with WP:AE work. (Other well-known admins could be named as culpable in connection with my brief brush with Sandstein's Star Chamber; but we all know how futile that would be, also. In this present forum. ☺ )

Noetica (talk) 04:12, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Reply to Carcharoth:
 * You write: "As far as I can see, the only one of the four editors whose conduct definitely warrants a note on the record is SMcCandlish." And I answer that you do not see far enough. Sandstein's unjust and out-of-process warnings that are the topic of the present action were imposed months before "that October 2013 edit". It is ludicrously unjust to continue here the hounding of SMcCandlish (initiated by Sandstein) that was then already well in train – and that provoked some poor behaviour for which he seems already to have apologised. Who else, by the way, has apologised for anything at all? Where, by the way, is your interest in warning or sanctioning Sandstein (whose actions you endorse reversing)? It is such egregious failures to separate issues and deal rationally and fairly with each of them that threaten the reputation of this forum. In light of such of a lapse of process, and of judgement on your part, I am moved to ask that you recuse from consideration of this action forthwith. For the record, I hereby request that my own original notification remain, if anything like what you propose for SMcCandlish is left on his record. Noetica (talk) 01:14, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Neotarf
Why was a topic-banned user even permitted to file an AE case, much less against the very editor who drafted the “motion to close” of their topic ban RFCU? Contrast with this clarification request, where a user with an interaction ban was immediately blocked. Looking at both the case against Apteva and the case against Noetica, I see no evidence that the closing AE admin took this topic ban into consideration, or was even aware of it. The case against Noetica should have been closed as obvious retribution.

@Sanstein: Please be accurate. I did not "change or remove any warnings in the form you logged them", I removed changes made by NE Ent, who is not an admin, and who changed them out of process, as I noted both in the edit summary and on the talk page. And the conclusion of the ANI thread was not that "the warnings violated no policies", it was "I haven't seen any evidence that Sandstein has actually violated any Wikipedia policies." They didn't see any evidence about you, because whether you have violated any policies or not, I have not accused you, which is more consideration than you have given me.

@Roger Davies: If the current discretionary sanctions review is going to provide some thing that will "help deal with the current situation" why hasn't it been presented yet? It has been three months since that was promised at my RFAR, and six months since the beginning of the review. The last DS review, completed in in 2011, took two years. The current proposal says none of the new policies will be retroactive.

This argument is being used in a circular manner, refusing to resolve my situation because of the ongoing review, and being callously dismissive of any of my statements at the review because my current situation has not been resolved. This makes for neither good policy nor good encyclopedia building. And it makes it look like the policy review is being conducted in order to cover up Sandstein's controversial actions. Better to lose some of us to the project, than to make a policy that does not address the needs of the project as a whole. Chances are some of us may not edit again no matter what you do.

@Carcharoth: "...what is most damaging the reputation of some of the users notified is their (by now) over-reaction to the notification, which will be remembered long after the original dispute has been forgotten.

The accusations, from over a year ago, are being made over and over again. And it's not true. But there is nothing, nothing, nothing I can point to when someone throws this in my face, to prove that it is not true.

@arbs: What would be the rationale for leaving our names on the case record? Does anyone really believe we are not aware of WP:ARBATC and need to be "notified" that it exists? All four of us participated in the case (it was my 30th edit ever, as a new user). There was plenty of chance to present diffs and to look for any problems in our editing during the case, but the committee did not see fit name any of us in the final decision. How then can AE see fit to add our names to the case decision without warnings, without diffs, and without giving us a chance to defend ourselves against the accusations? If the arbs think it's such an insignificant thing to have your name on such a list, would they be willing to add the names of ALL the editors who participated in that AE case, and not just a few of us non-admins, selected at random? Would they be willing to add their own names, and that of Sandstein as well to the list? —Neotarf (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).


 * Recuse Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:19, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * For the umpteen time, a review of DS is underway that will prevent this kind of situation arising in the future and help deal with the current situation. Constant sideshows are simply reducing my time to try to move the review on. In the interim, I suggest that replaces, as a gesture of his commitment to resolving this swiftly, the current warnings with neutrally worded notifications, and updates the log accordingly. If anyone wants more than that, we would need to hear from them directly as we only hear such requests from the principals.   Roger Davies  talk 08:39, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, I'd like to hear from . There's no point in my making any suggestions to move this forwards if they are going to to be unacceptable to him.  Roger Davies  talk 08:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Gathering my thoughts on this a bit. All we need at this point from is a brief statement setting out the issue and requesting a remedy. It does though seem to me that all this drama is about the underlined words "If you continue to misconduct yourself" as the rest of the complained about notice is in general terms. If my understanding is correct, I'll propose a motion shortly,   Roger Davies  talk 12:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Removing the diff(s) from the log works for me too as the simplest and less bureaucratic route forward. It seems that my colleagues are moving towards consensus here so, unless someone objects and wants a formal motion, we can probably implement this sometime later today.  Roger Davies  talk 15:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * My choice became the de-diffing option a couple of days ago. Which has now been implemented. As far as I'm concerned, we're done here.  Roger Davies  talk 20:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Roger. I would also add that making disparaging comments on indefinitely blocked users is to be avoided if at all possible as they are unable to respond to comments made here. There is no principle of equivalence operating here. Someone being blocked indefinitely at some point after a notification doesn't tar others who were notified at the same time with the same brush. Rather, it may be an indication that the notifications worked to the extent that the users notified backed off, or were sensible enough not to engage in conduct to get themselves blocked - which is a good thing! Currently, what is most damaging the reputation of some of the users notified is their (by now) over-reaction to the notification, which will be remembered long after the original dispute has been forgotten. Roger, did you mean Neotarf, not SMcCandlish? Carcharoth (talk) 08:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Updating my views here. I won't stand in the way of the changes being proposed by several arbitrators, but I took the time to look a bit deeper into this and what I see concerns me. The four editors concerned have reacted to this in different ways. Noetica retired, Ohconfucius largely got on with other editing and made mostly short statements when the issue arose. It is Neotarf and SMcCandlish who have protested loudest and at greatest length about this. I took a closer look at what SMcCandlish has said on this and I've been looking at some of what is mentioned in User:SMcCandlish/notes. I am extremely wary of sending the message here that modifying the notifications that were given by Sandstein will be seen as a green signal to return to the same tone and style of discussions that were evident before those notifications were given. I scanned down the list of SMcCandlish's edits in the past year, and came across this one (from October 2013). That edit (on the topic of capitalisation) displays the sort of battleground attitude that Wikipedia needs less of, not more, regardless of whether an editor is right or not (a lot of what is said there makes sense, and would be perfect in an essay, but the trenchant and aggressive tone used there should not be an acceptable form of discourse on Wikipedia). Even if Sandstein's original notification was not warranted, that edit alone indicates SMcCandlish's inability to control their feelings on this topic and that should be real cause for concern (arguably, that edit alone would have warranted some form of action at the time). I have also read the discussion here where SMcCandlish says they will "consider returning, if my dispute with a particular admin is resolved". My concern is that on returning to more active editing SMcCandlish will continue to display the sort of attitude displayed in that edit in October 2013, so I am considering proposing a motion to censure SMcCandlish for that edit and place them on notice about their future conduct in this topic area. Carcharoth (talk) 01:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, so sum up my views now that we have statements from all four affected editors and from Sandstein. As far as I can see, the only one of the four editors whose conduct definitely warrants a note on the record is SMcCandlish. This is borne out by the conduct that led to the restriction on him that is still in force and should (in my view) have led to further sanctions if that October 2013 edit had been picked up on earlier. The record of that sanction against SMcCandlish is sufficient for future purposes so no log is needed on the case page for him. What I propose is a formal motion: (a) either leaving intact or modifying in some way (such as the un-diff-ing that has been proposed) or removing the original notifications left by Sandstein; and (b) reminding all four editors "to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegially towards a workable consensus." (this is taken from the 'All parties reminded' bit of the case). The record of this motion that will be left on the talk page of the case will suffice to demonstrate that these editors are aware of this reminder if future AE requests are made. This is largely the same as what Johuniq proposed. I'll write up the motions in an hour or two. Carcharoth (talk) 23:53, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Noetica, you misunderstand. I am proposing removing the notification from Sandstein for all four of you (including SMcCandlish) and effectively replacing it with a reiteration of the reminder in the case that was applied to all the parties. None of you should need reminding, but from what I've seen some of you at least do. I agree that if more is done, that matters should be handled separately for the four of you as you have all reacted and handled yourself in very different ways following the notifications. It was trivial on scanning back through SMcCandlish's edits over the past year (apart from the recent flurry, there were not many of them) to see the ones where he added large walls of text. There are other examples beside the one I pointed out. And no, he has not gone to the talk page of that WikiProject to apologise for the tone of what he said there. SMcCandlish, unlike the other three of you, has actually been sanctioned, with a topic ban (for one month, since expired) and a current restriction that is still in force. I don't buy the argument that his conduct deteriorated after Sandstein's actions. SMcCandlish was put on notice but carried on anyway. Given what Neotarf posted to my talk page, I'll hold off on any motion for now. Carcharoth (talk) 05:04, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd like to hear from the involved parties as well, but, from what I've read elsewhere, it appears that SMcCandlish does not object to NE Ent's solution. If that's the case, then said solution seems to be the best way forward, in my opinion. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Clarifying a bit my position, I have probably already told you this, but I think that your approach to WP:AE is overly formalistic and bureaucratic and, speaking personally, I consider this a problem. This case is a good example of your approach; you warned a couple of editors who apparently have a problem with the way the warning was worded. Now, there are two possible solutions: a. we remove the diff of the warning from the log, leaving the rest (i.e. the date and the identity of the administrator who logged the alert) or b. we follow NE Ent's solution. Both solutions, in my opinion, solve the problem, in that the new notification (or the old now-"undiffed" one) meets the requirements of form for alerts and also satisfies these editors' request not to have what they reasonably perceive as an allegation of misbehaviour on an officially-looking Wikipedia page. Yet you oppose NE Ent's solution. Why? I mean, what's the concrete problem it would cause? As I said, this looks the best way forwards to me...  Salvio Let's talk about it! 13:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've got to say I rather like Salvio's idea of having an un-diffed log for these cases... Worm TT( talk ) 14:00, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As there has been no objection from the rest of my colleagues, I have implemented the suggestion agreed by the arbitrators above. To my mind, with the discretionary sanctions review nearing completion, this clarification request is therefore resolved. AGK  [•] 16:19, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with the action that has been taken. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:42, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Doncram (March 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  SarekOfVulcan (talk)  at 16:17, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedy 5


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)


 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ADoncram&diff=600178243&oldid=598395824 Doncram notified] by Thryduulf (talk) 16:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Information about amendment request


 * Remedy 5
 * I would like to have the ban removed

Statement by SarekOfVulcan
During my last RFA, the interaction ban was a reason for at least one of the opposes. It has been in place for a year. I would like to establish that this ban is no longer necessary before running again, so I ask that it be removed so I can work on establishing a track record.
 * @ - over the past year, I've adapted to a much less confrontational style of editing. I'd like to be able to prove that the ban isn't needed anymore, but the only way to do that is to try it and find out. I'm sure there are more than enough people out there who will be happy to alert you if I'm mistaken. :-) -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I'm not asking for the ban to be removed so that I can interact with Doncram - just so that I can establish that I can avoid him without being forced to. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:44, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @ - yes, I was asking for the ban to be removed, not to be changed to be one-sided. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:54, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @ - That sounds like a good plan. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:58, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @ - oh, there were definitely other issues at play there. This was the only one that I couldn't affect by just changing my behavior. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:01, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Doncram
No way, if it is up to me, unless it is part of a complete revocation of all restrictions against me, including a ban on my editing in NRHP area, and unless there is an explicit promise by SarekOfVulcan that he shall not follow and combat me, and that should be enforceable (i.e., in effect be a continuing interaction ban). The interaction ban was a result of arbitration begun by SarekOfVulcan, following long campaign of following my edits and combatting which dragged down my reputation, including multiple ANIs and AFDs and discussion at Jimbo Wales Talk page, and so on, and which I and some others perceived and still perceive as unjustified bullying, and the interaction ban was the only good outcome of the case. SarekOfVulcan has not communicated any meaningful apology for his actions, publicly or privately; his comnents in recent RFA were patheticly inadequate. I cannot see what he could say publicly or privately that would be adequate, either. -- do ncr  am  18:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Candleabracadabra
I think that Doncram has done an impressive job of abiding by very biting restrictions on his editing. I urge the Arb committee to lift these sanctions so he can return to making positive contributions. The restrictions have been a loss to Wikipedia and his fellow editors. I oppose a one-sided removal of restrictions. As Doncram has noted, the problems were in large part a result of Sarek's combative behavior. Sarek promises that he has learned form past mistakes. Doncram has been punished long enough. And the NRHP editing environment has gotten worse without his presence, enormously useful contributions, and assistance to fellow editors. Candleabracadabra (talk) 02:43, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * To clarify per Sarek's response, if you can avoid engagement with Doncram his editing restrictions as well as the interaction ban should be removed. If you hadn't pursued the conflict with him the ban on his editing and the ban on your interacting him would BOTH not be in place. You are requesting to remove your interaction ban so you can further your political aspirations on Wiki without moving to assist him in having his full editing priviledges restored. The loss of his ability to work on NRHP subjects has been very bad for his fellow editors and for Wikipedia. You should work to resolve that issue if you want your restrictions lifted and think you can be an effective administrator. Doncram masde enormous contributions to an area you r involvement in the dispute got him banned from. I don't think you should be allowed to "move on" without helping to end the dispute and helping to restore this hugely constructive editor to good standing in the article area where he did SO MUCH good. Candleabracadabra (talk) 03:00, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Orlady
I tried to refrain from commenting here, but here I am, anyway. Seeing that it's been a full year since this arbcom case closed and both parties have apparently successfully abided by the mutual interaction ban, I think it would be timely to remove the imposed ban on mutual interaction and replace it with a voluntary agreement to avoid interaction. I call your attention to some prehistory of this case that I believe is relevant background on the interaction ban: ANI discussion from July 2012. SarekOfVulcan started that discussion by expressing concern about several statements that Doncram had made about me that Sarek (and I) deemed to be serious personal attacks. That discussion led to a (temporary) voluntary moratorium on interactions (between Doncram and both Sarek and me). The voluntary moratorium was proposed by User:Cbl62 in a comment that stated, in part: I really don't care to get into a "blame" or "fault" game, but the relationship between these good people has been very negative for more than a year. ... I don't see [Doncram] reacting with similar venom except toward Orlady and Sarek. Given the past history, any criticism he receives from Sarek and Orlady is received with extreme sensitivity. As I see it, the principal reason for avoiding interactions between Sarek and Doncram (and between Doncram and me) was and still is Doncram's "extreme sensitivity" to interactions with Sarek (and me) -- and his history of displaying that extreme sensitivity by reacting in an uncivil fashion. Arbcom's decision to apply an imposed interaction ban (in lieu of a voluntary "ban") between Sarek and Doncram seems to have been motivated mainly by the fact that Sarek had deliberately edit-warred, violating 3RR. Given the apparent nature of Doncram's perceptions of and reactions to Sarek (and what appears to be a more severely negative perception of and reaction to me), it is understandable that Doncram would oppose any relaxation of the ban. However, both of these editors are grownups who should be able to regulate their behavior and their emotions without a ban. If the year-long interaction ban was not long enough to allow Doncram to "get over" the effects of edit-warring that occurred in 2011, that does not bode well for any future requests he might make to vacate other restrictions that resulted from this case. I believe that both parties would abide by a voluntary agreement, and if they do so, the history of success possibly could help Doncram support a future request to review the other restrictions. --Orlady (talk) 16:09, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Sarek, I have to say you haven't give us much to go on here. You want to establish that the ban is not necessary so you can run for RFA again. You wanting to be an admin again is not a reason for the committee to do anything. In other words, I would want to see something a little more compelling that "it's been a year" to reassure that the problems of the past would not happen again. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * For the interaction ban to be totally removed from both parties (as SoV is requesting) so that SoV can demonstrate that he is able to avoid commenting on Doncram, we need to assess whether the same applies to Doncram (whether Doncram can exercise sufficient self-control). If Doncram can demonstrate that they have reached a point where they can move forward as regards the interaction ban, then I would consider reducing this to both being informally 'bound over to hold the peace' with a full lifting a year later, otherwise I would only consider reducing this to a one-way interaction ban (with SoV informally agreeing not to interact with Doncram for another year - equivalent to being bound over to hold the peace). The difference is that breaches of an interaction ban can lead to a block. Breaches of an informal 'bound over to hold the peace' type arrangements would lead to re-imposition of the interaction ban (at WP:AE) rather than a block. The issue of Doncram's topic ban should be raised separately and filed by Doncram himself (if he wishes to do so) rather than raised by others (as above). Carcharoth (talk) 08:35, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Years ago, while discussing an IBAN proposal on ANI, someone (can't remember who) wrote this is an interaction ban, not an interaction blame, to emphasise that interaction bans do not necessarily presuppose misbehaviour on the part of either user, but rather they are imposed when two or more people have demonstrated that, for whatever reason, they are unable to interact in a productive fashion and their interactions usually result in a massive waste of time for everyone. For that reason, even if an interaction ban is lifted, it's generally a good idea for both parties to continue to avoid each other. Also, since interaction bans are reciprocal in nature and are meant to protect both editors from the negative effects their interactions usually have, they should be lifted only if a. both editors agree or b. there is a very important reason to do so. The desire to run for adminship, for me, is not reason enough to override Doncram's objection. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:55, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's annoying when you've written your thoughts down, only to have another arb edit conflict with you and say it better. Salvio. In summary, interaction bans are there to stop the disruption caused by two people interacting - there's so much history there that the interactions are never going to be productive. I really don't like one-way interaction bans for that reason, and agree to them only in exceptional circumstances. Having looked at the RfA in question, I don't believe the issue was the interaction ban, but rather how Sarek handled questions regarding the case. I do not see that lifting the interaction ban would be helpful, especially with Doncram's objection. Worm TT( talk ) 10:10, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above so far as the interaction ban removal is concerned; that being that if one party to the IBAN objects to lifting it, we would need very good cause to overrule that, and "I want to file an RfA" does not meet that burden. Sarek is not barred from filing an RfA by the sanction and could explain the ban in the candidate statement if so desired. Modification of any other sanction imposed as a discretionary sanction should go through the normal appeals process for DS. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline, per Seraphimblade et al. AGK  [•] 16:21, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The IBAN does not restrict you from running for adminship, and I am not inclined to remove the ban, particularly with Doncram's objection. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:40, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Cirt and Jayen466 (March 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  &mdash; Cirt (talk) at 04:39, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedy 1
 * 2) Remedy 2


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)


 * Notification
 * Notification of Jayen466


 * Information about amendment request


 * Remedies: Remedy 1 and Remedy 2
 * Details of desired modification: Narrow exception to engage in quality improvement projects for pages previously brought to quality levels, listed at User:Cirt/Contributions.

Statement by Cirt

 * 1) Hello, I'm asking the Arbitration Committee to consider a narrow modification to remedies (1) and (2) from the case Cirt and Jayen466.
 * 2) I'd like to be able to maintain and improve further in quality articles I'd previously helped bring to high levels of quality.
 * 3) In the interim since the closure of the case I've been placed under the mentorship of and under this guidance, successfully taken a page approved by the Arbitration Committee, to Featured List quality. See: (Motion by Arbitration Committee) and  (promotion of page to Featured List quality)
 * 4) In addition I've focused on quality improvement projects to bring articles to higher levels of quality -- this has resulted successfully in three (3) Featured Article promotions, seven (7) Featured Portal promotions, twenty (20) Good Article contributions, and one (1) Featured List.
 * 5) Specifically I'd ask the Committee to amend the case Cirt and Jayen466 by motion, so that I would be permitted to maintain articles I'd previously improved to high levels of quality, and embark on quality improvement projects for pages listed at User:Cirt/Contributions, to further improve them in quality to WP:GA or WP:FA.

Thanks for your consideration,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 04:39, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd of course welcome a full lifting of the restrictions. But I'd also most appreciate this narrow exception so I could both maintain articles I'd brought to WP:FA in the past, and hopefully bring other articles I'd brought to WP:GA to higher levels of quality. I'll let the Committee consider either one of those options. And thanks very much to and  for your most kind comments about my content work and quality improvement efforts. Thank you very much for your attention to this matter, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for recognizing that it's been several years. I'd appreciate any lessening of restrictions at all, full or otherwise, that would result in my being allowed to expand my quality improvement projects to include past WP:GA and WP:FA contributions. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:43, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I certainly didn't mean for that statement to apply to my Featured Content contributions. I do feel badly that I had problems in those topics in the past. As for my Featured Content contributions -- I'm fortunate that my quality improvement projects that I've successfully helped improve to Featured quality are all due to collaborative cooperation and feedback from multiple contributors at multiple stages of review. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 00:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for mentioning my WP:FA quality improvement effort on the film about freedom of speech and censorship, Fuck (film) -- I found it most interesting that after all that discussion, the WP:TFA-day, itself, went by with more of a whimper than a bang, and didn't cause much controversy on the day of the Featuring of the article itself. My goals if the restrictions were removed would be to further improve in quality pages I'd previously already worked on at User:Cirt/Contributions. These include several non-controversial articles, such as the articles I'd previously raised to WP:GA quality: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel) -- I'd like to improve those to WP:FA quality. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 10:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You mentioned Fuck (film) -- so if you haven't noticed from my user talk page post about it, I'm currently working on a quality improvement project for the article on the book, Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties. Both the film and the book deal with the history of the word as related to freedom of speech and censorship. So it's kind of the second WP:FA-level quality improvement drive for me along a theme of freedom of speech and censorship related to the word. And second FA-level quality improvement drive on a book about freedom of speech -- as a follow-up to Freedom for the Thought That We Hate. Thanks for your interest in my quality improvement projects, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 10:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this specific request. Examples of specific articles I'd like to work on, that I can't now because of the restrictions, fall into two categories: (1) Articles I helped bring to WP:FA that fall within the topic of new religious movements, and (2) Articles I helped bring to WP:GA that I'd like to be permitted to improve to WP:FA. A specific example of the former includes 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack -- I noticed a bot left a note on the talk page back in 2011 that there were now dead-links in the article -- this has remained unaddressed by the community in the years since then. Specific examples of the latter include: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel) -- I'd like to improve these to WP:FA quality. Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel) are all novels by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that I took to WP:GA quality. Hopefully by working on further quality improvement on these articles, I can demonstrate to the community that I am capable of NPOV high-level quality improvement within the topic. Thank you, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:14, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this specific request. (1) WP:GAs I'd like to work on include the following: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel) (novels by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard). If the Committee wishes to expand this further, I would be more than honored in their trust in my motivation to perform quality improvement projects to bring additional WP:GAs from User:Cirt/Contributions to WP:FA. (2) Per your request, I've notified (diff). &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes I nominated Fuck (film) to WP:TFAR. But I thought I mostly left others to speak on those issues at the TFAR discussion itself. I certainly was not trying to raise a "degree of controversy" from the featuring of the article on the Main Page -- I was merely trying to have a discussion and let the community decide whether the article should be featured on the Main Page. The community had that discussion. The community decided, per the assessment of the close at Today's featured article/requests/Fuck (film), by a final tally of 52-25, to feature the article on the Main Page. I am actually quite glad that no significant controversy of any kind arose from the featuring of this article on the Main Page. And I would have been glad that a dialog was stimulated about freedom of speech and censorship related to the documentary and its discussion of this taboo word. Please,, don't penalize me for my high-quality Featured Article work, outside the topic ban on another topic, bringing an article to FA on a subject of freedom of speech. I tried to comport myself with civility during the discussion which resulted in a majority of the Wikipedia community deciding for featuring the article on the Main Page. I don't think I should be penalized for utilizing community processes at multiple stages of review, including GA Review, Peer Review, FAC, and yes, WP:TFAR as well. Thank you. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:05, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for those quality improvement suggestions, improving the "core" or "vital" type pages of freedom of speech and censorship would indeed be most ambitious tasks. I don't think I've ever tried before to embark on a quality improvement project for a "core" or "vital" page on Wikipedia. I personally enjoy working on more focused topical articles, that way I know that in the course of my research, it is actually possible for me to read literally all of the secondary source coverage about a particular topic. That's what I did for my most successful WP:FA drive for Fuck (film), it's what I did for Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties, and it's what I've tried to do in the process of research for my most recent WP:GA quality improvement project on freedom of speech and censorship, at Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth., specific films and books as opposed to the general main "core" articles on a topic also have a defined beginning, middle, and end, so it's comforting to know that once my research is completed into certain articles they will be a near complete representation of scholarship on those topics. I certainly hope my WP:FA contributions on freedom of speech could help serve as models for quality improvement for other articles on the topic. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 13:35, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should ask to improve the article Video game to FA status instead of Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. Personally I commend  for all of his WP:FA quality contributions. If you look at List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations, it doesn't look like  has contributed FAs on "core" or "vital" articles like Video game, itself. I think this is for similar reasons as I described, above. That is, it's easier to read the majority of secondary source coverage about a niche topic rather than a wider topic, and then be assured that a quality improvement project on that article covers the majority of all of the secondary source coverage on that topic. I'm grateful for the Wikipedians at List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations that have improved core vital articles on Wikipedia, but also quite thankful for those at List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations that have improved to FA status more niche articles as well. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 15:00, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand your concern that you feel the request was problematic. In response to other Arbitrators' comments, I stated specifically that WP:GAs I'd like to work on include the following: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel) (novels by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard). Hopefully the more specific request makes things less problematic to consider. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:16, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand your concern that you feel the request was problematic. In response to other Arbitrators' comments, I stated specifically that WP:GAs I'd like to work on include the following: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel) (novels by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard). Hopefully the more specific request makes things less problematic to consider. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:32, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * / I'm sorry you feel that way. I hope I can demonstrate to you and to the community my desire to improve articles to WP:FA quality within the topic. I'd like the Committee to consider allowing me to embark upon quality improvement projects for WP:GAs including: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel). I previously successfully took these articles to WP:GA quality, and I'd like to have a chance to further improve them in quality further. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 15:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Roger, I'm a bit confused as to why you were curious to ask me in the first place to provide such a list of articles. Rather than asking for a more expansive list, I requested three (3) articles I'd previously successfully brought to WP:GA status: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel), all of which have since been stable. I'd like to show my intention to work on these articles to higher levels of quality improvement. I'm particularly keen to show my bona fides concerning balance. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 06:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Carcharoth, as far as I'm aware articles on other sites aside from the English Wikipedia are not covered by the topic ban. I was editing with good faith on those projects, and in cases of disagreement I always defer to community consensus. I'd very much like the opportunity to edit these three (3) articles on this site at en.wikipedia that I'd previously raised to WP:GA status: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel). I am able to improve the quality of these articles, and have no doubt that my ability to improve them in such a way which demonstrates a regard to balance will meet community standards and expectations. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've worked in discussion with that editor and deferred to community consensus to remove quotes from the page. I haven't asked for the full topic ban to be lifted. I'd appreciate being given permission to edit three (3) articles on this site at en.wikipedia that I'd previously raised to WP:GA status: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel). I'd like to show I can further improve these articles in quality in a satisfactory manner to the Committee keeping in mind balance and community standards. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 19:36, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand your concern, and I'm going to defer to the consensus of the community at that project. I'm also disengaging from those topics there and focusing on other ways to contribute positively including non-controversial help such as categorizing previously uncategorized pages. suggested he would be willing to consider allowing me to edit one (1) article from the topic. I would ask that you please consider allowing me permission to work on the article Typewriter in the Sky, which I previously brought to WP:GA quality. I'd like to put in the effort on a quality improvement project to bring one (1) page, Typewriter in the Sky, to WP:FA quality, please. Thank you, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:09, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You graciously stated in your oppose that you would consider supporting an exemption for "one article". I would greatly appreciate that. An exemption was given for one article to me previously, and I subsequently brought Dan Savage bibliography to Featured List status. I'd ask for an exemption for one (1) article, for Typewriter in the Sky, which I previously brought to WP:GA. I'd please like the opportunity to take it to WP:FA quality. Of the three (3) articles I'd asked for, this was published earliest (1940), and is most fleshed out so far as far as breadth of coverage. Thank you, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd welcome any relaxation of current restrictions to enable me to bring articles within the topic to WP:FA quality. I'm most appreciative of your proposal give me permission to edit three (3) articles I'd previously raised to WP:GA status: Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel). Roger Davies suggested he would be willing to consider allowing me to edit one (1) article from the topic. I would ask that you please consider allowing me permission to work on the article Typewriter in the Sky, which I previously brought to WP:GA quality. I'd like to put in the effort on a quality improvement project to bring one (1) page, Typewriter in the Sky, to WP:FA quality, please. Thank you, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 23:01, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * My thanks to for the comment in support of lifting the restrictions. I look forward to the day when Wehwalt and I can collaborate on WP:FA quality improvement drives for articles within the topic. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:18, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it would help the Committee to consider the state of the three (3) articles themselves. Final Blackout, Typewriter in the Sky, and To the Stars (novel) have all remained stable since my successful quality improvement projects raised them to WP:GA status. The Committee could look them over to see their current state -- as further changes I plan to make would be based on input received from community processes such as Peer Review. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:06, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry you feel that way. I can understand your hesitation to permit me to edit three (3) articles within the topic. Perhaps the Committee could consider a new motion for just one (1) article. Roger Davies suggested he would be willing to consider allowing me to edit one (1) article from the topic. I would ask that you please consider allowing me permission to work on the article Typewriter in the Sky (book published 1940), which I previously brought to WP:GA quality. I'd like to put in the effort on a quality improvement project to bring one (1) page, Typewriter in the Sky, to WP:FA quality, please. Thank you, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 09:17, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Lquilter

 * I didn't follow this original issue, but came upon it while working with Cirt on intellectual freedom issues over the last few months. A few comments:

One, I'm not sure why the original order seems so unbalanced: Cirt's alleged misdeeds seem relatively minor, and characterized more by sloppiness than ill-will. But they got two perpetual bans on content editing -- one very, very broad! all political-related bio articles -- AND status change (de-sysopping). The other editor's alleged misdeeds I personally find more troublesome, and there was very little remedy attached -- just a warning. Both users appropriately were restricted from interacting with each other.

Two, the original order is overbroad -- the restrictions on Cirt are not time-limited, and they're really broad.

Whatever the reasoning behind the original order, I suggest that in light of the time passed, and its breadth, that it should be reconsidered. Cirt is, in my experience, an exemplary editor, who has contributed a lot to Wikipedia content. From conceiving of the Intellectual freedom portal, bringing it to fruition, advancing it to "Featured" status -- and doing the same with a lot of content in that section, Cirt has been an awesome (in the sense of inspiring awe, rather than in the Bill-and-Ted sense) contributor to Wikipedia.

Cirt just asks for a minor modification. I have no idea why. The content restrictions should be completely lifted, since they should have been time-limited in the first place. The desysopping is already time limited, because it can be re-added with a request. User interaction orders could reasonably be perpetual, and I express no opinion about the ones at issue here.

Lquilter (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2014 (UTC)


 * PS: An Arb asked for an example of articles Cirt can't work on. Marjorie Heins, a First Amendment lawyer and scholar, is one such example. I came to this discussion because in seeking additional eyes on the Marjorie Heins article, I was told by Cirt that he couldn't work on that article because of the content restriction.  So that's my perspective -- Cirt is doing really good work on the First Amendment / free expression sections, but can't work on the biographies in that section.  In looking at the original remedies, it seemed obvious that (a) the remedy was really broad -- over-broad in my view; and (b) it should have been time-limited to begin with.  --Lquilter (talk) 15:48, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite
I urge that the editing restrictions against Cirt be totally lifted. I think the original action against him was a vendetta, that the matter was decided wrongly, and the resulting punishment mindbogglingly draconian. Cirt has lost tools and done his time in the penalty box, time to return him to valuable content work. Carrite (talk) 02:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement The Devil's Advocate
This request should either be for a full lifting of the topic ban or identify specific topic areas where he wishes to resume editing. Any granting of the request as framed would be little different from granting Cirt the ability to resume editing in all the areas where his prior activities were a problem. If Arbs feel he can be trusted with those articles then they should presume he can be trusted with any articles in those topic areas. Should they feel he cannot be trusted with those articles then it should be a question of whether he can be trusted with some topic areas he is banned from or none.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 04:12, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Guerillero
I don't see any compelling reason to allow Cirt to touch anything related to Scientology or L. Ron Hubbard unless we want to be back here in a year or two you yet another RfArb. --In actu (Guerillero) &#124; My Talk  15:31, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Wehwalt
I would support removal of restrictions on Cirt. I'm hoping to bring an article or two with him to FA, but due to various RL and WP commitments/distractions, am not immediately available to do so.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:37, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Wnt
I don't understand how allowing Cirt to edit three articles after 2 1/2 years is "too much too fast". You seem to offer processes for appeals and exceptions, but reject them categorically, leading to understandable confusion. I also don't understand how we, as an encyclopedia, can decide by broad community consensus to feature Fuck (film) on the Main Page as our best work, but then you can hold such a high accomplishment against the person who did the work to make it worthy to run there. I might also ask why Cirt would be expected to notify an editor with whom he has an interaction ban about modification of an old remedy not directly pertaining to him. Last and not least, ArbCom seems content with how often other parties from the original "Manipulation of BLPs" case have returned to them with opponents to have sanctioned, and the appearance this gives of a systematic purge. Wnt (talk) 01:21, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I also feel that the manner in which Cirt's Wikiquote activity was evaluated is deeply flawed and deserves a more general reevaluation. (see talk) Wnt (talk) 12:41, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * At first blush I'd agree with TDA that drawing a bunch of narrow exceptions seems like hairsplitting at this point; either the restrictions en bloc should be appealed or single, article-by-article exceptions granted. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 15:00, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * That's my impression as well. It's been several years. If the restrictions are no longer needed for some articles they should no longer be needed at all and Cirt should be able to keep himself out of trouble. I'm not 100% convinced that is the case just yet but I don't think lots of little modifications to old sanctions is a route we want to go down at all. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:25, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking over this some more, I would note the following:
 * A similar, narrowly defined exemption was granted in 2012, with the caveat that a specific admin could revoke it at the first sign of trouble.
 * The log of blocks, bans, and restrictions for this two-and-a-half-year-old case is blank, so it would seem that there were no problems with either violating the bans or the previously granted exemption.
 * Now, I would agree that the possibility exists that if we simply lifted these restrictions this could end up before the committee again. I would imagine that if there were any merit to whatever issue brought it back to us, the solution would be a full siteban, given the history here. I would also suppose that Cirt does not want to be banned and wishes to continue being a productive member of this community, otherwise he would not have stuck with it for so long despite the bans currently preventing him from editing I areas that are of interest to him. Two and a half years is a long time to be on your best behavior. Long enough for it to become a habit. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:32, 23 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm getting a sense of deja-vu here, I'm afraid. Five or six years ago, there were serious issues with your editing. You declared these fixed as a result of mentorship by Durova. While it is true that you did much featured work, it is also true that these included many articles on books and film which were critical of Scientology. In these, by your own admission and against policy, you placed "undue negative weight in topics on new religious movements and political BLPs" and followed poor sourcing practices. If these now need work, it is probably better, for the foreseeable future at least, if that work were done by someone else. I cannot support this request.  Roger Davies  talk 23:50, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Cirt, for providing the summary Brad requested. May I trouble you to produce a complete list of prohibited articles that you'd like to work on, with a short descriptor for each indicating which part of your restriction it's covered by? For example L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology); Typewriter in the Sky (Scientology; L Ron Hubbard novel); etc. Incidentally, have you yet notified (the other party to the case) about this request?   Roger Davies  talk 18:27, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * can you help here please. First, these are talk page discussions involving you at Wikisource. This looks like the same old problem:, , , Second, is Wikisource meant to host blog posts like the following? What is their benefit? ,  , .   Roger Davies  talk 19:50, 23 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Cirt, one of the things I look for in people coming off topic bans or site bans is an ability to work quietly and avoid areas that may be potentially controversial. In that vein, I noticed your comments relating to the request to feature Fuck (film) (one of the articles you worked on) on the Main Page (your TFAR request - after that rather heated discussion, this article ran on the main page on 1 March). If the restrictions were removed, would you actively seek out potentially controversial areas (and engage in discussions about the response to the article within Wikipedia and in external media), or would you make a conscious decision to edit quietly? Carcharoth (talk) 08:40, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Cirt, I think you've misunderstood what I was getting at with my comment. When I talk about someone editing quietly, improving articles and putting them through review processes can be done relatively quietly. Nominating an article to appear as TFA is different again, and draws more attention to a topic, and attention of a different sort. What I'm saying is that I'm wary when I see an editor topic-banned in one area nominating their work on other articles at TFA and at the same time taking an interest in the degree of controversy that may arise from the featuring of those articles on the main page. It feels a bit too much like part of the motivation was to see what the reaction would be (I suspect the effects of filters and blocking software may have skewed any reaction). I would prefer to see an editor that was topic-banned finding a quiet area to edit in that they have a moderate interest in and can be dispassionate about, rather than returning to areas they are passionate about. Hence I would be reluctant to grant the request as it stands. Carcharoth (talk) 00:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Cirt, one way to stimulate a dialog about freedom of speech and censorship would be to work to get those two articles to featured article status. That is much harder than working on narrow, specific topics. But it also gives people a wider view of the topic area, rather than focusing the topic through a specific film or book (such as the one you mention: Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties). Anyway, I'll leave it there, as the focus of this amendment request should be elsewhere (if you want to follow-up on my talk page, feel free). Hopefully we will have an update for you in a few days time. Carcharoth (talk) 08:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * My gut instinct is to be hesitant about a removal of editing restrictions since, as Roger says, we've all been here before. Fool me once, etc, etc. The description of the scope of the proposed relaxation, while marketed as a limited relaxation, is not that far away from blanket removal; Cirt says he wants to "embark on quality improvement projects for pages listed at User:Cirt/Contributions", which is a very long list, containing many articles in subject areas that have previously been a source of problem and conflict. And, as David Fuchs says, it's probably better to either grant article-by-article exceptions, or just remove the restrictions. Remedy 2 (the BLP restriction) specifically says "if Cirt conforms his future editing to applicable policies and the principles set forth in this decision and Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manipulation of BLPs, he may submit a request for amendment after one year from the date of this decision seeking a relaxation of this restriction". It's been 2 1/2 years.  It's time to either relax it, or admit that suggesting how it could be relaxed was a mistake.  After some thought, I believe I support revising Remedy 1 so that it only prohibits editing articles related to Scientology, and undoing Remedy 2. I would suggest instead something more tailored to the Finding of Fact, such as "Cirt is prohibited from placing undue negative weight in topics on new religious movements and political BLPs, and from following poor sourcing practices.  If he is determined to be doing so at WP:AE, original Remedies 1 and 2 can be reimposed by any uninvolved admin."  Or something to that effect. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Cirt, can you please give examples of specific articles you'd like to work on, that you can't now because of the restrictions? Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:47, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The drama and trouble caused by a restriction tends to rise in proportion to the number of exceptions and clauses added to it, especially when they are added some time later. Also, I find the framing of this request unsatisfactory. What, for example, exactly are the articles "previously improved to high levels of quality"? That list, impressively long though it may be, is not iterated here. More worryingly still, "Pages listed at User:Cirt/Contributions" is a list with contents determined by the sanctioned editor himself. We cannot have a topic ban with a scope decided by its subject. I would deny this request. AGK  [•] 00:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Given the history here, I would for the moment prefer to see Cirt request to edit one or a few specific articles with plans to improve them, and might be disposed toward granting such a request. I don't see the request for a complex modification as workable, though, and am not prepared at this time to support lifting the restriction wholesale. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:02, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I have to say this sits uncomfortably with me, largely because of Roger's links to Cirt's contributions over at Wikiquote and Wikisource. On Wikiquote, Cirt appears to have been adding tangentially-related quotes, prompting an editor there to say, "Does it not reflect negatively on the reputation of Wikiquote to have the Scientology page commandeered to serve as a coatrack to propagate misleading information about other organizations and individuals?" On Wikisource, Cirt has been adding blog posts by Rick Ross that are questionably within scope. These edits do not convince me that Cirt will not continue such editing on this project if his topic ban is lifted. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You are still pushing this POV on the other projects, regardless of how much you are deferring to other editors. What I'm seeing over there is you adding this content, being questioned on it, and removing some of the content when you're questioned. There's at least one instance of other editors saying that your removal is insufficient. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:39, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Motion 1
Cirt is granted an exemption to remedies 1 and 2 of the original case for the following articles: The committee will not consider further exemption or modification of these restrictions for a minimum of three months from the date this motion is passed.
 * Final Blackout
 * Typewriter in the Sky
 * To the Stars (novel)




 * Support


 * 1) Second choice. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:49, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I must say I am a bit taken aback but he suggestion that a three article exemption after two and a half years is "too much too fast" especially in light of the fact that a one-article exemption was already grantedion 2012 and there were apparently no issues with it. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:55, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Let me articulate my specific concern. You are comparing apples and oranges. The restriction relaxation was to enable Cirt to on a Dan Savage article. There is no reason to suppose that Cirt has negative feeling about Savage as it was a Dan Savage neologism that sparked the Rick Santorum scandal and triggered the associated arbitration case. Conversely, Cirt has been consistently negative about Scientology, which is what these three articles are about.  Roger Davies  talk 14:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I must inform you you are apparently operating under a false assumption, that all books written by Hubbard pertained to Scientology. Hubbard was a guy who would obsessively write, churning out book after book after book at an extremely rapid pace. He was quite well known as an author before he became known as a religious figure. These articles are all about novels published between 1940 and 1950. He first wrote about Dianetics, a sort of self-help predecessor to Scientology,  later in1950. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:12, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm operating under no such false assumption. What I am concerned about is the potential for coatracking.  Roger Davies  talk 06:36, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Then I suppose you ought to strike out your statement above where you explicitly state that these three articles are about Scientology, since that is what gave me that impression. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:11, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Nah, I assumed you'd realise that Scientology there referred to "articles relating to new religious movements or their adherents, broadly construed", which is what the topic ban embraces. You could I suppose argue that the founder isn't necessarily an adherent but that doesn't really help this along much ... 22:28, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow Roger. I am trying really hard to maintain minimum level of decorum in this conversation, but you are not making it easy. You unequivocally stated that these articles are "about Scientology." You made a mistake and said something that was not entirely correct. It happens. You don't need to insult my intelligence to try and save face. I am also still waiting, along with everyone else, for some actual diffs of the Wikisource edits that are apparently a "smoking gun" that proves your point. If  they are so bad, why have they not been presented here? Surely that would strengthen your case. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:20, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The two of you are talking past each other. We can agree, I think, that the books themselves aren't about Scientology, and could be edited without discussing Scientology. We can also agree that the author of the books founded Scientology, so there is a potential that someone could try to focus the articles on Scientology to some extent. The split of opinion here is whether we trust Cirt to edit the three articles without trenching on the areas in which his editing has been troubled, or whether it's too close to the problems to warrant the risk. There are good arguments for either side of that issue, hence the close vote. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:01, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Weakly, but I support. AGK  [•] 22:23, 23 March 2014 (UTC) Per oppose vote.  AGK  [•] 23:57, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) I'm on the fence here, but tending towards supporting. I don't really see the difference between one article and three and would like Cirt to have a chance to prove himself on New Religious Movements. These books would be a good indicator on how well he can do that. Worm TT( talk ) 11:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) These books were written by Hubbard before he founded Scientology and, to the best of my knowledge lack a direct connection to either Scientology or Dianetics, other than the identity of the author. As such, while the books are within the scope of the current topic-ban, I think it is likely that Cirt can edit their articles appropriately. On that basis, and with the understanding that the editing will be about the books and not touch on their author's later activities, I can support this. (I will confess that I don't understand why given the prior history Cirt wants to edit these particular articles, but meh.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) Willing to support, although I think my simple advice to Cirt is the same with many editors who have been sanctioned in the past--there's four million articles out there, is there really no other interest you can choice and avoid the near occasion of problems? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 17:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) I'd hate to get into a situation where Cirt comes back to us every 3 months for another 3 articles to edit, but I guess this isn't a bad idea to start with. L Ron Hubbard's SF books appear to be sufficiently unrelated to past problematic areas. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:29, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) On balance, I don't see a significant potential for problems here. If there are any, however, I think Cirt is fully aware of what the results would be. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:28, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Though there could be scientology related problems, I do agree that the relationship between these novels and Hubbard's founding of scientology are less direct than it would seem. It does seem odd to me that out of all the articles that Cirt can edit, that a couple novels of Hubbard are on the top of his list. All things considered I see no compelling reason to refute this motion, though I do agree with Roger in that there isn't really a need for Cirt to test the boundaries. Tenuous support. NativeForeigner Talk 00:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose


 * 1) And who would police this?  Far too much, and far too quick,   Roger Davies  talk
 * By way of amplification, I might support one article ...  Roger Davies  talk 19:51, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) I have just noticed that Cirt has been making anti-scientology edits to Wikisource as we've been speaking. I therefore see absolutely no reason to endorse this petition. AGK  [•] 23:57, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 2)  Salvio Let's talk about it! 08:57, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) T. Canens (talk) 19:36, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) I've carefully considered this, and I don't think allowing Cirt to edit these articles is compatible with the remedies in question, and despite his good work elsewhere I don't think an exception is warranted. Writing about a book necessitates writing to some extent about the author of that book. A fully rounded view of the books will also, of necessity, touch (however briefly) on aspects of that author's life that are proscribed here (the Scientology aspects), even though those aspects of that author's life came later. Even an editorial decision to consciously exclude any mention of Scientology from an article is not something we should be entrusting to someone topic banned from the area. An example would be allowing Cirt to edit parts of the author's article on aspects of his life that precede the founding of Scientology (e.g. his writing of these books, his SF era). We wouldn't (I hope) allow that, and I don't see allowing editing of the articles on these books being any different to that. It might be possible to have a collaboration where someone else works with Cirt to ensure the necessary balance and objectivity, but that is not, in my view, worth the additional overheads here. It would be best for these articles to be left for others to work on, and for Cirt to find other articles to edit that are far removed from the area covered by his restrictions. Carcharoth (talk) 08:07, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Writing about Hubbard's writings before his establishment of Scientology is a common mechanism to portray Scientology itself in a poor light. The situation is entirely dissimilar to that of Dan Savage; the topic area here is so close to one that has proved problematic for Cirt that I cannot support this exception. L Faraone  15:25, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Abstain


 * Discussion
 * Frankly, when we have articles to choose from, I don't see the need for Cirt to go near Scientology at all. Why put someone with very strong views on the subject in temptation? It's not fair on him and it's not fair on the encyclopedia.   Roger Davies  talk 21:25, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As pointed out above, unless you feel Cirt is so irretrievably biased that he could not even be neutral when writing about novels written by Hubbard before anyone ever heard of Scientology there shouldn't be an issue here. If you do think that then that's that, but these were science fiction novels, not religious or self-help books. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:18, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Motion 2
Remedies 1 and 2 of Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cirt and Jayen466 are vacated with immediate effect. Cirt is reminded that if the issues that led to these sanctions were to surface again that further, more severe sanctions will be the likely result.




 * Support


 * 1) First choice. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:49, 23 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose


 * 1) Straight out of the bad idea machine. Salvio Let's talk about it! 18:55, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) To do this, given the past history, is out of the question,   Roger Davies  talk 19:34, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) I'll give some thought to #1, but this is a definite no. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:37, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) AGK  [•] 22:23, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Having spent a while reading through the history, I'm not willing to support any motion which allows Cirt to edit religious or political biographies. Worm TT( talk ) 11:05, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) This is Cirtainly too much too soon, and well beyond what even he has requested. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) With an extra trout-slapping for Brad's punniness.  Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 17:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) Per my comments above from 11 March, I would have leaned in this general direction earlier this month.  But based on further review of Cirt's edits in this topic area on Wikiquote within the last few months, I doubt I will ever support lifting the Scientology exemption (including Scientology-related BLP's).  I'm also more comfortable not lifting the BLP exemption for any political or religious affiliation at this time.  --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:36, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * No, especially noting AGK's comments in oppose for motion 1. NativeForeigner Talk 00:46, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Opposing here. Waiting to hear from Cirt regarding the recent concerns raised by Floquenbeam before voting on motion 1. Carcharoth (talk) 07:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) T. Canens (talk) 14:31, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) Definitely not. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) L Faraone  13:52, 29 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Abstain


 * Discussion

Amendment request: Argentine History (April 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Lecen (talk) at 20:47, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Case affected : Argentine History


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Cambalachero-Lecen interaction ban
 * 2) MarshalN20-Lecen interaction ban


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)


 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
 * 
 * 


 * Information about amendment request


 * Allow myself and the others to comment on each other only on this case (and nowhere else)

Statement by Lecen
Almost a year ago I brought to the attention of the committee that Cambalachero and MarshalN20 were systematically spreading misinformation on several articles related to Latin American History, using sources scorned by mainstream historians, who regarded them as pieces of political propaganda published by Latin American fascists.

At the end the committee agreed with me and Cambalachero and MarshalN20 were both topic banned indefinitely. I also showed to the committee that both users had continuously harassed me in an attempt to scare me off. Thus I eventually requested a mutual interaction ban, which was granted. The problem was that months later I made a good faith comment on this case right here which resulted on a one-month block for myself. This is something that I want avoid from occurring again.

I request the committee to make one simple modification to the mutual interaction ban that could allow me and the other two users to comment on each other in here, and only in here. I am not asking to be allowed to talk with them or about them on talk pages or anywhere else. I am not even asking to be allowed to talk directly with them in here, only to comment on them. To be more precise: Cambalachero asks for his topic ban to be lifted. I would like to comment on his request, to make my point whether or not it should be granted. That's all. Certainly the committee could show some faith on this experienced editor.


 * Hello, Kurtis. I appreciate your words, but if you don't mind I'd like to say a few things to clarify:
 * 1) "... articles on Latin American history are relatively free of "Fascist" POV-pushing (as you call it)" It's not I the one who call those sources "fascists". Historians do. Not only I brought to the Evidence page what kind of sources were being spread all over Latin American History articles, but I also took time to show how historians regarded them. You can see dozens of books there. But I went further than that. I reached the two greatest specialists in that subject (Fascist sources) in the United States and showed to the arbitrators the e-mails I exchanged with them. The two specialists were Michael Goebel (author of "Argentina's Partisan Past: Nationalism and the Politics of History") and David Rock (author of "Authoritarian Argentina. The Nationalist Movement: Its History and its Impact"). So, to make things clear: I never said anything, that would be my POV. The greatest specialists in the field are the ones who said it.
 * 2) "Who cares what the other two editors who are sanctioned say about you at this point?" I don't care what anyone thinks about me. What I want is to be allowed to warn the arbitrators in case the other two users repeat their behavior regarding sources. I don't want to talk about Marshal nor Cambalachero. But I want to be allowed at least to say "Cambalachero is using Fascist sources again and Marshal is yet again supporting him" or "Marshal has shown no regret (and no recognition) on his actions and the ArbCom should think twice before allowing him to edit articles related to Latin American History". That's all. I am not asking too much. I am not even allowed to talk about the ArbCom case without being threatened with block!
 * 2) "Who cares what the other two editors who are sanctioned say about you at this point?" I don't care what anyone thinks about me. What I want is to be allowed to warn the arbitrators in case the other two users repeat their behavior regarding sources. I don't want to talk about Marshal nor Cambalachero. But I want to be allowed at least to say "Cambalachero is using Fascist sources again and Marshal is yet again supporting him" or "Marshal has shown no regret (and no recognition) on his actions and the ArbCom should think twice before allowing him to edit articles related to Latin American History". That's all. I am not asking too much. I am not even allowed to talk about the ArbCom case without being threatened with block!


 * I came here, warned the ArbCom that two users were ruining the encyclopedia's credibility, they agreed with me and somehow I'm treated like the one who is guilty! I am a valuable contributor, I wrote 14 Featured Articles. I am not joking around. Do you really believe I enjoy wasting my time with Cambalachero and Marshal? I wish I hadn't, but there is no one else with enough expertise on Latin American History to stop those two. And the ArbCom wants to silent me! It makes no sense! This is like a fireman telling a person who is warning him about a fire in a building to "shut up". Does it make sense to you?


 * Lastly, Marshal was not topic banned indefinitely from ALL articles related to Latin American History because he "misbehaved" on a couple of move requests. Are you kidding? Do you really believe that? See the ArbCom case! He was sanctioned so hard because he fiercely supported Cambalachero on the use of Fascists sources. See the ArbCom case. See the diffs provided. Every time someone tried to remove the sources Marshal reverted it back. Every time someone complained about it Marshal supported Cambalachero. He did that on 3rd Opinion, on mediation, on request for comment, on talk pages, etc...


 * I don't want to be here. I don't want any of this. But I find unacceptable that Marshal and Cambalachero not only still do NOT recognize what they did, and thus, see nothing wrong with it, but also that NO ONE among the arbitrators say a word about it. --Lecen (talk) 02:55, 4 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Oddly, I am accused of "bullying", of having a "battleground mentality", of sending friends to harass MarshalN20 and Cambalachero but it's their friends who show up here, it's their friends who gang up to intimidate me and other users (see ES  &#38;L  and Wee Curry Monster working together along with MarshalN20 and Cambalachero here, here and here)  and it was Marshal who was said to have battleground mentality by the arbitrators. I wish I had friends to support me. Obviously that somehow the arbitrators will fail to see that Cambalachero, MarshalN20, Wee Curry Monster and  ES  &#38;L  work as a team and will persist on their side. --Lecen (talk) 14:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by MarshalN20
For Heaven's sake, this user needs to STOP claiming that I was topic banned for "systematically spreading misinformation." I have requested this casting of aspersions to be stopped both here at Arbitration Requests and at the Administrator's Noticeboard. This needs to stop NOW, once and for all. I have exhausted all the formal venues to ask for these aspersions to stop. I don't know what else to do! Administrators and/or arbitrators, please take care of this situation. Lastly, I recommend that this haughty request be denied. This interaction ban does not need any exceptions. The voice on whether topic bans should be lifted (or not) is up to either the Wikipedia community or the arbitration committee (which the community have entrusted to be the final voice on conflict resolution). The interaction ban was granted to stop "mutual acrimony" (the words of T. Canens). Lecen has clearly no intention of dropping the stick, and continues with the same battleground mentality. I am busy with many tasks in real life, and the last thing I need at this time is to think that this unpleasant individual is again being given an opportunity to slander me. Anyhow, he already is insulting me (again)! And, nobody does anything aside from the usual reprimand... Best regards.-- MarshalN20 T al k 23:58, 2 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Kurtis, the interaction ban was a mutual request. Please note that Lecen was not the only one who requested it.
 * At the time, arbitrator Kirill wrote: "The requests for mutual interaction bans appear reasonable, particularly in the context of the ongoing acrimony between the parties; I will propose the applicable motions below." The plural use of the word "request" is clear.
 * Regards.-- MarshalN20 T al k 00:36, 3 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Kurtis, thank you for the correction. Three users (Salvio, ES&L, and Laser brain) have stated that the accusations continuously presented by Lecen and his friends are inaccurate.
 * Laser brain summarized his assessment of the situation in the following statement: "I agree with the assertion that MarshalN20 was never sanctioned for POV-pushing or fringe editing; in fact, it's telling that ArbCom explicitly stated that Cambalachero was being sanctioned for POV-pushing but not for MarshalN20."
 * I was sanctioned for "tendentious editing" due to my behavior in Move Requests at talk pages. This is the reason why one of principles was specifically on talk page (please see ).
 * I am not proud of my behavior in the talk pages, but this has nothing to do with "systematically spreading misinformation" (which is a far, far more terrible accusation that falls on the realm of academic misconduct).
 * The accusation of academic misconduct is terrible slander.-- MarshalN20 T al k 00:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)


 * My comment on this matter concerns the slander targeted towards me by a group of editors, all led by this user with whom I have an interaction ban. I have used various venues (except for the dreaded "appeal to Jimbo") trusting that Wikipedia administrators and/or arbitrators would be able resolve a matter concerning volunteer conflict. Nonetheless, despite best efforts (including an excessive amount of warnings), the same slander continues to be spread across the project by the same individual.
 * The sad thing is that this has been going on since the end of the case last year (please see []). Salvio was one of the first try and stop this continuing issue. On August 1, 2013, Salvio wrote: "Well, since Lecen has agreed to stop interacting with you, I don't see what's left to do wrt him." And yet, here were are again. Therefore, I ask, who is the editor consistently breaking the interaction ban?
 * Even here, after being warned to stop accusations and insults, the matter continues with WP:TLDR partisan soapboxing.
 * Ultimately, I am the user who is topic banned from articles. Yet, I am also the one that keeps getting consistently bullied by the same editor (and his friends). There is a record of this that dates back at least as far back as July 2013.
 * My plea for help is not a plea to end my topic ban. As ES&L notes, the situation here is unacceptable.
 * Best regards.-- MarshalN20 T al k 12:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)


 * In fact, I encourage all those interested in this matter to read with care the July 2013 situation . Warnings to stop this abusive slander against me have been issued now for over 8 months. This is absolutely horrible.
 * Also, given this situation, how can anyone critique Sandstein for his decision? All in all, he may have been too kind...-- MarshalN20 T al k 13:18, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

To summarize, all I am interested in is that the mudslinging stop. If a user cannot make a simple request without resorting to insults (thereby aggravating the situation) or to "retire" if things do not go as planned, then WP:COMPETENCE trumps over any consideration of exceptions. Since this issue is nowhere near resolved, I plead the arbitration committee to please amend the case with an enforceable ruling that expands on the "casting aspersions" principle (which is not being followed); this enforceable ruling would apply to all sides of the dispute. I further ask that this enforceable ruling be applied in relation to the case, thereby preventing any third-party from continuing the trashy accusations. Best regards.-- MarshalN20 T al k 14:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Kurtis
Am I the only one who finds a one-month block based on these two posts to be grossly disproportionate? Lecen himself requested the interaction ban to prevent the other two editors from slandering him, and as the person who filed the original arbitration case, it would make sense that he participates in subsequent amendment requests. I'm not saying that Lecen has never made any mistakes, but he is nevertheless a very productive editor who cares about the integrity of the encyclopedia. Are we really resorting to long-term blocks against positive contributors over something so trivial?

Where's the ANI thread about this incident? And why didn't Lecen press for an unblock from the very beginning? He has every right to have his voice heard. Kurtis (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * @MarshalN20: OK, I'll keep that in mind. Sorry for misrepresenting the situation; I just mentioned Lecen as being the person who requested the interaction ban because he was the one who filed the amendment request. I had little doubt that all involved parties preferred it that way.
 * Another point is that the Arbitration Committee enacted the topic ban against your participation in the specified areas following a finding that you have "engaged in tendentious editing". Tendentious editing is defined as "a manner of editing which is partisan, biased or skewed taken as a whole. It does not conform to the neutral point of view, and fails to do so at a level more general than an isolated comment that was badly thought out." Don't take this comment personally; I'm just reiterating that this is what ArbCom agreed upon based on a thorough review of the evidence. It has no relevance to my own views on the matter. Kurtis (talk) 00:35, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * @WTT: This, to me, seems more like venting frustration than something I would block over. Not the best judgment call on Lecen's part, but I don't think Sandstein's decision was condusive to a positive outcome, all things considered.
 * @MarshalN20: I should also note that I did not do any in-depth research into the case; I just read the proposed decision, checked a few references (specifically the ones provided), and took David Fuchs word for it that there was more on the evidence page. I also skimmed through that one using the text search option for your name, but no pertinent results came up. I was too tired at the time to look through each and every link provided, so I'm sorry if my earlier comment indirectly cast you in an unduly negative light. If the whole page move thing was all you were sanctioned for, then the topic ban seems a little excessive in your case as well.
 * @Lecen: My original comments still stand, and I don't think you deserved an outright block for those postings. But at the same time, please try not to stoke the flames with ArbCom. Trust me on this one, man. You got what you originally came here for &mdash; articles on Latin American history are relatively free of "Fascist" POV-pushing (as you call it). Who cares what the other two editors who are sanctioned say about you at this point? It only matters as much as you'll let it. For God's sake, don't put yourself in the firing line. Wikipedia's bureaucracy has chewed up more valuable editors than anyone should be shaking a stick at, all because they were too busy sweating the small stuff. Kurtis (talk) 02:13, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * @Lecen: I don't know much about Latin American history, so please forgive me for not realizing that historians classify specific sources as Fascist. That term has come to bear negative connotations due to its association with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany - it refers to an ideology where subjugation to the state takes precedence over all. The only historical Latin American figure I'm aware of who is considered a Fascist dictator by academic consensus is Juan Perón, who is himself a divisive figure known to have had the genuine support of his country. The argument could also easily be made for Rafael Trujillo, and I would agree with classifying him as such. If you're willing to stretch the definition to include any totalitarian regime where an ideology is imposed on its people and a personality cult is established, Fidel Castro may also qualify. Otherwise, every other dictator you could name was merely authoritarian (albeit brutal in most instances), not Fascist.
 * To no one in particular, I would like to apologize if my comments come across as ill-informed and heavily biased. I have not gone through extensive research into this case, and in fact prior to commenting here, I only knew of Cambalachero from ITN/C where he commented on the death of former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla. I supported a full blurb because he was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, and I described him as one of the worst dictators in recent history; Cambalachero felt that this equated Videla to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao (who are of course in a league of their own). Because of my brief interaction with him, I was slightly intrigued when I saw the Argentine history case come up before ArbCom, but not enough to follow it closely. I harbour no prejudice against any of the editors involved. Kurtis (talk) 04:13, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by EatsShootsAndLeaves/DangerousPanda
Lecen has been warned again and again to stop mischaracterizing the reasons behind Marshal's topic ban. He has been advised that making such false statements constitutes a personal attack. Yet again, he mischaracterizes those reasons. Is there any GOOD reason why Lecen is not currently indefinitely blocked for a) continual personal attacks, b) massive battleground behaviour, and c) what now appears to be an utter inability to act and behave within the community norms that they agreed to? Any desires to comment on someone else's requests, based on their history of making false and unfounded comments on users across the board, is simply spurious and unacceptable.  ES  &#38;L  11:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * @Lecen : Accusing me of being "on the same team" with Marshal would show that you really don't know how pissed off Marshal was about a decision that I was involved with about an article. Let's just say that Marshal clearly didn't like me so much at the time LOL.  I don't "side" with anyone - and suggestions that I a) hold grudges, b) run in a pack are suggestions that don't hold up under even the most basic of scrutiny.  Oh, and retirement or not, we all know you're reading this :-)   ES  &#38;L  12:50, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * @Arbs: is there a simple motion that can finish this off? Something along the lines of "All parties are reminded that they are subject to an WP:IBAN, and all restrictions of that ban.  Lecen is reminded that re-interpreting ArbComm decisions to portray another editor in a bad light is both uncivil and a personal attack.  Further such behaviours will lead to standard escalating blocks through regular admin action".  This should prevent such problems in the future  D  P  10:08, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Cambalachero
I think that this request is completely pointless. The discussion where the interaction ban was enforced has been over since months ago, and there is no ongoing discussion where Lecen can't comment. He says "Cambalachero asks for his topic ban to be lifted", which is not true. I am not asking for that anywhere. If I ask for that someday, then that day he can simply ask some arbitrator for an exception, and it may be granted or not according to the circumstances of the moment and the arbitrator's best judgement. Or perhaps I will never request that: I may leave wikipedia in discontent, be blocked for some other issue, have to leave for real-life issues such as getting married or having sons, or lost the interest in history; and in either case Lecen would not need to say anything about anything.

Now, as for the request itself: all the drama after the topic ban that led to the interaction ban was precisely located here, not in our user talk pages or other project pages. By the way, I requested the interaction ban, not him, see here. So, making an exception only for Arbitration discussions is precisely returning to the very problem that we initially tried to fix with it. Still, there is a point in that he should have the right to take part in discussions about a case that he initiated. There's a possible solution: allow him to take part in such discussion, if it ever takes place, but focusing on some of the conditions drafted at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Archive 8. Basically, zero unsupported allegations, provide evidence without histrionics, no misrepresentation of evidence. And I might add, comments stricly focused on whatever it is being requested, and not using the discussion as an excuse to vent old grudges, pass judgements over other editors or praise himself. Those rules should apply for the 3 of us (Lecen, MarshalN20 and me), and enforced when needed. Under this conditions, I may accept Lecen to take part in such discussions. I leave it up to Arbitrators to decide if such rules should apply to this specific case or became a standard for all Arbitration discussions.

By the way, I would feel more confident in thinking that Lecen may follow such rules if he edits his original request here and remove all the parts of it that would go against those proposed rules. Cambalachero (talk) 13:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * My apologies if I commited a mistake replying in this amendment request. I will do as the Arbitrators say. Cambalachero (talk) 14:39, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Wee Curry Monster
I must admit to being unsurprised that this case continues to fester. I felt the original ruling by Arbcom failed to address the issue of battlefield behaviour based on my interaction with User:Lecen at Talk:Paraguayan War here back in 2012. A very minor comment of mine, pointing out the article name Paraguayan War was a minority term used predominantly in Brazil and that the predominant term in the English language was the War of the Triple Alliance prompted this bizarre response. I commented on his WP:BATTLEFIELD mentality during the arbcom case. I see nothing has changed.

If you are unfamiliar with Latin American history you may not be aware of the Revisionista movement in Argentine history, which seeks to revisit historical events from a Peronist perspective. It is a revisionist approach to history that to a certain extent rewrites historical accounts to fit a modern political agenda. An example would be the perspectives on Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, who is regarded rather differently by the Revisionistas where he is generally regarded in a positive light. The revisionist view is pretty much mainstream in Argentina but not outside of the country. I am not aware of User:MarshalN20 supporting those views and as he is a Peruvian historian this is not entirely unsurprising.

As I see it, there is an unhealthy attitude within WP:BRAZIL, with a group of editors who act in co-ordination. Paraguayan War vs War of the Triple Alliance being one such example, where the article is maintained at a minority term not used in English due to the co-ordinated lobbying of editors is just one example. Its irritating to someone familiar with the subject and in a way damaging albeit in a minor way. At one time I demonstrated the redirect was hit 3 times more often than the article direct, so its not great from a server load perspective. What is of more concern is that having been unable to comment due to the interaction ban, other within this cabal continued to do so. Examples, ,. Lecen has been getting away with battlefield behaviour for years now, it seems that his prodigious output of FA articles has left him immune from criticism, his behaviour is also condoned by those in his group who lament every time he "retires".

The accusations of academic dishonesty have been repeatedly show to be unsustainable. It really is time that this was put to bed and this particular boil lanced. This request for clarification is yet another example of the system being used to continue to cast aspersions rather than a genuine need for any clarification. There needs to be a clear statement that these allegations aren't true and that there will be an exscalating series of blocks if they're repeated. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I regard User:MarshalN20 as a wiki-friend, I make no effort to hide it. If I've felt his actions were inappropriate I've told him so, where I feel he has been unfairly treated I have defended him.  An important difference is that where Marshal has been wrong, I would never defend him.


 * As regards User:Cambalachero, even at our most charitable, neither of us would describe the other in friendly terms. We strongly disagree on a number of matters and have clashed on many occasions.  Its simply another example of how Lecen's battlefield mentality sees conspiracy against him everywhere.


 * To accuse User:EatsShootsAndLeaves of anything is simply bizarre and a further example of a battlefield mentality that sees conspiracies against User:Lecen everywhere. As can be seen here he favours neither Marshal or myself, he has simply commented because he saw inappropriate behaviour. Wee Curry Monster talk 16:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Kahastok
The original Arbcom case does not state, suggest or imply that Marshal was topic banned for "systematically spreading misinformation on several articles related to Latin American History". OTOH it does find as a matter of principle that "[i]t is unacceptable for an editor to continually accuse another of egregious misbehavior in an attempt to besmirch their reputation" - which is what Lecen is doing here. The fact that he repeats the attack in his request demonstrates why the ban is needed.

Lecen is appealing the scope of the interaction bans, not the topic bans. He does not need to comment on the reasons for the topic bans to make his argument. And these sorts of attacks are precisely the sort of the behaviour the interaction ban is in place to prevent. I would suggest that the spirit of WP:BANEX does not allow editors appealing an interaction ban to throw around accusations unrelated to the appeal about the editors with whom they are banned from interacting. So IMO the original comment should also be treated as an interaction ban violation. Kahastok talk 20:04, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Generally with interaction bans, there isn't a problem with the interaction ban itself being discussed. I'd see that as the case here too - in situations where a party requests the interaction ban be lifted, then I would expect the other party to be able to comment on whether or not it should be lifted. However, should either Cambalachero or MarshalN20 ask for their topic ban lifted, I would not expect Lecen commenting. That line is clear to me. In the same way, it seems clear to me that Lecen has again breached their topic ban with comments about Cambalachero and MarshalN20 that are not relevant to the interaction ban, the entire first sentence of Lecen's request, for example. Worm TT( talk ) 07:50, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * you may have missed Lecen's own comments at the AE request which firstly went on to further violate the interaction ban and secondly specifically suggested he be blocked for one month (or more) over the matter. Worm TT( talk ) 07:50, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I entirely reject Lecen's proposal that more rancour would be good for the project. Decline. AGK  [•] 21:58, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * All three of the editors under this interaction ban need to learn to ask first and comment later. Ask ArbCom first if you are allowed to initiate arbitration requests, or comment at arbitration requests initiated by the other two editors. Then wait. And only if you are given permission should you then comment. It can be difficult to restrain yourself, but that is the point of an interaction ban (to separate people unable to restrain themselves when interacting). And the distinction between: (i) commenting on a specific request; and (ii) returning to general complaining about the other editors, is an important one. Being unable to distinguish the specific and general matters and keep them separate is another reason why interaction bans are imposed. At most what is needed here is a motion to formalise the 'ask first and wait' principle, and the 'keep things specific and separate, rather than lumped together and general' principle (if this has not already been made clear in previous clarification threads). Carcharoth (talk) 07:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I am open to the idea that there may be cause to further ammend this decision, but not in the way being asked for in this request. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Lecen was previously blocked for one month for allegedly violating the interaction ban by commenting on a thread on this page. Lecen opened that very comment by stating that he believed the comment was permissible, but that someone should tell him if it wasn't. In my view it was at least in a gray area, but an enforcement request was made against him anyway, and the one-month block ensued. Given that Lecen had suggested in good faith that he'd withdraw his comment if it were deemed to be disallowed, and that that he had no previous AE blocks, I thought this block was misguided or at least excessive, and had it been appealed to us, I would likely have voted to reverse it. (See my comment here). As for the current request, the interaction bans that were adopted state that they are subject to the "ordinary exceptions", which include "engaging in legitimate and necessary dispute resolution, that is, addressing a legitimate concern about the ban itself in an appropriate forum. Examples include: asking an administrator to take action against a violation of an interaction ban by the other party (but normally not more than once); asking for necessary clarifications about the scope of the ban; appealing the ban." I can understand why Lecen thinks that if the other parties to the Argentine history case were to ask for their restrictions to be modified, he is an interested party with regard to such request, as the person who brought attention to allegedly improper editing in a topic-area unfamiliar to most of us to our attention. The question presented here, which I identify rather than answer, is how, if at all, we can gain the benefit of Lecen's substantive knowledge without renewing the feuding and name-calling that led to the interaction ban in the first place. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:45, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * We appear to have lost Lecen as an editor over the handling of this situation. This is very unfortunate and disappointed, but it probably makes this request moot. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:38, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * My opinion is that this request should be declined with the stern warning that future comments by Lecen about either party will lead to sanctions. If and when one of them asks for his sanction to be lifted, then Lecen may ask, without making comments concerning the requester's conduct, to be allowed to take part in the discussion. Salvio Let's talk about it! 11:52, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think a motion such as the one you propose would be a productive use of our time. I'm sure we have made our opinion rather clear. Anyway, to recap: the request for amendment has apparently been declined and the interaction ban is still in place as originally imposed. Any violation thereto may be sanctioned through AE. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:26, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Clarification request: Rich Farmbrough (April 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) at 08:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)
 * Notification
 * Notification
 * Notification
 * Notification
 * Notification
 * Notification


 * I've included the user who filed the request (Fram) as well as the admins who discussed it for notification purposes. I haven't included all users who commented, I'll leave that up to the arbs and clerks if they believe it necessary.

Statement by Callanecc
submitted an arbitration enforcement request regarding some recent edits by. I've copied the applicable contents of that request below so that they are recorded here with this request, I won't copy Rich's statement across in case he wishes to say something different in this context.


 * 1) 04:49 8 April 2014: whether the original page was created using automation may be hard to prove (although everything points in that direction as well). But this subsequent edit is clearly not manually made. Every instance of " (*" (an opening bracket preceded by a space, plus every character after that on the same line) has been removed, no matter if that was wanted or not. The result is that you get changes like:
 * Albategnius (al-Battani) (1333*) to [[Albategnius
 * Alhazen (al-Haitam) (2490*) to [[Alhazen
 * Alicia (344*) Boole (340*) to [[Alicia
 * Julia (1945*) Bowman (1924*) to [[Julia
 * ibn Sina (1984*) (1965*) to [[ibn Sina
 * Anna (530*) Johnson (516*) to [[Anna
 * Lord (2752*) Kelvin (2702*) to [[Lord
 * Leonardo of Pisa (2250*) (2223*) to [[Leonardo of Pisa

And about ten further instances of the same pattern. Perhap others will see this as a manual edit nevertheless, but to me it certainly matches "For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so.".
 * 1) 06:27 6 April 2014 This one is taken from the end of this document, pages 104-105 (or from a different site with the same information and formatting, his page lists no source); note how, in Rich's article, four companies have a name ending in (a); 79 TOTAL Deutschland GmbH(a), Germany, 191 TOTAL Petrochemicals & Refining S.A. / NV(a), Belgium, 192 TOTAL Petrochemicals & Refining USA Inc. (a), United States, and 207 TOTAL UK Limited (a), United Kingdom. These just happen to be the same four companies that have a "*" after their name in the original document, indicating a footnote for "multi-segment entities". It seems unlikely that Rich Farmbroug made the same typo four times, matching exactly these four "starred" companies, the only ones to have that extra bit.
 * User:Fram, Special:Permalink/603418882

The administrators discussing the enforcement request could not agree if using the find and replace function meets the criteria set down by the Committee and if it does what an appropriate sanction would be. Given the disagreement regarding this and considering the Committee's motion that further violations will likely lead to a site-ban I thought it was best to refer this to the Committee for appropriate action. I'll close the AE request with a message that I've referred the issue to here. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It's not asking for it to be rescinded at all, it's asking if the Committee considers it to be a violation and if they do then asking them to take action. That's becasue the highest sanction AE can hand down (a one year block) has already been applied and hasn't worked, therefore it's the Committee's turn to decide whether to block again or enact the site-ban they threatened. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:08, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by John Vandenberg
I was just about to close this as a 'close call but not actionable', but I was too slow and was edit conflicted twice, so I will post my draft closure decision here.

Most of the other admins here believe this doesnt fit within the arbitration committees decision, for a variety of reasons. Only Sandstein sees it that way, but I dont think it is healthy for him to be the leading enforcement admin on the third AE regarding Rich in a row. Given the other input to this AE, I dont think this is worth a clarification request. If Rich is trying to see how much he can get away with, it wont be long before there will be more a actionable AE request. These diffs are different from previous two reported to AE, and the general thrust of prior editing problems. The first diff is userspace, which should be ignored unless it is disruptive due to side effect on other users, which hasnt been claimed here. The second diff is a list article created by Rich (articles of this type are often created offline by manipulating other datasets) and the very minor issues in the initial version are within acceptable levels given the size of the page. It would have been easy to miss those '(a)'s even in a close review of the wikitext. If Rich regularly leaves small bits of junk in new content pages, this would be actionable, but not for just one instance. Rich, if you are going to create articles in this manner, I strongly suggest that you first of all push the data elements into Wikidata, and extract the data from there to obtain your draft wikitext table to be incorporated into the new Wikipedia article. That will reduce errors like the one Fram found, as it separates data extraction from data reporting, and utilises Wikidatas datatypes to validate the data. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:04, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein
Considering the surprisingly intense disagreement among administrators (and other users of unclear involvedness) responding to the AE request, I recommend that the Committee examine whether the restrictions imposed in Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough should continue to apply as written (in which case, in my view, Rich Farmbrough's apparent use of search-and-replace functionality violates the restrictions and should lead to an enforcement block), whether the site ban announced in the decision as a likely consequence of violations should be imposed, or whether the sanction should be modified or lifted.

I have not followed the original case and therefore express no opinion as to whether or to which degree the restrictions are (still) needed to prevent damage or disruption to the project.  Sandstein  10:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by DangerousPanda/EatsShootsAndLeaves
I do implore ArbComm to review this situation, determine if the supposed transgression was indeed a transgression, and if it was, cast your stones upon the transgressor in the manner that you see fit.

Let me start by saying that I do not believe that I have been one of Rich's supporters in the past.

Personally, I find the AE Enforcement filing to have been distasteful, inappropriate, and simply "someone looking for a reason - weak as it was - to get Rich booted". In that light, I would actually desire sanctions imposed that would prevent such divisive and inappropriate behaviour from ever happening again, be it WP:IBAN, blocks, whatever. No editor should be targetted so regularly, and for such small things.

I suppose the predecessor to that, however, will be determining if using Find...Replace is considered to be an "automated tool" to make "automated edits", in contravention of the meaning and spirit of RF's restrictions.

I don't want to sound like a wikilaywer, but you'll also have to define what "editing Wikipedia" means. Is it the action of clicking "save" once? Or, is it sitting down, reading, searching, referencing, typing, copying/pasting over an entire editing session. For example, I may make some edits, go to ANI, use CTRL-F and search for a specific report, make some comments, go elsewhere and make article edits ... is all of this considered to be "editing Wikipedia", or just the few times I clicked "save" - this is important, because if I have a restriction against using a so-called "automated tool", and you consider Find...Replace to be "automated", then so is using CTRL-F because it prevents me from having to manually scan a page of words using my own eyes. If CTRL-F is "automated", I'll bet you'll need to block Rich a dozen times a day.

You'd then have to define if Copy...Paste is also an automated tool? Always? Sometimes? Never? It depends? For example, if I go to the article on Trinidad and Tobago right now, select a small amount of text, copy it, open the article on Tobago and paste it in ... am I using an "automated tool" because it prevents me from having to type the words manually? If copy and paste between articles is verboten as automated in that case, what about when I go to the top of the page and highlight the entire URL of the page I'm looking at, then paste it into a new browser window ... was that a use of an automated tool while editing Wikipedia?

Define the differences? Is there a difference between an "automated tool" and an "editing tool", or an "automated process", or "automated edits".

So, yeah, I was a bit cheesed off last evening when I saw the AE Enforcement request as I considered it petty, wrong, and harassment. So please, clarify for everyone edits, editing, automated proccesses and editing tools. Then, you'll need to cast stones in one of 2 directions ... or both. ES &#38;L  11:29, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * @Fram: I'm one of your more vocal opponents? No, I grew up many years ago and don't play that game.  You dropped by my talkpage, became offensive, I shut it down, case closed.  Grudges are something that children hold.  So, to close you down once is not being "a vocal opponent".  To be forced to restate the same thing to you every time you re-hash the same stupid "he hates me" thing, again, it doesn't make me a "vocal opponent".  You're the one bringing it up again and again, not me - which forces me to say over and over again "no, wrong".  ES  &#38;L  12:33, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Beyond My Ken
The ArbCom remedy in the Rich Farmbrough case is quite clear. It (Remedy 2) says: "Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so . (emphasis added)" While some of the admins at AE expressed surprise that search-and-replace would fall under this definition, there can actually be no argument that a software routine which makes edits as specified by a human editor is not a manual edit, but the use of automation. Search-and-replace is so familiar to us that we don't think of it that way, but this is nonetheless true.

So, given the clarity of the remedy, and the fact that search-and-replace is undeniably automation, what's being asked for here is, in fact, not really a clarification of the remedy, but the rescinding of it, because it seems "nonsensical" to some. Perhaps they are right, perhaps it is "nonsensical" -- but it is also abundantly clear, and has been already used to block Farmbrough for a year. There is no difference here, despite Farmbrough's attempt to Wikilawyer the remedy into submission by reference to a definition of automation used in a different part of the Committee's decision (Principle 3.1), which does not and cannot overide the clear definition of automation given in the remedy.

Given all this, the Committee should reaffirm its previous remedy and sanction Rich Farmbrough appropriately. BMK (talk) 11:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * As to what an "appropriate" sanction might be, reading the Arb comments to this point, I'd say that sentiment is leaning towards RF's actions being a clear violation of the remedy, but perhaps only a technical one, and that having taken place in his userspace mitigates the violation somewhat.   Therefore, I suggest that the Committee impose a significant block - say for a month - with a clear notice to RF that any boundary-exploration anywhere on Wikipedia, with no exceptions, will result in an immediate site ban, enforceable at AE.  I think that would be a loud and clear message to RF, who can then decide if he is interested in continuing to edit here under those conditions. BMK (talk) 12:03, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Fram
EatsShootsandLeaves starts with "Let me start by saying that I do not believe that I have been one of Rich's supporters in the past.", but forgots to add that he is one of my more vocal opponents, having forbidden me to go to his talk page in the future, and concluding "Just when one thinks that someone is improving as a person AND as an editor - WHAM! - they fuck it up badly (✉→BWilkins←✎) 14:00, 25 June 2013 (UTC)" When one points out that one is an objective commentator, it may be more correct to indicate the position one has about both editors, certainly when he concludes "Then, you'll need to cast stones in one of 2 directions ... or both.", as if the possibility that no stones will be cast doesn't exist. As for the substance of his comments: the difference between his examples and what happened here is that the result is what counts; how you browse or read pages is of no consequence, how you find things is your business, but if someone chooses to replace hundreds of instances of "A" with "B" in one unsupervised go, including some "A"s that shouldn't have been replaced, then yes, that is automation as defined in the rstriction, and similar to the one that led to the previous year-long block. What message are you trying to send with wanting to silence the one person that did most of the legwork in establishing that there was a pattern of problematic editing in the first place, and who corrected hundreds of such edits after the case ended and it became obvious that no one else would? Fram (talk) 12:08, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@EatsShootsandLeaves "close you down once" = told me not to come to your talk page again, with the clear wish that some other admin would block me if I did. "To be forced to restate the same thing to you every time you re-hash the same stupid "he hates me" thing, again, it doesn't make me a "vocal opponent".": let me count the ways: "restate", "same", "every time", "rehash", "same", and "again" in one sentence (and a few more in the next), wow, there must have been countless times I have made such "he hates me" statements. Shouldn't be too hard to find a few examples then. As far as I can remember, I raised the issue once before this. Please refresh my memory on all these other times. Fram (talk) 12:57, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@Everyone who thinks I shouldn't be the one making these reports. While I can see your point, the problem is that the mantra some people use of "someone else will see it" isn't correct. As an example: I opened Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough in April 2012, and it closed on 15 May 2012. Lots of his edits (account and bots) were scrutinised at the time, but even so, a long series of errors (first made from his account as an unapproved bot test, then ran as an approved but buggy bot task) wasn't found until some weeks after the case closed (and then only accidentally, because I was checking edits made by another user, User:Jaguar), and then corrected. I started these corrections on 30 May 2012 and finished a few hundred error corrections later on 5 June 2012. I have no interest in waiting until such things happens again, so I try to prevent this by checking early. It is not really logical that the "reward" for researching a case, bringing evidence, showing the harm done by the problems, convincing people through a long and laborious process (with lots of abuse from some people), and correcting the problems, is that one would not be allowed to follow up on it, to check that the problems don't start again, and even get threatened with an interaction ban by an admin (I thought that usually for an interaction ban, a series of problematic interactions should be established, not someone repeatedly but correctly pointing out problems with the edits by another user). Obviously, if the conclusion of the Arbs is that userspace edits, or single page edits, are not actionable under the restriction, then I will not bring such edits to AE again. But whether an edit is a violation is not dependent on who reports it. Fram (talk) 07:33, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Exasperation by NE Ent
Arbcom '12 messed this up. "Automation" is one of those words that we bandy about without thinking about too much -- it seems to have some sort of meaning so we're comfortable using it. It's a vague general nebulous concept, not something that is crisp and well understood. As an intentionally absurd argument, consider: on 4 April RF edited [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Poundworld&diff=prev&oldid=602721301 Poundworld], and since that time maybe 200 folks have viewed that page. Did RF make that edit 200 times -- no, it's automation! Or the text substitution of a template is (or isn't), or the spell check built into the browser -- at one point Arbcom '12 members were arguing about whether that counted or not.

"may make reasonable inferences regarding the probable use of such tools on the basis of several factors, including the speed, number, timing, and consistency of the edits". Okay, so what if RF makes a series of 20 edits that are exactly 18 seconds apart? What if the 20 edits vary from 17 to 19 seconds, but are uniformly distributed instead of Gaussian -- or should "normal" editing be a Poisson distribution???

More ridiculous examples upon request.

The bottom line is that, despite Arbcom '12s good intentions, it is just inherently unreasonable to use "reasonably" in a remedy that references something as ill-defined as "automation." I think Arbcom '14 has to open this back up and provide a remedy that is clearly and unequivocally understood.

Note: I commented in the case pages under prior username Nobody Ent NE Ent 13:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a absurd land whose boundaries are that of inanity. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Wikipedia Zone! 
 * Back in 1985 I had an Okidata 92 dot matrix printer hooked up to a Commodore 64 and some word processing package I've forgotten the name of; I remember how incredibly cool it was to be able fix things before committing them to paper as the human powered typewriter I had been using did. I'm sure there was a search and replace function. That was years ago. It had a search and replace function. It's 2014 folks. It's not that the restriction is trying to make RF "edit like a human," it's  forbidding him to. (At least a human of the third millennia CE.) Only on Wikipedia would the archaic "type weird symbols into a html text box" be considered "using an editor." There is a real world out there folks, can we try to act like we're part of it, maybe?
 * If Rich's past wiki-transgressions are so heinous that he can't be trusted not to fall off the wagon and run a bot tomorrow if he uses spell-check etc. today, just end the farce already and site ban him. NE Ent 01:37, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Additional statement
What said. NE Ent 11:35, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Ohconfucius
The devil lies in the detail. The Arbcom definition of automation cited above remains very subjective and leaves a lot to be desired. In truth, our notions of what constitutes automation evolves with the state of technology. My take is that in today's world, where we rely on computers to do routine and mundane things, performing calculations (instead of longhand or mental arithmetic) or copy–paste (instead of handwriting) is so off-the-scale in terms of what might reasonably be defined or considered "automation". Clicking on the undo button for a series of articles is equally not automation. The beginning of true automation lies somewhere between running a single regex and a 20-regex script over more than a small handful of articles. The edits brought here as examples look like one-off edit of one single and simple regex at worst. Poundworld is not an automated edit. Even if this were in mainspace, it's the product of a simple regex that I'd be inclined to dismiss as a piss-take. This extraction seems like something that can be manipulated with a spreadsheet or word processor. It seems so limited end of my definition that it would be unreasonable to consider it a breach. In addition, RF's editing seems not to have fallen foul of the "speed, number, timing, and consistency of the edits" criteria either. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 15:40, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm in total agreement with the statement by Thryduulf, which is a concern also raised by NYB. Although motion3 looks like passing, arbs' authority is founded on their reasonableness as well as effectiveness of their individual and collective decisions. I would urge the arbs to carefully reconsider and at least try and answer the full set of Thryduulf's questions. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 07:12, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge
I'll repeat what I said at AE: I hadn't planned on commenting, but I am taken aback by the suggestion that Find and Replace searches aren't automated searches edits. As a software developer for the past 15+ years, I can say that using a text editor's search and replacement feature is absolutely an automated process and one that requires special attention to each and every edit. While I don't know the specifics of RF's ArbCom history, apparently this user has screwed this up so many times that the community has decided that they cannot be trusted to do this again. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:01, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough
I have little to add to what has been said, at the moment.

I would just like to remind Arbitrators (or point out if they didn't already know it) that it is not pleasant having people impugn one's motives at the best of times.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 23:32, 9 April 2014 (UTC).

@Harry: "Write an article..." what are John Valentine Wistar Shaw and Cayley's Sextic, chopped liver? And what is chopped liver anyway? All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 01:39, 11 April 2014 (UTC).

@Roger: You ask:

"If you're able only to edit by typing into a box and pressing [save page], does editing Wikipedia have any long-term attraction at all for you?

Or, to put it another way, are you simply marking time here, until the moment when your bot privileges are restored?"

Here are two completely different questions, both, if I may say so, rather confused. I think I made it clear in my email to the committee that I am mainly catching up on edits I wanted to make while I was blocked. And I think I also made it clear, that just because I ran bots and used tools, it did not mean that I was not a content creator - albeit overshadowed in my fields by people like Matt Crypto, Charles Matthews, MIcahel Hardy, Oleg Alexander, etc.. I do not like to sit comparing dozens of pairs of texts as if I were searching for V1 launch sites (perhaps an apt comparison). However I do like to see the encyclopaedia improved. I find it strange that people would fix an error without asking themselves "How widespread is this sort of problem" and "How can we prevent it happening" and "How can ewe fix it everywhere?" So does Wikipedia hold a long term attraction for me? Yes, if we are talking in the realms of a few years, I will continue to fix errors whether they are substantive such as this, or stylistic. I will even search them them out, so for example the previous mentioned error was discovered after finding a dubious statement supported by unreliable sources in one article, that was also present in about ten other articles. These statements are linked to the Jagged 85 case, which means they have been on Wikipedia for 6 years and are propagating across the Internet and print media, and back into other WP articles. (We do not have the manpower to deal with this sort of thing, despite tremendous efforts by some editors - kicking out someone who might make a contribution there seems crazy.)

Similarly I tagged some 3000 incorrect ISBNs in 2012, 2600 of them remain (and probably some have only had the tag removed) and another 3-4000 ISBN errors have been made since. As far as I know, no-one has made a concerted effort to fix these in my two years absence. I am most of the way through fixing the 24 Featured Articles, and have fixed about a dozen others, including some of the 100 odd Good Articles. In the process I have done the following:


 * 1) Edited by typing into a box and pressing [save page]
 * 2) Copied text from the edit window to use elsewhere
 * 3) Copied text from the page to use elsewhere
 * 4) Cut text by selecting it and pressing Ctrl-X
 * 5) Replaced text by selecting it and typing
 * 6) Pasted text from elsewhere
 * 7) Moved the caret by using the mouse
 * 8) Selected text using the control and arrow keys
 * 9) Used the scroll bar on the edit box

In the process of writing Cayley's sextic I also used the "Greek" gadget to insert π and θ (knowing full-well that there exits some combination of "alt" and numbers that will generate the symbol). I also cut-and-pasted the details of the references. And above, I cut and pasted the url of a diff.

So really the type of edit that is prohibited by the motion that is responding to my two mis-clicks in 2012 is pretty much inclusive of any serious editing. "But nobody would be such a jerk as to invoke the restriction for edits like this" I hear you cry. That, of course, is exactly what I thought. The purpose of this over-broad restriction, was to prevent what was seen as (perhaps reasonably) a work-around to previous restriction. In fact it provided another layer of "gotchas". I wonder if you can imagine what it is like working under these restrictions, and having people who don't know the facts say like "violation of all manner of BotOp, administrator, and consensus policies" or "apparently this user has screwed this up so many times".

The fact of the matter is, that, rightly or wrongly, the committee wanted to stop me using "automation tools", defined as "a technology designed to facilitate making multiple similar edits" - and this has resulted in me being blocked for a year over a single edit that provided references to an article, the only problem with that edit being a single character that was typed (or not typed, I forget) by hand. This was not, I believe the aim of the restriction.

So does editing Wikipedia hold any attraction? If people are going to edit cooperatively, then sure. If they are going to throw obstacles in my path for the sake of it, then not so much.

Am I marking time? Hardly! I think I have been pretty productive, I have in your area of interest, created at least stubs, or redirects for half the articles on this list. I have yet to attend to this problem with Elliot Roosevelt, and, have abandoned for now planned improvements to Carolingian Renaissance, because of the time I am spending on this, but please look at the work I have done in the last 2 weeks. It only scratches the surface, of course, but it is at least workmanlike, and an improvement. I also have spent some time at Teahouse and Help Desk, (which are the fora for being welcoming, rather than abrasive).

As to Fram's pathetic claim that he is forced to run around after me fixing my errors, I have always said that I will fix any errors brought to my attention. Fram reported three minor errors (two typos) on Jimbo Wales talk page, while I was blocked. Fixing them was the first thing I did when my block expired - Fram was happy to hunt for them to besmirch my name, but not to tell me about it. Similarly the Arb case was brought as a BLP issue - the world was about to implode because we were revealing who had had sock allegations made against them (this was debunked pretty quickly)   my fourth edit was to address that issue. Although it was apparently vital enough that I should be whipped about town, have my rights removed etc. no-one was actually concerned enough to make sure that these details weren't exposed - except me. By their fruits shall ye know them.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 18:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC).

@ 2: "The purpose is to permanently wean Rich off high speed edits with collateral damage to a slower considered style where every edit moves the article forward and requires no external intervention to fix." It would be interesting to see how either of the edits complained about contravene this purpose. Notably one is not to an article, and could never be an article, the other complaint is based on some crazy hypotheses that I would replace all occurrences of "(a)" with "*". RF 22:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

@: No one has pointed out why these edits are "problematic". No one has pointed to any editing since the arb case that is problematic. Sure I worked on a lot of turtle articles, and using the same reference format as a colleague introduced a reference with a capitalisation error in it ("Vertebrate zoology" instead of "Vertebrate Zoology") into many of them. But it was correcting the error I was sanctioned for, not creating it.

Similarly the one year block which resulted from your previous "go ahead" to Sandstein was for adding references to an article. One. Article. Not for "making many similar edits to many articles" and certainly the only error there was a single character that was typed (or omitted, I forget which) by hand.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 22:58, 11 April 2014 (UTC).

A number of people have suggested that I am "testing my limits" or "pushing the envelope" - this simultaneously ascribes a level of both stupidity and bad faith that verges on bad faith and personal attacks - so much for claims to be "dispassionate".

Strange as it seems when I am editing my mind is not on "testing the limit" (which would be playing Russian roulette) or "not acting like a human" (which is a nasty turn of phrase), but helping people. I did not create Cayley's sextic out of some perverse desire to annoy ArbCom, but because it is an useful article. I did not clean up copy-violations such as Hidden Blade because I am "testing my limits", but because they break the law. I did not remove incorrect claims from articles as an act of defiance, but because they are misleading. I am not creating pages for Trinidad and Tobago portal to annoy other editors, but to be welcoming to Trinidadians and Tobagans. I am not working on [[Igbo] culture out of a sense of spite, but to redress systemic flaws in our coverage. I am not fixing ISBN numbers to... but you get the picture.  Or I hope you do.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 03:27, 13 April 2014 (UTC).

@ I do wish people would stop telling me what I am thinking. It is bad enough having them make inaccurate statements about my actions. It seems likely that I will continue to edit on this project in my own small way, in whatever ways the community and I agree are reasonable and desirable. I have just produced some code that will, I hope, assist another editor to fix 11,000 articles. Of course I published it off-wiki. And I have just produced for another editor a list of over 5,000 red-linked palaeontology articles, also published off-wiki, under CCBYSA3. I I have also helped editors gain massive speed-ups on their bots, and use semi-automated tools to make impossible tasks feasible. I don't really care, for myself, if I never run another bot on this project, there are other, just as important and much harder things that need doing. I do, however, care deeply about the following three things:


 * 1) That the project be as accurate, clear and wide ranging as possible
 * 2) That the project be a welcoming place, specifically to those with limited English, those with accessibility issues, those with mental health issues, and regardless of demographic.
 * 3) That the project not publish falsehoods about me.  Perhaps this is rather shallow of me, and it should all be water off a ducks back, but that is how I feel.

It seems to me common sense, given the wide community support here, that the type of disruptive stalking that started the AE (and a host of other like actions before it) should be put a stop to once and for all, and that the Motion of May 2012 is long past its sell-by date, serves no useful purpose (if it ever did) and should be gracefully retired.

Thank you for reading this, Rich Farmbrough, 04:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Orlady (uninvolved)
I would like Arbcom to revise/clarify the restriction to allow use of copy-and-paste in user space. Rich's recent edits clearly did violate the restriction as worded, but it appears to me that the wording of the restriction went beyond the scope of what was called for in the Arbcom discussion. Using copy-and-paste tools in Wikipedia user space is indeed a violation of the restriction as worded, but I can't see how it does any harm. However, it harms Wikipedia's image (i.e., Wikipedia looks pretty foolish) if Wikipedia blocks or bans a productive contributor for that kind of edit. --Orlady (talk) 19:28, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Olive (not involved)
The real question ought to be, in an environment that is not punitive,  whether  Rich knew he was trespassing on an Arb Com restriction. I don't see that he did in which case he should be warned that this too is a way in which he cannot edit, rather than punish for ignorance, especially when even the arbs do not agree on whether he trespassed his restrictions. How can you sanction someone for not knowing. If that is the WP environment than as a collaborative project this fails. Further the tone of some of the arbs, and I do respect the job arbs have to do, is less than civil or respectful. That an editor may have transgressed does not mean they deserve to be treated in a less than respectful manner.(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:36, 10 April 2014 (UTC))

Statement by Harry Mitchell
My first thought on seeing that this had come up again was "oh, for fuck's sake", which is still a fairly accurate summary of how I feel.

Fram: move on. You've been following Rich around for years, and if you subjected anybody to the sort of scrutiny you've been subjecting Rich to, you could find grounds to sanction them. I thoroughly endorse Beeblebrox's suggestion that you find something else to do. If Rich is a problem and continues to be so after this clarification request, others will pick up where you left off and, frankly, the complaints would have a lot more credibility if they weren't all made by the same person.

Rich: go and write an article or something. I'd love for you to keep participating in this project, but you do so on the terms of its community or not at all. It is difficult to imagine that community (or its representatives on ArbCom, think of them what you will) permitting you, at any time in the foreseeable future, to edit in a way that involves mass changes to multiple articles, such as with AWB and/or bots. I can see the argument that the current restriction is overly harsh or cumbersome, but you are not going to get it lifted by testing its boundaries, and even if you succeed in having it loosened, you will still not be permitted to make those sorts of edits. So I'm afraid your options for the time being are either to find something else to do which is permitted by your restrictions, or to find another way to fill your time. Don't just while away the time until you can get back to what you used to do, because (quite apart from the fact that you'll be waiting for many years at the very least) that's not healthy for you or for the project.

Arbs: I don't think there's much to be done for the time being. Either Rich will find something that he can work on without violating his restrictions, or he has no interest in contributing in a way that the community finds acceptable. Much as I hope it's the former, whatever the case, his intentions will soon become apparent. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  20:11, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq
Rich should not do a search-and-replace in an article to rearrange whitespace or anything else—just edit text that will benefit from editing, and leave bot-like cleanups for others.

However, no bot-like cleanup has occurred in this case, and there is no reason to prevent Rich from doing search-and-replace while preparing an article in user space. Sanctioning an editor for saving a bad user-page draft would be Kafkaesque. Johnuniq (talk) 23:29, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Redrose64
As I understand it, Rich is being condemned for making edits that are "clearly not manually made"; to wit, using a regular expression search-and-replace.

If a logged-in user goes to, and enables both "" and "", they get the button when editing - it's close to the upper right corner of the edit window. This, when clicked, opens a dialog box for a search-and-replace function which handles regular expressions. It has buttons  ; the operation of these should be familiar to anybody who has used, for example, Windows Notepad. Automated process it may be; but then, so is the action that is triggered by clicking [edit],, or - or by simply following a wikilink. These set in motion a number of SQL requests - they are automated processes.

I recall that Rich was required to blank his .js pages: I am not aware of any requirement that he should also disable features included within the standard MediaWiki interface. I think that it is unreasonable to expect Rich to use a subset of those standard facilities which are available to any logged-in editor. He may have been required to disable all gadgets - but the abovementioned search-and-replace function isn't a gadget.

The intent of the original judgement was surely to prevent Rich from making identical edits on multiple pages in a short time frame - edits that might violate, say, WP:AWB. The interpretation of this judgement has been twisted to the point that Rich cannot even make one edit to one page without it coming under scrutiny. No evidence has been provided that two or more pages have been subjected to identical edits. I would ask how Fram discovered the first edit given in evidence: it's in Rich's userspace (specifically, User:Rich Farmbrough/wanted/mathematicians), and is a page that has never been edited by Fram, so is not likely to be on Fram's watchlist. There are two ways that he can have become aware of that edit: either he is stalking Rich's edits, or was tipped off. I cannot say which of these actually occurred, but it does seem to me that certain parties are out for blood, which they intend to get by any means possible. If the edits that Rich made to a page in his own user space are not in accord with WP:USERSPACE, there are several available routes: (i) edit the page per WP:UP; (ii) put it up for WP:CSD (see WP:UP); (iii) take it to WP:MFD. There is no need to make a whole drama out of a non-issue.

Finally, I would like to point out that one of those complaining made, to this very clarification request; notice that in the added paragraph, it includes the phrases "using a text editor's search and replacement feature ... requires special attention to each and every edit" and "this user has screwed this up so many times". I invite you all to observe what happened to the post immediately preceding the newly-added subsection. How did all those punctuation marks become altered to hash signs, if not by an inattentive screwed-up edit? -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:16, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Italick
The edit in discussion does not appear automated. In any case, it did not require copy, paste, and search. Instead of just looking at the diff and assuming that it is automation, I opened the original page for editing in a window. Then I saw that setting up the new version is merely a matter of deleting numbers and punctuation after each link in the list, and deleting some blank lines. Nothing fancy was needed to do that. Italick (talk) 09:59, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I can see that the edit was automated (or more likely, just intended to look that way), and was a test of the vigilance over Rich Farmbrough's edits. If I was banished for a year over small stuff and had an editing restriction, I too might try to figure out if somebody was scouring over all of my edits in earnest, trying to find a reason to turn me in. Italick (talk) 03:49, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved duckduckstop
well, here we are again. has arbcom learned yet that micromanaging editors is problematic? when will there be civility enforcement toward admins here? i see we have an admin who is blocked at bugzilla, acting the same way here. i have heard it said that editors are a dime a dozen, and replaceable. is this case a refutation? is anyone else fixing isbn's? is a high edit count rather a block me sign, since the error patrol has more to rake over the coals? when you ask if he is "marking time", is that a refutation of fresh start? when you ask why not just edit by typing, is that a refutation of all the tools and bots, most of which have unintended consequences? i note that bots that delete references are allowed to run, but heaven help the bot that adds a typo.

stop blaming the editor, and start fixing the system. if you don't like the editor's output, then give him the tools to reduce errors. this kind of zero defect thinking in this case, is profoundly incompetent. it leads to zero activity, and zero improvement.

and make no mistake, if you were to ever ask, why is there editor decline; this is a clarion call why. Duckduckstop (talk) 19:30, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * @ User:AGK Micromanagement: "micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes or controls the work of subordinates or employees. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation."... "excessive control or attention on details". wouldn't you agree that is what is occuring here?
 * Macromanagement: "macromanager directs a system, first he will focus on the system's entities (such as constraints, rules, information architecture, etc.) and thereafter he will change them so that the system spontaneously moves to the defined aim, i.e. to the new lower potentials which a macromanager has tuned." show me where you changed the system to reduce the conflict here.
 * by your restrictions, are you trolling him to test the boundries? i'm not particularly a fan of bot operators, including this one. but, wouldn't a reasonable person agree that this case has appalled several editors (not just me), and that perceived failure to manage will negatively impact wikipedia? Duckduckstop (talk) 15:44, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by ErikHaugen
Isn't this just a "todo" list of sorts in his own userspace? What reasonable person would think curating a personal todo page could be a violation of the spirit of these restrictions? I'm pretty disappointed that some of you are voting for ~months-long blocks for this. Fram, I appreciate your diligence here, but I'm similarly disappointed that you wasted your time looking over his edits to his userspace; I'd echo the other calls here for you to take a step back. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 03:15, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Pine on the clarification request

 * Consistent with my suggestion on the other clarification request and the views of some arbitrators on that request, I suggest to NativeForeigner that Motion 3 include a statement that Rich is allowed to use a 3rd-party bot to archive his talk pages, and may use copy, cut, paste, replace, and replace-all tools in any namespace without violating the automation restrictions. Restrictions on creating his own bots and using any other automation outside his userspace remain. --Pine✉ 07:41, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I more or less agree with that I don't see how restricting Rich from using limited automation in his userspace is a problem. If his automation ever leaks out of his userspace it's simple to deal with that with a block.
 * I agree with what others have said that micromanaging Rich is a bad idea, it is a poor use of the time of this community and Arbcom, and I encourage those who want to follow Rich's every last edit to look for signs of automation to go create some featured content or work on the copyediting queue. Complaining about Rich to AE or Arbcom when Rich isn't doing anything significantly disruptive amounts to hounding.
 * I agree with blocking Rich if he is creates a significant new disruption to the encyclopedia.
 * I agree that instructing Rich to avoid boundary testing is appropriate.
 * --Pine✉ 06:53, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf
. If I were Newyorkbrad I would feel rather insulted by your comment that "the answer [to why the automation restriction should apply to Rich's userspace] seems obvious." If the answer were obvious then nobody would feel the need to ask the question, particularly not someone as experienced in dispute resolution matters as NYB.

For every sanction imposed on a user, the following questions must have known answers before it is imposed:
 * 1) What is the purpose of the sanction?
 * 2) How does that purpose benefit the encyclopaedia?
 * 3) How will the sanction enable the benefit to the encyclopaedia be realised?
 * 4) Could the same benefit be gained by a narrower sanction? If yes, why has that not been used instead?

At the moment it is not clear what the answer to any of these questions is in relation to Rich not being allowed to use automation in his userspace. There may very well be good answers to all of them, but you need to actually answer them. Thryduulf (talk) 16:17, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).


 * Recuse Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Recuse Rschen7754 18:31, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * I do not see the disputed edits as warranting any sanction. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I remain of this view. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:55, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The restriction is clear (and the edits in question constitute a violation) and it is also draconian. It would not have had to be that draconian if Rich hadn't continued to test the boundaries of his previous sanction. That said, although the disputed edits are indeed a violation, I'd say this is a case of de minimis non curat ArbCom. What worries me, however, is that Rich appears to be once again trying to test the boundaries of his restriction and to be doing so immediately after his previous block expired. So I'm really on the fence, but I think I'll probably go with a warning that further acts with the appearance of boundary testing will not be tolerated. Salvio Let's talk about it! 16:54, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Did Rich's edits violate the letter of the very explicit restrictions he is under? I think they did. Is there any benefit to the project in making a big deal out of him editing anything in his own userspace in this manner? Probably not.
 * Fram: I think you need to find something else to do with your on-wiki time. These prolonged interpersonal disputes reflect badly on all involved.
 * Rich: Stop testing the boundaries of the sanctions. You know this is what you did. You're a long term, highly prolific contributor to this project. We want you to stick around or you would already be banned, but if you insist on playing these little games it may come to that. Is it really so hard to just not make any kind of automated edits? You're better than this, at least I hope you are. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:04, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * As has already been agreed, I consider Rich to have breached his restriction. More to the point, I have little remaining patience for his refusal to abide by the direction that he edit like a human. Taking into account Rich's long record of skirting this automation restriction, I would now recommend sanctioning him. AGK  [•] 21:47, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Your evaluation is deeply flawed. Instructing an editor as sweepingly as "do not make automated edits" is not micromanagement. It is an instruction that is essentially macro in scope. The problem is that Rich refuses to obey the restriction; I'm sure you would agree that ignoring this transgression is not something the committee can do. AGK  [•] 21:49, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

In the general case though, Rich has been back for a short while and has been doing generally good work in that time. He appears to be primarily editing within his restrictions and it's a shame that these automated edits have been made. I'd be very interested to know his answer to Roger's question about the long term. Worm TT( talk ) 10:45, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The edits in question pretty clearly violated his restriction, and as such, I think a sanction would be reasonable here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:18, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The restriction is draconian; it was meant to be. It reflects the committee's and the community's exasperation at (and his enablers') efforts to push the envelope in every direction possible. The intent is to give Rich a-fifth-or-sixth-absolutely-last-chance as an alternative to an indefinite site-ban. The spirit is to ensure that Rich's work comprises: click on [edit], type, then [save page]. The purpose is to permanently wean Rich off high speed edits with collateral damage to a slower considered style where every edit moves the article forward and requires no external intervention to fix.  In this context, the edits here clearly breach the restriction and, coming so soon after a twelve-month block, are deeply disappointing.  Now,, I have a question for you: <ul><li>"If you're able only to edit by typing into a box and pressing [save page], does editing Wikipedia have any long-term attraction at all for you? Or, to put it another way, are you simply marking time here, until the moment when your bot privileges are restored?"</ul>I would like you to be open about your aspirations as it will greatly inform my decision.   Roger Davies  talk 05:02, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . Your long posting really doesn't address my question; after all, you can keep yourself busy while marking time. Based on your email, and your postings elsewhere, it seems clear to me that you will not rest until you're back running bots all over the place, with all the attendant problems that has brought in the past. I am of the view that you now need to move on.  Roger Davies  talk 10:55, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, hi . I don't need to be a mindreader as your comments and actions really do speak for themselves.  Roger Davies  talk 06:20, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * . I agree. Automated and semi-automated edits get little or no scrutiny unless the edits are glaringly stupid or seriously flawed. Even then, the volume is such that it's exceedingly difficult to pick everything up. Given the history here, there is no reason to wait for another ["irregularity", [[User:Roger Davies| Roger Davies ]] talk 09:14, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It looks like Rich probably used an automated technique off-wiki and then copied the results on wiki... to his userspace. Yes, it's a violation but the idea of blocking Rich for a year for a userspace violation seems excessive to me, sanctions should be in proportion to the violation.
 * I agree with several of my colleagues that this is a clear violation of the automation restriction as interpreted and amplified by the motion, and with Roger's explanation of the reasons behind this admittedly draconian restriction. At this point, I have difficulty imagining an editing restriction that would 1) allow Rich Farmbrough to edit, 2) prevent the problematic editing identified in the decision and yet 3) not be susceptible to the sort of envelope-pushing we have seen so far with this automation restriction. Unfortunately, I do not think we have many other options open to us. T. Canens (talk) 22:34, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Motion: Rich Farmbrough



 * Support
 * Proposed. If this violation had occurred outside his userspace, we would surely be site-banning him now: Rich has already had chance after chance. AGK  [•] 10:15, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the violation occurred in user space by accident rather than by design as Rich has not acknowledged that the edit breached his restriction. That said, the breach occurring in userspace provides some mitigation but not exoneration, especially coming so some after a twelve-month ban. The community does not expect the committee to reward intransigence so a block is an appropriate and proportionate response.  Roger Davies  talk 11:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * T. Canens (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:38, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose
 * Personally, I think 1 month would be sufficient. 3 months also seems excessive for this userspace violation, especially given his other edits during the time period. Time away isn't really what's required here, it's enlightenment - I don't believe that spending the additional 2 months away would help Rich to "get it". Hopefully the final statement is what will get through to Rich. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 10:29, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * You have asked in another thread why Rich's restriction has not worked and voted here to not properly enforce after a violation. Are you deliberately undermining your own position? AGK  [•] 14:09, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't believe so, the sanction should be in proportion to the action - 1 month is sufficient when combined with a statement that "even minor issues can lead to indefinite in the future". I would support this if the block was for 1 month. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 14:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * In my view, and consistent with a majority of the AE administrators, the disputed edits do not warrant any sanction. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:40, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I do think Rich violated the restriction, and I do think he did so deliberately in order to test the limits of it. I don't think this solution will actually solve anything. Rich will either learn to stop testing the sanction's limits and be allowed to continue editing, or he will continue and we will have to show him the door. He's already waited put a year-long block. If we do this we've just kicked the can down the road without resolving the underlying issue. Rich: your test worked. Here are the results: no, there are no exemptions to your restrictions and if you even look like you are testing them again a site ban is the likely result. Today, three months from now, whenever. Pushing the boundaries and then asking if it was ok is exactly the wrong way to go about it. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:11, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Salvio Let's talk about it! 17:21, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * These edits were disputed, had (in the end) very little project impact, and ultimately aren't worth blocking for. But I will note that this does look like a recurring trend. NativeForeigner Talk 22:50, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * That there is a "recurring trend" (that seems like a tautology) is why a block is proposed. I've lost count of the number of times Rich Farmbrough, who is just off a one-year block for violating the restriction, has refused to edit without scripts and other automation. AGK  [•] 11:45, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose, but only because another three-month block is not going to do it if a year didn't. If there's any more use of automation of any kind anywhere, it should result in a site ban. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:16, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Abstain


 * Comments by arbitrators

-

Motion: Rich Farmbrough 2



 * Support
 * Beeblebrox (talk) 17:15, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Salvio Let's talk about it! 17:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose
 * Opposing because I believe paragraph 2 is counterproductive; but this is certainly preferable to motion 1. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:47, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Salvio Let's talk about it! 18:02, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not 100% convinced we should turn down the userspace restriction and I certainly wouldn't turn it down because he did things in the wrong order. The second paragraph therefore does not reflect me feelings. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 08:01, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * T. Canens (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:35, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:17, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Abstain
 * Far too weak, but I won't obstruct. AGK  [•] 07:57, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comments by arbitrators
 * Just a note that this is intended to be the official reply to both current requests here. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:46, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * If there is any appetite for it, it would be easy enough to post a third motion that omits the language the opposers are objecting to. Doing absolutely nothing doesn't strike me as a good move at this point. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:58, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

-

Motion: Rich Farmbrough 3



 * Support
 * This removes the problematic paragraph from the above proposed motion two. I also further elaborated that the prohibition applies regardless of namespace. Although I think it can be assumed that the restriction applies regardless of namespace, such clarifications are mildly positive, in my view. Suggestions for modification are welcome from any editors. NativeForeigner Talk 23:00, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Salvio Let's talk about it! 23:13, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Very weak, on account of the subject's recidivism, but I can reluctantly endorse this. (If Motion 1 passes, this vote is an oppose.) AGK  [•] 11:42, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I can accept this, with the proviso that Rich needs absolutely to be more careful in future as the only remain option appears to be an indefinite ban. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 14:21, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Beeblebrox (talk) 15:07, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Second choice to Motion 1. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:44, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This understanding needs to be very clear. Absolutely no more boundary testing. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:18, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose
 * T. Canens (talk) 23:10, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Abstain


 * Comments by arbitrators
 * No one has addressed my question (above in RF's clarification/amendment request thread) as to why the automation restriction should or should not apply in userspace. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:58, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The answer seems obvious. AGK  [•] 14:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)