Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive100

Request concerning Atabəy

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Khodabandeh14 (talk) 21:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: [|AA2 remedies]

I am asking for permanent ban of on Armenia/Iran related topics (and those of Armenia/Iran that overlap with any other topic). Note had the previous name  and has been in two arbcomms, as well as banned permanently from some  topic. [|AA2 remedies]

I would like to bring to attention my attempt to get a third party viewpoint on the discussion in Anti-Turkism as well as the discussion page in Anti-Turkism.
 * Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it :


 * 1) violates WP:NPA WP:NOTBATTLE on two users, specially this quote attacking a third party mediator (not from the region but an expert on history) who gave his opinion.  Atabey states: "@Folantin, instead of pandering to Khodabandeh14's nationalist WP:POV and attempting to insult me".  So a 3rd party user is accused of "pandering to my nationalist POV"!
 * 2)  WP:SOAPBOX  " I personally don't see how Hitler blaming Jews for troubles of Germany in Mein Kampf is different from Ferdowsi demonizing Turanians/Turks vs Persian pride in Shahnameh. One may look more ancient than the other, and no action would have been taken after Shahnameh, simply because Turks ruled Iran at the time. But it does not change the essence of intolerance"  (user is equating a mythological book about mythical battles with Hitler/Mein Kemp which is WP:SOAPBOX] and inflammatory).
 * 3)  violates WP:ATTACK by first bolding the word you and then threatening the user to spend some time in Arbcomm.  "So unless, you, Folantin, (not Khodabandeh with another WP:FORUM) can provide a sensible response to opinions of other authors about Shahnameh being essentially anti-Turkish "bible" of Persian nationalism, you should not be using LOLs, Oh Wells, or worse, calling me a fool. Moreover, if Khodabandeh14 uses your one-sided opinions in formulating an opinion in talk pages, then you should probably spend some time as a party to ArbCom case he is currently pursuing to open - that is taking a position in a handful of edit conflicts that he is involved with pushing POV. ".   Clear violations of WP:NPA and WP:NOTBATTLE.
 * 4)  "It is impossible to conclude that in a country which takes pride of Shahnameh, and where expression "Tork-e khar" (Turkish donkey) is a popular way of insulting ethnic Turks, there is no Turcophobia whatsoever"  WP:SOAP, and WP:NOTBATTLE.
 * 5) "What is more relevant to this article, is that using the word Turk, Ferdowsi anachronisticially attributed to them an image of alien, an enemy. That is a reason why, compounded with numerous Turkic invasions, a deep sense of anti-Turkism is inherited over centuries in Persian-speaking society"  violates WP:SOAP, and WP:NOTBATTLE.  (Note the second part: "That is a reason why..." is not in a source and is a WP:SOAPBOX and WP:NOTBATTLE violation which is not any source.  Basically that is like accusing all blacks to be anti-white or all whites to be anti-black...also not related to the topic at all).
 * 6) " Iam just drawing comparison that by essence of anti-Turkish intolerance that Shahnameh has incited (which is obvious in ongoing edit conflicts of Khodabandeh14 on Turkey-Azerbaijan-Iran related topics), it was not far from Mein Kampf inciting anti-Semitism. You may consider my view in context of Goodwin's law, and I will consider your inability to respond in detail to references above to lack of time or interest. Hence, Khodabandeh14 simply cannot use your view as a conclusive third party opinion on Anti-Turkism. "     (note the user is stating that I am pursuing "anti-Turkish intolerance" which is again violation of WP:SOAPBOX and WP:BATTLE.  He has accused other users priorly of this charge and was one of the reasons he got sanctioned last time.  For example his accusation on Kansas Bear with the charge of Turcophobia:)
 * 7)  I'll bring what a third party user said about the POV pushing. Folantin responding to Atabek's belittling WP:BATTLE/WP:SOAPBOX comment that "is Khodabandeh14 your Spokesperson"?.  Folantin (responding to Atabek's accusation) wrote: "is Khodabandeh14 your spokesperson?" Khodabandeh has made some sensible, evidence-based comments about Ferdowsi. You have compared Ferdowsi to Hitler..  Who is responsible for your coming across as a fool here, him or you? Now if you don't mind I'm off to add Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Anglophobia article. His stories about King Arthur's resistance to the Anglo-Saxon invasion are dreadfully biased against my ancestors. Let's ignore the fact the English later adopted Arthur as one of their own, it doesn't disguise the innate racism and Celtic supremacism of Merlin and his bigoted ilk. There is no difference between The History of the Kings of Britain and Mein Kampf. -""  .. (the last three sentences are obviously sarcastic because of the bad POV atmosphere created by Atabek.  Thus we can completely see that a 3rd neutral party expert sees clear POV pushing.  Consequently my attempt to seek 3rd party mediation failed because of the POV pushing and WP:NOTBATTLE/WP:SOAPBOX comments).


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :

had the previous name and has been in two arbcomms, as well as banned permanently from some  topic. [|AA2 remedies]. The most recent sanction whose full report can be found here: was in May 2011. The result was: "Atabəy (talk · contribs) is banned from Iranian topics including the Safavids for three months and is under an indefinite restriction to 1RR/week per the result of a thread at WP:AE. Notified. EdJohnston (talk) 04:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)"[|AA2remedies] is notified:  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 02:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

It would be good if EdJohnston looks at this case as he was the one that enforced the last sanction. He is familiar with my edits, Atabey's edit and Folantin's helpful comment as a 3rd party mediator.

I tried to make Arbcomm aware that the problem is POV battle pushing which needs a mechanism like Russian wikipedia. If such a mechanism is not enforced, then I will quit. However, before quitting, I should note what made me propose such mechanism is exactly such users. I have wasted archives after archives with such users and it was a great waste of time. English wikipedia is too inept to unfortunately handle problematic articles in one day. So I decided to seek third party dispute resolution. I sought third party comments from two admins who are familiar with the classical history of the area and are known for the objectivity. However, the discussion ended with the admin concluding: "No, I'm done here. By comparing The Shahnameh and Mein Kampf and thus resorting to reductio ad Hitlerum, Atabey has violated Godwin's law and the discussion is therefore over. ". This is a result of WP:SOAPBOX, WP:NPA and WP:NOBATTLE. So even though the Arbcomm case is likely not approved (because they claim that other methods exists which does not), I tried third party dispute resolution, and instead the comments above popped out. I might have made some comments myself outside the discussion, but this has to do with past experience and evidence I sent to arbcomm. All the above are violations of fundamental policies. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 16:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

As I said the admin EdJohnston is very familiar with this user and the case. So this report was made due to the fact that he emposed the previous section. At one point in his talkpage, he was about to give a permanent ban to Atabek for WP:NOTBATTLE comments and not cooperating with a 3rd party. This time, he did not cooperate at all with two 3rd party admins. He was the one gave the last sanction to Atabek in May (banned for 3 months on all Iran related topics). My record is clean and I have not had any prior AA warnings. I also can answer all the chargers below:


 * Charge 1 of Atabek is baseless as I am trying to get opinions for an Arbcomm on a proposal from users who are experiencing nationalistic bickering and also admins who had to constantly deal with the issue. It is not canvassing for votes, but rather to get feedback on a proposal.
 * Charge 2 is a report to EdJohnston on his page, but EdJohnston as usual would want a formal request. This is all it is.  No violation of wikipedia rule.
 * Charge 3 Dbachmman/Folantin actually left the discussion after Atabek's comment not mine. They never made any negative comments about my messages, but they made several on Atabek['s comments.
 * Charge 4 is a copy & paste from an open site. I copied & paste some messages from that open site and by mistake a name popped out.  The next message  I delete the name (2 minutes later).  The message can be deleted for good as it was a copy & paste mistake.  I just wanted to demonstrate that there is actual racism going on the off-line wikipedia lists and user should not be preaching to Dbachmann.  I believe the user brought the Hitler, Nazis, Mein Kemp, Skinhead and etc. into unrelated discussion due to Dbachmann's Germany ancestory.  As far as I know that evidence I sent to Arbcomm was accepted by Arbcomm never took action.   As noted in Russian wikipedia such a list was used to ban 30 people.  But admins can always delete any message that they properly deem violates any privacy concern as I try to follow that rule to the best of my knowledge (when I deleted a name 2 minutes after).   I have had no prior violations.
 * I should note that I am not a party in AA1 or AA2, and only had one violation in my whole editing history which was overtuned quickly. This cannot compare to a user who had multiple AA1/AA2 violations and none of my comments demonstrate WP:BATTLE as I initiated the feedback from Dbachmman and Folantin (who firmly rejected the POV push of the user).
 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested : (user notified)

@Tznkai, thanks for the proposal but also I would like to get the feedback of EdJohnston who is familiar with the case. I have no prior topic bans, AA warnings or etc. The user on the other hand was topic banned recently. Admins need to go through the comments carefully. I asked for 3rd party feedback and the third party was attacked by: ""@Folantin, instead of pandering to Khodabandeh14's nationalist WP:POV ".  Basically, the admins need to reread the discussion that took place.  As I said, EdJohnston is very familiar with this case and he handed out a 3 month ban on Atabek in late May 2011.  So I really want to hear his feedback on this issue as well.  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 18:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that there is more bad accusations here. Atabek claims I reverted him here: which is a bad faith accusation, since he was banned from that article for POV pushing. That is right, he was topic banned from that specific article for POV pushing (see the discussion there where he uses a 1909 popular source to push POV against all evidence). In that page, he pushed "Two sources from 1905 and 1913" while ignoring all modern sources. I think if admins look at that 2008 edits (for he was topic banned from that article) and compare to his modern edits, there is no improvement as it is all about pushing a sort of ethnic agenda. But my edit had nothing to with Atabek, rather I added sources to the article and looked at the talkpage. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 20:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I would like to recall the previous AE sanction case which I filed against Atabek. What makes the admins think that a 6 month ban is sufficient? I have a clean record and I was not involved in AA1/AA2 topics. I asked for mediation and instead the user brought up hitler, mein kemp and accused the 3rd party neutral user of ""@Folantin, instead of pandering to Khodabandeh14's nationalist WP:POV ".   I do really believe sanctions are needed here, and although I could not see any mistakes by myself, I do see huge violations of WP:NPA and WP:NOTBATTLE from Atabek.  Specifically, when he gets into a disagreement, he has several time accused users of anti-Turkism or what not. Simply the atmosphere created by the user is not conducive to wikipedia.   How many chances do users get?  Just note he did not listen a 3rd party mediator here (Gareth) here either: .  Just one quote: " I still fail to see why Tigran is pushing Armenian POV, when Abgar had nothing to do with Armenia. Tiridates acceptance of Christianity in Armenia was also a legend, so there is no reason why one legend is more important than the other, while several authors confirm the fact of Abgar VIII's acceptance of Christianity by 201. I am ready to present more references to my edit, than dozens already presented in my version. But the information is already out, and it won't be possible to hide facts by historical fabrications, POV pushing/edit warring this time.".  You might ask why would a user be interested in such a rare topic? It is because he does not want Armenia to be known as the first Christian state (something generally agreed upon by scholarship today).  This goes back to the third century A.D., and the user simply is fighting now battles about 3rd century A.D. and 10th century A.D. (Shahnama).  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 20:36, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I consider the RfC of Atabek in bad faith as already two neutral users gave their opinion. But I am not going to let the user have a one-sided viewpoint there.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 00:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I would also like the sanctions to apply to here:   --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 00:50, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Atabəy
This frivolous reporting by User:Khodabandeh14 (previously known as User:Nepaheshgar and User:Ali doostzadeh) follows his consecutive WP:CANVASS attempts targeting me:


 * 1. Attempt to bait several contributors, including myself, into another ArbCom case, which is currently being declined; obviously wasting community resources while not exploring other paths towards consensus. This also includes Khodabandeh14's WP:BATTLE and WP:CANVASS attempt to engage User:MarshallBagramyan -, User:Takabeg - , User:Folantin - , User:EdJohnston - , User:Lezgistxa - , User:Sandstein - , User:Vacio - , User:Kansas Bear -  in an ArbCom case against a group of users with which Khodabandeh14 disagrees.


 * 2. Frivolous reporting to User_talk:EdJohnston, who did not comment on the case.


 * 3. Massive WP:FORUM staged by Khodabandeh14 at User_talk:Dbachmann, not letting other users to speak for themselves, and acting as their spokesperson. Interested arbitrators can follow this thread on Dbachmann's page, to carefully review the rhetoric of Khodabandeh14 and myself.


 * 4. WP:HARASSMENT violation attempting to link me to a real-life identity, using some controversial spam site which published someone's private email online.

At Talk:Anti-Turkism, Talk:Flag of South Azerbaijan and Talk:Azerbaijani people, User:Khodabandeh14 exhibits extremely disruptive WP:BATTLE behavior, refusing to come to any consensus, acting WP:OWN, pushing WP:POV, using WP:PEACOCK wording towards any author he disagrees with, WP:SOAP labeling them as nationalists. Just look at his admission: "I believe the third parties gave a sufficient response. That is why exactly this went to enforcement". This implies that he is using Arbitration Enforcement as a way to intimidate contributor with a threat of sanctions, in order to push his WP:POV in an article.

Assuming good faith, in an attempt to achieve consensus with him, I made a proposal at Talk:Anti-Turkism. But Khodabandeh14 is clearly dismissing any source that he disagrees with, focusing only on his WP:POV or else, the objective to get me sanctioned.

In his prior WP:HARASSMENT, few months ago, User:Khodabandeh14 succeeded by having User:EdJohnston temporarily restrict me from editing pages like Safavid dynasty. Despite EdJohnston's promise to lift this restriction on certain conditions that he suggested, after my appeal and my fulfillment of those conditions, the restriction was forgotten and not lifted, and I did not have time then to follow through the case. But it is obvious that instead of working on articles, and emboldened by such support, User:Khodabandeh14 is now targeting contributors.

I ask AE to remind User:Khodabandeh14 to be more patient and WP:AGF, to constructively participate in talk page discussions, and to leave my identity alone, simply because it is irrelevant to the topics of pages that we edit. I am also expecting AE action in regards to the item 4, which is a severe violation. I mean why is Khodabandeh14 is allowed to go around freely alleging my real-life name? Is this something acceptable in Wikipedia? And I am completely disappointed as to why, being actively involved in all WP:AA2 edit conflicts, User:Khodabandeh14 remains free of any arbitration enforcement and is even allowed to harass contributors?!


 * P.S. Just an example in item 5 of Khodabandeh14's frivolous reporting, the words I used and he claims as WP:SOAP, come from a scholarly source here: "Turan of the Shahnama are not the historic Turks with which Firdausi anachronistically equates them "

Thanks. Atabəy (talk) 21:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * @Tznkai, completely agree. I am sorry for having to waste my time here, but I wasn't the one who opened this case, so I have no other option but to respond. I already made a good faith proposal, but unfortunately instead of discussing, Khodabandeh14 still wants to pursue other objectives. Atabəy (talk) 00:07, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to request adding User:Kurdo777 to the sanctions. Thanks.Atabəy (talk) 02:57, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

For information of Arbitration Enforcement, at my request at WP:Oversight purged out comments by KHodabandeh14, attempting to link me to a person in violation of WP:HARASSMENT. I kindly ask AE to take actions to prevent repeated violations of the policy by User:Khodabandeh14. The topic disagreements can be resolved on talk pages of the articles, via RfCs, and other currently pursued methods. Thanks. Atabəy (talk) 02:54, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Regarding the bad faith comments by User:Khoikhoi about myself. Back in January 2008,  he endorsed an unfounded allegation that User:Ehud Lesar was a sockpuppet of User:AdilBaguirov, based on claims made up by a group of WP:BATTLE editors. The allegations were found to be untrue. This one ArbCom case, however, demonstrated the issues with neutrality of User:Khoikhoi when it comes to WP:AA2 cases. So, I suggest that before accusing me in bad faith, in traditional support of User:Khodabandeh14, he produces some facts as to what have I violated to be the subject of this current AE report? Atabəy (talk) 23:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Questions about AE decision
@Tznkai, and other supporting administrators, your decision below raises the following question: Thanks. Atabəy (talk) 23:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Will there be any action taken about WP:HARASSMENT violation by User:Khodabandeh14 or I should take that to a different board? Is this rule enforced by WP:AE?
 * In May 2011, following my topic ban from Iran-related articles after frivolous report by Khodabandeh14, I was suggested by User:EdJohnston to open an RfC and to follow through with achieving consensus on Talk:Safavid dynasty. I did so, but the ban was not lifted. Can I know the reason?
 * If I am asked to create a Good Article, but at the same time banned from editing articles, how can do so?


 * FYI, as a last resort, in good faith, I initiated a Request for Comment on Talk:Anti-Turkism regarding the disputed subject. Thanks. Atabəy (talk) 23:43, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * My recent inquiry to User:EdJohnston, to clarify why the promise made to lift the topic restriction in May 2011, upon my fulfilling of certain conditions, was never fulfilled. Atabəy (talk) 16:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Atabəy
Does this read to anyone else as "You-suck!-No-you-suck!"--Tznkai (talk) 23:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. Put them both on chairs in the corner for time out? KillerChihuahua ?!?Advice 14:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning Atabəy

 * This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.
 * Directed at both Atabəy and User:Khodabandeh14, based primarily on your behavior here, and a brief perusal of your contributions, it seems that your sole activities on Wikipedia are getting into ideological editing struggles over what I will loosely call Western Asia/Eastern European nationalism and the bloody history thereof, and then getting into personal fights via our dispute resolution mechanisms. This is the very definition of abusing Wikipedia as a battleground. I suppose I could waste all of our times making a more detailed and nuanced assessment and apportion blame in a precise manner, but I do not see benefits outweighing the costs.

Both Atabəy and User:Khodabandeh14 are:


 * topic banned from all edits in article and article talk space concerning the topic of Eastern European or West Asian nationalism, which includes but is not limited to any nation, ethnicity, people, state, region, person, ideology, entity, work of art, origin of food items, or historical event in Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division, East Central and South-East Europe Division, Western Asia regions as defined by the United Nations; and
 * are so banned for six months, starting October 16 00:00 UTC; and
 * a ban will be suspended upon proof to either myself, a consensus of administrators on AE or a neutral process such as Good Articles, that you can write in a collaborative manner and produce by improvement, well written and well sourced articles

If either of you, or anyone else, in your attempts to get the good behavior suspension disrupts previously stable forums, I will move onto blocks. You have until the ban starts to make further comments, or point me at other editors whose behavior also justifies being included in the topic ban as described above. You may also consider an appeal, and as always, my fellow administrators are encouraged to comment as well.--Tznkai (talk) 18:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Khodabandeh14, this is not a proposal, its a sanction. I would also welcome EdJohnston's comments. You might want to get his attention quicklike.--Tznkai (talk) 18:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Atabəy, we are not arbitrators, but administrators. You can always go over our heads to the Arbitration Committee if you wish. Second, your behavior in this enforcement request is an independently sufficient ground to show you are violating editing norms. It is your actions, and choices that I am acting on.--Tznkai (talk) 21:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Start with and pick an article that doesn't fall within the topic ban.--Tznkai (talk) 23:17, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Khodabandeh14, please notify user:Saygi1 and post the notification here.--Tznkai (talk) 01:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Concur with Tzn; good call. KillerChihuahua ?!?Advice 19:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The sanction on both editors which Tznkai proposed above sounds good to me. EdJohnston (talk) 20:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now. User:Khodabandeh14 has a clean block log. This is an area where there is a lot of nationalistic editing and those who oppose it are often targeted by nationalists. I'm not convinced that there is suffficient rationale here to treat both editors the same way. I'm not saying I can't be convinced, just that I'm aware that this is a difficult area in which to work and I wish to be assured that we are not banning a basically constructive editor from it and thereby perhaps creating more problems for those trying to maintain an NPOV position in this area. Dougweller (talk) 06:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * what Dougweller said. Go easy on the topic bans. You can always encourage admins to adopt a zero-tolerance for temporary blocks over disruptive behaviour. Or a 1RR policy or something. For the "well-meaning but agenda-driven hothead" type of editor, it is more than enough to impose a week-long cool-down block every time they get out of line. Strictly speaking I don't see why the arbcom is required for something like this, as it is within the authority of admins. But there you are. This can easily be fixed on the admin level just as long as admins are alerted to the problem and encouraged to issue temporary blocks. Imho the arbcom should limit itself to do just that. --dab (𒁳) 11:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Just like Dougweller and dab, I'm opposed to treating Khodabandeh14 the same way as Atabəy. I've been one of the most active administrators in this topical area and I've witnessed the behavior of these two editors first-hand over the years. Atabəy has more than earned his topic ban. To be frank, he should had been permanently banned a long time ago, but the admins have been too soft on him, giving him chance after chance that he's burnt. Khodabandeh14 on the other hand, while displaying signs of compulsive and combative behavior, is generally a constructive editor with good research skills, and who helps keep this area of articles NPOV. He may be a hothead sometimes, but anyone else constantly dealing with nationalist trolls like Atabəy who are always engaged in gaming -- is going to be prone to lose control every now and then. As Dab said, a week-long cool-down break in the form of a ban should be more than enough to deal with Khodabandeh14. Atabəy, I am afraid though, is a lost cause. Khoikhoi 16:51, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been significantly swamped in meatspace, so have been unable to fully follow up on this. I hope to rectify that within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, I have considered the opposing opinions, and I have found them ultimately unpersuasive. These seem to be appeals to a notion of justice in punishment: equal crime doing equal time. As we have droned on and on, bans are not punishments, but tools for preventing harm. The behavior here justifies the action independently. It is not only outside of our mandate and abilities to Do Justice, a practice best left to philosopher-kings, but ill advised in the AE context, where fine tuning lengths as a sorting function of who is the "worst" encourages even lengthier complaints and game playing behavior. Furthermore, the topic ban has a structural out. If one party is fundamentally a better editor, they will escape the ban much sooner.
 * I am generally of the mind that administrators should try to achieve consensus when possible, even with discretionary sanctions. However, I also balance those concerns that the need for relatively swift conclusion, and the implicit err-on-the-side-of-action implied in the broad grant of administrator discretion in discretionary sanction remedies. To that extent, I am logging the sanctions, but leaving this thread open for investigation of other users in related dispute, as well as to independently investigate and entertain arguments that Khodabandeh14 has been inappropriately sanctioned. Please bear in mind that Khodabandeh14 has apparently left Wikipedia indefinitely. Perhaps he or she will be back if the topic area is brought to heel.--Tznkai (talk) 06:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Tznkai has now entered the topic bans of both Khodabandeh14 and Atabəy into the case log. If there is no further discussion of that, this thread should be closed. Here are a couple of comments on the discussion above:
 * Atabəy remains limited to 1RR/week per a previous sanction which has indefinite duration. I imposed a restriction of Atabəy on May 6 for 3 months from the Safavid Dynasty and all Iranian topics. He has referred to that in his comments above. The Safavid restriction has expired but the 1RR/wk has not.
 * Khodabandeh14 shows the ability to find and work with reliable sources, and he seemed to take a more scholarly approach to Safavid dynasty than Atabəy. That article was the subject of the May 2011 complaint involving the same two editors. Unfortunately Khodabandeh14's combative approach to disputes and his TL;DR responses tend to be exhausting for anyone trying to work with him. Though my sense is that Atabəy may be heading toward an indefinite restriction while Khodabandeh14 is hopefully going to return to editing in the area, a six month topic ban for both parties is well within Tzkai's discretion. EdJohnston (talk) 23:15, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

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

Request concerning BesterRus

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:41, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Warning of DIGWUREN
 * BesterRus is to be officially put on notice of potential discretionary sanctions


 * Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it :
 * 1) 04:23, 18 October 2011 "While organizing SS parades, calling Nazi the liberators and trying to push Russians out of its territory, depriving them of natural human rights. Why yes, your logic is flawless, of course."
 * 2) 21:31, 18 October 2011 "Your leaders and political elite are guiding your people into Nazi ideology that will be followed by a certain demise. And you applaud it."
 * 3) 11:19, 19 October 2011 Accusations that User:Vecrumba harbours Nazi sympathies or has somehow been involved in 'collaboration' (figurative or otherwise) with Nazis.
 * 4) 09:07, 20 October 2011 BesterRus clarifies/redacts his comment to clarify that Vecrumba was not being personally attacked; rather, he meant the Baltic states and their inhabitants collectively.
 * 5) 19:58, 20 October 2011 BesterRus responds to Vecrumba's objection, stating that he was not focusing on Latvians specifically, but rather all Balts, and that Vecrumba is one of 'them'.

Perhaps this is a bit harsh or even bite-y of me, but I felt that it was necessary to bring this here for official review. BesterRus is a relatively new editor who has immediately decided to rush headlong into the hostile environment of Eastern European disputes here (e.g. inserting himself into the current MedCab case regarding Holodomor POV disputes, having never previously participated in any discussion on the topic) with a flamboyant us-versus-them battlefield mentality. He made efforts to backtrack on his initial nationally-motivated attack on Vecrumba, but never retracted it fully. Instead, he shifted his meaning from personal attack to national attack, staying on the "Nazi sympathies" grounds specifically targeted in the Digwuren case. He has shown a willingness to moderate his comments on a strictly personal level, but has remained defiant in preserving the intent on a broader national level. In any case, his mentality is strongly counterproductive to dispute resolution, in which he has decided to participate (with right, don't misunderstand me), and he should be made officially aware of the consequences which will follow should he keep it up. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:41, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

Done.
 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Comments by others about the request concerning BesterRus
If it were directed towards a single user, it is a personal attack of the worst kind. If it were directed towards entire people of Baltic states, it is the worst kind of battleground mentality. Sanctons are warranted, though inexperience is a mitgating factor. - BorisG (talk) 13:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * BR tells "we Soviets" and "you, ...".  There are no Nazi here, and I am really surprised that some people still openly associate themselves with "Soviets", even though this oppressive (some say "totalitarian") state does not exist. I have serious doubts that BR is a new user. Biophys (talk) 14:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no place in Wikipedia for personal attacks such as this, and that goes both ways as well. Having said that, it appears this editor is a new editor, and hence as BorisG notes, inexperience could be a factor here. The placement of the user on notice of discretionary sanctions has been done, and should be enough at this point of time; if they don't get it, they will be banned soon enough. Sanctions are supposed to be used for ongoing disruption. I don't see it at this point in time; they took the advice of User:Greyhood and have created Yuri Nikolayevitch Zhukov. I would suggest that BesterRus take strong heed of the warning, and I would further suggest that they post here at this request affirming that they understand that what they wrote is in essence a personal attack, and such things are not tolerated here on Wikipedia. I would also suggest that they affirm that failure to adhere to expected behavioural policies and guidelines will result in them being blocked and/or banned. This is the way that sanctions should work. Russavia Let's dialogue 19:20, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

The personal nature of BesterRus's attacks and attitude are deja vu all over again compared to prior editors (Jacob Peters, RJ CG,...). My experience in this topic area is that genuinely "new" editors don't immediately insert themselves into topic mediations (Holodomor) and launch into the worst kinds of personal ugliness. P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 23:18, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would certainly expect from a well-intended newbie to come to this page and argue his position or admit his guilt. Only an experienced contributor knows that he would be better off by temporarily disappearing. Biophys (talk) 14:57, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning BesterRus

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

I'm holding on a block since the user hasn't been editing since this request is filed. Subsequent violations will be unlikely to be looked upon favorably. T. Canens (talk) 16:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And...this is essentially the definition of unacceptable conduct. I'm going to give a uw-sanctions warning, but I would not be opposed to standard administrative action as well. NW ( Talk ) 03:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Neither would I. The subtleties in what was said and what wasn't said (e.g., there is no plural "you" in English) in my opinion, are irrelevant. Whether on a personal or national level, there is no conceiveable away that invoking and alleging another editor having assisted in the perpetration of the Holocaust can form part of cordially building an encyclopedia. WilliamH (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I concur - the original comment by User:BesterRus is unambiguous and is beyond acceptability (William's analysis is spot on - this kind of attitude is 100% incompatible with a collaboartive environment). Sanctions warning is appropriate but I would also support normal proceedure with regard to WP:CIVIL & WP:BATTLE being applied-- Cailil  talk 12:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by The Last Angry Man

 * Appealing user : – The Last Angry Man (talk) 22:18, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sanction being appealed : Topic ban on all articles which relate to Eastern Europe, (broadly interpreted, and including talk pages and other discussions about those articles) for a period of three months.


 * Administrator imposing the sanction :


 * Notification of that administrator :

Statement by The Last Angry Man
I am requesting the topic ban be modified so both I and Igny may take part in the mediation currently underway here

Statement by Mkativerata
I simply re-iterate the comments I made at the request for Arbcom amendment here and make the contention that this appeal should be disposed of in the same way as the approach advocated by two arbitrators here. Having said that, I think this issue -- the lack of an exception to a topic ban that isn't itself the subject of an appeal -- has received a rather disproportionate level of attention and I'm certainly not going to die in a ditch over that aspect of my decision. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:31, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Tznkai: I don't accept the premise of your question. It is not an extraordinary sanction. It is the usual scope of a topic ban. There is no usual exemption for dispute resolution; only for questioning or appealing against the sanction itself. There is no burden of proof (a judicial concept wholly unsuitable for any part of this project). Even if there was I would refer simply to my comment above which in turn refers to my explanation before ArbCom, which establishes the reason behind my application of the usual rule in this case. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Tznkai, I've made this edit, reverting the addition to our banning policy of an exception for which consensus has not been tested. I think you are proposing something very bold and it shouldn't be inserted into a settled policy page without first seeking consensus. The idea that we would ordinarily let topic-banned editors participate in content-related dispute resolution within the topic area is extraordinary. It is a much bigger change than I think you appreciate. I hope that whatever the disposition of this appeal, the uninvolved admins would consider an exception in this case to be very much an exception to the rule. --Mkativerata (talk) 08:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Steven Zhang

 * Part of the reason that I made the request at Amendment as opposed to here is because I knew the likely response it would receive. Our opinions as mediators carry little weight, and I understand the viewpoint that we don't want to overrule the banning administrator and the importance of enforcing arbitration decisions. I also note that most of the administrators that work here (bar perhaps AGK) don't do extensive work in content dispute resolution. Part of the problem that I see is that a temporary topic ban to exclude these editors from mediation actually makes resolving that content dispute harder, not easier. Their topic bans will not last forever, and when they expire the backtracking required will take the mediation in the wrong direction. I ask the admins here to consider the request us mediators made at /Amendment, and consider what the true negatives on allowing them the chance to participate in the mediation. If they step out of line, then their topic ban is re-extended to the mediation case as well. I personally don't think that we are asking for that much. If the mediation takes less than 3 months to resolve, then the issues will only re-arise when these editors topic bans expire. If more, we will have to backtrack. I see very little to lose and a lot to gain, if meaningful resolution is to be achieved then excluding these editors is a step in the wrong direction. I didn't make this request lightly. Please think it over. Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  08:29, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @NW, it's not so much the fact that mediation cannot proceed without these two, it can. In fact, it could proceed with only 2 of the 9 or so parties, but has less chances of being successful in the long run.  Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  19:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Tim, perhaps leaving it to discretion as to when to reimpose the topic bans could be done. I say this because DR can get a little heated at times, and having a ton of bricks hanging over your head which could land on you with one misstep stifles discussion. Things won't get out of hand, and if they do, we can reimpose the topic ban and reset it. The clause that really should be included is that if either of these parties are topic banned again because of bad conduct within mediation, that their right to question/dispute the outcome of the MedCab is revoked. That way, we are not just kicking the can further down the road if they get topic banned again. Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  19:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Lothar, I think that's pretty evident given the request up top :) Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  20:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Cailil, I suppose that should work and is only fair, but note it should also be extended to Igny as well. Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  12:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Admins, I would respectfully ask that the discussion you are engaged in below be continued at a later time and you consider making a decision on the request I have made, as we do wish to get the mediation moving. Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  21:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Tznaki, I think that is a bad idea. It's the reason I took it to Amendment in the first place. ArbCom sends it to AE, AE sends it to ArbCom. Someone has to take ownership of this. I'm comfortable with T.Canens' proposal. Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  22:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @TZnaki, Oh, pooey. Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  22:38, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Russavia
Ummmm, is anyone ignoring the fact that TLAM is 110% a sockpuppet of User:Marknutley? Why on earth is ANY admin considering anything but placing a "Banned for sockpuppetry" notice on the userpage of TLAM.

I support a full lifting of the topic ban on Igny, in no small part due to the fact that if this disruptive sockpuppet wasn't editing (as they shouldn't be), none of the battleground would have existed in the first place.

But lifting anything for TLAM is totally reprehensible!!! Russavia Let's dialogue 23:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Lothar von Richthofen
I don't think the current sanctions should be lifted. The mediation does not hinge on either editor's participation, and while it certainly would be very nice if they could participate, sanctions are sanctions. Well-deserved ones on both sides, at that. Not much more to say.

On a side note, Russavia's contention that there would be no battleground here without TLAM and that Igny is innocent of being a combative you-know-what would be knee-slappingly hilarious if it was not made in all seriousness. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:58, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I feel it should be made clear that this thread is not discussing a full lifting of sanctions, but rather a single modification to allow the users to participate in the Holodomor dispute resolution. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 19:57, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Vecrumba
While I personally do not believe the sanctions against TLAM are justified, nor, having dealt with both TLAM and Marknutley, do I personally believe TLAM is anyone's sockpuppet, I suggest we all move on. Otherwise this will become yet another WP:BATTLEGROUND WP:SOAPBOX to berate admins to punish one editor while exonerating another when circumstances of behavior, objectively, don't support such contentions. P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement by TransporterMan
[This is just a slight reworking and abbreviation of what I said at the amendment request] In some ways, the decision on this request goes to the positive and negative reasons for why DR exists and why it is here: to benefit Wikipedia by settling disputes, hopefully positively through consensus, but sometimes negatively by just getting them settled to stop the disruption. If we have editors who feel so strongly about this that they're just going to wait out their topic bans and start changing the article again, then the mediation is a waste of time without them. Getting them in and allowing them to help craft the solution at least potentially avoids that result. I therefore support the idea of allowing an exception to the topic ban for The Last Angry Man. The solutions to this request are becoming too complicated with a montoring sysop and double or nothing sanctions. The sanctions in question are a "voluntary" topic ban, in the sense that he has not been blocked and is capable of editing anywhere he pleases to do so. No one is officially or semi-officially monitoring TLAM on that ban at the present time. Various eyes could be watching, of course, but should he violate the ban it would far more likely that someone would just happen to have to come along, just happen to notice the violation, and choose to report it to AE. All we are requesting here is that the topic ban be relaxed for MedCab and that Steven (or perhaps any two of the three mediators if you do not want to just let one do it) be given the right to reinstitute the full breadth of the ban should TLAM's behavior deteriorate in any of those venues to the point the mediators feel that it is interfering with the mediation process, with the only needed action being: A strict "one bad word and he's gone" standard, especially (but not only) one which either is being continuously scrutinized or second-guessed by parties outside the mediation or which results in a longer ban is inimical to the mediation process. Indeed, my feeling is that the only consequence of behaving badly in the mediation ought to be the risk that he will be excluded from it, not that he will suffer expanded or extended blocks or bans because of it. (The flip side of this, however, should be that any decision of the mediator(s) to reinstate the full breadth of the topic ban should not be appealable: the relaxation should be considered to be an act of grace entirely for the benefit of the mediation and thus the encyclopedia, and not to the slightest degree for TLAM's personal right or interest, which can be revoked without cause or explanation at any time it appears that the encyclopedia is not receiving the desired benefit.) Best regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 15:53, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * To relax: A note on TLAM's talk page by Mkativerata or an ArbCom member or clerk setting the parameters of the relaxation and the mediator(s) right to reinstitue it, along with a corresponding note at Digwuren's Log of blocks and bans, and
 * To reinstiute: The mediator(s) leaving a note reinstituting it on TLAM's talk page and at the Diguren log.

Result of the appeal by The Last Angry Man

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


 * In general, I am in favor of deferring to the original decision of the acting administrator in AE cases, unless I think that it was simply unreasonable. Although I don't know if I would have done the same thing, it was certainly within the bounds of administrator discretion, and therefore I would decline this appeal. NW ( Talk ) 02:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Decline. We should not be in the business of micromanaging discretionary sanctions. T. Canens (talk) 05:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I would normally not be in favor of micromanaging the sanction, but Steven Zhang has been very insistent that this mediation needs to proceed now. I would not be opposed to lifting it with regards to the mediation only, and allow him or any other administrator to reimpose the full topic ban at their own discretion. NW ( Talk ) 20:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Someone being "very insistent" that a sanction has to be modified in a particular way is not a good reason to depart from the usual practice. If we are to depart from the general rule and fine-tune Mkativerata's sanction - over his objection - we need to draw a principled distinction between this case and other cases so that we would not open the floodgate to "very insistent" appeals asking us to fine-tune every discretionary sanction. T. Canens (talk) 23:02, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not the fact that any old editor is being very insistent, but rather it's the belief of the mediator that this mediation cannot continue without these two. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Steve, but if he is willing to oversee the issue himself, then I wouldn't mind doing it for a trial run. NW</b> ( Talk ) 14:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose we can say that the fact that an experienced and entirely uninvolved mediator requested a change can be an extraordinary circumstance that justifies our departure from the usual practice. Very well, I'll not object to a trial run, with the caveat that any disruption will result in the ban being reinstated in full, reset, and doubled in duration (i.e., 6 months from the date of reinstatement). T. Canens (talk) 16:07, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The issue should not be whether to override the sanction, but whether we can convince Mkativerata to modify it voluntarily. Also, I believe that the burden of proof for extraordinary sanctions (cutting off genuine attempts at dispute resolution) should be on the enacting admin. So, Mkativerata, why is it necessary to keep TLAM out of a mediation?--Tznkai (talk) 21:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Mkativerata re Tznkai's above comment. A topic ban is not an "extraordinary sanction" and there is not an additional burden of proof (beyond the comments already made by Mkativerata) on sysops enforcing discretionary sanctions here - these sanctions are called discretionary becuase they are at the sysop's discretion. (See here what two arbitrators' views on it are.) Furthermore making changes to policy that have no consensus (and the exceptions that you added to eth page, and others that were mentioned on the talk page had/has no consensus - clear consensus is required, and must be sought, for such a drastic change in policy) and then coming here apparently to test them out is, in the very least, unfair to both the sysop who enforced the sanction and the editor appealling it. Steven has requested an exception to normal process he is not arguing that the sanctions were unjustified per se rather that from his mediation perspective dispute resolution would beenfit from TLAM & Igny being allowed to take part in the mediation, which is a break from usual practice. On the matter of a trial run of allowing TLAM & Igny to participate I would not object only as long as T. Canens caveats are followed (ie if misbehaviour occurs bans are reset and doubled)-- Cailil  talk 12:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

@TransporterMan: my logic for requiring T. Canens caveat (reset and double length of the topioc ban if misbehaviour occurs at the mediation) is this: Igny and TLAM have already done enough to get a 3 month ban. Further disruption (if it were to occur) would show contempt for Steven who requested this in good faith, those of us willing to offer them this relaxation in light of Steven's request, and for the general point of wikipedia's AGF policy & its dispute resolution processes. If that happened it would demonstrate to the community that this person 'hasn't got the message' and that even after Mkativerata's enforcement of the ArbCom ruling more remedies are required to prevent further disruption to WP. This isn't actually all that of a novel approach - when a user breaches a topic ban seriously this kind of sanction may occur, and when ArbCom unbans a user they may be placed on this kind of probation for a set length of time-- Cailil  talk 16:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Responding to Mkativerata and Cailill, a topic ban is not extraordinary, banning someone from a topic including dispute resolution is. As we can get into detail on the banning policy talk page, my change isn't as significant as you might think as the default has always included the undefined term "Legitimate and necessary." Regardless of the wording issues, it is extraordinary for administrators to cut off genuine attempts at resolving a dispute. It is a standard reason to unblock, unban, or actually go ahead and bend the rules. The goal of Wikipedia policies generally is not to prevent disruption. (If it was, we'd site-ban a lot more than we do) Rather, minimizing disruption is a means to better resolving disputes, which in turn is itself a means to creating actual article content. Removing editors does not in and of itself make Wikipedia better. It just makes our lives, the admins who patrol AE, marginally less chaotic. That last bit is not a worthy goal.
 * All that having been said, I'm open to any number of good justifications for preventing someone from participating in mediation, formal or otherwise. Nearly all of them start with a variation of "will simply use mediation to disrupt and antagonize" and almost none of them start with "waste of time." It is, after all, someone else's time to waste.--Tznkai (talk) 18:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * (I'll comment here now just for ease of reading as we're way outside the scope of this appeal). They're your own views. They may well be valid. But they're not the community's. They shouldn't apply in this venue. Banning someone from topic-related dispute resolution is not extraordinary at all. It is done every day of the week here, being within the ordinary scope of a topic ban. --Mkativerata (talk) 18:53, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You can't argue for discretion on the one hand, and ignore my views (asserted as out of step with the community) on the other. Discretionary sanctions bypass measuring what the community's view is. That is how they work. AE has also given wide berth to other administrators in exercising their discretion, which is why I am not, and most other admins here are not interested in overriding your decision willy nilly, regardless of whether we would have made the same decision in your shoes. I don't think its strange to say that, implicit in that paired conduct, that we expect AE admins, in exercising their discretion, to explain their reasons.
 * Your explanation is thin. You clearly think that they would be poor mediation participants. "We shouldn't overburden the admin corps more by allowing two users topic-banned for largely behavioural reasons to participate in non-binding dispute resolution under the supervision of a volunteer administrator." seems self contradictory, since allowing an admin to volunteer places zero additional burden on the admin corps. Instead, it would appear you are using your discretion to foreclose another administrator from using theirs.--Tznkai (talk) 19:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You are the one asked the sanctioning admin to meet a burden of proof unfounded in policy. You are the one imposing your (out of step) standards on others. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The phrase "legitimate and necessary dispute resolution" as an exception to a topic ban, as far as I remember, has always been construed narrowly to include only DR directly involving the ban, whether a clarification/amendment/appeal from the ban, or a request to enforce an interaction ban. It has been formally codified since the limited bans were written into the ban policy in August 2010. If you believe that topic bans should not include content DR, it's obviously your choice, and you can of course do it with bans that you hand out. That hardly means that following a practice that is written in policy for over a year is somehow "extraordinary". It simply is not. T. Canens (talk) 19:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And since it isn't "extraordinary" it need not be explained? (and I still remember when topic bans were article only by default, which was a fun mess) That is really what I'm after here, some sort of reason why one administrator's decision should bar another volunteer from spending their time, as they wish, trying to get some sort of mediation going? We can go round and round the legalisms and the policy interpretation, but that isn't going to be a good answer for why a third party admin doesn't get to at least try to fix things.--Tznkai (talk) 19:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There may be no good answer to the difference of opinion between Mkativerata and others that TLAM could usefully participate in a mediation. It helps get clarity of outcome from this board if a single admin does the original closure and gets to decide on the fine print of the sanction. None of us has persuaded Mkativerata to change his mind. I add my vote to those who want to decline TLAM's request. He can probably file a regular Arbitration Enforcement Appeal if he wants the whole topic ban reconsidered. I agree with T. Canens that the phrase 'legitimate and necessary dispute resolution' should be confined to the sense in which Arbcom generally uses it. EdJohnston (talk) 21:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the end result here will to be to bounce back to ArbCom with AE deciding not to overturn.--Tznkai (talk) 22:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The way I understand it, we have the following chain of events: Mkativerata makes a sanction in an AE thread, an appeal is filed with ArbCom, ArbCom bounces it back to AE as a premature appeal, appeal is made here, and the most likely decision is one to abstain from overturning. TLAM (or others, I guess) has every right to ask ArbCom to overrule Mkativerata's decision at all points. AE admins on the other hand, do not, absent an actual consensus, which we do not have.--Tznkai (talk) 22:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: See my talk page for a discussion between Steve Zhang and me about enacting T. Canens and NW's proposal: . If there aren't any objections I'll enact it in about 24 hours. I get the sense that there's no real consensus here either way so I'm ok with caving myself and putting an end to it. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have modified the topic bans for Igny and TLAM in accordance with these terms. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The admins who commented in this section seem to prefer that Mkativerata make the decision on granting an exception to his topic ban, though some of them expressed their own opinion on what to do. Since Mkativerata has granted the request and the controversy seems to be over, I'm closing this AE request without further ado. EdJohnston (talk) 01:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Request concerning Modinyr

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Nableezy 17:10, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA


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


 * Edit Warring at Mahmoud Darwish over content on the destruction of al-Birwa
 * 1) 12 October
 * 2) 15 October
 * 3) 15 October Also a 1RR violation with the above revert
 * 4) 17 October
 * 5) 20 October
 * 6) 24 October
 * Edit warring at Arab citizens of Israel over the inclusion of the commonly used term Palestinians of 1948
 * 1) 17 October
 * 2) 21 October
 * 3) 24 October


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :


 * 1) Notified of the case on 20 September by


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

The user, since registering this account, had been carrying out several slow-moving edit wars. The article Mahmoud Darwish is a prime example of the user's chosen method of editing. A review of the talk page will show that there are four users who agree with the material and the reliability of the sources, with Modinyr being the only user disputing what several reliable sources say and reverting ad infinitum to remove that material from the article. A request that the user cease edit warring was met with a claim that the accusation is baseless and the user making it is acting like a drama queen. That was followed by yet another revert of the exact same material (the last one in the Mahmoud Darwish list above)

At Arab citizens of Israel the user has repeatedly reverted without making any attempt to resolve the dispute on the talk page.

The user is seemingly incapable of accepting consensus and seems intent on reverting until he or she is able to exhaust other editors. One user should not be allowed to continue editing in such a manner, disregarding both the sources and every other user that has commented on the talk page. A past 1RR violation that the editor informed the user of was met with [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Modinyr&diff=450709395&oldid=450569737 I was 18 minutes short. Whoops.] This, and each of the reverts since coming off the 1RR block, shows the user views the use of a revert as an entitlement.
 * The comments below by Modinyr are examples of the problems with his or her editing practices. To begin with, I have made exactly 0 edits regarding either the Darwish dispute or the one at Arab citizens of Israel. Zero. In fact, my last edit to the Darwish article was over two years ago. Yet for some reason this user feels justified in claiming that But Nableezy thinks he knows. He thinks because there are several sources that say "the village was destroyed" then that entitles Wikipedia to say "the village was destroyed by Zionists." Later, the user writes Nableezy wants the Mahmoud Darwish page to say "Zionists destroyed his home!" He finds it annoying that I require a source for this info. The user makes no effort to see if his claims have any grounding, it is enough for him that I made a remark on the reliability of a single source so that he can make these absurd claims about what I want or what I believe. I also have had zero involvement at the other conflict this user has been engaged in (and by engaged I mean edit warring without respite). But the user claims Look at the editing of Arab citizens of Israel and you will see the kind of weasel-words and non-encyclopedic language that Nableezy finds acceptable as long as it serves his worldview. Really? It does not bother this user that he makes these wild attacks without providing any evidence (which would be difficult as it does not exist). This is a common pattern with the user. Any user who opposes his or her view in any way is immediately branded a propagandist who is intent on destroying Wikipedia. Also, despite being blocked for edit warring, it is clear that the user either does not understand what edit warring is (the claim that because the words removed each time were different makes it so that the user was not edit warring by repeatedly reverting) or is feigning ignorance.

I also share Sean's concern about a connection with a past account, but I think Lutrinae is stale. I might open an SPI based on the behavioral evidence, but, like Sean, I cant bring myself to waste that much time on this editor. Notified
 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by Modinyr
The attempt to paint me as an edit-warrior is untrue. I have been involved in several discussions and some of them have stretched the limits of civility, but none of them have resulted in disruption.

If you look at the examples Nableezy has provided, you will see that the revision history of Mahmoud Darwish is not edit warring. Me and the other editor were not unduing the same revert over and over. The sources say the town of Al-Birwa was destroyed. But an editor wanted to insert the OR claim that the Israeli Army purposefully destroyed the village.

Look at #17 October "...they returned to find that the village had been destroyed by Zionists." I removed this sentence. It is not encyclopedic nor verifiable.

Also, Nableezy claims that these two edits are the same and a violation of the 1RR rule. They are different edits...
 * 1) 15 October
 * 2) 15 October

All of my edits in the Mahmoud Darwish section were explained. Nableezy thinks I'm trying to hide the story of Al-Birwa's destruction. He doesn't realize that I've only been removing assumptions about WHO destroyed the village. It is not known if the village was destroyed during the fighting, or destroyed afterward. But Nableezy thinks he knows. He thinks because there are several sources that say "the village was destroyed" then that entitles Wikipedia to say "the village was destroyed by Zionists."

There has been discussion on the talk page. I've taken part. But it isn't true that four editors are in agreement. They all want mention of the destruction of Al-Birwa and so do I. But we aren't in agreement about who or what destroyed them. One source, a government sponsored newspaper from the corrupt, racist autocracy of U.A.E. says that the Zionists destroyed the village. That isn't a reliable source. Losts of gov't run Arab newspapers say that Jews assassinated Yassir Arafat. That doesn't mean it is a verifiable fact.

The second group of charges, that I've been interfering in Arab citizens of Israel is also false. As can be seen, the edits are several days apart. I gave an edit summary each time. It is true that neither I nor the other editor have used the talk page yet, but we aren't disruptive. If you look at my edit, you'll see I am trying to change loaded phrasings into a more neutral voice.

The charge that "The user, since registering this account, had been carrying out several slow-moving edit wars" is pure name-calling. Look at my contribs, they are mostly helpful, uncontroversial, and unopposed. A few edits, mostly in relation to Israel and Palestine, have brought some discussion, but I don't think it has been disruptive.

Nableezy wants the Mahmoud Darwish page to say "Zionists destroyed his home!" He finds it annoying that I require a source for this info. And a thousand newspapers that say "his house was destroyed" doesn't let anybody make OR assumptions about who did.

Look at the editing of Arab citizens of Israel and you will see the kind of weasel-words and non-encyclopedic language that Nableezy finds acceptable as long as it serves his worldview. Modinyr (talk) 22:36, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Modinyr
Comment by Sean.hoyland - Modinyr's approach to editing and the style of their interactions with other editors reminds me of the University of Hawaii based Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive92. I don't know whether they are the same editor, or whether this edit about Hawaii or their interest in the Palestinian people article soon after they registered is a coincidence or a clue. If they were editing constructively I wouldn't care but frankly I'm reluctant to waste much time on this editor having already written them off, talking of name calling, as irredeemably deranged given the profoundly stupid comments they have made on my talk page at various times and their distinctly creepy interest in things like where my wife and I spent last weekend (no idea how that would help resolve the issue at the Mahmoud Darwish article).

The contrast between how they see their edits/comments and the actual edits/comments is quite stark.
 * Here is an example of the kind of nonsense editors have to put up with when dealing with this editor where they facilitate blatant POV pushing.
 * hgilbert accurately described their approach as obstructionist here based on his experience at the Mahmoud Darwish article. That interaction led to my involvement at the Mahmoud Darwish article by providing 6 reliable sources and urging Modinyr to find a reasonable policy based compromise or expect an AE report (Nableezy filed the report but if he hadn't, I would have filed one eventually). It didn't make any difference. Modinyr is not interested in what sources say or finding sources. In this very AE report he dismisses The National from the "racist autocracy of U.A.E" even though the ref actually used was the New Statesman, something he surely should be aware of given that he removed it twice.
 * Here is an example of his careless editing where he reverted one of my edits, presumbly just because it was mine, with the edit summary "Restoring sourced info". Clearly he didn't even read the source because the information I removed wasn't in the source as my "per source cited" indicated.

One of the most bizarre aspects of this editor is the way he seems to see his arguments at the Mahmoud Darwish article and elsewhere as if he is trying to avoid unsourced assumptions and yet he makes ludicrous evidenceless assumptions about the state of mind and nature of the editors he deals with as a matter of routine. He has done it again here about Nableezy. He will keep doing it until someone stops him. Editors shouldn't have to put up with editors like Modinyr in the topic area. An SPI report may be worthwhile to establish whether this is a new incarnation of Lutrinae but frankly I just can't be bothered to waste anymore time on this guy. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 4px 1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> Sean.hoyland  - talk 08:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

This is baseless mud-throwing. First off, associating me with another editor is a flimsy arguement and a dirty trick. It certainly isn't appropriate for another editor to refer to another editors wife, but I've never done that. I don't know why Sean would throw an accusation like that.

A lot of my editing is getting rid of polemic language. Look at the "Arab citizens of Israel" page. Look at the editting I was trying to do. Nableezy said I was "edit warring without respite." On the Arab citizens of Israel page I just started a talk page discussion, not a revert. I only did three changes and explained myself all three times. Besides, the edits were for neutral language. It isn't "blatant POV pushing" like Sean says.

Sean did bring 6 sources to the arguement. But none of them proved what Ghilbert was trying to say. Just because you brought a bunch of sources that say "Paris is the capital of France," doesn't mean you can use those sources to say "Paris is the city of light." In the third bullet point, Sean removed the word "convicted" from an article and I restored it. The source that is used plainly uses the words "convicted criminals." So Sean removed the sourced information and said I "didn't even read the source because the information I removed wasn't in the source." This is just false.

These accusations don't hold up. Modinyr (talk) 19:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Modinyr has again returned to the article Mahmoud Darwish and removed the same content he has been edit warring over This is after I went to the talk page and presented two books from academic publishers which back the edit, he knows this as he commented on the sources on the talk page. The Last Angry Man (talk) 17:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I did not remove the reference to the destruction of the town. clearly shows that. The article still says "razed and destroyed" by the IDF. What I removed was this phrase

..to prevent its inhabitants from returning to their homes inside the new Jewish state.

Last Angry's sources and the others definately verify that the village was destroyed. But one obituary, found in a state-soapbox newspaper, claimed that the IDF was spitefully destroying the town to prevent return. The reporter was taking a guess about the thoughts of IDF commanders in the late 40's that I don't think an encyclopedia article should mention.

I removed a statement from an unreliable source while leaving in the consensus that the town was destroyed. Look at talk:Mahmoud Darwish. You will see Last Angry say his sources, "... say quite clearly that the town was razed by the IDF, please stop removing this reliably sourced content." I am not removing mention of the destruction of Birwa by the IDF. I am removing bad content and explaining why on the talk page.

If you are an admin and would like to take action, please review the accusations and I think you will see that these are trumped up charges and strawman arguments directed against an inexperienced but well-intentioned editor. Modinyr (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning Modinyr

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


 * This seems to be a case of long-term edit warring by Modinyr at Mahmoud Darwish and Arab citizens of Israel. He never exceeds one revert per 24 hours, but he keeps restoring the same material over a long period. One way of addressing the matter would be to limit Modinyr to 1RR per *week* on all I/P articles for three months. This would encourage him to be more persuasive on the talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Ed, and add that it may be a good idea to add a discussion restriction on top of that - i.e., requiring Modinyr to discuss any reverts they make on the talk page. T. Canens (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Modinyr has now added some comments to this AE in defense of his position. When you bring content arguments to an admin board, you risk getting the response that your job is to persuade your fellow editors about the content, not the admins. The steps of WP:Dispute resolution are there for a reason. I'm enacting a one-revert-per-week restriction on Modinyr for three months on articles about the Israeli/Palestinian dispute broadly construed. Modinyr is also warned that if he continues to make reverts without appropriate discussion the ban may be extended to a full topic ban from I/P by any admin. EdJohnston (talk) 01:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Request concerning Jonchapple

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Domer48  'fenian'  11:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced:
 * 1) Per Result concerning Jonchapple
 * 2) Per Terms of probation
 * 3) Per Enforcement
 * 4) Per Result concerning Jonchapple
 * 5) Per Result concerning Jonchapple "Topic Banned"

''All articles related to The Troubles, defined as: any article that could be reasonably construed as being related to The Troubles, Irish nationalism, and British nationalism in relation to Ireland falls under WP:1RR (one revert per editor per article per 24 hour period). When in doubt, assume it is related.''

''Terms of probation Participants placed on probation are limited to one revert per article per week with respect to the set of articles included in the probation. Any participant may be briefly banned for personal attacks or incivility. Reversion of edits by anonymous IPs do not count as a revert.''

Jonchapple is topic banned from articles relating to The Troubles, as well as the Ulster banner and British baronets, broadly construed, for a period of three months.11:39, 20 October 2011


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


 * 1) 14:39, 28 October 2011 First Revert. Violation of Topic Ban, with very misleading edit summary. They were not formatting, and not reverting the edit of IP. They were reverting the edit of an Editor, Dana2011 23:16, 19 October 2011, which was a deliberate attempt to mislead per Troubles.
 * 2) 14:44, 28 October 2011 Second Revert. Violation of 1RR and Topic Ban.


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :


 * 1) Warned on 19:34, 14 August 2011 by
 * 2) Warned on 16:24, 14 August 2011 by who made them aware of the Terms of probation
 * 3) Warned on 24 September 2011
 * 4) Warned on11:39, 20 October 2011

Prior Notices of 1 RR Violation of Terms of probation notice


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :There is nothing more that I can add to this report that has not been said by Admin's, ArbCom, Editors and myself already.

However since filing this report, I've discovered that the Editor is well aware of the issues involved and the articles to avoide, with the advice of KillerChihuahua here and their advice here. With additional advice being offered here being ignored on issues of "Nationality"here on "Nationality"here on "Nationality"on Ulsteron Flagson Northern Irelandon IrishWaterways IrelandUlster MuseumIrish Nationalityprovocative comments on Editorsprovocative RedirectNorthern IrelandUK / Northern Irelandon Nationalityon Nationalityprovocative RedirectHistory of Northern IrelandNationality.

The Editor, have given an undertaking to be civil and not to engage in personal attacks to avoid a topic ban has opted instead to assumptions of bad faith as seen here, in response to my notifying them of this report and here, in response to edits I made on this article here. Having been placed on probation limiting them to 1RR per week, they have ignored that as the diff's for this report above clearly illustrate. They are then Topic Banned and decide to ignore this also as noted in the above diff's in this section.


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Comments by others about the request concerning Jonchapple
Could admins clarify how a topic banned editor is allowed to continue to edit the talk page of articles covered by the ban? It could be seen, not saying it is, as an attempt to hinder consensus building by editors who aren't topic banned. If the editor is allowed to still argue for British, Irish or whatever then how is it a topic ban? Mo ainm ~Talk  19:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning Jonchapple

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

Blocked 1 week. T. Canens (talk) 21:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Request concerning George45646

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Nableezy 16:33, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA


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

I feel fairly confident that the below reverts by IPs are also by George45646
 * 1RR violation at Ariel University Center of Samaria
 * 1) 21:09, 29 October 2011  (edit summary: "Not corresponds to the value of the boycott was not the Ariel")
 * 2) 15:18, 30 October 2011  (edit summary: "Know that there is discussion")
 * 3) 15:34, 30 October 2011  (edit summary: "That this is the Bar-Ilan University and no the Ariel")
 * 1) 14:06, 30 October 2011  (edit summary: "Boycott of Bar Ilan University and no Ariel, Not suitable for this entry")
 * 2) 07:34, 30 October 2011  (edit summary: "Still boycott of Bar Ilan University and the Ariel")


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :


 * 1)
 * 2)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

Much like the account, abandoned after being blocked for violating the 1RR at the same page, this account is a single purpose account that is focused on both removing any material he or she perceives to be negative about Ariel University Center and on turning other parts of the article into a vehicle for promotion. I personally think a topic ban from Ariel University Center of Samaria and related edits is called for.

notified
 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Result concerning George45646

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


 * This is a blatant case. I am blocking George45646 for three days and notifying them of the discretionary sanctions. The article Ariel University Center of Samaria is also being semiprotected due to the high probability that George has been using IPs there to join in his campaign of reverts. EdJohnston (talk) 17:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Per Checkuser, I find it extremely that George45646 and David9991 are the same. WilliamH (talk) 17:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * reblocked indef, and blocked 1 week. T. Canens (talk) 19:00, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Request concerning PCPP

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : — Zujine |talk 07:29, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Indefinite TBAN on Falungong


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

PCPP has an extensive history of problematic editing, most of which appears on Falungong pages, though he occasionally displays similar tendencies on other pages related to China. His point of view is distinctly non-neutral, and he seeks ever to try to diminish criticisms of the Communist Party of China, to highlight criticisms of Falungong, and delete content that depicts the suppression of Falungong by the Communist Party. Everyone has a point of view, of course, but PCPP pursues his in a uniquely disruptive and tendentious way characterised by edit waring, constant reverting and deletion of content without discussion, misleading edit summaries, and personal attacks against those who disagree with him. His user talk page is a testament to this pattern of disruptive editing; it is riddled with cease and desist requests, warnings, blocks, and temporary topic bans for his editing on Falungong-related pages. He was subject to a four-month topic ban beginning February of this year (the arbitrary request is here). After a period of minimal activity, he recently returned to editing Falungong in a disruptive manner. Given his extensive history of tendentious editing, which has been documented and described at length before, I will only present evidence here of his behaviour since his last topic ban, presented in chronological order:


 * From May, 2011:  PCPP twice removes sourced content from the page on the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. The content in question consisted of a very short paragraph explaining the alleged use of coercion to boost attendance numbers, cited to the New York Times. Moreover, the editor who added it had started a talk page discussion before adding the content, and explicitly asked in his edit summary that anyone who disagreed with its inclusion should discuss it on the talk page. PCPP failed to discuss the matter, and reverted it twice. Only after being asked on his user page to discuss did he chime in (not very convincingly, in my opinion), and accuse the other editor of “spreading misinformation” . The other editor seemed to have given up.


 * September 2011:  In a series of edits, PCPP adds a rather large sum of content and quotes from Falungong critics, including marginal and partisan ones, and deletes information referenced to mainstream scholars on Falungong and other reliable sources. I wrote a summary of just some of these edits here. In short, among the edits I summarised, PCPP misused a quotation from a reliable source, deleted three other reliable sources, inexplicably deleted a comparison of Falungong's beliefs to Buddhism, added a sensationalised paraphrasing of Falungong beliefs, highlighted the opinions of fringe critics of the group, and deleted an explanation of the Chinese government's use of the term "cult" (xiejiao) in reference to Falungong.  He says nothing about any of these edits on the talk page.


 * I have not carefully parsed the other edits that he made in September, but from a glance they are of a similar nature. This one is instructive. It deals with a paragraph about how, in 2009, judges in Argentina and Spain ruled to indict top Chinese leaders on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the persecution of Falungong. With an edit summary that states he is "summarising the response section," PCPP removed all references to genocide in the rulings. For the record, one judge described the persecution as a "genocidal strategy," and the other said that the suppression has the characteristics of a genocide. It's worth noting that PCPP was previously sanctioned for edit warring over Falungong's inclusion as a genocide/alleged genocide at List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll.

Every editor has a point of view, but most at least strive to make neutral edits, to achieve things through consensus, and engage in discussions when they find that they are in disagreement over their contributions. PCPP does not do this, and his edits consistently serve to advance a partisan perspective. What is more troubling, however, is that PCPP pursues his partisan interests unilaterally, always with minimal discussion, and with remarkable aggression toward other editors and normal editing processes. In this case, he has not allowed any other editor to edit the page; no matter how seemingly innocuous or minor, he has reverted every change.


 * Following the series of edits in September, editor Olaf Stephanos partially undid some of PCPP's changes to Falun Gong, adding in additional content in the process. Olaf left a note on the talk page briefly explaining his edits, at which point another editor began to engage him in discussion on one of the changes, and he responded with more elaboration.  I then chimed in expressing agreement with some of Olaf's concerns and raised additional questions.
 * PCPP arrives and reverts the page to the last version he last edited in September.. He does not participate in the talk page discussion that was ongoing.


 * Editor Homunculus reverted PCPP, and left a note on the talk page explaining why.


 * PCPP reverts again, accusing Homunculus of "POV pushing" in the edit summary.


 * Homunculus reverts a second time, asking again in his edit summary that PCPP participate in the talk page discussion before further reversions.


 * PCPP reverts for a third time


 * At this point PCPP and Homunculus are discussing on the talk page. Homunculus asks PCPP to address the concerns that other editors raised regarding his changes to the page. PCPP addresses only one of these concerns very tersely, and accuses Homunculus of "trying to paint a false picture." PCPP also accuses Olaf Stephanos of being a "known [Falungong] activist". The conversation can be seen here.


 * For the benefit of those watching the discussion, I then spent a good deal of time parsing through the changes that PCPP made to the "controversies" section of the page (again, it's here) Finding that they were, on a whole, not very productive and some changes were rather inexplicable, I asked PCPP to account for these changes. I left a note on his talk page directing him to the discussion. I also pointed out that I found his comments towards other editors to be inappropriate, and asked him to stick to discussions of content rather than making accusations of bias or ad hominem attacks (particularly on the basis of other editors' religion, as in the case of Olaf).


 * PCPP tells me to "Go away" on his talk page and defends his personal attack against Olaf.


 * PCPP then responds on the Falungong talk page to each of the points I raised. Failing to thread his post (annoying), he also fails to address the substance of the concerns (sometimes presenting straw man arguments or attempting to change the subject), ignores some entirely, and responds to one with a sardonic "Wow, I removed an extra word! Alert the presses!" He concludes his explanation by saying that his repeated reversions were merely "defending my right to edit Wikipedia."


 * At last, PCPP made two minor changes at the request of another editor. As several problems remained, I proposed a middle-road solution for resolving this dispute on the talk page, and made some edits to the page accordingly. I preserved valuable information and sources that had been added, and also contributed some new sources that were representative of the issues, made some rearrangements to the order (but not substance) of some content, and removed a disputed quote. I assumed this edit would be pretty non-controversial, and then…


 * PCPP reverts for the fourth time, though a series of eight consecutive edits. Once again, he does not discuss his changes on the talk page. And once again, his changes serve to advance the views of the Falungong's critics, and to diminish the views of neutral experts on Falungong religion (particularly with respect to the representations of Falungong's organisation). Other edits that he made here seem like reversions for the sake of it, because evidently, he is the only person who may edit the page.


 * When PCPP does engage in the talk page to account for his rather substantial changes, he leaves only a terse note accusing me of deception.


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :

This is PCPP's first foray back into editing Falungong articles since his last topic ban. The above collection of evidence should, in my view be more than enough to justify an indefinite topic ban (4 reverts, almost no discussion, no substantive response to legitimate questions, and plenty of accusations of bad faith and personal attacks). But just in case anyone believes it is insufficient, I would remind those reviewing the case that he has an extensive history of disruptive editing. After his last topic ban he should have mended his ways, yet this most recent exchange demonstrates that his propensity for tendentious, aggressive editing, and his penchant for repeated reversions with little or no discussion has not been rectified. His MO has changed slightly; where previously he would only delete content, this time around he has taken to a combination of deletion things he doesn't like and adding other material to advance his POV. Yet his approach to the community, to other users, his disregard for good faith discussion, and his willingness to edit war and accuse others are unchanged. As sanctions are intended to be preventative, and PCPP has not changes his editing habits, it can only be expected that he will continue editing in the disruptive manner described here. I would also note that, before his return, the Falungong article was stable, and the involved editors had been able to work together with minimal conflict to greatly improve it. PCPP's presence marked the return of incivility, and leads to a toxic environment where no consensus is possible, and no other editors may contribute to the page without being summarily reverted by PCPP. I would recommend a permanent topic ban, possibly extending to a community-wide ban.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by PCPP
I find this particular AE request completely unwarranted and in bad faith. Fact is, from February of this year until October, I have not even touched once Falun Gong related article. In the few disputes that I had, I actively engaged with the users on the talk page with civilty, such as a nationalistic content dispute on the China-Korea relations article and asked for admin advise on guidelines referring to article content.

To address Zujine's allegations:

1)I only edited the Expo 2010 article twice, with many weeks in between. Homunculus insisted in adding critical information regarding attendence in the main article, when in fact a separate article already exist for the very purpose, with the very same information, as several other editors had pointed out.

2)Everything I added to the FLG article in September were sourced to reliable sources, and a good faith attempt to introduce alternate perspectives. I have not "deleted information related to mainstream scholars", as Zujine claimed. The previous version's controversy section frankly does not follow article guidelines, where FLG's controversies were portrayed as being manufactured by the PRC government, ie an opening critical statement gets dismissed with two supportive statements. I rewrote the section so that the particular controversy gets noted, and highlighted both perspectives without favoring one or another, as any "controversy" section should.

I find Zujine's so called "breakdown" of my edits rather hostile in nature. He makes a big deal over the fact that I summarized a sentence from "mainstream religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism" to "mainstream religions such as Christianity and Islam". Furthermore, in regards to a statement sourced to the New York Times, he keeps claiming that the author's statements are "imflamatory" while demanding primary evidence linking to FLG lectures, which clearly violates original research policies.

3)For that particular edit, I simply summarized the previous paragraphs, replaced the FLG source with a mainstream report, and drew attention to the fact these lawsuits are, as admitted by FLG themselves, to be largely symbolic and that no arrests are likely to be made. Furthermore, going by the original article, User:Homunculus was warned for misintepreting the source article and stating that the Chinese officials were "found guilty", when they were simply indicted.

4)In contray to Zujine's claims, Olaf's October 17 revert restored the original "controversy" section, removing everything I added, and did not "add in additional content", as Zujine claims. In the talk page, he made several ad hominem attacks on the author, claiming that he's "very partisan" and a "mouthpiece for the CCP" . Later, he also tried to introduce personal anecdotes as a practitioner as "evidence".

5)As for Homunculus, he added fuel to the fire by reverting two additional times . In the talk page, he accused me of violating WP:BLP and WP:UNDUE, and "removing content", despite the fact that this article isn't coved by WP:BLP, and my additions were the ones being removed. In my opinion, he believes that his reverts are justified as "right" reverts , while mine are "wrong" reverts, and even asked an admin to restore the page to his "right" version

6)I simply referred to Olaf as a "known activist" and a valid COI concern, which is based on his previous case, in which he was banned for 6 months and the closing admin noted "He also rather often indicates that he is a practicioner of the movement, indicating a very realistic WP:COI concern".

7)Zujine's October 23 edits were actually a partial revert,, in which he restored numerous paragraphs in the controversy section to the previous version, and deleted the NYT article while a discussion was going on.

I find Zujine and Homunculus's behavior hard to work with, especially their partisan attitudes in this very request accusing me of trying to "diminish criticisms of the Communist Party of China." The fact is, I have tried to engage in discussions under tremendous stress, and even tried to introduce some outside opinions via RFC. I feel that no sufficient consensus has been demonstrated due to the lack of editors.

Going by the numerous issues in the past, the Falun Gong articles are highly controversial, and almost devoid of neutrality despite numerous attempts in the past at mediation. I do not enjoy editing these articles at all, and would have gladly left upon even the smallest editorial oversight. I edit these article on a vain but good faith attempt to improve its neutrality issues and provide a balanced POV. However I feel that these Zujine and Homunculus are deliberate hounding me based on my editing history on the Falun Gong pages, showing up in every dispute I've had in the past year and taking the opposite POV, and willingly engaging in reverts wars, based on the perspective that they're "right" and I'm "wrong", and that somehow I'm trying to advance the causes of the CCP. Almost all the time I find that my edits getting merciless reverted by these two, causing me endless distress in real life. I do not enjoy in edit warring, but am simply defending my right to edit the FLG articles without these two showing up every moment and undoing everything.--PCPP (talk) 18:11, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Homunculus
I participated in the previous AE against the user, and as nothing has changed, I am pasting my previous comment below my assessment of the current situation. I think it summarizes my feelings well. With respect to recent events, in particular, I would like to draw attention to the following:
 * In case it was going to affect the results of this case, when I reverted PCPP's unilateral changes to the page here, I left a note on the talk page indicating my reasoning, and suggested that some of the content PCPP had included material may have violated WP:BLP, which would justify a summary revert. In fact I had misread the source of a guideline another editor had posted as evidence of why not to include some of PCPP's content.  The guideline was from actually from WP:RS, as I later realized, and not from WP:BLP (although it included mention of the sensitivity of accurately quoting living persons). Had the policy been WP:BLP, I understand that any number of reverts to PCPP would have been justified,  but this not being the case,  I ask observers to disregard that part of my talk page comment.
 * I would like to draw attention to the fact that the three editors who reverted or partially reverted PCPP all did so with an explanation on the talk page. The other two editors (other than myself, that is), did not engage in wholesale reverts but selective ones, and Zujine in particular was attempting to find an agreeable resolution that retained worthwhile sources added by PCPP. By contrast, PCPP has effectively changed the page five times (including his edits in September), and never once voluntarily participated in talk page discussion to explain these edits in good faith.
 * I would note as well that PCPP has a tendency to attempt to distract from legitimate discussions of content with accusations of bad faith sometimes escalating to personal attacks, attempts to portray other editors as biased, and when pressed, specious or straw man arguments to justify his page contributions.
 * Finally, a note that (aside from vandals and sockpuppets) I do not think I have encountered other editors on Wikipedia with whom I have been unable to reach a quiet or even begrudging resolution, if not a consensus. On Falun Gong pages in particular, for the last year or so I have found the climate to be generally civil and constructive when PCPP is not around. When he is around, the pages become a battle ground that is extremely unpleasant to work in. There is an unfortunate feature that has characterized Falun Gong pages in the past (dating back to before I was around). That is, the propensity to group editors into either pro- or anti-Falun Gong, as judged by which side of an imagined "middle ground" position they fall on, and to then seek to discredit their contributions on the basis of a perceived bias (the middle ground, as judged by Wikipedia editors like PCPP, is not neutral at all, but instead is the median point between scholarly and NGO consensus on Falun Gong and the perspective of the Communist Party). If these pages are to continue being civil, reasonable environments, it is necessary to judge the substance of edits, not the suspected bias of the people making them. PCPP has accused every editor with whom he disagrees with possession of a pro-Falun Gong bias, because he is unable to engage in substantial conversation.  It is worth noting that none of the editors involved here have reciprocated these accusations of bad faith, and have consistently attempted to engage with content.

Here are my comments from the previous AE case:

''Personally I find all this very unsavory. But I am involved, so I should probably speak up. In my various interactions with PCPP, I have tried to hold my tongue and avoid accusations of bad faith. This is not because I have the slightest regard for this individual, though, or for his intentions. I have encountered this editor on several articles related to either Communist Party history or Falun Gong, and have found him to be exclusively concerned with massaging the image of the Communist Party and maligning Falun Gong, in spite of any facts that may stand in the way. I cannot recall one instance in which he contributed in a productive way, let alone an objective way, to these articles. He mainly deletes content, and when challenged, he is typically unable to offer a reasonable defense for doing so. He does make numerous weak attempts to justify his edits, consuming much time; his recent reverts on List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll is a good example of how he’ll delete with one excuse, and when it is shot down, he will simply embrace another justification for deletion, and another, and another... By the end, he is arguing that Falun Gong should not be on a list of genocides because the National Endowment for Democracy is an American propaganda agency, or because David Ownby has not said it is a genocide (even though Ownby states that he is not an expert on the human rights issues related to Falun Gong, but instead on the religious and historical context surrounding it). It's exhausting. As inhumane as it may be, my problem is not with this editor’s ideological bias per se. Nor do I care that he has recently taken to accusing me of bad faith. My problem is with the means he uses to advance his point of view, which include blanket and repeated reversions without discussion, editing against consensus, leveling personal attacks against editors who disagree with his aggressive behavior, misrepresenting sources, cloaking controversial edits under innocuous edit summaries, and deleting anything that does not comport with his view of the world. I can imagine that cognitive dissonance is a difficult thing to live with. It’s hard to accept that Mao Zedong is not a saint, and that innocent people are victimized by the Communist Party. But I would recommend that the best way to cope is to try accepting facts, rather than deleting them from wikipedia in a vain and annoying attempt to shape the world to accord with one’s personal beliefs. Asdfg was concerned that in filing this request for arbitration, PCPP would attempt to distract from his own behavior by drawing attention to Asdfg’s history. I was prepared to file this request in his stead, because I do not want the conversation to be derailed. I have wasted enough time unpacking the specious arguments that PCPP offers to support his indefensible position on these topics. Homunculus (duihua) 22:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)''


 * A final note: I just saw PCPP's statement. I don't have time to dissect it, but would exhort observers to read the relevant discussions in full; it is time-consuming, but can be more instructive than referring to a list of diffs. Real life awaits. Homunculus (duihua) 18:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * A response to Quigley: Reiterating what I said above, I would again ask that administrators reviewing this case carefully read the discussions that have been highlighted, rather than only the summaries given, as the latter may be somewhat misleading. In the instance of PCPP's edits to the 2010 Shanghai Expo, Quigley writes that I alone argued for the inclusion of the sentence on attendance numbers. This was not the case; the only uninvolved editor who weighed in during that RfC (that is, the only person with no history of editing pages related to the PRC) actually agreed with me, not PCPP, as Quigley claimed. Ultimately I gave up, and the page remains a POV fork to this day. But that content dispute is not what's at issue here; the problem with PCPP's behavior in that case was that I started a talk page discussions explaining the decision to include the content and asking those who disagree to discuss it. PCPP reverted twice before participating in those discussions, only chiming in after I asked him to on his talk page. As to Quigley's suggestion that PCPP is not a unilateral editor and that he does not break consensus, I would refer back to the last AE that was brought against him, in which he was found to repeatedly revert content against consensus. The fact that his talk page is littered with warnings and sanctions is not evidence that he is being martyred; it is evidence that he has a serious problem editing Falun Gong pages. His behavior in this case speaks for itself. PCPP makes extensive changes to a previously stable page, and does not discuss it. When another editor raises concerns and undoes some of his changes, PCPP reverts and does not discuss it.  When I ask for discussion and revert back, PCPP reverts again without discussion. When Zujine tries to achieve a middle ground and explains his reasons for doing so, PCPP reverts again, making even more changes, and does not discuss them.  When he is pressed for explanations, he accuses other editors of malice, and when he is asked to refrain from personal attacks, he responds with "go away." This is what makes his behavior tendentious—it's not simply that he edits while discussions are ongoing.Homunculus (duihua) 03:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Olaf Stephanos
I have been involved with these pages on and off for the past 5-6 years. During this period of time, the pages have undergone huge changes, and their balance has been periodically altered by people who have sought to advance their own ideological agenda. Having a post-graduate background in cultural studies and comparative religion, I have been pleased with many editors' willingness to search for highest quality sources and engage in scrutinous, policy-compliant discussion on the talk page. Unfortunately, PCPP has not been one of these editors. Ever since he appeared a few years ago, his struggle to whitewash the Communist Party's human rights violations and create a tabloid style "exposé" of Falun Gong has been highly disconcerting for a large number of Wikipedians. The active group of editors has varied over the years, but no matter who they have been, the people who stand in favour of a scholarly, well-sourced and encyclopaedic article have been frustrated by PCPP's ideological edit warring, lack of reasoning, overall inability to discuss his modifications, and outright dismissal of sound arguments. The above editors (Homunculus and Zujine) were not at all involved in the fierce debates and arbitration cases that I went through several years ago, but I am in no way surprised that they seem to have formed an equally negative impression of PCPP and his misdeeds. Considering that PCPP has already been topic banned for several months and has apparently not learned his lessons, I leave it up to the arbitrators to decide whether he is capable of editing this group of articles at all. &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  14:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I will briefly comment on how OhConfucius seeks to discredit me below. Firstly, the articles in their present state do not contain a single sentence added by me. Secondly, I have always, always insisted on scholarly sources, preferably peer-reviewed journals. I don't remember ever adding anything from Clearwisdom or the Epoch Times; correct me if I'm wrong. Thirdly, I have a degree of academic competence in this area, and that certainly qualifies me as someone who can and should take part in editing these articles. Fourthly, my discussions on the talk page have been scrutinous and intelligent, and I have apologized for and refrained from the sarcasm and occasional incivility that lead into my ban more than two years ago. My main interest is in editing Falun Gong related pages on this encyclopedia, but I hope you can recognize that a spiritual believer is capable of making valuable contributions to pages on their religion, just as a Chinese person has unique insight in and may exclusively concern themselves in editing pages related to China. I hope that my personal beliefs will not be used as an ad hominem means of discrediting me, as that would seem to be in contravention with WP:NPA. I have not edit warred or engaged in disruptive behaviour, and my discourse is academic. Fifthly, this arbitration enforcement case is not about me. It has been initiated by editors who are not Falun Gong practitioners and were not involved in our previous grudges. &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  15:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I find your attitude towards me rather condescending. My edits alone shows that they're not simply limited FLG articles, as you claim, and in no way had try to "whitewash" the CCP nor "expose" FLG. Furthermore, presenting yourself as a having "degree" means little as far edits are concerned, considering the anonmity of the internet and the Essjay scandal.--PCPP (talk) 18:21, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Provided that the topic ban is implemented, I will leave (one of my) final comments here. The fact that T. Canens also seeks to ban me from discussion on the talk pages, even though he has not provided any real evidence of my "disruptive editing", leaves me with the impression that this process is biased and contrary to any genuine rule of law. For the sake of posteriority, I will paste here the e-mail I sent to SilkTork a few days ago. I don't care what others may think of it now; the Wikipedia archive history will hopefully remain for future generations to analyse and comment upon.
 * "Hi,


 * this is off the record, because I know it would be used against me. First of all, I want to thank you for your reasonable and intelligent offer. You are truly worthy of your status as an administrator. I wish everyone could show such breadth of mind.


 * On the contrary, I strongly feel that T. Canens, the disciplinary admin, is trying to impose his will on the content and/or favour his Chinese compatriots (PCPP, OhConfucius, Colipon...). Many of them were not even mentioned among the accused parties. T. Canens was already involved in the previous AE case where Asdfg12345, who was consistently civil and policy compliant, was topic banned for "POV pushing".


 * Moreover, now T. Canens is suggesting a "minimum" of 12 months to me, HappyInGeneral and Dilip Rajeev, although we were never told that this AE case is about us and were therefore not given a chance to say anything in our defence. (HiG probably didn't even know it existed, as he didn't comment at all.) About Dilip, T. Canens states "Very limited edits since topic ban", but in the next paragraph he turns around and says "all we got seems to be more of the same".


 * T. Canens begins his list of proposed sanctions with me, although the case is about PCPP. He showcases isolated diffs from me, Happy and Dilip, and PCPP is only briefly mentioned at the end of the proposed sanctions. He alleges that my edits have _consistently_ made the articles read more favorable to FLG and less favorable to CCP (as if the aim was to make them equally favourable to both, regardless of the quality of sources!), while PCPP "_generally_ [tends] to make articles read more favorable to CCP/unfavorable to FLG", even though we also have considerable evidence of PCPP's pro-CCP editing patterns elsewhere on Wikipedia. Meanwhile, I have edited the Falun Gong family of articles only FIVE times over the past year, not counting the talk pages, and have not edit warred or engaged in disruptive behaviour. At the moment, none of the articles contains a single sentence added by me.


 * Besides, Zujine (the editor who initiated this case) and Homunculus, who are respected Wikipedians and seem to have a mere academic interest in Falun Gong, were concerned about PCPP's behaviour. Both have expressed that they consider me a reasonable editor.


 * On the admin side, this AE case had been relatively unactive for quite some time. Immediately after T. Canens asked all involved parties to send evidence via e-mail, I sent him a message explaining that I am busy in real life and would send him the evidence against PCPP in only two days (i.e. Sunday). He completely disregarded my message and proposed the sanctions before receiving my diffs.


 * Unfortunately, cases like this make me believe that Wikipedia is not immune against mock trials. The desired outcome of the case seems to have been decided by T. Canens before reviewing the evidence.


 * Whenever I have edited Wikipedia, I have sought to abide by the policies and simply do not understand what I could have done differently this time. I don't know what I am being disciplined for. A quasi-indefinite topic ban for commenting on the talk page?


 * The Falun Gong dispute is a microcosm of the situation in the real world, where serious human rights violations, forced labour camps, genocide allegations, economic and political interests, propaganda and Chinese nationalism are involved. In order to create a high quality encyclopedia article - the best available neutral source on Falun Gong - I have wanted to discuss reliable sources and due weight. I have been very restrained in editing the articles and relied on argumentative discussion on the talk page.


 * Punishing editors for apparent thought crimes is seriously undermining the respectability of Wikipedia administrators and the entire arbitration process. It may lead to deep underlying problems and bias in the encyclopedia. My experience of the AE review process is mostly negative, as the disciplinary administrators' personal discretion enjoys considerable trust among the head arbitrators. There is no legitimate channel in Wikipedia where I could effectively complain about T. Canens and his partisan approach to these content disputes.


 * I sincerely wish your suggestion is implemented and we get help from the larger community." &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  13:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius
Olaf lacks all credibility. He is a self-admitted Falun Gong practitioner who constantly wikilawyers for acceptability of sources favourable to the FLG cause, and tries to disqualify or otherwise remove those that are even remotely critical, yet he has the temerity to say he stands "in favour of a scholarly, well-sourced and encyclopaedic article", and accuse PCCP of attempting to "advance their own ideological agenda". Olaf himself is a strong advocate for Falun Gong, and one of the movement's most durable contributors; he seems incapable of accepting any position about Falun Gong other than what emanates from Clearwisdom or Epoch Times. An examination of his contributions history shows Olav is solely interested in Falun Gong articles. Over the years, he has aided and abetted other radicals such as  and  in turning the family of articles into glossy brochures for the movement. Olaf has not made any demonstrable attempt at integrating or interacting with the community at large, except at Arbcom-related venues, where he himself has been topic-banned for six months. His comments should be looked at in context. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 15:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hope you don't mind my commenting on your comment here, and I also hope that this does not distract further from the issue at hand, which is PCPP's disruptive behaviour. Both you and PCPP have attempted to use Olaf's "self-admitted Falun Gong practitioner" status to discredit him. PCPP takes this a step further, claiming that Olaf is a self-declared Falungong activist (I have not seen Olaf claim to be an activist. Maybe PCPP can direct me to it?). As I pointed out to PCPP before, this might be construed as a personal attack ("using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views"). I think it's a fine line. In my view, it is not necessarily a COI for an editor belonging to a particular religious group to edit articles on their religion, as long as they strive for neutrality, adhere to policy, and are able to work collaboratively; in fact, it seems religious adherents are encouraged to participate to ensure the articles on their respective religions are fair. (The same holds for people of a given ethnicity, nationality, etc.) Olaf on his user page appears to declare that he practices Falungong. Whether or not you think this is a potential conflict of interest, WP:COI states that "When someone voluntarily discloses a conflict of interest, other editors should always assume the editor is trying to do the right thing. Do not use a voluntarily disclosed conflict of interest as a weapon against the editor." Doing so contributes to incivility on these pages, and takes us away from the task of improving them. This is as much directed to you as PCPP. Thanks. — Zujine |talk 16:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I might refer you to Olaf's own AE case . The closing admin noted He also rather often indicates that he is a practicioner of the movement, indicating a very realistic WP:COI concern--PCPP (talk) 17:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Zujine: In reality, I am much happier dealing with people who lay their cards on the table, rather than those who do so whilst under some hidden agenda. I did not "attempt to use Olaf's 'self-admitted Falun Gong practitioner' status to discredit him"; his own actions do that in sufficient measure. I was merely pointing out the facts, so that the admins don't take Olaf's comments at face value. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 02:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * @Olaf: Please read my comment again. I never accused you of any of those specific points you eagerly rushed to defend yourself against. You continue to lawyer, skate, and obfuscate. Were I in your shoes, I too would probably consider PCPP a thorn in my side, and wish to be rid of him so that I could further my agenda of spreading "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance" [sic]. I would also probably harbour a silent admiration of his tenacity which must equal that of the most resilient FLG advocate who has ever passed through Wikipedia, although I might never admit it. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 09:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course you didn't. Just to get things right: the closing admin had nothing to say about a COI. It was John Carter, an editor/administrator who was heavily involved in the Falun Gong content disputes at the time and who wrote a comment as an ordinary editor. Please check your references before you rush headlong into quoting your candidate. (It wasn't OhConfucius but PCPP who misattributed the quote both in his own statement and above. I apologise.) Of course, the fact that John Carter seems interested in atheistically oriented topics would, by the same problematic reasoning, present a "very realistic COI" in matters related to spiritual beliefs. I would never dare to make such allegations. &#10004; Olaf Stephanos  &#9997;  09:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I never mentioned COI, and I'm truly baffled by the above comment. Whether I am "rush[ing] headlong into quoting [my] candidate" or not, I'll happily let others be the judge. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 09:39, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I run into an edit conflict with you when I was correcting my mistake above. It was PCPP whose signature I missed in between the comments. &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  09:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Noted. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 03:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It wasn't just Carter. I would remind all that Olav's 'efforts' were also criticised by – respected admin and former Arb. As to your "Of course you didn't", I'll leave others to interpret it. --  Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 03:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It doesn't look to me like Shell Kinney was being especially critical. It looked like Olaf was asking him for guidance and clarification, and Shell provided it. Ironically, Olaf asked whether he will forever be haunted by the sanction that was brought against him two years ago, regardless of any steps he takes to remedy his behaviour. I appears he has his answer; one would think this was an arbitration request against Olaf. Let me remind everyone that it is not.— Zujine |talk 05:09, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Dilip rajeev's own tendentiousness and disruption are a matter of record – his antics at Sathya Sai Baba and at the collected family of Falun Gong articles would have earned him an indefinite site ban had it not been for the intervention of and . It would have been characteristic of Dilip to wade right in and instantly be at loggerheads with PCPP, if not for the noticeable change in his behaviour since the case, and the non-binding supervised editing agreement he entered into. He continues to make unsavoury accusations against me, and send my private emails asking me why I make "hatred inducing statements against a group of peaceful, innocent people being tortured to death for no reason". On the other hand, I have a track-record of producing articles of quality concentrated on but not exclusively about China. I am particularly proud of my contributions to July 2009 Ürümqi riots and Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident. I have nothing against Falun Gong; what I object to is their insistence on blind advocacy and proselytism. The Falun Gong movement is, as has been noted by scholars and experts as well as other commentators, inordinately sensitive to criticism. Thus, if by 'hatred of Falun Gong', Dilip means not being afraid of inserting negative material about the movement to produce a balanced article, then I am guilty as charged, M'lud. I am also guilty of strongly disliking the FLG practitioners and apologists who edit the article as they have made my life there a misery on WP – it shouldn't be like that at all. It is absolutely true this problem is chronic. In January 2010, having tolerated a very hostile ambience since July 2007, I succumbed. I could not take any more of the stresses of personal attacks and continuing to buttress the loyal blind advocacy, proselytism and whitewashing of the Falun Gong. I was able to walk away from the subject area as I was completely free of any personal interest in the group or the subject. In summary, what I am saying is that FLG 'supporters' here need to examine their own actions. And if PCPP is to be sanctioned over this, then admins need to be even-handed in dealing with the other parties in this dispute. --  Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 03:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * OC, On my talk you make a post saying you appreciate the gesture of friendship. What was unsavory in my mail? You have been repeatedly[preemptive-ly?] attacking me here before I even made any statement here. The last email[one of the two in the past few years] interaction with you ended with you posting on my wall saying: "Thank you for your email with the link, and for trying to patch things up. I sincerely appreciate the gesture. However, I really have no interest in further continuing the Falun Gong saga in any way, shape or form. Forgive me for not replying to you by email, but I am not interested in continuing any such discussion with you on- or off-WP.". And then you come and attack me here on this discussion with no apparent reason, as if you are a completely different person. In another instance, you made a ridculing post with apparent research on my personal life on my wall  and attacking me the basis of "things" you dug up online. And when I asked you why after a few weeks, you said you had no memory of doing it and repeatedly blanked my posts on your wall.  A mail I wrote to you yesterday, the second interaction with you in the past few years, was on friendly and kind terms, I believe. People are not pro or anti, and other editors here are not the "opposite" of PCPP, an "opposite" whom you claim must be settled as well if action is taken against disruptive patterns of the user under scruitny. PCPP has been engaging continually in disruption, as partially documented here: and above. The question here is  how to deal with them. My contributions have been sourced always to western academia, etc. Please take a look at PCPP's edits, before saying thing like he is the last "vanguard" of something here:
 * Dilip rajeev (talk) 04:57, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Whoa, you all have a complicated history with each other. Unless it's relevant to this discussion, you might want to consider taking it offline for now.  Just a suggestion.Homunculus (duihua) 05:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't worry. I have said all I wanted to say, and had no intention of adding anything further. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 05:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Colipon, and would gladly offer myself up for an indefinite topic ban. If they do topic ban us all, it'll be highly symbolic message that there is zero tolerance of religious devotees and sceptics trying to disrupt wikipedia and drive coaches and horses through WP:NPOV through repeated lawyering, tendentious editing, edit warring, incivilities and personal attacks. If they don't the only solution would be to lock down the articles permanently. Topic bans for all wouldn't need to go back to Arbcom. But do they have the guts... -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 01:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * With all due respect to SilkTork, whom I admire greatly for his efforts in Wikipedia, I believe that he is naive in his belief insofar as this concerns religious devotees, particularly Falun Gong ones. Of course, we know of various problematic areas in WP, from climate change to Scientology to other arenas where strong advocacy is known to be present. Each one of these cries out for admin "supervision", but invariably flares up repeatedly; none is ever a long-term solution. Let us not forget that FLG articles have been under arbcom purview since before I got involved with these; problems recur like the summer rain or the winter snow. ST said he doesn't mind doing it, if nobody is prepared to step forward, but I see from his talk page that he already has his plate rather full, and often does not respond to posts in a timely manner. Also, we must seriously consider if we going down the route of placing peacekeepers in each potential war-zone? Not only does ST's proposal stretch the resources of Admins thinly, it also stretches the defined scope of their work to breaking point in favour of one group of problematic editors and not others, to the extent that WP can be accused of being more favourable to Falun Gong, compared to the global-warming deniers/anti-global-warming activists, Scientologists, or other agenda-driven editors. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 01:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Zujine, I think you have a fair point about notification and defence, but the presiding admin has not yet pronounced although has issued preliminary conclusions which are capable of being discussed further, particularly by the others to be sanctioned. You seem wholly sympathetic to FLG; I do not know if you have reviewed all the horrendous reams of article history, but the fact you were not around until quite recently means that you may have not enjoyed The Full Experience® that could potentially alienate you from the FLG as a human rights cause [always in the WP context] as it did me. The point I was trying to make by comparing FLG advocates [here on WP] to climate-change deniers was perhaps a bit lacking in the right examples. I have redacted the text above accordingly. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 04:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * HappyinGeneral has always been a very minor player in Falun Gong articles, unlike Dilip and Olav (and also the now retired asdfg). HiG's presence there, when I was editing, was very sporadic and dare I say quirky, but not in any way I would call disruptive. He might have chimed in in agreement to what one or other of his cohorts would say, adding to the general FLG 'noise'. However, I do not recall ever making sizeable edits, although he has definitely leapt into the fray (by 1RR reverting) when someone like asdfg or Dilip enters into battle-mode with me or PCCP but I can't say I ever seeing him edit war per se. As has been noted, what sets him apart from his fellow FLG practitioners is that he has made, and continues to make, edits outside of FLG articles. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 02:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A couple of points:
 * No only are we allowed to quote and cite Xinhua, we are obliged to provided the comment is notable, NPOV is preserved, and opinions are properly attributed. Yet there is the suggestion that we absolutely must not use sources such as People's Daily and Global Times because they only spout offensive propaganda. Such claim would logically disbar Epoch Times from being cited.
 * Articles need to have encyclopaedic notability. 'Falun Gong and live organ harvesting' is not a notable topic, nor was it ever, because few outside Falun Gong mouthpieces ever publicised it; sources were highly problematic. The 'Kilgour & Matas Report' is notable because the two principals gained international press coverage (The structure and content of the two articles were radically different, mirroring the scope given by each title). Thus the former was deleted, as was 'Sunjiatun Concentration Camp' – yet another loaded Falun Gong term failing WP:V. As we are on this topic, I would also note that Dilip unilaterally renamed 'Reports of organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners in China' → 'Falun Gong and live organ harvesting', and proposed to rename Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident → Tiananmen Square "self-immolation" incident. I should not need to restate these positions, but it seems that months of mentorship have left Dilip's ideological blinkers intact. As he keeps going on about the great injustices in connection with the above, it is beyond doubt that there is no change in his understanding about how WP works. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 04:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Quigley
I am often alerted to PCPP's disputes with various Falun Gong disciples through the various RfCs he brings. PCPP is not unwilling to use the talk page, but he tries to address the fact that such discussions often feature the same people, same arguments, and same personal attacks against PCPP that we see here (of his being a Communist Party stooge, etc), in ways some more polite than others.

The picture that the submitter paints of some aggressive, uncompromisable ideologue is not one that people outside of the dichotomous Falun Gong worldview usually find through interaction with PCPP. To take myself as an example, PCPP's reverts at Expo 2010 are portrayed by Zujine as having driven Homunculus away from the page. But as the two sections of expired RfC discussion show, all uninvolved commentators, including myself and excluding a Falun Gong SPA, agreed with PCPP's decision, and a substantial portion of us believed that Homunculus had manipulated the source and weight in his erstwhile addition.

The key is that PCPP is not a unilateral editor. As the last vanguard of a knowledgable perspective on Falun Gong independent of the religious and political interests that seek to bolster its image, every one of his edits are scrutinized and his talk page littered with threats, demands, and ultimatums enough to drive any user to rash editing. Yet throughout all of this, PCPP has no habit of breaking consensuses on content controversies established with the input of outsiders; in fact he tries to facilitate such consensuses through RfCs.

The limit of PCPP's "tendentious" editing is changing text while it is under discussion (most Falun Gong topics, it seems, are under perpetual discussion). Zujine can't take the moral high ground there, as he used the same tactic just a day before filing this request. The fact that Zujine and Homunculus can't interact civilly with PCPP says more about them than it does about PCPP. Quigley (talk) 01:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Dilip Rajeev
As a user who has contributed significantly to these pages, and has played a major role on building articles like the Kilgour Matas Report, in my opinion, the user under scrutiny should be carefully judged based solely on the evidence presented and evidence from previous RFCs on him/her. Deviating attention from this, saying another editor is such and such - is of little or no use, unless one is trying to defend the clearly disruptive behavior for which evidence has been presented.

Even if it be the case that there are genuine concerns on other editors, we can address them in separate RFCs. In my experience with PCPP what I have experienced is repeated, whole-scale blanking of content added to pages on issues related to Chinese communist violations of human rights - which includes a lot of highly sourced content I have attempted to add to certain topics related to China. The user refuses to give any explanation, and tends to blank out info under edit summaries that mislead. To claim the user has "no habit of breaking census" is a bit of a stretch. The number of users active on these articles who have raised concerns along similar lines as the user who files this complaint isn't few. The number of RFCs raised against the user, and the evidence presented there-in is sufficient un-substantiate arguments made in support of the user, And every time cases were raised, attention was deviated from the user's disruptive patterns of editing through personal allegations raised against contributors, allegation which attack them personally, ignoring the merit of their contributions, ignoring the extent of the quality academic research that went into their contributions, and the quality of their contributions that has played a major role in making these articles reflect academia, rather than the [ communist propaganda machine]. I hope a similar attention-diversion to an impertinent debate does not happen in this thread. That the substance of the concerns raised will be objectively weighed, based on recent and old evidence, and concrete action taken, as found necessary.

Among the many articles, PCCP has worked to remove information critical of the CCP, is the [610 Office] article. Here, Quigley, an editor who supports PCPP above, entirely distorts the lead of the article 50 Cent Party, to make it sound "softer" to them and quite distorting an objective lead.

It is also to be noted that both Oconfucious and PCPP maintains hatred inducing rants against Falun Dafa, a peaceful practice for mind body cultivation, whose adherents are persecuted to death in China. Is it humane to do that? Is that what wikipedia userpages are for?

Here is a collation of evidence I had presented against PCPP on March 2010, which I request is please reviewed. A lot of evidence went unanalyzed: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&oldid=348756921#PCPP, which includes content blanking on 6-10 Office 6 times, in a short period, with no explanations given. The thread went unattended for some reason, back then.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Editors have to be judged by the merit of their contributions. If you would kindly take time to go through edits outlined in the expandable box above, you may understand why I present them here. If I may be banned for edits dating over a year,from 2007, why is it so outrageous to present evidence just a few months old? As for maintaining what they call "rants" on their talk pages, there are strong violations of wiki policies there, including against living people. How about maintain a rant against Jews or Christians on the user page? You must know better than me what talk pages are for and are not for. For all the evidence presented here, against a particular user - the consequence is a bunch of other editors are banned for what has been stamped "POV" pushing. Their contributions have consistently been sourced to western academia, and western press. They come across as the opposite of a bunch who insists on using sources from communist party propaganda, sources which may even involve things like Dalai Lama "looting temples" and "eating babies"[ source:, People's Daily ]. They are for sure pushing a point of view starkly opposite to that of the so called "anti" bunch of editors, and they are doing so by virtue of insisting on sources in the western press, and western academia at large. If pushing that "POV" is a crime they stand guilty as accused. Editors who are constantly attempting to get others banned [offering them on the woodblock and whatever to make demonstrations of their "neutrality," if you could see through it, are merely desperately attempting to get a bunch of editors banned, and they will be back on socks and through other channels]. "50 cent party" is a term used by the press, and even in the academia, "pejorative" or not is a subjective thing, and depends on perspective. What they are and what they do is what matters. The above users' comparison of groups persecuted by a regime to Scientology, etc., are not substantiated by any academic research, and conflicts with academia, and amounts to mere labels slapped here to rally opinion against people who do not align in the "POV" with communist propagandistic viewpoint. If there were evidence of strong misconduct I would have accepted a 1 year ban on myself - not for pointing out things like reverts involving blanking of 22K of sourced material, and then refusing to give any explanation, whatsoever.

The so called pro group has been, when it comes to edits, consistently insisting on use of western academia, human rights sources like Amnesty, HRW, independent experts in the field, and avoid communist party propaganda on Wikipedia. There has been another group who attempts to define themselves as the opposite of this group - and what they oppose is their insistence on the use western sources, in aligning the articles to western research - not to claims made by a Chinese propaganda apparatus, which include things like comparison to Scientology and stuff made by the same set of editors here. They have in their interactions on wikipedia, openly rallied for "war" against this "pro" group of editors. And there exist plenty evidence of their forming a cabal, making baseless accusations, opposing even sources like Amnesty, calling it a mere "advocacy group[claim from OConfucious]," slandering people like David Matas and David Kilgour ( User:PCPP ). Of course I have opposed all that, and sometimes I have done so in a strong manner. But I have adapted my approach more and more into avoiding any conflict, with any other editor. And if for that reason you must ban me, I would rather not be contributing to a place where the rules work such.

OConfucious, PCPP, Colipon, Quigley, and a couple of others have consistently worked to attack people contributing to this pages - worked to systematically remove, and remove evidence of their removal [ through page moves, page renaming, etc.Persecution of Falun Gong page, with over a hundred western sources, each line sourced, was ripped apart, moved into "History of Falun Gong." A previous page on "Organ Harvestation from Falun gong practitioners in China" was similarly ripped apart, and deleted by generating consensus there was nothing on the ripped apart page, and them ridiculously claiming there was no sources or evidence of it happening, given in the article [ all good sources were systematically deleted from it.]. It was later restored by my effort, with the support and mentorship of other admins, intoKilgour-Matas report .. an attempt which the same bunch of editors attempted to scuttle as well ], almost all well sourced content on these pages including from the most respected human rights sources in the western world. They are the ones who have an agenda - and if I hold an agenda here, it is one of aligning these pages to the western academia, and I am by no means ashamed to admit it. And the evidence there of, is in my edit history. They define themselves as my "opposite" because its the very same set of sources they seek push out of the article in favor of things from what has been labelled by Reporters Sans Frontiers, as the "world's biggest propaganda machine." Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

A request
I hope everything her happens through a process, through evidence presented in the public, and as per relevant wiki policies. In the beginning I had said attention should be on the edits, and their merits. Not on other things. Here the purpose of this thread was to scrutinize a particular editor's work, and now we are without a process and for random labels slapped, and on the basis of subjective brackets attempting to do things - that as per my understanding hardly aligns with wiki policies - and a process is lacking here.

These editors on whom there have been recent admin reviews did not suddenly now become a new problem when evidence was presented against PCPP. Why is that the reviewing admin repeatedly ignores the massive pile of evidence against PCPP, including in the collapsible box above, and continues to ignore the fact that editors are being marginalized based on personal attacks - completely ignoring the merits or teh quality of their contributions? A bunch of personal accusations is little reason to act against any editor. I hope no admin makes descisions on teh basis of that. '''Evidence of recent wrong[as per WP guildelines] behavior, and behavior which the user has refused to correct beside repeated warnings - that is the basis on which any action may be taken against editors. Please kindly correct me if my understanding of how things are here is wrong.'''

Let individual editors here go through a process where evidence is presented him/her, and let him/her have the chance to defend himself/herself. I am not going to put myself up here for whatever,... the "pov" someone says I hold in my head, and which they cant seem to argue shows in my edits or even recent edits? Or am I getting banned because I have not edited since last September as the reviewing admin admits below? Or was my crime presenting evidence on this thread? Evidence which is being again completely ignored, and covered up by attack[with no focus on edits] and slander as I said would happen, in my first comment here itself.

Here, again, is a sampling of what PCPP does, in edits as recent as you attempt to ban me for, if you would care to review and comment on since that's what we are meant to do in this thread.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments by Colipon
I could not help it but revisit this and give you administrators some suggestions. I was involved with the article sometime in 2007 and again in 2009-10. I stopped editing all Falun Gong related articles in early 2010, much like user OhConfucius, because I could no longer stand the SPAs, edit wars, personal attacks, and lengthy sessions of ideological battles veiled as "policy" or "content" discussions. Many other editors report the same experiences. I could not care less if you sanction user PCPP. He has edit warred. He has broken WP rules. He has exchanged personal attacks with Falun Gong supporters. He is not always civil. What have you. Ban him from the site. Or from China-related articles. In fact, ban User OhConfucius too, from editing the Falun Gong family of articles. He would probably be thankful. Hell, ban me from editing these godforsaken articles. Let me put it out there for you that this is not a battle of Pro-Falun Gong and Anti-Falun Gong. It is merely an article that badly needs work and revisions from committed third parties who are totally uninvolved in its history, who have no emotional attachment to its content. I have been trying to put forth this suggestion since 2007, and Wiki adminstration and bureaucracy has been woefully ineffective in taking action. We've visited noticeboards, put up arbitration requests, sanctioned a slew of users, put up ANIs, and pulled all parts of wiki-bureaucracy into the storm. But nothing has been done. Why? I attribute this to the fact that most Wiki administrators know little about Falun Gong, whereas a similar case involving Scientology years earlier proved decisive because of its cultural proximity to Wikipedia's home base. That the committed Falun Gong team of editors has come to portray this as a war of "pro" and "anti" Falun Gong is a victory for them in and of itself. Please do not be fooled. The problems on this article will not be solved until you ban all the problematic users for good, and I am even offering myself up to the chopping block just so Wikipedia can achieve NPOV on this sensitive topic. For those who say that I am an "anti-Falun Gong" editor, I hope the message is clear. I have enough faith that third-party editing to the article will achieve the same degree of neutrality that I myself have tried to achieve during my involvement there, that I am able to opt out of such an editing process altogether. Can any "pro-Falun Gong" editors say the same? I dare you to say yes so you can prove yourselves to be "neutral" parties. I hope after reading this you will get some sense of who is "right" and "wrong" in this case, and act boldly to fix this problem once and for all. Colipon+ (Talk) 00:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not getting into Colipon's possible COI apart from mentioning that he is Mainland Chinese and used to state on his user page that he was formerly involved in politics. Unfortunately, this revision history is no longer available, as he requested User:Rjanag to delete his account on 17 September 2009 and restore it on the same day.


 * However, there is one thing we have in common. I do not consider this a battle between "anti-FLG" and "pro-FLG" viewpoints either. It's a content dispute about whether mainstream scholarly accounts on Falun Gong should predominate in the article and whether due weight, per NPOV, should be given to less prominent views. That is what I stand for. The Chinese editors, including OhConfucius, you, PCPP and others, have always been mad at the fact that the sharpest pens of Western academia consider Falun Gong a harmless spiritual practice whose practitioners are being brutally terrorised by a totalitarian Communist government. You utterly dislike the fact that Falun Gong has been thoroughly researched on the field.


 * You, dear Colipon, have been so very involved and soaked in these content disputes that a brief look at the older archives will demonstrate how you always wanted to define the "degree of neutrality" yourself. I understand you don't want to be involved any more, and it is easy for you to demand that everyone just steps aside. If you take a look at my edit history, you'll see that I, for instance, have edited the Falun Gong family articles only five times over the past year (not counting my contributions on the talk pages). Asdfg12345, bless his retired soul, hasn't been around for ages. Previously uninvolved neutral editors, such as Zujine and Homunculus, have come in; from what I can tell, they've never practiced Falun Gong and certainly cannot be construed to have a "conflict of interest". But you're still not satisfied. The most reliable sources don't agree with your personal views. It must be terribly hard. &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  08:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Please check your facts. I'm about as close to the PRC philosophically and ideologically as you are. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 09:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't mean your political or ideological stance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do remember that you've expressed grief over the fact that Wikipedia relies on Western (English) academic accounts on Falun Gong. Let's not get into that discussion here. &#10004; Olaf Stephanos &#9997;  09:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * My perennial grief, IIRC, is about picking of Prunus Cerasus. Oh and by the way, a rather famous Chinese subversive is accused of "abandoning persecuted members of the Falun Gong". -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 09:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, Olaf, please read WP:COI. I do not believe simply being associated/affiliated with the PRC is anywhere near sufficient basis to accuse someone of COI. POV, maybe, but not necessarily COI. Also, honestly, I think that, based on what I have seen in multiple articles, whether Westerners agree with it or not, a significant percentage of individuals in the PRC, as well as a significant percentage of Chinese overseas, consider Falun Gong to be some form of cult. On that basis, it may well make less sense to accuse Colipon of COI than it would to accuse any individuals who are associated with this movement, which as I have said is far from popular among even Chinese expats, than it might to accuse non-Chinese Falun Gong supporters/practitioners of COI/POV. Simply reflecting the opinions of a substantial percentage of the native and overseas Chinese community is not I believe grounds for such an accusation. John Carter (talk) 23:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Olaf, I am so confident that committed third-party commitment to the article will fix it, that I am willing to ban myself from editing the article. If this still makes you think I am some sort of sinister operative working for the Communist Party's propaganda department, fine. I don't really care. I'm happy not ever touching Falun Gong again. Colipon+ (Talk) 13:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that WP:POV basically says that individuals who may have a POV are still allowed to contribute to the discussion, particularly on article talk pages, and if they so see fit to provide information regarding sourced material which they believe to be sufficiently important for inclusion. I personally think that it might work best if those individuals who have a rather clear POV were to limit their input to such discussion, and allow other, potentially less clearly partial, editors to determine exactly how the articles would be changed. Honestly, particularly for this topic, I think it might work best if both the "pro" and "con" sides were to limit their input to such talk page discussion. John Carter (talk) 20:20, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Zujine
I am as ready as anyone to put this issue to rest and get back to regular editing, but I just want to make sure I understand proposal below. Are you saying that three editors—against whom no evidence of recent wrongdoing has been presented, and who were not given a chance to defend themselves—are being banned indefinitely? One of the Falungong editors was not involved in this AE, and has not been even been notified that he/she is being scrutinised for a ban. Is that normal? I suppose they will be in for quite a shock when they awake one day to find that they have been banned for, what, being inactive for a long time? Engaging in talk page discussions on Falungong? Only one editor has engaged in disruptive behaviour here; the others, while still SPAs, have not been disruptive; they have largely (if not entirely) confined their contributions to talk pages, from what I can tell. OhConfucius, I think a more appropriate parallel would be to compare Falungong editors to members of other historically maligned and persecuted religious groups. Jews and Bahai's, for instance. I assume the analogy you drew to climate change deniers was not a deliberate attempt to marginalise people on the basis of their religious belief, because that would not seem very conducive to a positive or welcoming editing environment.— Zujine |talk 03:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment by HappyInGeneral

 * I'm not quite sure what is the proper place to air my views, so I'll put it here, I'll try to be short. I understand that the only objection to my edit this year was this diff, which actually was coming after this comment, on the talk page . Frankly I'm rather surprised that you find a single edit it so disruptive, considering that it was meant from my part to bring that part closer to WP:NPOV and considering that it was almost immediately changed and that I did nothing to try to enforce my version of it. How is it possible that this kind of attitude is considered harmful for Wikipedia? I have stated that I do practice Falun Gong, so of course, I have a point of view just like every living being on this earth, but that does not mean that I'm not tolerant and that I don't abide by the spirit and policies of Wikipedia. If you can show me that I crossed any of those, please let me know. Best Regards, --HappyInGeneral (talk) 16:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment by John Carter
I don't know whether I would be considered involved in this matter or not, so I am adding my own comments here. I agree that there has been a notable lack of civility on the part of many, maybe even most, editors who have been involved in Falun Gong related material. Who "started" it? God knows. But for some time many, maybe even most, editors have been involved in less than stellar conduct, at some time or other, regarding this material. There are significant disagreements over what qualifies as the "best" sources, and I get the impression that, over time, both "sides" have held the position that the sources they find most acceptable are the best sources. FG supporters like the Journal of Church and State, which tends to present material in a way rather sympathetic to FG, others prefer other journals. Honestly, I myself think, possibly, the best approach would probably be to have a significant number of editors who are not directly involved attacking the content. I have over a thousand articles from various sources, and would be happy to forward them all, or any requested, to interested individuals for review in determining the content of the related articles. But I am not sure how imposing discipline on this one editor being considered, without perhaps similar disciplines on other editors, will necessarily be of any particular benefit to the project. John Carter (talk) 23:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I would like to make an additional comment. Based on what I have seen elsewhere on this page, Olaf, Dilip, and Happy are each being considered for, basically, indefinite topic bans. Also, as per User:Olaf Stephanos, Olaf may have effectively retired from editing. I do not believe that his doing so would be sufficient grounds for him not being included in sanctions, as people can and do change their minds, particularly if they find the sanctions they were being considered for not enacted.
 * However, I do myself see some, maybe irrelevant, reservations about necessarily placing the same sort of ban on all three individuals named. We might both be laying the groundwork for the Falun Gong community to say that we are unsympathetic, and possibly opposed, to Falun Gong, and thus giving them that as a basis for discounting and discrediting our content. Also, honestly, FG is a comparatively new movement, and is one that likely will suffer significant changes in the near future, probably so significant as to merit significant changes in the main article. Certainly, I think people who might be more sympathetic to FG, including practitioners, would be more likely to thoroughly access FG related sources, and this subject is to a greater or lesser extent more or less reliant on clearly pro and anti FG sources to a significant extent.
 * Under the circumstances, given Olaf's apparent retirement, I cannot see any real objections to an indefinite ban on him - he seems to indicate he won't be editing anything here in the future anyway. Also, from what I remember and read regarding Dilip, I can understand sanctions of a similar sort on him. Happy however has done at least a fair amount of minor editing to non FG related content, and at least to me seems possibly the editor with the best grasp of our policies and guidelines. I wouldn't mind seeing that editor be allowed to continue to edit related content, although perhaps under sanctions which would allow sanctions similar to those on Olaf and Dilip to be enacted should problematic editing of the article space pages, or POV pushing and disruption on talk pages, become problematic in the future. John Carter (talk) 20:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the 48 hours specified below has passed, and I think we would all welcome resolution of this matter. John Carter (talk) 01:13, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Result concerning PCPP

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


 * Under the authority of WP:ARBFLG, pending final disposition of this request, the article Falun Gong is placed under a 1RR/week restriction. All editors are restricted to one revert per rolling 168 hour period, excluding reverts of IP edits and clear vandalism. Violations of this restriction is to be dealt with by escalating blocks, starting at 24 hours. Notice of this restriction will be given on the article talk page and via editnotice. I'll examine the request later (it's past 4AM here), but the edit warring must stop now. T. Canens (talk) 08:21, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * After reviewing the edits and this thread, I'm getting the feeling that this topic area is filled with agenda-driven accounts on both sides, and needs a thorough review. I propose the following principles for admin discussion:
 * Whether an individual edit, "pro-FLG" or "anti-FLG", is in compliance with our content policies and guidelines, such as NPOV, is usually a content question that is outside the jurisdiction of AE. Exceptions may be made for exceedingly obvious cases where no reasonable editor would have believed otherwise.
 * However, a pattern of persistent pro-FLG or anti-FLG edits, especially over multiple articles and subjects, and over a long period of time, is extremely unlikely to arise out of genuine NPOV editing. Rather, such a pattern is strong evidence that the editor is either unwilling or unable to follow NPOV, and is, as such, sanctionable misconduct. T. Canens (talk) 17:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I certainly agree with the second proposition. I largely agree with the first although think it might be put a little high. Source falsification (a common POV-pushing tactic), for instance, is a user conduct issue as well as a content issue. So are BLP violations. I think the better distinction between "individual edits" (proposition 1) and "patterns" (proposition 2) is that isolated incidents only lead to discretionary sanctions in aggravated circumstances. These are general comments: I lack the time now to wade through the extensive evidence presented at this request. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd imagine that BLP violation and source falsification usually pass the "no reasonable editor" exception, but that is a relatively academic issue for the purposes of this case. My sense here is that the second point should be sufficient to resolve this case. T. Canens (talk) 20:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The quarreling above is entirely unhelpful and should stop immediately, or I'll lock this thread down. I'm going to review the edits over this weekend. Evidence in the form "X has consistently edited FLG-related articles to make them more favorable (less favorable) to FLG: [diff] [diff] [diff] [diff]..." (compare the "battlefield conduct" findings in WP:ARBCC) may be emailed to me, since apparently most of you cannot be trusted to do this on-wiki without doubling the size of the thread. The diffs should preferably cover a long period of time and a number of articles. T. Canens (talk) 09:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Writing up some conclusions I've reached: As with Asdfg12345 above, the evidence submitted (especially the edit counter) and a review of his contributions indicates that, when is not making automated vandalism reverts, he edits articles with a view to making them more sympathetic to Falun Gong. Like Asdfg12345, he is also involved in edit wars on the topic, which matches the finding of a majority of arbitrators voting on the case back in 2007. In addition, it is of great concern to me that in this very forum he is making comments that can be reasonably read only as insinuating that those who disagree with him are agents or tools of the Chinese Communist Party. This is in direct conflict with the Committee's reminder, at WP:AFLG, that "Use of the site for ideological struggle accompanied by harassment of opponents is extremely disruptive." Very limited edits since topic ban. Involved in a complicated revert war in August 2010, then almost entirely dormant until October 24 of this year. I find this edit to be rather tendentious, as it is seeming pushing an agenda without any regard to the quality of the prose. This case involves a serious intractable dispute between several editors, dating back to 2007. My review convinces me that the dispute can possibly be resolvable through the usual editorial process, if the POV-pushing elements and the battleground behavior are removed. I'm also highly concerned about how several dormant editors suddenly returned to comment on this thread. To me this suggests either off-wiki canvassing, or serious battleground behavior. Neither is acceptable. This dispute has gone on long enough, and it needs to end. Judging from our experienced with timed sanctions in this area, I don't think they were very successful. The four editors listed above were all topic banned before, but all we got seems to be more of the same. Unless an uninvolved admin objects, I plan to impose the following sanctions (the minimum length below doubles the length of their most recent topic ban, except for Dilip rajeev, for whom I'm convinced that one year is the appropriate minimum considering the history):
 * Topic banned for six months in August 2009 for POV pushing. Virtually all edits since then are related to FLG. Called an NYT writer's work "propaganda pieces for the CCP", a claim with serious BLP concerns, but does not seem to have been supported by any citation other than a vague wave to "scholarly accounts of Falun Gong."; edits have consistently made articles read more favorable to FLG and less favorable to CCP.
 * From Sandstein's review in an AE thread in January 2010:
 * Narrowly escaped an indefinite topic ban in March 2010: Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive57. No edit since September 2011, and then suddenly awakened and commented at this AE, dumping a whole lot of material from a March 2010 (!) RfC/U against PCPP (which seems to have been inconclusive) and a couple edits from October 2010. Also makes a rather inflammatory statement ("It is also to be noted that both Oconfucious and PCPP maintains hatred inducing rants against Falun Dafa, a peaceful practice for mind body cultivation, whose adherents are persecuted to death in China. Is it humane to do that?") Previous edits generally tend to make articles read more favorable to FLG and less favorable to CCP. In June 2011, made the rather curious claim that the term "50-cent party" is not "pejorative, unofficial".
 * Topic banned four months in February 2011 for intensive revert warring. Another burst of reverts led to this request. Edits generally tend to make articles read more favorable to CCP/unfavorable to FLG.
 * ,, and are each banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to Falun Gong, broadly construed across all namespaces, for a minimum of one year. After one year, and every six months thereafter, they may apply to have this sanction reviewed at AE. They may also appeal this sanction to AE once within the next year, and may appeal to the arbitration committee at any time. The topic ban shall remain in force until it is lifted on appeal.
 * is banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to Falun Gong, broadly construed across all namespaces, for a minimum of eight months. After eight months, and every four months thereafter, they may apply to have this sanction reviewed at AE. They may also appeal this sanction to AE once within the next eight months, and may appeal to the arbitration committee at any time. The topic ban shall remain in force until it is lifted on appeal. T. Canens (talk) 18:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


 * My experience of working with Falun Gong related editors is that what they want most of all is uninvolved admins to help them edit the articles. And that when this happens, the articles do develop - even up to FA level. Over the years I have been asked to help out by editors classed as "pro-Falun Gong" as well as editors classed as "anti-Falun Gong". These editors cry out for help. What an outsider might see as POV pushing, they would see as attempting to redress the balance. My assessment is that the involved editors want a fair and balanced picture of Falun Gong; where the problem lies, is that they are sometimes too involved themselves to judge what is fair and balanced - though I think they generally recognise that, which is why they want an independent viewpoint.
 * I can understand an approach which is to ban the lot of them, though the result of that may be the Falun Gong articles remain unedited until they return and the whole thing flairs up again. Another approach may be to put them all under supervision. They are given strict terms under which they may edit and conduct themselves, and if they break those terms the bans suggested above come into immediate force. Each editor has an uninvolved admin to monitor their editing and behaviour, and to whom they can consult. It's a more labour-intensive approach with no guarantee of success; and is unlikely to get off the ground as I don't think enough admins would step up to make it work; however, I feel it appropriate to suggest it, and - of course - I would (reluctantly) offer myself as one of the supervising admins.  SilkTork  <sup style="color:#347C2C;">✔Tea time  23:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "the result of that may be the Falun Gong articles remain unedited until they return and the whole thing flairs up again" - which is why they are banned until such time they can prove that they won't be POV-pushing. These are indefinite bans. I really don't think the alternative approach is workable. Perhaps it may be sound in theory if we have unlimited admin time and a consistent supply of admins to supervise, but I seriously doubt that we will have the manpower to make it work. These editors are not newbies, they are adults who had months or years to learn to behave well and full warnings as to the consequences of misbehavior. Enough is enough. WP:CIR, and it doesn't matter if an editor is intentionally POV-pushing or unintentionally so. The fact remains that s/he is either unwilling or unable to comply with NPOV, and that is ample ground for excluding that editor from the topic. T. Canens (talk) 14:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not opposing the topic ban, I am just making another suggestion for consideration. As Ohconfucius has pointed out, I am currently struggling to keep up with my current commitments, so I would not be willing to personally go down the route I suggested (though I would commit to it if initiated); however, I successfully moderated Dilip rajeev, so I know it is a workable solution. And Ohconfucius has worked very significantly in this area with a Featured Article to show for it (though at some personal burn out cost). The reality, as you say, is that people are not able or willing to put in the work required. That is understandable. We are volunteer charity workers with limited time and motivation. There is a big part of me hoping that your solution is the one that gets consensus, though it is appropriate that we at least consider more progressive options.  SilkTork  <sup style="color:#347C2C;">✔Tea time  16:58, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Zujine: They now have notice that sanctions are being contemplated, and they will have the opportunity to respond if they choose to. POV-pushing on talk page is every bit as disruptive as POV-pushing in the article. One distorts and disrupts the consensus-building process that determines the content, the other disrupts directly the article content. T. Canens (talk) 14:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with the topic bans recommended by User:T. Canens. In an ideal world, even editors with strong loyalties would be able to set them aside while working on Wikipedia and contribute their specialized knowledge to the improvement of articles. We do not live in that ideal world. The record of past admin processes about Falun Gong shows that many participants in this area can't edit neutrally and won't be able to do good work without constant nudging by admins. Due to lack of volunteers, there are not enough people to do the nudging that would be required. In our encyclopedia, people are expected to negotiate sensibly and converge toward neutral articles on their own and unsupervised, with admin action being reserved for the rare blowup. When an area has frequently blown up in the past, and there is still an ongoing problem, it is time to put proportionate sanctions on those who had a chance to live up to our hopes but did not do so. EdJohnston (talk) 01:16, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The reason that my comment about PCPP is brief is because the relevant diffs have been laid out in the request already, so I didn't bother to repeat everything. PCPP's edits in articles unrelated to FLG is not sanctionable under the ARBFLG discretionary sanctions, and I did not review them in detail. I received an email from Olaf Stephanos on Friday morning asking for "a couple of days", and I didn't write up and post my preliminary conclusions from independently reviewing the edits until Sunday afternoon. Nothing, moreover, prevented him from supplying the promised evidence after the preliminary conclusions were posted. The suggestion that, because I'm Chinese, I must necessarily be biased towards my "Chinese compatriots" is patently frivolous. The suggestion that the ordering of editors in the list and subtle differences in my phrasing reflected anything more than pure happenstance is equally baseless. I'll leave this open for another 48 hours or so to allow more uninvolved admins to comment, but right now I'm not seeing anything that persuades me that the proposed sanctions should be modified. T. Canens (talk) 23:39, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It's been 6 days. I'm enacting the bans as proposed. With the closing of this request, the previous 1RR/week restriction on Falun Gong is lifted, effective immediately. T. Canens (talk) 16:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)