Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive115

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

Request concerning Gregory Goble

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : LeadSongDog come howl!  08:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cold_fusion


 * Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it :
 * 1) contribs SPA campaign of disruption
 * 2) talk:Cold fusion
 * 3) Latest installment


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :
 * 1) Warned at
 * 2) Warned at at Cold Fusion (moved from AN to ANI)


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :
 * 1) Related off-wiki actions here
 * 2) Full disclosure: I (rather obviously) don't have entirely clean hands, as I've tried to persuade the editor to work within WP policies, both on the article talkpage and on the user talkpage. His responses speak for themselves.

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

Statement by Gregory Goble
I will post my statement tommorrow, off to the graduation ceremony at USF.--Gregory Goble (talk) 20:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Never will I ever sue or bring legal actions against Wikipedia or any of the Wiki editors. Seriously! Gregory Byron Goble My apologies; time constraints have tardied my response. In consultation while formulating dialog; two or three more days, Thank you so much for your patience. While following a Cold Fusion/LENR seminar I tried to find one person who had a reputation as a crackpot. I couldn't find one among the speakers or the registered attendees; anyone of recognizable importance had impecible reputations as far as I could determine,

As I suggested from day one.

To improve the article: 1) Wiki needs to view it as science. 2) Wiki needs to recognize which scientific journals are utilized and sourced by scientists in the art of this field of physics.

A preview of my response.

example A this edit suggestion of mine was not a waste of time... Room Temperature It used to read: "Cold fusion, also called low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), refers to the hypothesis that nuclear fusion might explain the results of a group of experiments conducted at ordinary temperatures (e.g., room temperature)." The majority of LENR experiments require temperatures well above room temperature. It now reads: Cold fusion is a proposed[1] type of nuclear reaction that would occur at relatively low temperatures compared with hot fusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gregory_Goble&oldid=473668504

example B this edit succeeded and then was reverted much later... Removed Sentence from Conferences Section (first part of sentence) By 1994, attendees offered no criticism to papers and presentations for fear of giving ammunition to external critics; thus allowing the proliferation of crackpots and hampering the conduct of serious science,[29] (second part of sentence) and by 2002, critics and skeptics stopped attending these conferences. [97] The following is part of my Wiki discourse on this edit. Please follow the rest to see sourced chapters from the book Undead Science. It’s an obscure book. One found at USF (none S.F. library system) one S.F State, none S.F or San Mateo community college. Please read the book to make a responsible response as to whether words may have been taken out of context from an authoritative source.

Simon argues that in spite of widespread skepticism in the scientific community, there has been a continued effort to make sense of the controversial phenomenon. “Researchers in well-respected laboratories continue to produce new and rigorous work. In this manner cold fusion research continues… “ and “The survival of cold fusion {research} signals the need for a more complex understanding of the social dynamics of scientific knowledge making; the boundaries between experts, intermediaries, and the lay public; and the conceptualization of failure in the history of science and technology.” {author} Bart Simon is an assistant professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. [97] Note that the author is an assistant professor of sociology not physics. To reference part of a sentence from this book may be taking the intent of the author out of context.

Conferences (after my edit removal) Cold fusion researchers were for many years unable to get papers accepted at scientific meetings, prompting the creation of their own conferences. The first International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF) was held in 1990, and has met every 12 to 18 months since.[29] With the founding[97] in 2004 of the International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ISCMNS), the conference was renamed the International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science—an example of the approach the cold fusion community has adopted in avoiding the term cold fusion and its negative connotations.[73][75][98] Cold fusion research is often referenced by proponents as "low-energy nuclear reactions", or LENR,[99] but according to sociologist Bart Simon the "cold fusion" label continues to serve a social function in creating a collective identity for the field.[73] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cold_fusion&oldid=474082175

NOW Conferences (many weeks later someone reverted my delete) Cold fusion researchers were for many years unable to get papers accepted at scientific meetings, prompting the creation of their own conferences. The first International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF) was held in 1990, and has met every 12 to 18 months since. Attendees offered no criticism to papers and presentations for fear of giving ammunition to external critics;[99] thus allowing the proliferation of crackpots and hampering the conduct of serious science.[100] Critics and skeptics stopped attending these conferences, with the notable exception of Douglas Morrison,[101] who died in 2001. With the founding[102] in 2004 of the International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ISCMNS), the conference was renamed the International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (the reasons are explained in the "ongoing" section).[73][75][103] Cold fusion research is often referenced by proponents as "low-energy nuclear reactions", or LENR,[104] but according to sociologist Bart Simon the "cold fusion" label continues to serve a social function in creating a collective identity for the field.[73]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Gregory_Goble&oldid=473668504

Clearly Undead science is about cold fusion SCIENCE continuing after a bad start. One chapter is about how it gained this “bad reputation” while the rest is how it survives as science… (increased sophistication of instrumentation and review) hence the title ‘Undead Science” not undead pathological science. To source his book as reasons for the wiki reading public to reason that cold fusion is pathological science or bad science shows poor judgment. The author is not taking such a stance. Wiki influences the public. Care by administrators and editors should be taken to not take authors content out of context if it may cause harm. … a wiki editor or three or four… are using his words to promote a stance harmful to this art; that it is pathological science. --Gregory Goble (talk) 11:04, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by IRWolfie-
User:Gregory_Goble appears to have very severe competence issues that essentially waste the time of other editors. See some recent examples here: Talk:Cold_fusion, Talk:Cold_fusion Talk:Cold_fusion. Most of his comments appear to be borderline incoherent with some going pretty far into the realm of craziness: User_talk:Gregory_Goble. The rambling isn't a new feature:. I suggest there is a very severe issue of WP:INCOMPETENCE rather than negative intent. When he accuses other editors of wikilawyering I'm not even sure he knows what he is saying. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by SteveBaker
His post: Talk:Cold_fusion (I think he means "libel") where he accuses us of being defamatory towards cold-fusion researchers because we use the term "pathological science". That post was followed three minutes later by an additional post. (It's easy to miss that addition inside his signature blocks.) It says "I love lawyers". I didn't notice when I made my reply - but now that I see it, this constitutes a clear WP:NLT. His threat is unjustified because we don't say that cold fusion is pathological science - we say that it has a "reputation as pathological science" - for which we have plenty of WP:RS showing mainstream scientists saying exactly that in published journals.

Aside from the (many) other issues, I believe we have clear grounds for indef-blocking him under WP:NLT without further delay - which means we can take our time deciding whether some other grounds would justify heavier measures. SteveBaker (talk) 14:28, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by POVbrigand
Many of the contributions that Gregory makes on the talk page are hard to understand for me. Lately I did get the idea that some of his contributions were getting better. He seems to have a problem that cold fusion is disposed of as pseudo science. It is a widely held belief in the real world, so it is absolutely correct to incorporate that view in the wikipedia article. I do not see his latest "slander" comment as a legal threat. I think he is again trying to make the point that it is, in his eyes, unfair that cold fusion is treated the way it is. I think everyone should chill and Gregory should think if he really want to contribute constructively or not. As IRWolfie noted above, Gregory's conduct is not malicious. Involuntary mentorship could be a solution. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I could be persuaded that mentorship is a way forward - but I have to take the "slander" thing seriously. It is absolutely essential to the functioning of this website that people don't go around hurling legal threats at each other - even if they are 'pretend' ones - and that's worth a limited duration block IMHO.  I'd be happy to discuss other remedies (including involuntary mentorship) once he has been brought to an abrupt realization that "Something Is Going Wrong Here And It Is Serious" - but I'm not happy with "Business as usual" because that "slander" posting went beyond the bounds of acceptability. SteveBaker (talk) 20:17, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the case for NLT is hard to make, we should have a NLT "expert" evaluate it. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:14, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Binksternet
Goble's goal for the article is at cross-purposes to how the topic is viewed by mainstream science. He is here to portray cold fusion as respectable science, but most scientists do not respect it. This constant push by Goble is tiring and time-wasting. The problem is slightly compounded by a lack of competency. I don't see his "slander" comment as crossing the NLT line. I would be happy to see Goble restricted from the topic of cold fusion for a period; such a topic ban would effectively ban him from Wikipedia as he apparently has no other interests. Binksternet (talk) 12:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Gregory Goble

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


 * I think a 90 day break from the topic of cold fusion, along with a warning about NLT, would do everyone some good here. His presence there is clearly not helping things, and perhaps some time away will help; if the disruption resumes afterwards, we can up the ban to an indefinite one. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 16:46, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If there are no objections in the next several hours, I'll close it with a 90 day topic ban from cold fusion topics, broadly construed. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 18:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

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

Request concerning Malleus Fatuorum

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement :  It Is Me Here  t /  c  16:31, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility_enforcement


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

Per the linked Arbitration discussion, I believe that their contributions to an ongoing RfA have gone beyond discussing the merits of the candidate, and are now "disruptive", as it says in the motion.
 * 1) [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Avicennasis&diff=493734800&oldid=493733582 21 May 2012] Unwarranted, unhelpful attack on a Support voter
 * 2) [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Avicennasis&diff=493814324&oldid=493807708 21 May 2012] Same sort of thing
 * 3) [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Avicennasis&diff=493826596&oldid=493824842 22 May 2012] Has lashed out at those who have cautioned him about aforementioned "badgering"
 * 4) [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_adminship%2FAvicennasis&diff=493746858&oldid=493742692 22 May 2012] and [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Avicennasis&diff=493824811&oldid=493821199 22 May 2012] Again, adding not necessarily helpful comments – the second diff is not by them, but the point is that their contributions to the RfA are starting to provoke other users and so derail the discussion.


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


 * 1) Warned on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Avicennasis&diff=493824842&oldid=493824811 22 May 2012] by
 * 2) Warned on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Avicennasis&diff=493820640&oldid=493814324 22 May 2012] by


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

I would be grateful if you could see to the matter quickly (i.e. before the RfA ends) so that the discussion for the rest of its duration may return to assessing the candidate and not other, irrelevant matters.


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMalleus_Fatuorum&diff=493845613&oldid=493844572]

Statement by Malleus Fatuorum

 * Malleus Fatuorum indicates that the wording of the remedy allows him to disrupt RfAs. That such a blatant lie is allowed to stand says all that needs to be said here. Malleus Fatuorum 17:29, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Malleus Fatuorum
[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_adminship%2FAvicennasis&diff=493821199&oldid=493820640 22 May 2012] Malleus Fatuorum indicates that the wording of the remedy allows him to disrupt RfAs - presumably until he is topic banned at each individual RfA. Agathoclea (talk) 17:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Is this an example of civil editing? You twist his words and cast aspersions on his intentions and run off to the principle's office? Kiefer .Wolfowitz 17:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As phrased (by MF at the RFA, not as phrased above), MF is technically correct, Arbcom did not specifically ask him to stop disrupting RFAs. They instead gave uninvolved admins a tool to use when they perceive that his conduct at a specific RFA has become disruptive. It may be mincing words, but its important if your going to report him for that statement as well. Monty  845  17:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Malleus said no such thing. I suggest you remove your obvious lie. Parrot of Doom 17:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * This is nonsense. The first diff is a simple question.  The second is a statement of fact.  The third is in reply to someone basically implying that Malleus should shut up.  The fourth is a question asking why the nominator did not investigate the nominee more closely than he did.  The fifth is a personal attack AGAINST Malleus, but the OP here claims that this is Malleus's fault!  There's nothing disruptive about asking questions of supporters, especially since for years people have been asking questions of opposers.  This complaint is an obvious escalation of earlier whinging by other users, which may be found on Malleus's talk page. Parrot of Doom 17:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you are arguing for an unreasonably literalist interpretation of what the user wrote. For example, re. № 1, when someone says "I found no evidence of X," this sentence implies "I looked for X, but found no evidence of it." Therefore to ask, "Have you looked for any?" – i.e. "There is a good chance you found no evidence because you did not look for it in the first place" – is to cast aspersions upon the other user, something which I feel was in this case entirely unwarranted.  It Is Me Here  t /  c  18:10, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You obviously don't then understand the "pile-on" of supports which very frequently happens at RFA. And why have you, an administrator, completely ignored the unwarranted personal attack on Malleus by MONGO?  Not only did you ignore it, you also used it as evidence *against* Malleus.  Who's the one being unreasonable here? Parrot of Doom 18:58, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to make my position clear here, if I had come to the RfA after the statement I linked (not having had any prior involvement I can remember and not knowing about the ArbCom case Mongo was refering to - researching the Arbcom archives - finding the remedy in question) I would have declared the topic ban instead of !voting on the RfA as the response made it clear to me that he was intending to push to the maximum possible before being topic banned. But I had already !voted in support. Agathoclea (talk) 18:04, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * So you're standing by your initial comment? The one that's at best a ridiculous misreading of MF's reply, and at worst a despicable twisting of the facts?--Cube lurker (talk) 18:29, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Well said, Cube lurker. Drmies (talk) 22:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Support topic ban on this particular RfA. Malleus has a long, long history of disruption, particularly at RfA.  He is not only badgering multiple support voters with assumptions of bad faith, he has even badgered the nominator below his nomination statement (which is fairly unprecedented).  His behavior in this RfA is beyond disruptive, and needs to stop.  He's said his piece in his oppose vote, that's all that is necessary.  It would be one thing if his comments under the support votes had any substance (i.e. if they were legitimate questions asking for clarification on a specific point), but they're clearly just snarky comments that cast aspersions on other editors (i.e. implying that they are just blindly voting in support rather than researching the candidate's contribution history).  If it were another editor, we might give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're having a bad day.  But, this is an editor who is currently topic banned from RfA talk pages, and who has an arbcom remedy which encourages admins to topic ban him from individual RfA's if he becomes disruptive, so this is clearly not an isolated incident.  To not act on this would be to send a message to Malleus that his behavior is acceptable.  No one is calling for Malleus to be banned from RfA completely (yet), but all we're looking for is for him to not comment any further at this particular RfA.  -Scottywong | gab _  18:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I second Scottywongs comments. There is no doubt that Malleus was asking baiting, obnoxiously insulting questions for no apparent reason other than trolling. I am not surprised that his usual partisans rise up to defend his usual obnoxiousness. I've gone out of my way to avoid Malleus because I can't stand him...he could surely extend me the same courtesy and allow me the opportunity to voice an opinion without the merits of my opinion being called into question. It should be well noted that the only reason arbcom didn't send Malleus packing was due to his supposed article contributions. His ice has been thin since and anyone defending his ongoing escapades is doing him and this website no favors. Malleus is surely not irreplaceable.MONGO 18:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm having trouble seeing what ArbCom remedy or sanction was supposed to be actually violated here. Volunteer Marek 18:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "...should his contributions to a specific request for adminship become disruptive, any uninvolved admin may ban him from further participation in that specific RFA." -Scottywong | squeal _  18:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Eh, let's not get crazy. Basically what -Guerillero says below, these comments are simply part of discussion. You sanction for this, then every time that Malleus dares to express an opinion on an RfA the result will be that someone will go running to AE with bs complaints, asking for sanctions. And then AE will once again turn into a place which just serves as another weapon in the arsenal of battleground warriors, rather than a means of putting fires out. I'm not seeing any disruption here. Volunteer Marek 22:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. Looks disruptive to me.  At this point, I'm willing to believe that MF doesn't understand why it's disruptive or believe it to be disruptive.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * No comment on his responses to !votes, but this comment made within the nomination seems like rather unambiguous disruption.  Equazcion  ( talk )  19:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't really see the merit of initiating a support/oppose discussion above, as the Arbcom sanction states quite clearly "...should his contributions to a specific request for adminship become disruptive, any uninvolved admin may ban him from further participation in that specific RFA." So if an admin wants to step up and do it, then do it.  If not, then we're done here.  This doesn't need yet another drawn-out "vote". Tarc (talk) 19:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Question; could some of you people here, especially admins, maybe help out a little with some of the other threads here? We almost never get this many people commenting on 5 threads, much less one, so your help would be greatly appreciated.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 19:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Although I think Malleus has reached the limits in staying within the spirit and letter of the ArbCom ruling and would do good to leave well enough alone. I think his points have been sufficiently expressed in that RfA and another comment could persued me to reconsider my stand.  I have a couple of problems here, beginning with the pointed Malleus Fatuorum indicates that the wording of the remedy allows him to disrupt RfAs. statement that was provided without diffs.  If he has said as much, surely a diff exists.  That this discussion was presented here in such an obviously biased way makes us collectively guilty of proceeding in a non-neutral way when considering the issue.  I personally find a great many problems with how he chooses to express himself, but when others choose to repond in an equally pointed way, it makes me much less sympathetic to their cause.   Dennis Brown  -  2&cent;   &copy;  20:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, the accusation that Malleus believes he is allowed to disrupt is directly preceded by a diff. See here, where MONGO says, "I thought arbcom asked you to cease disrupting Rfa." and Malleus responds, "Then you thought wrong matey."  -Scottywong | chatter _  20:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Your posts on this matter are pernicious and outright deceitful. Parrot of Doom 20:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There is the larger issue of context here. To think this actually means "I think it is ok to be disruptive" genuinely stretches credibility.  That Malleus wasn't correcting Mongo's use of "disrupt" instead of "participate" is the more likely conclusion I would draw, as will others.  To present it here as such is certainly not a neutral presentation of the facts.  I often agree with you on many points Scotty (including many of your concerns here), and it is a shame that you would choose the least effective way to achieve your goals.  It boggles the imagination.  I do like you, even though you make it difficult some days.  You are truly a talented person whom I could learn a great many things from, but dispute resolution would not be among them.  As I have no dog in this hunt, I'm forced to simply use my best judgement, and I have.   Dennis Brown  -  2&cent;   &copy;  20:55, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Scottywong, I am very disappointed that you have sunk to such a depth only to prove you were right in the first place with your ANI report--and you weren't. Dennis is being nice: your "interpretation" doesn't stretch credibility, it denies it. I don't see why I should take anything from you on good faith: this is ridiculous. I don't know who this Agathoclea person is or what their beef is with Malleus and I don't care; I do know that MONGO here gets away with "obnoxious assholishness" and stating that MF edits like he's always drunk--and here he is, the former admin who couldn't get his bit back, playing holier than thou. I should have blocked you on the spot for this assholish outburst, but I'm just not a fan of civility blocking. Maybe Malleus is not irreplaceable, but I do know that neither Scottywong nor MONGO are going to fill his shoes: the one doesn't have the sense or the spine, the other doesn't have the decency. For now, what can I say. Shove it. Drmies (talk) 22:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "Shove it"...."neither Scottywong nor MONGO are going to fill his shoes: the one doesn't have the sense or the spine, the other doesn't have the decency"...and yet you were just at my talkpage warning me about personal attacks?...are you kidding me...what partisanship.--MONGO 23:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * That's right. Difference is, I'm right. Feel free to leave me a warning, and I'll leave it on my page, without additional goddamns. Drmies (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * No...you've never been more wrong...Malleus is ONLY still editing because I didn't show up at arbcom with my evidence...you can take that to the bank. I'm surely not going to tip-toe around the likes of him or his cronies any longer...--MONGO 00:41, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Scottywong, you are becoming vindictively deceitful now. You know perfectly well that Malleus's (correct) denial that he has been topic-banned from "disrupting RFAs" is NOT a statement that it is OK for him to disrupt them - he is clearly simply pointing out that he has not been topic banned from RFA at all. If I'd known you were going to turn into such a shit-stirrer, I would never have given you my support in your RFA. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose. This is yet another attempt by the IRCscheming/MMORPGplaying/RANDYenabling brigade to remove unpopular opinions from RFA so they can rubber-stamp adminships for their friends and wikipolitical allies.  Skinwalker (talk) 20:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose this nonsense, and if Scottywong won't stop his petty harassment of Malleus, he should lose the admin bit. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:31, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. MF seems to enjoy goading and badgering others without the slightest provocation. Seems designed to disrupt others' good faith contributions. Malick78 (talk) 22:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Malleus stayed within what was allowed by the arbcom decision. Ryan Vesey Review me!  22:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Lol. I can tell that most of the above commentators haven't been to AE before (much). Since when have these things been decided by Support or Oppose votes. This ain't AN/I, essentially because it has the word "discretionary" in it. Probably should just remove any comment above which bolded something or other. Volunteer Marek 00:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As an uninvolved admin has already declined the enforcement request, which is action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, short of Guerillero modifying the decision, to overturn the decision will require that either Arbcom overturn, or the matter being sent back to AN or AN/I to overturn? Monty  845  00:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Volunteer Marek is correct. Editors don't !vote Support or Oppose at AE.  Instead, they leave comments or statements.  Also, the AE admin has not declined the request.  They examined it and gave their initial opinion.  Other AE admins will want to comment (or not comment as it may be in this case).  The admins will then try to reach concensus on how best to handle the request.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose - regardless of Monty's point ;) This is just an escalation of Scottywong vs Malleus and, as is more common than not, Malleus has got it right. I agree with Boing! said Zebedee's comment regarding "petty harassment" and vindictive deceitfulness. There is a problem here, and it is not Malleus. - Sitush (talk) 00:20, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. Of the four diffs presented, the first one is not a violation of NPA.  The next three are violations. Cla68 (talk) 00:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Per Tarc (and others), even though Malleus's comments may have been a bit snarky, I don't see a violation of the topic ban, which only had to do with the RfA Talk pages. The rest of the "ban" was simply permission to uninvolved admins to ban him from a specific RfA.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. MF brought up important points at the RFAs. He was not disruptive, he was pointing out the elephant in the room in the case of Dr Blofeld's throwaway support !vote, and in pointing out the lapse in examining a candidates editing history such that four years were added to significant editing. All of this is necessary stuff and it's too bad if feathers get ruffled. Binksternet (talk) 01:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. MF asked difficult questions at the RfA - not "obnoxious", "insulting" or "trolling" questions, as some above claim. Banning editors from RfA for asking "difficult" questions completely undermines the whole process. It would also represent one more step towards the two-tier "all editors are equal but some editors are more equal than others" Wikipedia that some admins would like to implement. Gwen Chan 10:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, this has got to be said at some point; as one of the relatively few admins willing to come here on a regular basis, everyone cool it for a while and let admins have a look. Outside opinions are absolutely valued at AE, but, reading over some of the crap being stated above, if I were one of the reviewing admins I'd probably be tossing out blocks like candy on Halloween at this point.  You'd better cut it out or whoever else comes here to review this will probably start doing just that.  Incidentally, tossing accusations at either "side" in this conflict is really calling the kettle black, which isn't going to make you look good here.  Now I'm going to repeat my request; why don't a few of you at least have a look at a few other threads on this page which are about content (which seems to be important enough to everyone to toss around as both an excuse and a weapon but not important enough for you to worry about yourselves) and perhaps provide some assistance in managing the problems in those areas.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 02:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment to User:RegentsPark's uninvolved admin comment below; it would apply to anyone under ArbCom sanctions in which any uninvolved admin can issue a topic ban. It wouldn't apply to a clear WP:NPA violator not under ArbCom sanctions.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 04:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * However, the question should be whether MF is being disruptive at this RfA. If he is, he should be banned from it, per the ArbCom sanctions.  If not, then he shouldn't be.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 04:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment to any other "neutral" (lol) admins that may chime in below...Malleus has "quit" the website...I think this is his third resignation since arbcom gracefully allowed him to persist his usual programming. So we can close this and probably stayed tuned to tomorrows or next weeks "frivilous" complaints about Malleus...MONGO 07:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The fact that it's his third recent resignation suggests that maybe we shouldn't simply wait til his editing ramps up again and the same thing happens. What then, someone reports him, he "resigns", we say let's wait again....  Equazcion  ( talk )  07:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Frankly, MONGO needs to take a long hard look at his own conduct - those diffs cited in this AE in no way justifies this sort of response. Provoked, was he? I imagine it's more of a reflection of the fact he needs to take a break. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:13, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: A discouraging number of editor's comments, above, seem to be contributer focused on each other. Please work to make only comments on other comments, strictly, in an area with high emotion. It is only slightly more wordy to say, "that comment makes no sense because . . ." than to say, "you're an idiot," "an ass" etc. Try for the former, please? It leads to better focus on where the focus should be. One can hold the opinion that comment A, B and C  are disruptive or the opinion that comment A, B, and C are not disruptive.  Explain your reasons for those opinions of comments A, B, and C and leave it to the process to find resolution. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * While I agree with the general sentiments, the issue here is that in this particular context, the process (and decision) are being misused by specific users in a way which is creating a battleground. MONGO made himself open to criticism for proceeding to issue a warning in a matter where he is clearly involved, then inappropriately proceeding to intervene while making a gratuitous personal attack and assumption of bad faith in his edit summary . He may not be an administrator for obvious reasons, but he is certainly expected to be aware of how this sort of thing works on Wikipedia. Now, it appears that certain users who (at present) hold administrative privileges are showing signs of following this lead; if they continue, it will eventually lead to the same disappointing remedy too. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The process and the decision are being misued? Perhaps?  But if so, generally it will go nowhere and it will, at any rate, get to nowhere faster without personalization. If someone issues a mistaken warning.  Then all the pedia, I think is asking is the more useful response is, "your warning is mistaken and here's the reasons why" none of which includes ad hominum, which is uneeded and, yes can be worse things for everyone involved.  And, as we all know, 'he started it' is just basically sad. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Meh...dragging up arbcom cases from 5 years ago is just a cheap shot...and expected. I'm not in a position to "warn" anyone...and that is not what I did with Malleus...I merely asked him bluntly and obtusely that I thought he was under arbcom restriction (I didn't know the exact details of such restriction, but knew there was one)...had I seen Malleus earlier comments t this Rfa I would have (not that I have to) stayed away from even voicing my opinion...I also formally apologize for my awful edit summary, but not for the removal of the provocative question by Malleus. With my tenure and experience on this website, I have to remember to set a better example of civility even when faced with egregious personal attacks and cheap shots from administrators such as Drmies and members of the Malleus clan....The history of the Rfa is easy to find...as Arthur Rubin stated above, either Malleus was disruptive or he wasn't...MONGO 15:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * That is certainly not the intention; if the purpose of RFA is to increase the number of administrators, one would hope that a few of the existing admins would not foolishly do the same sort of thing which has apparently occurred in history already. Also, as you would have noticed, the admin who initiated this request has labelled your request as a "warning" at the top of the report, despite the reality of what you were doing (or as he may end up suggesting, what you thought you were doing). To avoid any misunderstanding, I think in the grand scheme of things, Malleus' conduct on this particular occasion was not so problematic/disruptive (if at all), even though I have on other occasions clearly expressed concerns about his conduct being otherwise. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:12, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: I think everyone would agree that none of this would have happened if younger wikipedians showed proper respect to their elders and betters. This whole episode is proof, if ever it were needed, that it is time to bring back the birch. Tom Pippens (talk) 16:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Malleus' comments are snarky, imflammatory, and disruptive; he should be restricted from participation in this particular RFC RFA. Scottywang should be commended for calling him out.  Them From  Space  17:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, what lead you to think that this is an RfC?  OhanaUnited  Talk page  21:13, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops, that was a typo. RfC => RfA.  Them From  Space  21:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Purely for historical accuracy, I should like to point out my comment (not a !vote) in the RfA in question, in which I asked MF to desist from what I saw as disruption. I make no further comment, either to re-affirm or to diminish my comment (which has generated mixed opinions) but point it out only because it has not been noted in this thread, which I was not aware of when I commented in the RfA.--Anthony Bradbury"talk" 21:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Malleus Fatuorum

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


 * I think that all that is needed is trouts for Scotty and It is me here. RFAs are a discussion, so we like to claim. Engaging people in a discussion about their "weak" votes is a common practice. (See the oppose section of every RfA) The diff that you cite is MF explaining the restriction he is under. He is not banned from RfAs or asking the hard questions at RfAs that many people shy away from. -- Guerillero &#124;  My Talk  18:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I second Guerillero's suggestion. An RfA is a discussion and we should be encouraging responses to both support as well as oppose !votes. In this RfA, my impression is that MF is merely pointing out that a good admin needs to have made significant contributions to content. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that opinion, it is a legitimate one. If we ban MF or making such comments, we would have to ban all editors from disagreeing with any !vote. That is definitely not a good idea. Much of this fuss is due to a hasty, but possibly good faith, ANI report and I suggest the matter be dropped with trouts as suggested by Guerillero. There are plenty of more productive ways to waste time time on Wikipedia! --regentspark (comment) 01:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, echoing TBoNL & VM above can everyone who is uninvolved (and unfamiliar with AE) please cool it. In terms of the evidence and the sanction itself, this diff is in breach of the RfAr ruling, the other 3 are not (I undestand why MONGO redacted this one but I see it as borderline, obnoxious yes, unhelpful yes, but not rising quite to the level of disruption that requires sanction). Whether or not MF was goaded into this is moot - he did it, and at an RFA page. I don't see this as grounds for blocking or banning but would see it as final warning territory. On the matter of the sanction wording this needs clarification. MF cannot be "banned" from RFA pages and allowed to !vote and comment there: if the committe mean that his behaviour is under probation on said pages then that needs to be made explicit-- Cailil  talk 13:27, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * MF was banned from RFA Talk pages - those under WT:RFA. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:59, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * In the "Discussion" section for editors who are not uninvolved administrators, why do we have a plethora of !vote-style comments? Constructive comments about the merits of the complaint are useful, but piling on to demonstrate consensus in favour or opposition of the complaint are not. AGK  [•] 13:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I suspect that is because some of the participants are more used to AN/I :) With regard to this case, I don't see much evidence of disruption here, indeed I think the balance of MF's contributions are positive, given that he raised legitimate issues in his oppose and additionally motivated the nominator to modify his nomination statement. His comment to Mongo might be seen as provocative given that the two apparently have a history of antipathy; an interaction ban might be a possible solution. Other than that, I see little merit in this case; the nominator may have been miffed by MF's query as to what else he may have failed to investigate but given the former's admitted oversight, it was not an unreasonable query in the circumstances. Suggest this be closed with no action or at most a gentle reminder to Malleus of his obligations with regard to RFA participation. Gatoclass (talk) 14:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * At this point, I think that it would be best to close this request as no action taken. AE is not WP:WQA.  Not that I recommend taking this dispute to that forum, but the disputes dealt with there are more comparable in severity to this one, than those more properly before Arbitration Enforcement.  Eluchil404 (talk) 05:49, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Ohconfucius, Colipon, Shrigley
Now at WP:A/R/C. Further action on this thread is suspended pending the disposition of the case request by arbcom. Should the request be accepted, this thread will be closed without action. Should the request be declined, this thread will be reopened. T. Canens (talk) 10:14, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Three editors

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBFLG


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

Provisions being breached
I am bringing this case under WP:ARBFLG. I believe the named editors are unable to contribute to the Falun Gong namespace in a civil, good faith, or neutral manner. Based on their comments, these editors appear to have difficulty distancing themselves from their strongly held personal feelings on the subject, and edit from an exclusively critical perspective (that is, critical of the Falun Gong and defensive of the government of the PRC). In addition, I have found them to be intolerant of other editors and uncivil, with little attempt or effort at assuming good faith. All three regularly breach the following policies:


 * WP:NPOV
 * WP:CIVIL
 * WP:AGF
 * WP:FORUM
 * WP:NOTADVOCATE
 * WP:EP

The editors have also violated related principles under WP:ARBFLG, such as ARBFLG and ARBFLG.

Individually they have violated additional policies. Shrigley frequently seems to violate WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, particularly the clause which forbids “religious slurs, and derogatory references to groups such as social classes or nationalities.” (he frequently refers to Falun Gong as a “cult,” to its adherents as “cult members,” etc). Colipon’s record includes regular breaches of WP:FORUM, and a rather serious breach of WP:BLP, in addition to the above. Ohconfucius frequently disregards editing policy concerning WP:EP by making major rounds of revisions while failing to participate in talk page discussions when asked. In the last 72 hours he violated the WP:3RR while editing on this subject.

In full disclosure, this AE is catalyzed by a dispute related to Falun Gong on the page Bo Xilai that I was involved in, along with all three of these editors. I was gratuitously reverted and insulted by Ohconfucius, and found that all three editors were obstructing a good faith process of consensus formation on the talk page. Note that I am not attempting to win a content dispute by bringing this case, and if there are concerns about that I can recuse myself from editing the relevant section of the article. I have bowed out in other cases where I have felt the discussion uncomfortable or unproductive on this topic.

Below is a representative but by no means exhaustive or complete list of diffs from the last several months that displays consistently improper and disruptive editing and discussion behavior.

I am sorry for the length of this case; it was taking time and I had to limit the evidence. The reason I am filing against all three collectively is that on the Falun Gong topic they edit together, express the same views, and have fostered a kind of team dynamic.

Bo Xilai
Background: A contentious aspect of former Chinese Party official Bo Xilai’s biography relates to his role in the suppression of Falun Gong. This issue has been disputed a lot, and in March a fragile consensus was reached over the phrasing of this section. Homunculus somehow managed to disrupt the balance on May 15 with this edit, which involved adding two references and a short sentence on the outcome of lawsuits that were filed against Bo. Ohconfucius reverted, Homunculus inquired why and restored the content, Colipon deleted the entire paragraph, and thus began an edit war and lengthy talk page exchange that involved the three editors named here, as well as several others. What I observed was that Homunculus initiated much discussion on the talk page, issued proposed wording, and solicited feedback from several other editors who were uninvolved in the dispute. . These editors and two more also then participated in the talk page discussion, and Homunculus attempted several times to use their suggestions to broker a consensus on particular points. I arrived late to the discussion, and made one edit to the page that was quickly and gratuitously reverted by Ohconfucius.

Ohconfucius weighed in once on the talk page discussion before violating 3RR. [ Rather than participate constructively, he used the page as a forum to opine that Falun Gong victims of torture are merely engaged in a “propaganda war….in an attempt to gain publicity and cause maximum embarrassment” to the PRC. Other comments he makes here—that the lawsuits Falun Gong filed against Bo were all identical, or that they received never more than “a column inch” in mainstream media, are demonstrably untrue.

As the discussion went on without Ohconfucius’ involvement, he proceeded to break 3RR. He did not attempt to explain any of these edits on the talk page:


 * 1st revert:
 * 2nd revert:
 * 3rd revert: (Note the edit summary – this seemed completely gratuitous, not to mention uncivil)
 * 4th revert:

Since I filed this request, he has continued reverting information with no or inadequate explanation or discussion on the talk page, even after being asked to explain several times
 * (deleted content because of what Ohconfucius believes it implies?)
 * (delete content. Reason is vague.) (I have recused myself from the discussion given that I filed this.)

The editor makes little to no attempt to discuss policies or content in a reasonable manner on the talk page. Instead Ohconfucius attempted to, what appears to me as, marginalize the editor presenting the sources for inclusion. 

Shen Yun Performing Arts
Background: Shen Yun is an international Chinese dance company whose performers practice Falun Gong and which is usually sponsored by Falun Gong associations where it performs. It plays in prominent opera houses and theaters around the world and at least some of its artists are internationally recognized and accomplished. The company’s performances include acts that depict Falun Gong beliefs and the suppression of the group in China. The Chinese government attempts to delegitimize Shen Yun by describing it as Falun Gong propaganda designed to smear the government’s image, and it tries to shut down its performances through diplomatic and commercial pressure.


 * : Deletes all information on performers, citing WP:NOT (The list of performers here employed the same format and criteria as is used on other pages about dance and ballet companies, and is not a violation of that policy). The deletion wasn’t discussed on the talk page.


 * : Deletes information on performers again, calling it “rubbish.” Still no discussion.


 * : Adds a collection of references to exclusively negative reviews into the article introduction.


 * : Highlights more negative reviews in the reception


 * : Deletes sourced and relevant information about the content and nature of the performances. Was this because none of it was negative?


 * : Makes unsourced and incorrect statement in the introduction that depictions of Falun Gong in the performances have received only negative reviews from critics.

Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident
Background: This topic relates to an event in which five people set themselves on fire on Tiananmen Square in 2001. The PRC claimed they were Falun Gong practitioners, and said that Falun Gong’s doctrines contain exhortations to violence, and used the event to decisively turn public opinion against the group. Falun Gong sources, as well as several journalists and scholars, argued that the event was staged (no doctrinal support for violence or suicide in Falun Gong, no independent investigation permitted, inconsistencies in the government accounts, several of the victims were not known to practice Falun Gong, etc.) I am aware of three books written by experts on Falun Gong which provide a survey of the event (Noah Porter, Danny Schechter, David Ownby): two of the three authors believe the event was staged by the Chinese government. The third believes it is plausible that it was staged, and if not, the participants were probably “new or unschooled” practitioners.

Through his talk page comments, Ohconfucius has made clear that he believes the Chinese government’s account that Falun Gong’s teachings somehow motivated these individuals to protest as such. It’s fine that he holds that opinion—some journalists have posited similar views. However, Ohconfucius seems unable to contemplate other possibilities, and recently wrote on the article’s talk page that editors who disagree on this point are necessarily being “intellectually dishonest.”

In 2009, Ohconfucius worked to get this article promoted to FA status. In 2011, several other editors knowledgeable on the subject discussed and implemented further improvements to the page. Among other things, it was found that the page failed to adequately represent several notable and prominent views on the event. A veteran admin oversaw that process, and indicated he found the discussions surrounding those revisions agreeable and constructive.

The page was then stable for a long while. In Early 2012, Ohconfucius returned. With no talk page discussion beforehand and minimal discussion throughout, he made over a hundred unilateral changes an apparent attempt to restore his preferred version, promote points of view that aligned with his own, and remove sourced content that reflected poorly on the Chinese government.

There are far too many diffs to present (150, maybe, in the span of a couple of days). One can view them by starting from March 30 and moving forward in time.

On the talk page, no attempt was made to understand or engage with older discussions that previously addressed the issues he was editing on. User:Zujine posted several questions and pointed out problems with his edits. Ohconfucius didn’t respond. When Zujine made an edit to the page to address these issues, Ohconfucius promptly reverted with the edit summary “don’t make me laugh.” When Ohconfucius finally did comment on the talk page, it was simply stating his belief that other editors had ruined the page. The specific issues were not addressed. Zujine again asked a series of specific questions, but Ohc’s next talk page comment was similar to the first, and amounted to insulting the work of all other editors on the page, calling it a Falun Gong “propaganda piece version that shocked my pants off”  No attempt to address the specific content issues raised. All the while, Ohc continues editing at a rapid pace. This pattern continues for a long time, with Zujine pointing out problems and Ohconfucius either answering them only partially or not at all, all while continuing to make significant edits. He reverts multiple edits that were discussed on talk page:

Soon after Ohconfucius started making these changes, the article was selected to be featured on the homepage. That process brought in more scrutiny from outside parties, and resulted in the wholesale reversion of nearly all of Ohconfuciu’s changes. In addition, several previously uninvolved editors raised concerns about some of the images on the page (all of them added by Ohconfucius) that had insufficient fair use rationales or other problems Ohconfucius removed some, but not the most gruesome among them (they all had the same license, and all came from Chinese state-run media). When those images were removed, Ohconfucius restored them, and condescended to the other editors.

Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes
Deletes sourced paragraph about the censorship of a Falun Gong art exhibit in Tel Aviv. A number of editors who initially created this page favored inclusion of this material.

This is a dispute resolution case where User:PCPP had violated his topic ban by deleting material on Falun Gong. I brought this to the attention of AE, and PCPP was blocked for 24 hours for violating his ban. Ohconfucius comes to his defense by stating that the 24-hour block against him—that is, the enforcement of his topic ban— was a bad faith “tactical victory by those who sought to oppose him.” Ohconfucius seems quite literally to believe that this is a battleground.

Other
Edit wars (breaking 3RR) to include unsupported claim that the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident was a specie of cult suicide:  / claims editors who removed the addition are practicing censorship:.

Complains about "Falun Gong editors" who "typically have this world view that if you are not 100% pro-Falun Gong, you are against them" (only other user in the dispute was user:Homunculus); it seems to imply that Homunculus is a "Falun Gong editor" who shares those negative characteristics  / adds me and another editor to a "List of editors with a pronounced Falun Gong  slant". Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?

Colipon
Colipon seems to have a long-standing propensity to view Wikipedia as an ideological battleground or soapbox to promote particular negative views of Falun Gong, and to attempt to deemphasize reports of human rights abuses against the group. Colipon is reasonable in other areas, but appears unwilling or unable to contribute in a calm, constructive, good-faith manner on Falun Gong.

I could never hope to dissect all this user’s contributions to these pages, but as evidence of the long-standing nature of this pattern, consider this edit  from January 2007, in which Colipon can be seen soliciting help from another editor to conduct and promote original research for the purpose of dealing “a big blow” to Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi (the editor with whom Colipon was discussing was indefinitely banned for prolific sock-puppetry and outside activism). It goes without saying that this is not the purpose of Wikipedia.

Colipon regularly uses the talk pages to note his general dislike of Falun Gong, to disparage other editors through accusations of bad faith, and to disrupt good faith discussions. When asked to discuss content, not contributors, Colipon recently said he has no intention of doing so (in his words, good faith content discussions are a “waste of time”).

Colipon has been warned more than once to cease this kind of behavior (most recently here )

Some diffs follow below.

Sima Nan
Background: Sima Nan is a Chinese government-backed critic of qigong and Falun Gong.
 * Restores deleted material to the page that had been effectively shown to violate WP:V, WP:BLP, and WP:RS in several previous talk page discussions. Material represents an exceptional, possibly libelous claim about Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi. Sima Nan himself acknowledged that this allegation against Li was based on anonymous rumors he heard in the early 1990s, and the information is irreconcilable with public positions and statements by Li Hongzhi. I believe Colipon knew this, and restored the material regardless.


 * Attempts to justify inclusion of material by saying, essentially, that Wikipedia can repeat potentially libelous material, as long as it is sourced to someone else.

Talk:Shen Yun Performing Arts
Through a series of edits, Colipon uses the talk page as a forum to air his personal views on the topic. The effect is to create an ideological battleground out of the article’s talk page.


 * : “Shen Yun is not an artistic performance. It is a propaganda organ of Falun Gong”


 * : “The reason for Shen Yun’s existence is propaganda.”


 * ) “Shen Yun is not a bona fide arts troupe.”


 * : Argues repeatedly (and contrary to evidence) that Shen Yun “tries to mislead people into thinking that it has nothing to do with Falun Gong.”


 * Attempts to source above allegation to the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, and Toronto Star. Later he gives up (and to his credit apologizes) when it is pointed out that none of these sources make that claim.


 * When another editor (me, actually) explains a series of changes, Colipon simply calls me a member of a tag-team.

Talk:Falun Gong
No evidence. Who is he referring to? Compares Falun Gong to scientology (an evocative parallel, though so far one quite beyond the reach of any scholar of the topic). Note that Colipon was here agreeing with two other new or unregistered users who were both banned for disruptive editing (and later sock puppetry). One was summarily banned for making similar talk page comments as Colipon makes here.

Here, Colipon is claiming that editors Homunculus and I are intimidating user:AgadaUrbanit (To the contrary, it was AgadaUrbanit who was issuing threats; we were simply asking him to explain his views clearly). Complains that all “rational” editors are gone, implying that editors who continue working on (and improving!) this page are irrational.

More unconstructive complaints that amount to using Wikipedia as a forum. Other editors were in the midst of a good faith discussion on how to improve the article. Colipon distracts the discussion by calling it an “ideological war” and suggesting everyone give up.

Talk:Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident
Background: As other editors sought to engage Ohconfucius on significant content changes, Colipon opined periodically to defend Ohconfucius and disparage others without discussing content or policies.


 * Defends Ohconfucius, who was in the process of making dozens of controversial edits while implicitly refusing to partake in talk page discussion.


 * : More use of talk page as a forum to complain about other editors. No discussion of content; just disparaging other editors discussing things.


 * : After being asked to discuss content, not contributors, Colipon makes clear that he has no intention of doing so. Calls content discussion a “waste of time.”


 * : More of same. In response to an editor pointing out a content issue, Colipon laments what he calls POV-pushing, suggests other editors are acting in bad faith.  No attempt to discuss content or policies.
 * Laments that the page has been “totally destroyed” since 2009. No specifics. Nothing actionable.  Just an insinuation that everyone who has worked on the page, with the exception of Ohconfucius, has destroyed it.


 * In response to an editor who raised a concern about Ohconfucius’s misrepresentation of a source and original synthesis, Colipon accuses editor of bad faith, compares them to “banned Falun Gong SPA's”, accuses them of POV-pushing and wikilawyering.

Bo Xilai

 * — deletes a paragraph about Bo’s involvement in the anti-Falun Gong campaign. Paragraph was four lines long, exceptionally well sourced to major newspaper, and most of it carefully agreed upon in a previous discussion (in fact, Colipon himself proposed some of this wording). Edit summary says only that it was ‘undue weight.’


 * — Justifies deletion on talk page with a variety of spurious explanations—eg. the material on Falun Gong shouldn’t be on the page because dissident Jiang Weiping doesn’t talk very much about it.  Although there had never been any consensus to remove this material, Colipon treats the deletion as a fait accompli, and states that editors who would try to restore this information are being tendentious. (He apparently soon realized this was an untenable position, and restored one sentence).

In the ensuing talk page discussion, several other editors—many of whom are not regularly involved in Falun Gong-related topics—tried to constructively identify the material they believed should be included. Several of them suggesting that the material deserved expansion and added weight, and the others agreed that some should remain, some was questionable, etc. As these editors tried to broker a compromise, Colipon weighed in frequently, but it seemed he never moved the discussion forward. Just as agreement would begin to form around certain sentences, Colipon would suddenly revert back to his position that none of the material should be in the article, thus obstructing the process of consensus formation.


 * — Colipon says that a sentence describing the reason for rejection of lawsuits is "obvious and sophisticated weasel wording." (The content was straightforward and well sourced.) He did not explain how the suggest wording were weasel words. He said that the phrasing is inconsistent with the sources (it was not, as anyone can check the sources and see). And he argued that because the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, and New York Times allot only “passing mention” to Falun Gong’s charges against Bo, they are not notable. This appears to be an arbitrary standard. There are dozens of reliable sources that have mentioned the suits, including a very long piece by the Center for Investigative Reporting.


 * Colipon believes that some of the Falun Gong lawsuits were dismissed because they were "frivolous." He presented this opinion as a fact on the talk page, even though no reliable sources endorse this position. The reliable sources do say that some cases were dismissed on technicalities such as jurisdiction, diplomatic immunity, and so on. Colipon rejects these as the causes for dismissal. I wonder whether it is simply because the reliable sources do not confirm to his opinions. Creating arbitrary standards for content inclusion and making untrue assertions on the talk page presented as fact makes consensus-building difficult.

Quigley/Shrigley
As far as I’ve seen, all of Shrigley’s edits on this topic reflects a strong POV, and very few of his comments are collegial. Most of his edits to this namespace involve either deleting information about the persecution of Falun Gong, disparaging Falun Gong, defending editors who share his POV (regardless of how plainly disruptive they may be), making religious slurs against Falun Gong, and leveling accusations of bad faith against editors with whom he disagrees.

One of my concerns with Shrigley is that he very frequently tries to discredit other editors by claiming they are Falun Gong practitioners (whom he likes to call “cult members”). He does this as a means of ad hominem attack instead of discussing content, as though he believes that it is appropriate to discriminate against particular users because of their religion. To my knowledge, none of the editors regularly involved on these pages at present has ever declared their religious affiliations—Falun Gong or otherwise—on Wikipedia. Aside from that, editors should be evaluated on the quality of their contributions, not their ethnicity, gender, creed, or nationality. On other religion-related pages, it’s my understanding that participation from believers is encouraged. A number of these pages would benefit from the presence of a (responsible) Falun Gong practitioner who can assist in ensuring accurate representations of the doctrine and practices. Users like Shrigley, unfortunately, create a climate that is hostile towards this class of people.

As Shrigley’s edits are more disparate than others, I’ve sorted them chronologically.

June 22 2011: defends User:PCPP’s edit warring at Expo 2010. At issue is whether the page should contain information about how the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai was directly linked to the abduction, disappearance, or torture of about 100 Falun Gong practitioners (according to reports from the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and Amnesty International). Quigley writes that “the misadventures of Falun Gong seem to be a fringe concern, meriting a brief mention on the dedicated controversies article if at all.” This fits a broader pattern of trying to downplay or delete information on human rights abuses by the PRC government.

October 24, 2011: Again, Quigley defends edit warring by PCPP, and suggests that other editors are part of a sinister Falun Gong plot. Declared that “for Falun Gong and its NGO allies of convenience, their lifeblood of U.S. government subsidies is dependent on their ability to suppress the unsavory aspects of Falun Gong's teachings on Wikipedia.” (I’ve never found a reliable source claim that Falun Gong is funded by U.S. government subsidies. The Chinese government has made this claim as part of its media campaign against the group, however). This amounts to a fairly serious accusation of bad faith (and paid advocacy?)

Jan 7 2012: Defends a series of seemingly POV edits by the topic-banned user PCPP at the page Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes. Uses pejorative epithets (“cult”) to refer to Falun Gong (in violation of WP:CIVIL). Argues with one of the sources in order to downplay the severity of human rights abuses by the Chinese government.

Jan 7 2012:  Defends user:PCPP in an arbitration enforcement case (PCPP had violated a topic ban by deleting Falun Gong-related content from the Confucius institute article). Claims that “Falun Gongers” have utilized “unsavory” tactics to covertly insert reference to Falun Gong on Wikipedia, thereby trapping PCPP into breaking his topic ban. The implication here is that the editor who had previously worked on that page, and who supported the inclusion of information on Falun Gong, were all Falun Gong followers acting in bad faith. None of the editors who had supported that material have identified themselves as Falun Gong practitioners (a few of them had never edited on Falun Gong pages as far as I’ve seen)

Jan 8, 2012 During a dispute resolution process where editors are supposed to discuss content, Shrigley instead complains that “a bunch of Falun Gong-focused editors” are damaging Wikipedia with their POV pushing. Suggests the blame lies with unnamed “Falun Gong followers”. This amounts to ad hominem attacks, whereby Shrigley is trying to diminish the quality of other editor’s contributions by “outing” them or attacking their presumed religion (whether real or imagined).

March 21 - 23 Bo Xilai:

Editorializes that lawsuits brought against Bo were “unsuccessful” (not true: the cases resulted in a finding of guilt for torture, and an indictment for genocide).









April 4 2012:

Deletes all mention of Falun Gong from the biography of Jiang Zemin (the campaign against the group was a major feature of Jiang’s tenure).



April 5, 2012:

– Deletes sourced information on the scope and nature of the persecution of Falun Gong. In an act of historical revisionism, Shrigley confuses the causality of the suppression by describing Falun Gong as a “dissident sect” (implication seems to be that it is suppressed because they’re dissidents. It was the other way around). Scholars also note that Falun Gong does not satisfy the definition of a ‘sect.’ Not to mention that the term is often used pejoratively.

April 4 / 5, 2012:

inexplicably deletes Falun Gong from a comprehensive list of religion topic by arguing that it is not a religion but a new religious movement. This is a strange argument to begin with, but also, numerous scholars say simply that Falun Gong is a religion. The Chicago University Press published a book last month called “The Religion of Falun Gong”. This appears to be an attempt to try to delegitimize the group.



April 23, 2012

– deletes list of performers, remarking that someone (me) “managed to sneak this in.” Hardly snuck it in – I started a talk page discussion, and Shrigley did not answer it.

Editorializes in Wikipedia’s voice that the performance is “antigovernment.” Elevates position of negative reviews. Wrongly identifies the source of accusations of Chinese government interference as coming from Falun Gong sources alone (actual source was the U.S. State Department, which in turn drew on multiple media and NGO reports). Removes defense of Shen Yun from a prominent Hong Kong politician. Deletes sourced content about how a relative of a Shen Yun performer was reportedly kidnapped by Chinese authorities. Adds content that misattributes quotes to a Falun Gong organization.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Briefly on my background in this topic: I joined Wikipedia and later began editing these pages, among many others, at a time when Falun Gong editors were still around but slowly being banished. I am a person who abjures extreme opinions, and consider myself skeptical towards religion in general, and I carried these perspectives into my work here. I exchanged emails with Ohconfucius and Colipon in that vein early on. None of the editors involved seemed too bad at the time, and I initially found a comfortable role trying to mediate on contentious issues.

As my involvement deepened, I read more on Falun Gong, watched the debates, and continued to observe the interactions among editors. Over time I have come to view more dimly the approach of the editors named in this case. As I have read more academic literature on this topic, it has become apparent that the views these editors hold in general fall quite far outside of the spectrum of mainstream academic opinion. These editors do not recognize this, of course, and they tend to reject the authority of experts on the topic. They seem to believe that they alone are neutral and unbiased when it comes to Falun Gong. In the last six months or so, I’ve found trying to edit these pages in the context of their entrenched antagonism against Falun Gong increasingly difficult. I have been repeatedly personally insulted, had my motivations questioned regularly, and have to deal with constant WP:FORUM-ing and personal remarks.

To illustrate the problem further, Ohconfucius writes on his user page, “I am not interested in partisan bickering of whether Falun Gong was being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party or whether ‘Falun Gong is a Cult’.” But these are not the debate. Scholars on Falun Gong uniformly dismiss the idea that it is a cult (in the pejorative sense, which is how Ohconfucius intended it). And there is no question among reliable sources that Falun Gong is persecuted—and severely at that. The literature on this topic is replete with references to “brutal persecution” on a scale that is “unrivaled” in recent decades. The Chinese government’s campaign against Falun Gong is described in serious literature as being the largest mass mobilization since the Cultural Revolution, one that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of extrajudicial imprisonments, and state-sanctioned torture. Books dedicated to this topic are published in academic presses. And yet in various places, Ohconfucius has expressed doubt that Falun Gong practitioners are mistreated or tortured in custody. He and the other editors here insist—without support from reliable sources—that the persecution is merely alleged, and that Falun Gong practitioners claim torture simply as a means of gaining publicity. It is very difficult to have sophisticated conversations or reach consensus with editors who don’t accept the essential facts.

There is a spectrum of scholarly opinions on Falun Gong, and that’s healthy and productive. Ideally, our goal on Wikipedia should be to reflect the range of views present in the highest quality scholarly literature available—ideas that transcend sensational tropes and ideological battles.

It is also fine to have editors with personal opinions outside this range. We all have personal biases that color our views, and I would defend any editor’s right to hold views outside the mainstream. This is not about suppressing particular viewpoints. The key is that editors should strive to be self-aware in terms of their points of view. All should be able to work in good faith with editors who hold divergent views, should adhere to relevant content policies and editing procedures, and should refrain from accusations of bad faith, personal attacks, incivility, or from using Wikipedia as a forum or platform for advocacy. Users Colipon, Shrigley and Ohconfucius unfortunately have shown themselves unable to do this in this namespace, and they simply do not contribute constructively here. Their appearance on talk pages invariably turns otherwise normal exchanges into entrenched ideological battlegrounds where consensus is all but impossible. They regularly disregard normal editing processes, ignore requests to discuss changes, issue thinly veiled personal attacks, make paranoiac accusations about Falun Gong plots, and use talk pages as forums to complain about Falun Gong or other editors.

A final note about these pages in general: as a whole, the collection of Falun Gong-related articles appears to be in fairly good shape, they are relatively stable, and the trajectory is towards constant improvement. These pages are watched by many interested parties—some of whom are very knowledgeable on the subject—and overt attempts at disruption are therefore normally dealt with easily. Where substantive changes are made, they are generally proposed and discussed in a fairly normal way on talk pages. These editors are, in my opinion, the most persistent threat to the further positive development of these articles. They do not contribute constructively, and the project would not suffer as a result of them being topic banned. Indeed, they were largely inactive on these pages for a long period of time, and the pages did not go to hell—to the contrary, they progressed substantially. Their return to active editing has merely heralded the return of regular edit wars and polarizing ideological battles. Although the evidence I’ve presented here is only partial, I believe it is sufficient to show a pattern of disruptive editing. Note that this is not intended as an indictment of these users as a whole, merely of their involvement in this namespace.


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Shrigley: Colipon: Ohconfucius: (Acknowledgement: (deleted soon after))

Update
On today's recriminations: I have done my best to stay away from ad hominem or polemical discourse and won't engage in it now. The key is the behavorial evidence presented, not the other distractions or meta-discussion.

Other items:
 * On T-Square immolation: the behaviorial problem was Ohconfucius making ~100 edits, refactoring the page while declining to answer questions and concerns on the talk page. Along with failing to discuss, he reverted changes that were discussed on talk, sometimes with edit summaries like “don’t make me laugh.” (Yes, the nature of his edits is a content issue). He and Colipon insulted other editors and when told to focus on content, not contributors, Colipon said that would be a “waste of time.”
 * On Shen Yun Performing Arts: the problem is not that Colipon pointed out the troupe is “linked to Falun Gong”; that connection was already clear in the article. The problem was repeatedly using the talk page as a forum to say that Shen Yun is “not an artistic performance” and is solely a propaganda organ. Foruming and soapboxing like this makes editing and discussion difficult.
 * I'm sorry that Colipon feels "extremely intimidated" by all this. I would not resort to these mechanisms unless I felt there was no recourse. (Admins should check the diffs that Colipon’s claims to show intimidation against him or others. I don't see it.)
 * Ohconfucius has broken 3RR twice in the last week.
 * On actual intimidation: Consider the creation of bad-editor lists, the portrayal of myself and Homunculus as "Falun Gongsters," Falun Gong meatpuppets and other terms, the taunting, the supposed "outing," etc.

It is apparent that the editing and attitudes of Colipon and Ohconfucius has been profoundly shaped by their past experiences with actual Falun Gong practitioner editors. They have both indicated that these experiences have soured them to no longer being interested in good faith discussion and work on the articles. This AE complaint isn't a meta-issue about the Falun Gong namespace or the tangled history of editing in it, though. It is about the violation of Wikipedia editing and behavioral principles, as documented in the diffs above. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 20:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Update as of May 26
Response to Ferox Seneca and Jayen466: Please note that the complaint relates specifically to the Falun Gong namespace and the violation of ARBFLG editing and behavioral injunctions, as documented in the diffs provided. I am sympathetic with the statement that these are generally reasonable editors. This is not a judgement of the work of these editors on other topics, nor would any remedial action affect their work on other topics.

Response to Enric Naval: I am sorry that you have gained such an unfortunate impression of me. I do not really recall many (if any?) editing interactions on these or other pages, let alone negative ones that would inspire such a remark, so I am not sure where this comes from. I'm not sure if you looked at the diffs above. One point, though: right now, this is about the behavior of the three editors in this namespace as documented in the diffs. If you think there is a cause for administrative action against myself or anyone else, I can only suggest that you gather whatever behavioral evidence you believe is present and bring it to the attention of admins in a separate AE action. I do not envy the people who have to pick through this and identify what is actionable and should be sanctioned and what is not. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 04:37, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Ohconfucius posted a content disagreement from a year ago. I was not involved. It seems to be an attempt to explain or justify the problematic and disruptive behavior documented above. Ohconfucius shows that while he was not editing the page, other editors made changes to content that he did not agree with. I did not spend long looking over the page, but it appears that those edits were accompanied by robust talk page discussion. In the diff Ohc provided where Homunculus replaced a RS with a primary source, the change was apparently explained here:. Agree or disagree - that is a content issue, and reasonable people can disagree about most of these things. An administrator who was overseeing that discussion and those changes wrote at the time: “I am very much encouraged by what I have seen so far. I think people are on the whole working well, and listening to each other. Well done.”
 * In response to Ohconfucius's recent post

If Ohconfucius disagreed with those changes, he should have gone to the talk page to present his concerns. He didn't. Then, a year later, he came back and made over 100 edits without discussion (I was around for that part). He also insulted and edit sparred with other editors. He was asked not to. This is in contrast to the attempt by other editors to engage him in discussion, obvious by looking at the talk page. It is also in contrast to the standard practice that I have seen by Homunculus (and myself, usually, though I have not done serious editing on this namespace for a while), where before making potentially controversial changes on a page, one announces one's reasoning and intentions on the talk page, and invites discussion. Ohconfucius spurned discussion and attacked other editors as having a hidden agenda, political goals, and later as "Falun Gong meatpuppets." People have been banned for similar behavior.

To John Carter: This filing includes all disruptive behavior by Ohc, Colipon, and Quigley. The 3RR filing was for a specific instance of edit warring. It went "stale" because no admin acted on it promptly. I would also rather not be doing this. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 16:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Colipon

 * I acknowledge this AE from User TheSoundandtheFury. I did a preliminary reading, and believe the case is fairly weak. I will let the administrator pore over this file, and also invite other editors to comment. Colipon+ (Talk) 23:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Within the 'evidence' presented against me, Bo Xilai and Sima Nan are very clearly content disputes. That Shen Yun is propaganda is clearly stated in RS,, , though you will note that such criticism has since been obfuscated and weaseled away. In any case, this is still just a content dispute. Colipon+ (Talk) 12:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Shen Yun: What TheSound conveniently fails to mention are the edits I have made on that article. My only foray into it are seen here and here. In the latter case, I actually edit much in favour of Shen Yun. I realized that any slight tipping of the balance against what is considered acceptable by Falun Gong-focused users would result in filibustering, became disillusioned, and left.
 * To highlight the extreme heightened sensitivities on even peripheral Falun Gong pages such as Shen Yun, you can see an edit by Shrigley was reverted a mere 40 minutes (!) later by TheSound.
 * Distancing myself from Falun Gong: Since about two years ago, I removed all but a few Falun Gong pages from my watchlist and stopped editing them altogether. So it is telling that much of the evidence presented against me is based on articles that ordinarily has very little to do with Falun Gong, and on talk page diffs. Colipon+ (Talk) 12:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Above 'Shen Yun' edits constitute the only edits I have made at any Falun Gong article in the last year. One would think that an "anti-Falun Gong editor" would feel somwhat more committed.
 * I find it ironic that some of the diffs listed by TheSound speak well to the poisoned ambiance of the articles, to the point that it reduces the need for me to put up a lengthy defense here. The admin may well treat them as a good 'primer' on Falun Gong-related articles and the POV-pushing that routinely takes place there. Colipon+ (Talk) 14:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Bo Xilai: I have been involved at the Bo Xilai article since 2007. My editing interest there revolves around Bo Xilai, not Falun Gong. I did not expect Falun Gong to emerge as a point of contention.
 * User Homunculus and myself took the article to GA after months of extensive discussions, editing, and consensus building. Knowing Bo is a controversial figure, we carefully balanced the article for neutral presentation.
 * Prior to the scandal this year, Falun Gong was mentioned on the talk page only once: when banned Falun Gong User ASDFG posted this comment. User Homunculus, Ohconfucius, and I hashed out a compromise over Falun Gong on March 26, which still evidently was not good enough for theSound. We revisited Falun Gong only after Homunculus disrupted the consensus version on May 15 - stating that because the article was now longer, undue weight was no longer a problem. My point was that no RS elaborates on the significance of Falun Gong to the man's life, even if they make passing mention of it. Homunculus, responding to this in tandem with TSTF, produced only one substantive piece elaborating on significance: the same document previously mentioned by ASDFG.
 * Pro-PRC vs Pro-Falun Gong. This is a false dichotomy; Homunculus also acknowledges this. But to be clear: I've identified very few pro-Communist Party editors on Wikipedia, and their views are always dismissed by the community anyway. There may be some Chinese nationalists (mostly Chinese living in the West) with strong POVs, but they don't stick around for long and have little 'dedication' to any specific cause. In response to John Carter's statement, to the best of my knowledge, Sam Luo and Tomanada, banned 'anti-FLG' users, were actually gay activists from San Francisco who have no affiliation with the CCP. After their ban, and with the exception of the sanctions on user PCPP, the problematic editing in this space came entirely from Falun Gong adherents and supporters.
 * I feel intimidated and harrassed: Despite their civil facade, I feel extremely intimidated by Falun Gong-focused users. My contributions to article and talk space are always scrutinized to the teeth with argumentative and obstructive paeans (Most tellingly, here: ), and that the sharks were circling to capture each and every diff that they can collect for use in wiki-litigation such as this very AE filing. TheSound, for example, goes all the way back to 2007 to hunt for a user talk page diff. In my ten years of editing, I have never felt this way with any other subject area I have edited, including on other controversial articles.
 * Regrettably I have gone great lengths to engage in self-censorship to get them off my back, which has occasionally impeded my ability to contribute in a fair way, and discouraging me from touching any controversy in which they are involved. It feels like being suffocated because I can no longer approach any China-related controversy with boldness, lest they mischaracterize my intentions at an AE case.
 * Their intimidating actions can be seen recently in their interactions with a previously non-involved user, : Here TSTF reverts tags even though disputes are being hashed out on the talk page; following this any and all of the user's concerns that hint at skepticism of the Falun Gong narrative is promptly shut down: , and also on the user's talk page.
 * To me, there is not a doubt in my mind that this AE request is a continuation of that intimidation.
 * Response to Homunculus's latest addition:

The diffs that he posted bring nothing new to the table. They were the same diffs posted by TSTF. Moreover, many of his claims are simply inaccurate. For example, he accuses me of not engaging in content discussions, when I have done this at great length here and here. Both he and TSTF were major participants at these discussions, I don't understand how they could have conveniently forgotten about this when they egregiously engage in my character assassination on this page. My jadedness about Falun Gong can be understood in the context of how little exhaustive lengths of 'content discussions' can achieve when one side is so bent on colouring everything with their POV, and I would advise any uninvolved admins to read those discussions to get a feel of it themselves. Most of my 'forum'-like comments took place after the obstructive nature of so-called content discussions were made clear. Homunculus also does not mention that prior to his re-insertion of Falun Gong content on the Bo Xilai page, we had worked together closely for several months as the Bo scandal unfolded, during which we had very friendly exchanges. We were lead authors on that controversial page, took it to GA, and worked in a cooperative, friendly manner. These facts make his statement seem very disingenuous. Colipon+ (Talk) 19:49, 27 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Response to T Caenens suggestion about Arbcom
 * I strongly support this, because it will finally bring about the necessary level of attention to the sorry state of the Falun Gong family of articles to the highest level of Wikipedia's bureaucratic hierarchy, something that I have been calling for years. While Arbcom takes up this case they can hopefully come up with some permanent remedies to the serious abuses in the Falun Gong namespace, which have a history dating back to 2006. ARBFLG evidently has not solved any substantive problems on those pages, and merely serves to add up the bytes of wiki-litigation without targeting the root of the problem: the editors. Each involved editor, including myself, should be scrutinized, sanctioned and restricted where appropriate. A no-tolerance policy is due. Delivering a strong message is key. Colipon+ (Talk) 05:09, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Ohconfucius

 * Whilst it's true the complaint is voluminous, a better course of action may be to remove material that relates to pure content dispute, and edits outside the scope of the Arbcom ruling. It should clearly focus on advocacy, POV-pushing, and to a lesser extent COI editing which is what the case has always been about. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 03:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Having struggled past the initial wall of text, I would invite the presiding admin to carefully examine in particular:
 * weasely-phrased constructions above such as "several journalists and scholars, argued that the event was staged",
 * ditto "several other editors knowledgeable on the subject".
 * ditto "more scrutiny from outside parties, and resulted in the wholesale reversion of nearly all of Ohconfuciu’s changes" -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 08:53, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

As the filer has brought up the AN3 case he brought against me, which I have demonstrated was rather contrived, I suggest that the complaint may be politically motivated to stop me from stepping up the opposition to 'Falun Gongsters'. He already issued this thinly veiled threat warning me not to continue editing in Falun Gong space on 30 March 2012. Notice how in both cases, I was transgressed in mainspace by Homunculus (and Zujine), and by TSTF in userspace. Add this complaint, it seems rather obvious to me that the two of them are acting in tandem. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 09:04, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Cult suicide – Edit warring, allegations of stalking and tag team
 * Addendum to the above point: Note that neither Homunculus nor TSTF have, before yesterday, made a single edit at Cult suicide (searches for Homunculus; TSTF), for which I was reported for 3RR. Before yesterday, they have not made a single edit to its talk page (searches for Homunculus; TSTF) either. That one or other or both should have this on their watchlists is peculiar because it is seemingly so far from their areas of interest of Chinese human rights, but not so if you consider the sensitivity of Falun Gong to the "cult" label. So for Homunculus to rush to revert me one hour later is yet another strong pointer to their affiliation to Falun Gong. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 11:11, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * In reply to a point that was mentioned in this post by TSTF: yes, I deeply dislike its propaganda and their "down your throat" politics, but I still wish the PRC would legalise Falun Gong. Personal feelings about them apart, I have proven I can walk away from the topic, I have walked away, and I will in the future walk away. But I will not do so at a time of the choosing of any Falun Gong meatpuppet or similar. The only caveat is that, like any editor who has toiled to take an article to GA and then FA, there is the inevitable personal attachment to the article. Ironic thing is that I now find it embarrassing to have such a Featured Article to my credit and wish it could be delisted. That would give me closure for me if I walked away for good. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 09:43, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * (You're wondering why Cult suicide was on my watchlist? It wasn't until yesterday. I've been keeping an eye on your contributions since filing this case.) The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I make around 300 edits a day. It's amazing that you would find anything in there amongst them all. ;-) Or you care very deeply that I don't make any objectionable edits about the Dafa. Anyway, why don't you just come out of the closet? -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 13:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This is getting very McCarthyist. I think the presiding admins will look rather dimly upon these new insinuations. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 14:03, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As Colipon mentioned above regarding the tactics ordinary users now face and newfound aggression of Falun Gongers –for even Dilip rajeev was never so reactive. Firstly being reverted by Homunculus at an obscure article within approximately 60 minutes, your preparedness to comb through my 300+ edits the moment you wake up, and the rapidity of your response in reverting me, to your filing at AN3 twenty minutes from your revert scares the shit out of me, because it means you [both] are breathing down my neck. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 15:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * And now could you kindly go back to your own section, please. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 15:08, 25 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, it's not just me TSTF is aggressive to. He seems to take exception to certain material being inserted without his approval, and reacts very quickly then too by removing it repeatedly. Here, whilst supposedly "explaining" his rationale, he disparages the efforts of an IP editor by suggesting that said IP took material from facts.org.cn, a site of the Chinese Center for Cultic Studies (viewed by Falun Gongsters as propaganda). Note that although there was the unexplained removal of one paragraph, the material inserted was relevant and properly sourced. One piece in particular was of a tenor very unfavourable to Falun Gong; another piece was potentially embarrassing for the organisers to be shown to be giving away free tickets in an attempt to influence local decision-makers. Homunculus argued was "not sufficiently notable, per WP:N and WP:DUE". -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 18:01, 25 May 2012 (UTC)


 * @My very best wishes: By consensus, do you mean Homunculus opposed me? No editor other than a Falun Gong meatpuppet had previously opposed having a Falun Gong section in the Cult suicide article. It was only when another editor section had posted a suggestion that it belonged did I realise that it had been removed some months previously. Also, I already mentioned above that the action by TSTF is highly curious; I believe he has failed to demonstrate that he was not acting in tandem with Homunculus: he had sprung a trap on me after Homunculus had set it, long after I had stopped editing that article. Not satisfied that I wasn't sanctioned – not that AN3 is a place for sanctioning people – TSTF resurrected unarchived his request. It was simply a bad block, and Bwilkins strangely acted on it. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 00:06, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Editing at Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

As soon as I learnt that it was up for TFA, for I saw the nomination, I got working on it immediately and frantically. I suppose that I could have nominated it for FAR instead, but I thought it could be cleaned up. I shepherded the article through FA with the help of asdfg12345, Jayen466 and SilkTork. Once that was done, I had set out to improve the other Falun Gong articles but soon felt frustrated by the endless wikilawyering and insistence on cherrypicking of sources – they would repeatedly insist that certain sources that they called "high quality scholarly sources", generally favourable to Falun Gong, to be used. Bytheir apparent definition, such sources include Porter, Ownby, Schechter, Gutman, Amnesty International (I have no problem with the former two, but please note that the latter three do not enjoy the same status as serious research – Schechter is a journalist who is staunchly pro-Falun Gong, and Gutman works for Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a political lobbyist). They also fond of quoting from Divid Kilgour, a Canadian parliamentarian who has made a name for himself for "exposing" alleged atrocities committed against Falun Gong practitioners, and will often use his website for information. Of course, they will also quote from various websites affiliated with Falun Gong. As I will demonstrate below, they would also systematically seek to remove critical mentions of Falun Gong, and seek to marginalise those sources (even those that can be defined as truly scholarly) that indicated scepticism of the movement. I had already grown disillusioned by the constant attacks, abuse and tendentiousness from some parties whom I had identified as Falun Gong SPAs and who are all now effectively banned from the project for advocacy and POV-pushing. I stopped editing Falun Gong articles towards the end of December 2009, and took the articles off my watchlist in approximately after the 'self-immolation' article incurred a bout of attacks from an obvious Falun Gong sockpuppet. I performed a number of reverts and then stopped editing.

The filer of this AE noted that "several other editors knowledgeable on the subject discussed and implemented further improvements" to the article since I walked away. An analysis of the edits to the article shows that the list of illustrious names includes, in decreasing order of number of edits, PCPP (no edits after 29 January 2011), AnnaInDC, Homunculus, Zujine, Asdfg12345, Ohconfucius, Jayen466, SilkTork, Dilip rajeev and Olaf Stephanos. As we all know, Asdfg12345, Dilip rajeev and Olaf Stephanos were given indefinite topic bans as Falun Gong SPAs in 10 November 2011, whilst PCPP was given a topic ban for edit-warring. Here, SilkTork and Jayen only made formatting changes.

Until PCPP was topic banned, there was a degree of counterweight to the thrust of Falun Gong editors, but his "effectiveness" was always limited because he was heavily outnumbered. Since then, the article has enjoyed a ratchet effect of pro-Falun Gong edits. Here follows an analysis of the edit count to the article since PCPP's topic ban.

As soon as PCPP was "out of the way" four days later, Homunculus seized the opportunity of ratcheting the POV in favour of Falun Gong thus: In the first of three edits, he performed a radical shift in the article's balance. This is a rearranged version of version 417037166 by Homunculus of 05:55 (UTC), 4 March 2011

The complexity of the edit as well as the one referred to below, and the existence of material undescribed changes such as deletions of adequately sourced text unfavourable to Falun Gong make for a highy opaque edit; it could be contended that the edit summary is misleading. Observe how the NPOV balance has been radically shifted compared with the previous version:
 * 1) "Liu's neighbours" was changed to "neighbors and those acquainted with Liu", although none of the latter were mentioned in the source
 * 2) Mention in Time that 'four of the self-immolators were seen in flames, with their hands held "in a classic Falun Gong meditation pose", drawing a complaint from the Falun Gong movement' was cleanly excised
 * 3) Removed Sisci's comment that "the sect first tried to deny the episode and then argued that it was staged by the government "
 * 4) Removed Time's criticism that the movement had been caught off-guard, and its leadership's damage control proved to be inadequate
 * 5) added quote that: "there are desperate people in China (and elsewhere) who will do anything for money"
 * 6) attributed quote which according to reliable source said " "certain disciples had some extreme interpretations [and thought] we are going to resort to violence", swapped in unsourced or possibly primarysourced material.
 * 7) removed NY Times' mention that "one of the self-immolators was able to "fluidly perform" Falun Gong's signature slow-motion exercises in front of Western media."
 * 8) excised all mention of Jensen and Weston's criticism of the Falun Gong in their scholarly work.

In a later edit, the last one in the above table, Homunculus further radically shifted the balance of the article. this is a rearranged version of version 436986484 by Homunculus of 04:37 (UTC), 30 June 2011.

Observe how the NPOV balance has been radically shifted compared with the previous version
 * 1) Neutral media caption lengthened and biased in favour of hypothesis
 * 2) advanced a hypothesis that the self-immolation participants were paid actors, without attribution and without sourcing
 * 3) upwards ratchet in weight given to the False Fire analysis
 * 4) excised unfavourable mention by Hong Kong NGO Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy and Xinhua News Agency report.
 * 5) Downplayed "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance" to the degree that there's only one mention of it, and excised view of Østergaard

In preparing the article for the TFA, I performed approximately 100 edits. In order to limit controversy and to provide for a highly transparent audit trail, my edits were accompanied by appropriately detailed edit summaries, in marked contrast to what has been seen hitherto. Using a previous 'good' version as a reference, I made changes to restore some deleted material and address the obvious NPOV failings of the version extant.

How an article on such a polemic topic managed to become a Featured Article has to be somewhat unique case in the annals of Wikipedia, and I believe I have a right to be proud of this achievement. In my eagerness to have the article cleaned up in time for TFA, I only paid cursory attention to their moans on the talk page, knowing that to do so would only bog me down with further lawyering – I ploughed on believing that, after all, the version of an article that has reached FA status has to be somewhat defendable, especially from those determined to undermine its equilibrium for their own agendas. However, an eleventh hour struggle by another suspected Falun Gong meatpuppet somewhat frustrated my effort, and the version that appeared on the front page was, for me, an embarrassment. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 14:14, 28 May 2012 (UTC) Copied from user talk page per request. T. Canens (talk) 16:35, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Shrigley
Describing Falun Gong is notoriously tricky; on our best articles we simply provide a wikilink, but this "pass the buck" approach does not work everywhere. Various reliable sources, from the popular press to scholarly monographs, have described Falun Gong as a, , , and indeed, a. Writers' preference for one of the terms may indicate their level of sympathy for the group, but my usage on articles has run the gamut&mdash;except that I studiously avoid using "cult" in article-space, and only distantly mention the classification controversy on talk pages.

For reasons of practicality and courtesy, I usually don't change the positive existing classifications of Falun Gong on their articles. By contrast, whenever User:TheSoundAndTheFury and User:Homunculus edit articles, they impose emotionally evocative language (such as "torture", "persecution", and "abuse") as the only way of describing events. Their edits do not necessarily comport with the language of human rights groups: On Gao Zhisheng, Homunculus that a prominent dissident-lawyer was punished only for one Falun Gong letter, whereas the cited Human Rights Watch report describes years of "corruption, land seizures, police abuse" and recently, "religious and Falun Gong" advocacy. In the same edit, Homunculus describes as "torture" what HRW would only call "assault" and "beat[ing]". Could this distortion come from intense personal beliefs about the subject? Ask Homunculus, who will gladly tell you about how the ban against Falun Gong the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.

Speaking of offensive comparisons, pointing out that certain editors are "Falun Gong-focused" is not the same as attacking some user's religion. Very few of my edits (and those of my fellow accused editors; contrast the accusers) relate to Falun Gong. Unfortunately, Falun Gong, like many small activist groups, has a tendency to disruptively insert itself into the larger articles; here on Chinese politics. The former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and the prominent politician Bo Xilai are important, hated figures to Falun Gong devotees, but the overwhelming majority of articles and books written about these men don't mention Falun Gong. The politicians' articles are generally stable until the arrival of the Falun Gong SPAs with little sense of perspective and balance, and so come the unnecessary edit wars and pages of discussion about how much Falun Gong material is appropriate.

In addition tooth and nail to keep and expand Falun Gong coverage on all conceivable China-related articles, not an insignificant portion of TheSoundAndTheFury's editing involves the  and  of Falun Gong-critical material. It's pretty clear that TheSoundAndTheFury's false outrage about a "hostile climate" towards editor-practitioners reflects a battleground mentality, where you're either a defender of the faith or a. Even after I his concerns about discourse, and he promised  matters, he springs a surprise AE case upon what appears to be a disjointed list of editors with whom he has had content disputes in the past.

There is less consensus in the "serious literature" on Falun Gong than the filer asserts. In fact, one of the obfuscatory tactics of TheSoundAndTheFury and Homunculus is that on "complex theological issue[s] on which there is no scholarly consensus", we should exclusively use their preferred sources&mdash;usually anthropologists who have embedded themselves within Falun Gong communities and developed a rapport with the group and their aims. The duo's claim to be the sole purveyors of "seriously" sourced material totally breaks down when they've shown themselves to use, and as sources wherever they aid the anti-PRC and pro-Falun Gong cause.

It is difficult to engage constructively with a user who considers me a "threat" to the development of these articles, and who further makes false conjectures about my political views. However, I'm leaving the door open to future collaboration. I have managed conflicts with Ohconfucius and Colipon over this area because we all have shown respect for the diversity of views and sensitivities around this topic. Because of our wide editing scope, we also have a perspective that some editors who imagine themselves to be our adversaries may lack. Not every removal is a "persecution"; not every attribution is "discrediting"; not every criticism is "disparagement". We must balance the sensitivities of Falun Gong practitioners with those of our policies about biographies of living persons and due weight; to do this, we need both practitioners and non-practitioners as editors. Shrigley (talk) 20:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by potentially involved John Carter
I have previously been involved a bit more actively in the Falun Gong related content, so I believe some might consider me perhaps biased, hence my disclaimer in my section title. I have not at this point reviewed the entirety of the complaint above. Having said that, I believe I can make a few statements which might be useful. One, it is worth noting that Ohconfucius was the individual primarily responsible for the Tianenmen square self-immolation article achieving FA in the first place. There was extensive discussion, as per the talk page history, prior to the nomination and during the FA approval process. Several of the points made above were addressed at the time, although I am not sure that the filer of this complaint has reviewed them. However, I believe that at least a few of the complaints above are basically content complaints about matters which had received substantial discussion at that time, and I have no particular reason to believe that there has been any new information on the subject since then.

Also, I note that, having reviewed myself all the material on Shen Yun available on the databanks I have access to, I saw at that time that the majority of the reviews of the performances by individuals who were not perhaps FG supporters were generally at least a bit negative. I should clarify. Several individuals who were indicated as being tied to FG spoke very highly of Shen Yun. New Tang Dynasty TV, which has ties to FG, produced several interviews with individuals who spoke highly of it. And, of course, the material in newspapers before the show is often based on press releases, rather than direct knowledge, and favorable. After performances, however, I found that for the most part, almost overwhelmingly in fact, the reviews from arts columnists, who are generally considered most knowledgable on the subject, were not particularly positive, and often moderately to very negative. I believe our policies and guidelines make it clear that it is the latter type of review we should give most prominence to.

Some of the other comments which the filer finds unacceptable are also pretty clearly purely content related, not behavior related. Also, some of the behavior criticized, like Colipon's saying some groups were linked to Falun Gong, are extremely strongly implied in some of the independent reliable sources, if not explicitly stated, and I would see such minor errors as being just that. We are not bound on talk pages to necessarily cite a source for a fact which has been discussed at some length before, particularly not when the discussion becomes inflamed, which seems to have happened fairly regularly here, and at least sometimes, as per the above, more or less directly due to TSTF.

The filer seems to be a comparatively new editor who may not have been active when almost all the obvious Western practitioners of FG were banned from the content some time ago. It should be noted that, at the time, Ohconfucius and I think others supported at least one of those editors, HappyInGeneral, not be banned, but SilkTork who made the decision disagreed. I say this to indicate that Ohconfucius is not necessarily driven by POV, as he wouldn't have agreed with me on this if he was. The specific comments I have reviewed to date made by that editor are very strongly reminiscent of the complaints made by those now banned POV pushers. I do not necessarily see any of the subjects of this complaint being necessarily free from bias of any sort. I don't think anyone necessarily qualifies as such, particularly after one has reviewed a lot of material and had a lot of interaction with editors who have been, rather often in this case, misbehaving very badly, as Dilip and Olaf did rather habitually. I do however think that, based on my quick review, that I personally think that the case is a rather weak one, and that there might potentially be perhaps at least as serious a complaint for POV pushing against the filer as against the individuals whom he has filed a complaint against. John Carter (talk) 18:20, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I further want to express my profound regrets that Ohconfucius now regrets having expended as much work on the Tianenmen square article as he did. Based on his comments, it seems to me that this is at least in part due to what he says as unacceptable behavior from others. If Sound is, as some of the evidence presented above indicates, operating from a clear POV himself, then he should also adhere to WP:POV, and not so quickly accuse and insult others. I very much hope that whoever decides this discussion reviews all the information presented from Sound and the others, as I believe it is all, including that apparently critical of Sound himself, relevant to this matter. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Response to Homonculus: A few points come to mind. First, I am very grateful to have any academics who work with the field involved. Thank you for being willing to put up with some of the unfortunate behavior which, for better or worse, are unavoidable in this sort of situation. A few other responses come to mind.
 * One, it should be noted that the first appearance of Falun Gong before the ArbCom, before I first appeared, involved in the banning of several editors who were actively taking the side of the PRC. So, in this instance, people from both sides have been banned, and the obvious supporters of the PRC have been banned longer. Of course, it is possible that they have found replacements, but the same could be said about FG supporters as well. I am not accusing anyone on either side here myself, by the way.
 * Two, it should also be noted that the Falun Gong practitioners most scholars have had the most contact with are Westerners. It is understandably hard for Western scholars to make real contact with practitioners within China, for various obvious reasons, and even harder for them to be certain that there may not have been some degree of "selection" of people to contact. A book I am currently reading on Richard Feynman going to Tuva makes similar points to those. That being said, it is hard for them to be sure that what they are presented is completely accurate.
 * Lastly, I believe we in the West, possibly including academics, have an innate bias toward Western freedoms. To an extent, that includes myself. However, that bias itself, understandable and unavoidable as it is, is also probably problematic as per WP:POV. Also, and I very sincerely hope you do not think this is specifically addressed at you, because I do not myself at this point know your identity, I have to acknowledge that at least some academics have produced populist, even sensationalist, material to get their name out there. I even remember a statement by Bart Ehrman, in I think Newsweek, saying something to the effect that today academics produce sensationalist works initially, for that reason, at least in part for the accompanying media coverage. I myself do not know how widespread that is, but it seems to be a reality to some degree.
 * I cannot myself directly address some of the points you make. But I have seen several editors keeping in userspace material for potential ANI or other complaints, sometimes for good reasons. And, yes, people are often a bit less "politically correct" in userspace.
 * Of all the things I could say here, the one thing I think most important is that I myself see an almost obsessive interest in a few main articles related to FG, and much less interest in developing some subarticles. Jan Becker is an Australian Olympic medalist and FG practitioner, but I see no article on her. Several other figures and events are notable as well. There is also good basis to believe that there could be several articles on FG in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and other areas. If there were more of an effort to work on these subarticles, and find the relevant sources, I think some of the contentiousness related to the major articles might fade a little. John Carter (talk) 22:23, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Update - It seems that User:Ohconfucius has recently been blocked at the request of TheSoundAndTheFury at WP:AN3 and subsequently had the block overturned on the grounds that it was a stale request. Considering that the editor who filed the request had already filed the request here, I think that there may possibly be a concern over excessive litiginous and possibly forum-shopping on the part of TSATF? John Carter (talk) 15:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Ferox Seneca
I do not edit articles directly related to FG, but the three users who the filer has identified are possibly the most research-oriented, content-focused, collaborative editors that I have worked with on articles related to modern Chinese history. There might be a case that the identified editors should be more careful about how they express their personal opinions in some situations; but, based on the precedent of their long-term editing style and the quality of their work, I believe it would be a mistake to take these claims against them at face value without considering the context of each individual claim. Many of the claims against them seem related to content disputes, and might be better addressed by arbitrating each individual case of content dispute.Ferox Seneca (talk) 20:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval
(I have edited Falun Gong articles once in a while). This is like the wolf raising a complaint against the sheep.

Meanwhile, civil POV pushers User:TheSoundAndTheFury, User:Homunculus and User:Zujine keep twisting the Falun Gong articles, and scaring away neutral editors. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:40, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved My very best wishes
This is "too long, did not read". But there is obviously a conflict. After looking at the articles in question, one can see obvious edit warring. Looking at any particular revert, one can see removal of relevant and reliably sourced information (2nd paragraph) or here. After looking at article talk pages, it is not at all obvious why this information must be removed. This is not the first time when the same people appear on AE. It always takes two or more to tango. Several people on another side of the dispute were recently topic-banned, but it did not help. And it does not really matter if they practice Yoga, Falun Gong, or communist ideology.My very best wishes (talk) 15:01, 26 May 2012 (UTC)


 * BTW, one of the editors, PCPP, who was topic banned from editing Falun Gong subjects for 8 months, edit war over the article that mentioned Falun Gong three times. My very best wishes (talk) 01:31, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

@John Carter. Yes, edit warring in yet another article shows a serious conflict. Unfortunately, in this example OhConfucius fought against WP:Consensus two other editors, which led to his 3RR violation, and was blocked by an uninvolved administrator. My very best wishes (talk) 19:57, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

@T. Canens. Yes, I agree: sending this to Arbcom is probably the only option. They should also look at the previous AE case about the same. This is all related.My very best wishes (talk) 03:44, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Jayen466
I helped Ohconfucius get the Tiananmen Square incident article to FA, and he did a tremendous job. I've also in the past helped out with mentoring User:Dilip rajeev, a Falun Gong editor who clashed with Ohconfucius and others and at the time was threatened with sanctions. Ohconfucius is well aware of that. Even so, Ohconfucius has from time to time asked me on my talk page to look in on contentious questions (including, recently, the Bo Xilai article) and give an outside opinion, knowing full well that I may not necessarily see things the same way as he. That's the mark of a good-faith, above-board editor. I would therefore oppose sanctions against Ohconfucius, as I believe he edits with the best interests of the project in mind. (I am not familiar enough with any of the other editors' editing in this topic area to comment.) -- J N  466  19:44, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Homunculus
''Disclaimer: what follows is almost certainly TLTR, but I would like to share it. Bottom line: I just encourage admins to just look at the talk pages and the behavioral evidence presented. So far only one person — User:My very best wishes — appears to have done that (this is the only user who is truly uninvolved). ''

I didn’t want to get involved in this case for a few reasons. I don’t like the idea of coming here and throwing accusations at people, and would prefer to be collegial if possible. But since my name has been mentioned several times,  I should respond.


 * I am not a Falun Gong member, and everything I have ever written here is of my own volition. But some of the discourse here about “Falun Gongsters,” “Falun Gong meatpuppets,” and "Falun Gong POV-pushers" is deeply troubling. Anyone should feel comfortable and welcome participating, so long as they adhere to wikipedia policies and are able to work in good faith with people who hold different views. No one should feel harassed on account of their religious or other group identity on this encyclopedia.  No one should be taunted to disclose their ethnic, political, religious, sexual, or other affiliations, as Ohconfucius has done here with the “come out of the closet” comment.  And no one should use another user's religion (or presumed religion) as grounds for ad hominem attacks in lieu of discussing content—something that users Shrigley, Colipon, and Ohconfucius have done regularly.


 * I filed an 3RR violation ANI against Ohconfucius about a week ago. He had deleted sourced information about Bo Xilai’s genocide indictment four times in 24 hours with minimal discussion, even though it was material that several editors on talk page said they favored for inclusion. I filed a case only after he declined a suggestion to self-revert. He retaliated by trying to “out” me,  adding me to his list of “Falun Gong editors” that he maintains on a polemic subpage, and telling other editors that dispute resolution would be of no use with me (actually, I would welcome it) because I am proselytizing Falun Gong editor who can’t be reasoned with, and so on.  Whatever one thinks of Ohconfucius’ contributions elsewhere on this encyclopedia,  there is no excuse for that kind of behavior, and there is no benefit for the project. TSTF has been subject to similar ad hominem attacks as retaliation for filing this AE (and a second 3RR case). Actual Falun Gong editors have been banned for much less.


 * In full disclosure: my real life sometimes overlaps with my editing interests on Falun Gong and other issues.  I work as a research analyst focused on China, and I sometimes publish in scholarly journals and newspapers on issues related Falun Gong, or on topics pertaining to human rights, access to justice, state-society relations, and so on. (I’ve resolved not to cite myself on wikipedia).  I have done more research on this in the last year and a half or so. A number of the scholars and the journalists whose names appear as reliable sources on Falun Gong and other contemporary China-related pages are people I know in real life. I also know (and like) both Falun Gong practitioners and Chinese government officials in real life.  My experiences bias me in certain ways, but my philosophy on these pages is just to be civil, edit based on the best reliable sources, and try to focus on the content in a holistic way.


 * I’ve come to know several Falun Gong practitioners,  including some who have been imprisoned and tortured (as well as their lawyers). While I don’t personally approve of all their PR methods or espouse the same views,  I respect and even admire them, and respect their right to dignity and expression.  This is an impression I share with even the most skeptical scholars who have done fieldwork on Falun Gong.  For that reason,  when I’ve seen editors here (and a few others not listed here) use talk pages to refer to them as “cult members,”  suggest that reports of mass arbitrary imprisonment and torture is a “fringe concern,”  suggest that allegations of torture are “based on cream cheese” or entertain as a serious possibility the notion that Falun Gong adherents in China are not mistreated....well,  I find this unsettling at a personal level, and it certainly doesn’t make for very elevated discourse.


 * I don’t let personal disagreements stop me from trying to collaborate with these editors, or prevent me from having civil discussions on the content. By contrast, these editors have repeatedly made clear that they are not interested in assuming good faith or in collaborative content discussions in this namespace. The diffs and talk page discussions make that clear.


 * A couple people have tossed around talk of POV-pushing. Every editor has biases (editors who claim otherwise should be treated with caution). The question is about behavior.


 * We need to be wary of argument to moderation, or the middle ground fallacy.  That is, when confronted with two extremes of opinions, the truth is not necessarily in the middle. Arguments to moderation are problematic because, in order to shift the middle ground,  one “side” need simply to adopt a more extreme position. I recently found an old AfD in which Ohconfucius stated that scholars on Falun Gong are either neutral or are “apologists.” In this discussion,  Shrigley similarly insinuates that scholars who have done fieldwork on Falun Gong are irrevocably biased in Falun Gong’s favor.  But these are the best sources available. The fact that these editors believe Falun Gong may not be persecuted, that its practitioners might not be mistreated, that they reject the corpus of scholarly literature as biased, and so on—this means that they move the “middle ground” to an extreme, and editors who attempt to moderate their edits may end up looking “pro-Falun Gong” (this is all the more since Falun Gong editors were banned, removing one extreme of the spectrum).


 * In addition to my edits that might be construed as favorable to Falun Gong, I also make editors that could be considered unfavorable, or that soften criticisms of the Communist Party. I think the same can safely be said of TSTF. But the great majority of edits and content debates that I get into in these pages do not involve any ideological affiliation. Sometimes these debates get a little heated, but not because those involved are pro- or anti-Falun Gong.


 * By contrast, the editors named seem to turn just about everything into a polarized dichotomy.  They wade into otherwise normal conversations for no discernible purpose other than to declare them ideological battlefields.  They impute political motives to editors involved in non-political discussions of the most appropriate reliable sources.  They seem to care little about the development of these articles unless it involves criticisms of Falun Gong or deletions of information pertaining to the suppression.


 * Regarding the Tiananmen Square self-immolation page, if Ohconfucius believed that the page had been transformed into a “propaganda piece” and was no longer deserving of FA status, the appropriate recourse would have been to try to, first, understand why revisions were made (they were discussed, after all). Secondly, try to engage with the editors who made those revisions,  or go to the talk page to point out the content problems he perceived.  Third, file to get the page reassessed—not with the goal of having it delisted, but with the goal of working constructively to ensure that it retains that listing.  He didn't do any of these things. I think the talk page makes a lot of this clear.

The admins here have their work cut out for them. I hope I haven’t made things more confusing. Homunculus (duihua) 21:49, 26 May 2012 (UTC)


 * As I said, I don’t like the idea of coming here and hurling accusations, but I did want to just call attention to a couple things.  With due respect to Blade (and TSTF),  I think the length of the original filing may have obscured some things.
 * Regarding Colipon—who I have no problem with in other namespaces—the battleground mentality he displays on these pages is, I think, quite serious. Virtually every one of his comments and edits related to Falun Gong displays this mentality.  On a regular basis, he actually goes to talk page discussions for no other purpose than to declare them battlegrounds (literally) and make accusations of bad faith against editors who are trying to discuss content(diffs:) This is a user who  has declared unapologetically that he will not assume good faith or discuss content.. I think the diffs presented earlier demonstrate as well that the user's frequent, divisive use of talk pages as forums, the obstruction of consensus-formation, the misrepresentation of facts and of reliable sources on talk pages, the ad hominem accusations that opponents in content discussions are “Falun Gong users” and so on.
 * In the case of Ohconfucius, his actions in the last two weeks alone seem sanctionable. He violated 3RR twice (first time:  - done while ignoring talk page discussion.  Second time: ). He then harassed opponents, tried to "out" them, added them to his "Falun Gong editor" list, called them meatpuppets (in this very AE), and taunted them to "come out of the closet." And this is just in the last couple weeks. As to Shrigley, same: user frequently employs ad hominem attacks against opponents, accusing people of being Falun Gong practitioners instead of discussing the merits of content.
 * Sorry, these are pretty unpleasant things to write about people, and I don't like doing this. This whole process—the "you're wrong—no, you're wrong"—is pretty unsavory.   Whatever the outcome, I hope that the editors who've weighed in here can work together (on these pages or elsewhere) in good faith. Homunculus (duihua) 17:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Ohconfucius, Colipon and Shrigley

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


 * I'll try to have a look at this sometime in the next day or two. It probably would have been a better idea to chop this up into different threads focusing on each individual person, but I suppose it's here now so we might as well deal with it.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 18:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, I've gotten through the section on Colipon, and while I do see some evidence of a battleground mentality in places, there's nothing I see so egregious that I'd sanction. However, it wasn't entirely without merit, and if similar issues recur it can be revisited.  As it's 1:15 AM local time, I'll come back to this when I get a chance tomorrow.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 05:15, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * So yet another FLG megacase, huh? Sigh, I'll also try to take a look at this. From a quick look, I'm fairly certain that we'll need to look at the conduct of all parties here. T. Canens (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The more I look at this, the less I'm convinced that AE has the capacity to resolve this. There are too many editors, too many diffs, too many articles involved for AE to work well. Honestly, I think we should send this to arbcom for either a review or a full case. T. Canens (talk) 00:35, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm thinking this is a bit above our pay grade here. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 05:56, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning TrevelyanL85A2

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Hipocrite (talk) 10:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Review


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


 * 1) 09:40, 29 May 2012 an edit discussing the topic of Race and Intelligence on ... user talk pages, and participating in any discussion concerning the conduct of editors who have worked in the topic.

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

Remedy was clearly an unambiguously violated.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Comment by Collect
ArbCom should nip "dramah" in the bud. The post was made on an Arbitrator's UT page. The post was not specifically about R&I, but there was clearly conflict on that page between several users. does, indeed, show Mathsci stating  rv edit per WP:BAN - please consult a member of arbcom in case of doubt - thanks. If a person told to post on a page is then told
 * TrevelyanL85A2 inserted himself in a thread here where he was not being discussed and has made the above inflammatory statements about the area of his topic ban. Someone could easily report him now at WP:AE. Mathsci (talk) 09:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a clear "failure to communicate. And then this AE request is made by an editor who was not a party on the UT page discussion at 10:24.   I believe in coincidences. Give them both an official ArbCom trout. Collect (talk) 12:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning TrevelyanL85A2

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


 * Considering that it's an arb's talk page, I'm not particularly inclined to do anything here. Jclemens can do the block himself if he wants to. T. Canens (talk) 11:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, suggesting we close as no action taken. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 13:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

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

Request concerning Gaius Octavius Princeps

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 2 lines of K  303  13:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests for arbitration/The Troubles


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


 * 1) 02:53, 29 May 2012 Revert #1
 * 2) 13:39, 29 May 2012 Revert #1 within 24 hours of the first


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


 * 1) Warned on 09:50, 29 May 2012 by


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint : 1RR warning was removed 1 minutes prior to breaching 1RR saying "balls". The POV pushing in the edit is quite evident when there are references to "sourced, referenced edit" in the edit summary while removing a sourced, referenced lower figure. 2 lines of K  303  13:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by Gaius Octavius Princeps
The information that is being removed in the rebel atrocity section is referenced and clear. My reverts are to stop this referenced material being removed without any reason. User: 2 lines of K/One night in hackney is ignoring the talk page of the article now so I will simply repeat it here: "The references given cover what is stated. Pg 274 of Lydon states, after telling of rebels burning houses and committing atrocities that: "locals rounded up as prisoners, to be used in front of the rebels as protection against the shot of the army". On the same page is stated "70 prisoners stripped naked, tied to bridge, piked and thrown in river". Gaius Octavius Princeps (talk) 14:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Anon: 78.158.102.244 first removed part of the section:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irish_Rebellion_of_1798&oldid=490694083

User:Ponox removed more
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irish_Rebellion_of_1798&oldid=491872809#Rebel

User: Hohenloh was the editor who then removed this material and then reverted 3 times back his edit:
 * 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irish_Rebellion_of_1798&oldid=493909834
 * 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irish_Rebellion_of_1798&oldid=494287105
 * 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irish_Rebellion_of_1798&oldid=494875307

User: Ponox again removed it also: saying that "The victims were not stripped at Wexford Bridge". This is contradicted by the source.
 * en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irish_Rebellion_of_1798&oldid=494540534

and now user: 2 lines of K/One night in hackney steps in to revert without discussion.Gaius Octavius Princeps (talk) 14:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Gaius Octavius Princeps

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


 * Seems fairly clear. Blocked for 31 hours. Moreschi (talk) 15:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Homunculus
ArbCom are about to open Falun Gong 2: please submit this as evidence there. Moreschi (talk) 17:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Homunculus

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Colipon+ (Talk) 15:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBFLG (all of them have been violated)Topic ban, widely construed, with discretionary sanctions on all China-related articles.


 * Background

For the past six years, Falun Gong activists have dominated Wikipedia's Falun Gong topicspace. The are here to advocate for their cause and usually nothing else. In the current batch of Falun Gong editors, Homunculus is the best representation of activist editing. The evidence is below.

Until today, I have refrained from mentioning "Falun Gong users" directly by name. They usually jump on any such commentary as a violation of WP:NPA and try to intimidate me by alluding to sanctions on those grounds (this did not stop them from creating an AE against me anyway). They usually self-identify, so it is also redundant.

I was busy last week resolving issues at WT:ITNR, and re-writing the article on the Cultural Revolution, when an AE case was suddenly flung at myself and my colleagues Ohconfucius and Shrigley out of the blue. No warning, no signs. Boom. Bad faith of the highest order. I could not tolerate this, and needed to confront this matter head on. Their egregious conduct had hit the final straw, and I need no more convincing of their hidden agenda. They levied tenuous charges against three otherwise unrelated, experienced users with long-standing clean editing records and no past sanctions. The three editors they want to evict from "their" home turf have little in common except showing resistance towards their collusive editing behavior. Moreover, since H and TSTF's appearance on Wiki, the editors they accuse have rarely made edits to Falun Gong content. This makes their accusations look hollow.

I now halt my regrettable self-censorship and will proceed in broad daylight.

Both Homunculus and TheSound joined Wikipedia around March 2010. The date is highly suspect, since it occurred shortly after a spate of topic bans levied at the previous Falun Gong activists. Within a short time of creating the accounts, these users demonstrated mastery of Wikipedia policies. I suspected that they were meatpuppets or sockpuppets, a belief that is now shared by Ohconfucius. Here, for example, theSound calls concerns voiced by SPA Olaf Stephanos "quite reasonable", while here Homunculus staunchly defends Olaf's contributions. In my naivete, I glossed over these comments, and assumed good faith.

In addition, because I tried to distance myself from Falun Gong since early 2010, I did not pursue the case further.


 * Homunculus is an SPA

The edit history of makes it apparent that he is only interested in editing materials that advance Falun Gong's cause, and demonstrated ownership over almost all pages related to Falun Gong since the previous cabal was banned. I will not attempt to 'out' this user because I respect his privacy, and in any case feel that his real-life identity or beliefs are irrelevant given the weight of evidence against him.

Between Homunculus and TheSound, the former is more problematic, since he has contributed more substantive written material to articles; the latter rarely makes major edits, serves mostly to reinforce him, reverting on his behalf, and sing to his tune when called upon on the talk page. In addition, a third user,, also editorializes frequently in Falun Gong's favour. I will not discuss Zujine here, or group him together with H and TSTF without evidence.

Overwhelming evidence suggests that Homunculus is a single-purpose account dedicated to Falun Gong advocacy.

From his banned predecessors, users Asdfg12345, Olaf Stephanos, HappyInGeneral, and Dilip Rajeev, user Homunculus has improved upon their model of proselytism on Wikipedia. Because he sticks obsessively to the letter of civility guidelines, he may look prima facie as a good-faith editor. Knowing the downfall of his comrades, Homunlucus is civil in discussions, has an in-depth understanding of Wikipedia policies, and is meticulous about sourcing. He knows what will get him sanctioned and carefully works around it. He drafts his most significant contributions offline, so many of his blatant POV-edits are hidden behind misleading edit summaries and diffs are impossible to read transparently.

To refute his being an SPA, he will say that he edits more than just Falun Gong. But a careful reading of his contributions makes it clear that when he is not editing Falun Gong, he engages in content that disparages the Chinese state, the Communist Party, or sings praise for groups that carry a grievance against the regime.

Homunculus uses emotional terminology reminiscent of Falun Gong's own literature; he throws tangential and emotive accusations at any skeptical users; he editorializes in favour of Falun Gong in every subject area he touches, and perhaps most irritating, he injects Falun Gong content into articles that are otherwise unrelated to Falun Gong (such as Expo 2010, "anthroprogenic by death toll", Bo Xilai etc).

The subjects that Homunculus edits mirror exactly those most heavily promoted by the Falun Gong newspaper the Epoch Times. While his edits do not revolve around a single topic, they unambiguously serve a single purpose: To advance Falun Gong's world view vis-a-vis that of the Chinese state. Homunculus represents par excellence the dualistic world view of Falun Gong practitioners, where the struggle and belief system revolves around not only the advocacy of Falun Gong's causes but also (more importantly) a struggle against the Chinese party-state and anyone they consider the regime's associates. Beneath his unwavering adherence to civility, H is, in my view, a much greater threat to this encyclopedia than his predecessors, as his editing patterns (lack of transparency, civil filibustering, abstinence from edit-warring, forays into non-Falun Gong space) are much more opaque, and difficult to procedurally sanction.

(In this context, H and TSTF are best described as following the letter of policies while running roughshod over its intent; On the other hand, Ohconfucius, myself, and Shrigley are following the intent of the policies but may have violated certain procedural details (WP:3RR, WP:BATTLE, and WP:NPA). Note their dogmatic insistence that we focus on the procedural aspects of the above case, and this becomes ever more clear.)

I write this while fully acknowledging that Falun Gong is a victimized group that has been unjustly suppressed by the Chinese government and Communist Party. Human rights violations against FLG practitioners are well documented and should be condemned, strongly. But the legitimacy of Falun Gong's humanitarian cause does not mean that this encyclopedia should serve as a beachfront for its political and religious proselytism.

Since I gutted FLG pages from my watchlist in early 2010, I've noticed a gradual advance of Falun Gong advocacy outside of the Falun Gong namespace, into topical areas that only tangentially dealt with Chinese governance. This advocacy drive was begun by User Asdfg at "Propaganda in the People's Republic of China" in March 2010, as part of his forays into "non-FLG" articles while subject to his topic ban.

Asdfg was banned for good in the 'boomerang' case spearheaded by User Zujine against User PCPP. That page should have provided ample warning to both TSTF and Homunculus to not engage in any more wiki-litigation as it tends to harm them more than their perceived opponents, but alas, it was not to be.

Once Asdfg was banned, Homunculus emerged at the helm of the Falun Gong cabal.


 * "Sourcing"

Do not be fooled by Falun Gong advocates' insistence on "reliable sources". David Ownby, foremost expert on Falun Gong, writes that in recent years Falun Gong devotees have begun borrowing on academic works as a front to legitimize their cause, and that approach is in full swing on Wikipedia. The sources are cherry-picked, only sources presenting Falun Gong favourably are deemed kosher for presentation.

In dismissing otherwise reliable sources that criticize (or simply skeptical of) Falun Gong, H's tactics resemble that of earlier Falun Gong SPAs, the most emblematic of which is the insistence that 'some sources are more equal than others': manifested on talk pages as 'some people are "not experts" in a specialized field.'

For example, Homunculus writes about academics Ashcraft and Gallagher, who made a mention of Falun Gong's apocalyptic nature:. Compare to Asdfg's comment prior to his ban:.

The inconsistent application of H's insistence on "high-quality sources" is laid bare when he makes clear that he favours sources sympathetic to Falun Gong. This style of source-fishing was pioneered by none other than SPA Olaf Stephanos. H filibustered Ashcraft and Gallagher during a skeptical inquiry by user AgadaUrbanit, but has voiced his support for Gutmann after a concern over its validity was raised by Users Inspector and Sean Hoyland. H writes:

I was amazed, juxtapositioning both conversations: apparently in H's eyes, Ashcraft & Gallagher's peer-reviewed academic paper is much more problematic than a polemic written by someone at the partisan American think tank Foundation of the Defense of Democracies.

The endemic Wikilawyering aside, User Homunculus responds in identical ways to any user who hints at skepticism of Falun Gong. For example, in November 2011, User Sean Hoyland wanted an evocative photo to be qualified with the caption that it is an image produced by Falun Gong organizations (with the implication that it may not be neutral). Homunculus responded: Note how he subtly shifts the burden of proof back to the skeptic. He says this is avoiding argument to moderation, I say it is naked advocacy.

Diffs of this user's problematic edits, although always shrouded in his misleading edit summaries and opaque revisions, are not difficult to locate, and indeed, the extent to which this user has corroded balance on this encyclopedia is deeply troubling. Here is just a sample:
 * Lengthy editorializing by at Lei Feng, inserting polemical anti-Communist Party rhetoric.
 * Gratuitous insertion of Falun Gong content on the article of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, public enemy #1 for Falun Gong. All of H's contributions to that page relate to Falun Gong.
 * At List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll, reinforces User Asdfg's edits through insertion of 'quality sources', for which he was warned by admin Timotheus Canens for violating WP:BLPSE.
 * and edit-warring against me at Sima Nan - his only edits there dealt with Falun Gong. (I did not engage after the second revert.)
 * Highlights implication that Gao Zhisheng was detained and tortured simply for writing letters to the Chinese leadership about "sexual abuse against Falun Gong adherents", whereas he had obviously done many other things against the Chinese state. The claims of torture were not qualified by the fact that Gao made them himself.
 * Self-righteous rant against User Enric Naval, invoking the Holocaust in typical Falun-Gong fashion. H writes: In the same rant, he again litigates in favour of Gutmann in the face of Enric's skepticism.
 * A description of "persecution of Falun Gong" in CPC campaign pages hits all of the POV traits of a Falun Gong advocate: high estimate of "70 million practitioners", "propaganda, extra-judicial imprisonment, and coercive 'reeducation'", "tortured to death". Note that the NYT source (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28china.html) said that 2000 practitioners died, not that 2000 died of torture. Misrepresentations of sources in this way is part of the Falun Gong M.O.
 * Numerous instances of edit warring at Tiananmen Square Self-immolation:   The dedication to altering the balance of this article prior to its TFA was astounding.
 * At Shen Yun Performing Arts, diluting criticism, remove criticism from a Buffalo newspaper, diluting criticism from Toronto Star, restoring advertising section, Removal of criticism from Buffalo removal of criticism from Atlanta Journal Constitution.
 * The attached lawyering for these appalling edits is seen here.
 * It should be stated that this dispute involves several parties listed under this AE, all parties' conduct should be examined, but the scrubbing of criticism on the part of Homunculus is totally consistent with his behavior elsewhere, no matter how "well-sourced".
 * More alarming is the speed at which this reverting takes place: rarely was a revision that had any critical content of Shen Yun lasted for more than 30 minutes!
 * More often than not, an 'outside' editor makes a large edit, and it is scrubbed clean by Homunculus or TheSound within several minutes, without any attempts at discussion. Other experienced editors can corroborate these types of experiences.


 * "Terrorism in the PRC"
 * Lengthy editorializing at "Terrorism in the PRC"
 * Adds content:
 * Editorializes about Tibet's absence of terrorism, of course, in the voice of a cherry-picked RS,
 * Addition of entire section called "State terrorism" and "Chinese cultural context", with the basic message that the real terrorist in China is the party-state! For example, H writes, . and It is not hard to read between the lines.
 * Perhaps most telling, the extremely weaselly phrase and  Both the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were framed in sensationalist fashion as state-directed terrorism in a manner mildly reminiscent of the "Nine Commentaries".

Perhaps the most damning evidence against this user comes from an esoteric topic with which few people uninvolved with Falun Gong have an understanding. The vendetta of Falun Gong against New York City Comptroller John Liu, who it asserts is part of the Communist Party's sinister overseas "United Front" aimed at usurping power in Western governments.
 * John Liu

After significant revisions by Homunculus, the article has effectively become an attack page, with serious undue weight given to Liu's legal travails and otherwise unsavoury aspects of Liu's life.

Despite its sourcing to RS, I reckon that its heavily biased tone and unabashed undue weight can qualify as a WP:BLP violation.


 * "FLG outside of China"

The most egregious piece of Homunculus' advocacy work is "Falun Gong outside of Mainland China", with a level of depth that has surpassed even the most sophisticated Falun Gong devotees in the past. Note how careful he is with his edit summaries: "Reorganization, new content per talk page" that is prima facie in the spirit of WP:BRD. User Ohconfucius protested for him to be more transparent with substantial edits. A large revision was migrated from offline in one fell-swoop, heavily obscuring the paper trail.

Nonetheless, the POV balance was very evidently pro-Falun Gong after his edits. For example:
 * Addition of praise for Falun Gong's founder:
 * Addition of "western condemnations" of Chinese suppression of Falun Gong:
 * Extensive quote-mining from US House Resolution condemning China:
 * Extensive quote-mining from UN Special Rapporteur, using evocative, emotional terminology to its maximum extent:
 * Despite his insistence on "high-quality sources", he evidently does not use the same standard of scrutiny when presenting information critical of the Chinese state, sourcing the following passage from a National Post blog whose contents are no longer available:
 * Full removal of Maria Chang's criticism of Falun Gong:
 * Full removal of criticism of Falun Gong that links it to controversies:
 * Deletion of all mention of Falun Gong advocacy websites:
 * The removal of all mentions of Heather Kavan, a scholar who is mildly critical of Falun Gong's PR methods, including the following phrases:
 * Under the guise of 're-organization', Removal of all material (indeed, any mention) of Falun Gong's censorship controversy.
 * Removal of a passing mention of Tung Chee-hwa's opinions on Falun Gong, even though this is already written with the caveat that it may have been the result of political pressure from China:
 * Removal of discussions on the financial status of Falun Gong practitioners, sourced to David Ownby, which even H says is the "highest-quality" source on Falun Gong:
 * Negative coverage of Falun Gong is presented in the voice of Ethan Gutmann, discussed above as a partisan source heavily favouring Falun Gong. He also downplays any of Ownby's skeptical remarks about the group, focusing instead on the scholar's view that it is Chinese propaganda that is to blame for the group's lack of PR success:
 * With selective source-fishing in full swing, one notes the different treatment he gives to Ownby's quotes that are critical of Falun Gong vs. those that are favourable. He removes the Ownby quote:
 * Homunculus states in his explanation for the edits that he tries to look at the 'bigger picture' and avoid anecdotes. This apparently did not stop him from cherry-picking an example of Chinese government's evil campaign of censorship:
 * For the purposes of full disclosure, and so we can avoid the walls of text that will inevitably come as part of H's statement of defense, I will link Homunculus's original explanation of his changes: here and here on the talk page. Of particular concern is his claim that "Nearly all the references from the previous page were preserved," which evidently does not stand against scrutiny: since nearly every single reference critical of Falun Gong miraculously disappeared from the page.
 * To be honest, I was extremely disgusted reviewing this page - the extent to which it has been populated with Falun Gong advocacy in every corner, misleading edit summaries, the circumspect nature of the changes, and the insincere civil facade that comes with every edit.
 * Homunculus states in his explanation for the edits that he tries to look at the 'bigger picture' and avoid anecdotes. This apparently did not stop him from cherry-picking an example of Chinese government's evil campaign of censorship:
 * For the purposes of full disclosure, and so we can avoid the walls of text that will inevitably come as part of H's statement of defense, I will link Homunculus's original explanation of his changes: here and here on the talk page. Of particular concern is his claim that "Nearly all the references from the previous page were preserved," which evidently does not stand against scrutiny: since nearly every single reference critical of Falun Gong miraculously disappeared from the page.
 * To be honest, I was extremely disgusted reviewing this page - the extent to which it has been populated with Falun Gong advocacy in every corner, misleading edit summaries, the circumspect nature of the changes, and the insincere civil facade that comes with every edit.

It has been a decade since controversy surfaced on these articles, and half a decade since ARBFLG. It is clear that despite exhausting every form of conflict resolution possible in the depths of Wiki-bureaucracy, Falun Gong activists are still trampling the spirit of Wiki policy left and right, and when anyone tries to stop them, they are met with gaming the system tactics, litigation resembling the real-world kind, intimidation, harrassment etc which all effectively amounts to discouraging new and existing participants from staying involved.
 * Falun Gong namespace will continue to be problematic

Evidently, this is no longer a public relations battle between the Chinese Communist government and Falun Gong, as this case is often naively and mistakenly construed. Since 2007, no user has, to my knowledge, ever complained that the pages were biased in favour of the CCP. In fact, the talk pages are full of suggestions that the pages are heavily biased in favour of Falun Gong. These complaints come from IP users, new accounts, but also a large number of experienced editors. From user Unique and Ubiquitous, From user JSW663,  From user Hmm..., most recently, reasoned skepticism of the page's content emanated from user AgadaUrbanit and Sean Hoyland. None of these users edit Falun Gong regularly, but evidently they all see serious problems with the page's contents. Other experienced users who have voiced concerns about Falun Gong POV-pushing in the past include Users Mrund, Per Edman, Edward130603, Enric Naval, Simonm223, Antilived, and needless to say, myself, Users Ohconfucius and Shrigley. Many of these editors, including myself, were intimidated to stay away from the articles altogether. The Falun Gong cabal can discredit me, but they cannot discredit the diverse opinions from the community.

Falun Gong's war is against all of its critics, even those that agree with its human rights mission but disagree with some minor details. Tellingly, in the environment of extreme sensitivities to criticism, even comments from blocked IP users must be scrubbed and discredited. Homunculus also frequently removes material critical of him and tying him to Falun Gong on his own talk page.

I could not stress more how clear it has become that this is no longer a two-sided war that simply needs mediation, but a one-sided, protracted campaign by Falun Gong practitioners, sympathizers and supporters to extend their public relations campaign from the pages of the Epoch Times to Wikipedia. The determination of religious zealots harden by the day, and if Homunculus and TheSound are banned, more re-incarnations will surface within due time. The sinister proliferation of propaganda will continue unabated in ever more circumspect and less transparent ways, which makes me rightfully question the effectiveness of ARBFLG itself.

Without solid determination to stamp out advocacy and with continued preference to band-aid solutions, Falun Gong POV-pushing will continue indefinitely. Alas, that is perhaps digressing into a more systemic issue with Wikipedia in general.

I stress, while I am skeptical of Falun Gong, I do not harbour ill feelings towards practitioners or the overarching doctrine. My primary concern is over Falun Gong's activism on Wikipedia, not Falun Gong itself. Their actions are counter to the mission of this encyclopedia.
 * Closing remarks

So long as these Falun Gong advocates remain, I will continue my self-imposed exile from editing the Falun Gong namespace. The great irony of TSTF's case against me, is that, since I edit Falun Gong articles so rarely, a topic ban would really amount to no ban at all. All it would achieve is censoring my critical remarks on the talk page directed at the state of Falun Gong advocacy in general. This case should also make my comments at the Falun Gong talk page seem much more reasonable, now that they are not standalone diffs.

Going forward, I want to reserve my right to speak freely, point out advocacy where I see it, and work for the interests of this encyclopedia. If admins are unconvinced, I leave room for sanctions to be placed on myself to their full discretion.

This case is directed against User Homunculus, for whom an indefinite topic ban, widely construed, is appropriate. In the past a six-month topic ban was considered sufficient, but the repeated patterns of problematic behavior indicates that it was not enough. We need to have the courage to say no when the situation demands it, as it is evident that our own good faith and that of presiding administrators are being abused by the Falun Gong cabal at the encyclopedia's expense. Homunculus is worse than the previous Falun Gong editors because he also edits a great deal of articles related to Chinese governance, so further restrictions on those topical areas may also be in order.

TSTF, H's loyal sidekick, should also be sanctioned accordingly. However, from my assessment from TSTF's edit patterns, since this user rarely makes substantive content-related edits, acts only in a capacity to back up his comrades, H's ban from the topic space should be enough to discourage TSTF from further participation.

As for Users Ohconfucius and Shrigley, I hope to continue our working relationship in a wide range of namespaces. Their cases should be discussed and decided on an individual basis, but I firmly believe that their interests are strictly in line with our Five pillars and the mission of this encyclopedia, and should be strongly 'exonerated' from any sanctions, charges, to signal Wikipedia's iron will to crack down on Falun Gong ligitation in wiki form. Anything less would invite more meatpuppets, socks, and other unsavoury characters back in their ever more sophisticated re-incarnations, which will needlessly perpetuate the existing problems (perhaps another ArbCom case in five years?). Since Falun Gong was never their primary interest, the records of Ohconfucius and Shrigley speak for themselves, so I do not feel much of a need to defend them further. I am open to continued cooperation with User Homunculus on topics unrelated to Chinese politics and Falun Gong if he chooses to stick around, though I can understand that he will no longer want to work with me in any capacity after this case.

Colipon+ (Talk) 15:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)


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

Ohconfucius
Since the above case against me and two others was opened, I've been revisiting some of the edits of Homunculus. I had noted previously that he held himself out as being rather insistent about meticulous sourcing. So this one I found, in January of this year at Falun Gong outside China, came as a surprise. The article was edited by Homunculus since January 2010 with relatively little interference or input from other editors:


 * In one edit, he completely removed a bunch of details about a failed Falun Gong complaint against Canadian broadcasters amongst other negative stuff. In this edit, he incorporates two dubious sources to support assertions in the article. Very dubious, in fact, in view of the use of one 'Lifestyle section' article almost certainly written by a practitioner or by some professional outfit employed by someone intimately involved with the movement – it fails to identify the credentials of the author, is professionally written in a sufficient circumspect style so as to avoid proselytism of any semblance of actually being a promotional piece. The biggest red light is at the bottom of the article: "For more information on Falun Dafa in Argentina, email falundafa@argentina.com". The allegation the citation is meant to cite is that "Police were reportedly ordered not to intervene." I have not read of any such assertions anywhere else. This makes it a Falun Gong allegation being sourced to look like it was factual and objective reporting from a reliable source.


 * The other one is an article written and published by David Kilgour, and probably amounts to a primary source – from the above, we already know that Kilgour is one of Falun Gong practitioners' pet 'independent lobbyist' sources.

The changes seem to fly completely in the face of what he espouses in others' sourcing. Anyone who describes himself as "a researcher" would almost certainly know to avoid such spectacular sloppiness and dubious sourcing, and such action leads me to question his assertion to the effect and to his credentials. Whilst he may argue that these were lapses, the fast solidifying picture is that Homunculus' editing bears a remarkable resemblance to political positions in Epoch Times. When it comes to scrutinising the quality of sources, he's doesn't quite apply the same standards of rigour to material that may be critical of the Dafa, and happy to pass off Falun Gong-written articles as independent articles. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 16:19, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Homunculus

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

ArbCom are very likely to be opening a Falun Gong 2 case in the next few days. I strongly suggest that you submit this as evidence there. Moreschi (talk) 15:29, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, and we should close this. If admins found the previous monster thread too much to act on, then this one certainly awaits the same fate. Let the arbitrary committee deal with it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "Let the arbitrary committee [sic] deal with it." LOL. -- Ohconfucius  ¡digame! 16:32, 31 May 2012 (UTC)