Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive127

Request concerning Rich Farmbrough

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Fram (talk) 09:19, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


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


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


 * 1) 4 November Rich Farmbrough created over 500 identical pages on one day (only category talk page creation shown, but this run also included templates and some lists), reaching over 10 page creations a minute. The remedy clarifies that "any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so.", so it doesn't really matter if they are automated or not, just that they reasonably appear to be automated.
 * 2) 4 November This is an example of an incorrect tag application in this run, adding a bug to the wrong project because it is part of the wrong category.
 * 3) 29 October It is also debatable whether this plant belongs to the butterfly project, it is a butterfly food plant which results in it appearing in the butterfly category tree. (29 October was the relatively slow start of these creations, which was considerably speeded up on 4 November)


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

The edits not only appear to be a violation of the ArbCom restriction, they are also typical of the kind of edits that done through a bot or with some discussion could have been better, e.g. all templates should have been added to the Category:Template-Class Lepidoptera articles instead of Category:NA-Class Lepidoptera articles.

The edits are furthermore an undeniable violation of Editing restrictions, which while not under AE enforcement indicates that Rich farmbrough should have refrained from making these mass page creations anyway; "Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from mass creating pages in any namespace, unless prior community approval for the specific mass creation task is documented. "


 * @Rich Farmbrough: How come you always make the same typo, adding an 'S'? Both with categories and with templates. And how do you reconcile these hundreds of creations with your editing restriction on mass creating pages in any namespace? Fram (talk) 15:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Note that, as requested below, I have raised the question of the violations of the community imposed editing restriction at WP:AN instead, resulting in a two week block. Fram (talk) 10:07, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :


 * 

Statement by Rich Farmbrough
While it is touching that Fram continues to follow my every move after all these years, these are manifestly not automated. Automation would have made it a much more productive and accurate job. See these edits
 * typos (there are a few more)
 * 
 * 


 * error fixed
 * 


 * non-standard banners
 * 
 * 

Move that this be summarily dismissed to save everyone time and effort. Rich Farmbrough, 14:46, 5 November 2012 (UTC).

Comments by others about the request concerning Rich Farmbrough

 * Sigh. Can someone please explain to me how this improves the encyclopedia? Jenks24 (talk) 10:49, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * (assuming that with "this", you mean this enforcement request:) From my point of view, countless hours have been used checking his (and his bots edits), and correcting runs with many errors. This run has a lower error rate than the ones that lead to the editing restrictions and the arbcom restriction, but it is a return to behaviour. Better to stop it now than to wait for the problems to get worse again. Nothing stops him from e.g. requesting a bot to make these edits if he feels that they need to be done. It is not as if these edits are so necessary that they can't wait or that many readers or editors will note the difference (this is of course true of many edits, but it raises the question of why someone with editing restrictions feels the need to ignore these restrictions for this set of edits). Fram (talk) 11:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Re T. Canens: I agree they look like tabbed editing. Such edits violate Rich's edit restriction, but perhaps not his arbitration restriction. However, an uninvolved admin is needed to enforce either of these restrictions. So even if there is no AE block, the creation of 500 pages in one day still warrants a block based solely on the edit restriction. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

In a few cases, 12 edits are timed as being within one minute (at 18:17 on 4 Nov) and another 8 at 18:16. The restriction is on edits which would reasonably appear to be automated, and they rather seem to breach that standard. Collect (talk) 15:24, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If you know nothing about automated editing - in which case anything could appear to be automated. Rich Farmbrough, 16:27, 5 November 2012 (UTC).


 * As an aside - my first use of an "automated editing" tool was a bit before 1986.  So I assert that I do know "something" abut the topic. Collect (talk) 17:40, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with T. Canens that the pattern of editing does not appear to be automated. As Rich Farmbrough points out, there are errors in the edits that suggest it is not automation, further the cadence of the edits suggests to me they are being done manually. As such there is nothing further to be done here. If someone wants to request a block for violating non-arbitration restrictions, the place to do it would be AN/I. Monty  845  17:36, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Rich Farmbrough

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


 * To me these edits look like copy-paste and tabbed editing rather than automated. T. Canens (talk) 15:02, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

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

Request concerning DIREKTOR

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Nemambrata (talk) 13:34, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBMAC


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


 * 1) 5/11/12 „You are clearly not here to have a constructive, objective discussion. To be perfectly frank, experience teaches that trying to reason with nationalist POV-pushing is a futile endeavor“
 * 2) 6/11/12 „I may be outnumbered here by Slovene Wikipedians, but I have no intention of giving up until unsourced POV is rectified“
 * 3) 5/11/12 „DancingPhilosopher, I am allergic to nationalist POV-pushing. Please do not start something here.“
 * 4) 5/11/12 „Its painfully obvious you're here as a POV crusader. Your additions to the lede do not have consensus. Further nationalist POV-pushing and revert-warring will be brought up on the appropriate noticeboard (please take heed of WP:ARBMAC). Please insert the list into the main body of the article, it is not for the lede. Nor is it acceptable for you to add unwarranted emphasis on your country's losses, while removing mention of other nationalities altogether. Your personal perceptions of "importance" and "relevance" concern noone but yourself.“
 * 5) 29/10/12 „There is nothing more to discuss here, there is only never-ending nationalist bickering.“
 * 6) 29/10/12 „This just looks like nationalist POV-pushing to me.  Silvio just really really likes the name Gondola, and isn't content with it being displayed as a prominent alternative name in the lead (Gondola). Most likely no amount of sources and argumentation will be sufficient to shift his position, and this will probably end in annoyed admins handing-out sanctions.“
 * 7) 30/10/12 „I'm sorry to say it will probably be very difficult for us to cooperate in future, Silvio. Your extremely aggressive nationalist edit-warring and POV-pushing on this article, where you have repeatedly entered controversial changes without talkpage consensus and against opposition is highly inappropriate behavior. Had this been a less-obscure article, I estimate you would already have been blocked“
 * 8) 28/10/12 „This is the English-language Wikipedia, please refrain from abusive italianizing of Croatian noble families“
 * 9) 2/5/10 „User:Theirrulez, regardless of whether you are a sock or not, you need to understand what it is you are doing. This is not itWiki. Here we look at English language, not Italian language usage or some source you happen to choose, and Gundulić is the English name for this family. That's one thing. The second thing you must understand is that what you suggesting is highly offensive nationalist/irredentist POV which had already gotten a large number of users banned from enWiki. The same users you are likely now in contact with, I might add, judging from some of your posts.“ „The third point I must make is that, even if you are not an actual WP:SOCK, you are currently acting as a WP:MEATPUPPET for a clique of banned users. That is an actual real breach of Wiki policy, not an honest good-faith mistake.“
 * 10) 6/10/12  „I'm reasonably certain most users, that aren't pushing the Serbian puppet state POV, would agree.“ „This is a very obscure neck of the woods and its easy to manipulate the informal terminology used by some sources to push Serbian nationalist POV.  I am constantly concerned about where this article will go under constant nationalist POV-pushing pressure. “


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


 * 1) Warned on Date by
 * 2) Warned on Date by


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

DIREKTOR have constant personal attacks against other users that do not agree with him and often point to their ethnic background, accuse them for nationalism and socking and threat to report them if they do not accept his position. From this diff list is clear that DIREKTOR who is user from Croatia have disputes with other users from countries around Croatia (Italy, Slovenia, Serbia) and accuse all of them for nationalism and POV push, insult them and threat them. Administrators should stop this behavior. Nemambrata (talk) 13:34, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

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

Statement by DIREKTOR
Um... am I supposed to say something? I have no idea what this is supposed to be about. These are brazenly cherry-picked, out-of-context, perhaps overly-candid discussion responses. Selected, with great care no doubt, out of a huge number of posts from a host of difficult discussions - which I always try my best to resolve without giving other people work to do on noticeboards. DancingPhilosopher or Silvio1973 might appear with statements along the lines of "oh yes block him, block him!", but they're right now trying to push controversial changes which I oppose. I don't know what else to add. I could go point-by-point, I guess.. The first post is imo justified, given the context of DancingPhilosopher's preceding outburst ("Do not try to compare this loss with the Croatian one! Ever! During the WW II Croats were granted an independent state, don't you try to compare this with the Slovenes teared between three occupiers!"), the second point is a joking remark, etc. This is all quite harmless, when you take away the bold and read the context, that is (imo even the context may be unnecessary for some points). -- Director  ( talk )  14:12, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Please note that User:Nemambrata has selectively WP:CANVASSED users with whom he knows I have, currently or previously, had a disagreement (regardless of whether they have anything to do with this or not).
 * He has invited his friends from the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia article (WhiteWriter and Antidiskriminator), and has thrown in No such user and N-HH, with whom I've had a few disagreements there. He has excluded any participants thereof he fears might not have anything "bad" to say about me :).
 * Having followed me to Talk:House of Gundulic, he invited Silvio1973 and Theirrulez (whom I have not talked with in 2 years), because he saw I had previously been engaged in a dispute there.
 * And from Talk:Slovene Partisans, he attempted to bring in DancingPhilosopher and Viator slovenicus.
 * To be perfectly honest, I don't think I'm out of line in suggesting WP:BOOMERANG sanctions here. If anything's been shown, its wikistalking and malicious canvassing. This looks like a pretty transparent attempt to simply have another user blocked for opposing Nemambrata and his pals at Talk:Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, and frankly I think this noticeboard has seen more than enough of that show. -- Director  ( talk )  16:38, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Silvio1973
Direktor is a very skilled user with a good knowledge of the technicalities of Wikipedia rules. Also, he is very experienced and knows how much he can push things without getting any consequences. This is absolutely fine, but the issue is that sometime in order to get things his way he deliberately focus the discussions more on form that on matter, getting to results that might be "conform to rules" but in opposition to very reputed secondary sources. In that sense, the recent discussions on House of Gundulic (if someone has the energy to go trough, by the way there is a 3O pending on the article) and Dalmatia are valid examples.

However, the real issue is another. It is true that sometime Direktor uses strong wording towards users with different opinions. The thing is that such wording is strong, but not that strong to justify in my eyes any enforcement. But I agree that such comportment can be irritating after a while, because it is repetitive. However, I have been trough a few Talk pages involving Direktor and other users and found out that 95% (if not 99%) of the time, the users getting in an Edit-War with him are the ones being blocked in the end. This happens because he knows how much he can push things. Recently my edits have been qualified of "extremely aggressive and nationalist". Well, now I welcome anyone to go trough my edit and see if there is anything of "extremely aggressive and nationalist" (and please mind that usually all my edits are supported by sources). But I also know that if I had escalated the matter I would ended being blocked, because I am the one less knowledgeable of the rules and I would have been the first one "crossing the line". So I preferred to keep a low profile and swallow my pride. The situation would be different if more competent users and administrators were involved in the discussions concerning all topics about the Balkans but I realise that this is impossible, because sometime the articles concern quite obscure matters.

Comment by Lothar von RIchthofen
Yup, that's a lot of canvassing. WhiteWriter Antidiskriminator No such user N-HH Silvio1973 Theirrulez DancingPhilosopher Viator slovenicus. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 17:56, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Volunteer Marek
Nothing here that's objectionable, though DIREKTOR should probably lay off using the term "nationalist" so frequently (nationalists almost ALWAYS call others "nationalists" so, even if the use of the term is justified, it reflects badly on the user (I know, I've done it myself)).

Other than that, yeah, maybe BOOMERANG it.  Volunteer Marek  18:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Peacemaker67
Some perhaps injudicious remarks, but essentially this is vexatious in my view. User:Nemambrata has very unclean hands when it comes to poor wikibehaviour, including having been:
 * warned by me for edit warring and poor edit summaries on 1 August (the day he became a registered user) here
 * warned by User:MrX for disruptive editing on 4 August
 * reported at WP:ANI by User:DIREKTOR as an WP:SPA on the same day
 * ARBMAC warned by User:Joy on 5 October here
 * reminded of ARBMAC by User:bobrayner here on 22 October in respect of changing "Srebrenica genocide" to "Srebrenica massacre" on two dozen articles without once discussing on a talk page
 * reminded about ARBMAC again by me on 23 October for continuing the same behaviour as User:bobrayner warned him about
 * warned by User:DIREKTOR for disruptive editing on 23 October.

Now, User:Nemambrata has only made 368 edits as a registered user in that user name (although he has acknowledged elsewhere that he has edited before that). That is an impressive record for only 368 edits. I will advise all of the editors I have listed regarding this report. I consider WP:BOOMERANG is in order. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 13:00, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Joy
I agree with Peacemaker67 on the basic point that Nemambrata is reporting DIREKTOR with unclean hands. IIRC, the former user has appeared recently in another discussion where he apparently barged in without WP:ARBMAC in mind, so them filing an enforcement request on the same matter is really pushing the envelope. I doubt anyone would shed a tear if Nemambrata was immediately penalized for this.

Having said that, the regulars here will remember my own unrelated complaint over DIREKTOR being pointlessly combative. Sadly, it's not entirely unrelated. I quickly skimmed the articles covered in this complaint, and soon found this:  Yes, DancingPhilosopher is apparently adding peacock-ish non-summary information to the lead section and drops two factoids along the way. (Censuring DancingPhilosopher for doing that would be entirely warranted.) But the most sensible course of action is to move the relevant part of that information out of the lead and into a relevant section, not just revert it completely.

If I had infinite time in the world, I'd engage in further analysis, but I don't. Granted, the same can apply to DIREKTOR - we can't really expect him to do everything perfectly. So he did something quick and suboptimal - but it was still better than the other person. Trouble is, people will eventually find it hard to believe that a person can find the time to write large amounts of text in edit summaries and on Talk, yet can't find the time to try to be more constructive, in an effort to reduce the amount of vitriol. Especially in these topic areas where we know that vitriol is important to avoid.

I hope that someone will find the time to examine the matter and do something productive here, but I'm not really optimistic, since there's a huge amount of material to try to make sense of, and most of it is rather subtle.

--Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 14:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If I can just quickly explain here: imo pointless listing of Slovene counties promised by the 1915 Treaty of London does not belong in that article: that's what the wikilink's there for. And there had been some active discussion on the talkpage whether the Julian March article itself is warranted in the first place (DancingPhilosopher is quite right on more than a few points). That said, if the user wanted to introduce the list of Slovene counties into the main text, I wouldn't make any objections. That's what I meant. I myself don't want to do it, though: I think its too much detail for that article. -- Director  ( talk )  16:38, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by bobrayner
I agree with Joy and Peacemaker67. I don't always agree with DIREKTOR but I have seen DIREKTOR working hard to mitigate pov-pushing on Balkan articles, and the complaints above are just quotemining. Nemambrata's activity in the last 4 weeks can be summarised as follows: And that's it. None of those edits are a net positive to the encyclopædia; every single one is a net negative, part of a pov-pushing campaign. I won't pretend that DIREKTOR is perfect, but this enforcement request is just retaliation; which is a disappointingly common reward for editors who try to maintain neutrality on Balkan articles. Nemambrata should know how ARBMAC works - they've been warned about it enough times. bobrayner (talk) 20:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) About twenty edits to water down our coverage of atrocities committed by Serbs, most importantly getting rid of that pesky word "genoicide". Each of these edits was rightly reverted by other editors.
 * 2) Blank the warnings received from other editors (warning-then-blanking is all that happens on Nemambrata's talkpage).
 * 3) Three more pov-pushing edits;
 * 4) One edit to create this thread and one edit to notify DIREKTOR;
 * 5) Ten edits canvassing ten editors who have disagreed with DIREKTOR in the past.
 * I would also point out the remarkable coincidence that a new editor has such a large overlap with HuHu22. HuHu22 was blocked by in late July, as a sock of  who had been blocked for harassing DIREKTOR. Nemambrata started editing on 01 August and showed a remarkable level of proficiency for a newbie - and made a series of reverts identical to HuHu22. For instance, 29 minutes after creating their account, Nemambrata edited this template; does this look familiar? I can provide diffs from other articles if required. And now Nemambrata comes back to harass DIREKTOR. bobrayner (talk) 20:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning DIREKTOR

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


 * I happen to agree with bobrayner above that the similarities between the HuHu22 and Nenambrata are way too close to be coincidence, so I'm blocking indefinitely. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 20:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Ellhn2012

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBMAC


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


 * 1) Edit-warring to post a frivolous, politically-motivated deletion nomination for Macedonian language
 * 2) [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Macedonian_language&diff=520740892&oldid=520559449 31 Oct], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Macedonian_language&diff=520879305&oldid=520744682 1 Nov], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Macedonian_language&diff=522153720&oldid=521806147 9 Nov] (Afd tags)
 * 3) [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2FMacedonian_language&diff=520746176&oldid=379052841 31 Oct], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Macedonian_language&diff=520879208&oldid=520751966 1 Nov], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Macedonian_language&diff=522155279&oldid=520879773 9 Nov] (Misfiled rant on old (previously speedy-closed) Afd page)
 * 4) Aggressive rants and personal attacks on talkpage:
 * 5) 27 Oct
 * 6) 30 Oct
 * 7) 9 Nov

Standard warning: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ellhn2012&oldid=520880241 1 November]
 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :

Newish registered account, previously edited as IP, and similar. Identity with previous IPs self-confirmed here: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Macedonian_language&diff=prev&oldid=520745582]
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ellhn2012&diff=522162479&oldid=520880241]
 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Result concerning Ellhn2012
(Self-closing; editor has been blocked indef by Sandstein. – Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC))

Request concerning Iantresman

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : IRWolfie- (talk) 19:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Fringe theories/Arbitration cases

This is covered under Fringe theories/Arbitration cases.


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

In this section Talk:Dusty_plasma is wikilawyering to have a book about "the plasma universe" be added to an unrelated non-fringe dusty plasmas article. He argues he wishes to add it for it's 6 pages on dusty plasmas in the appendix. He has continued to argue, despite no consensus for it. I am worried that this pushing, so soon after his topic ban removal is indicative that he is going to continue to civilly POV push this fringe science subtlety; adding a burden on other editors to deal with him. He has been wikilawyering on the page.

He is claiming that "Physics of the plasma universe" is not connected to plasma universe or plasma cosmology, and that to argue with him we must provide reliable sources that argue the source is fringe (an arbitrarily high requirement to place, it's hard enough finding sources that address the plasma universe etc from a mainstream perspective, at all). (See for a more detailed exposition of the issue with the book) This is a source he himself used to argue about plasma cosmology on that article, before his topic ban. This source is the one used as a basis for much of the plasma cosmology/universe material on the website of advocates etc, e.g. He's also wikilawyering that he has sources on his sources, so we need sources on his sources etc etc.

Also note that one of his first reactions was to to go to WP:IRS, and arguing the exact opposite thing: "The book is clearly fringe. How could I show that?" Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources. I'm not sure what to make of that.


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


 * Iantresman is well aware of sanctions in this area, because he was under them. He recently had his topic ban from physics articles and fringe science removed by arbcom:.


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

I will note that Civil POV pushing is still POV pushing and detrimental to the encyclopedia. IRWolfie- (talk) 02:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@My76strat. The Plasma universe is a fringe viewpoint. You can confirm this if you wish at WP:FTN. That is a non-controversial statement of fact. Ask a physicist what Plasma cosmology is, and he'll shrug his shoulders. No notification is required for FTN discussions, much like RSN discussions. The comment was to attract more interested editors to the actual discussion which was at Dusty Plasmas. When someone is civilly POV pushing books that suit their fringe viewpoint then what sort of compromise do you suggest? I did discuss the issue, but when someone starts wikilawyering about sources needing sources, what do you suggest? It's clear he is aiming to use this book rather than the countless volumes dedicated to this article. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@Start, you are selectively quoting FRINGE. THe rest of that sentence is "and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner." We don't include fringe theory books in articles not about the fringe theory when there are perfectly adequate books not about the fringe theory. Iantresman is a supporter of plasma cosmology, and here he is adding books about it into other articles. Plasma cosmology has no direct connection to Dusty plasmas. The reasonable compromise position isn't to add the book about plasma cosmology, and I'm quite startled that you are arguing that; and you appear to go even further, saying that plasma cosmology should be mentioned when no source seriously connects them in the same way as say astrology and astronomy. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@Canens, By pseudoscience, it's hard to find a source that says catagorically pseudoscience, that is mostly be because it's hard to find a source that addresses it at all because it is so very fringe. It's referred to as a "a persistent but extremely off-base crackpottery that plagues astronomy" in places. here a major proponent is compared to a creationist:. Errors with books etc. This is not a respected alternative formulation. I think the admins will need to use their discretion, or I can take it to arbcom also if you think that's what needs to be done? It meets the arbcom description: " Wikipedia contains articles on pseudoscientific ideas which, while notable, have little or no following in the scientific community, often being so little regarded that there is no serious criticism of them by scientific critics." IRWolfie- (talk) 16:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@Canens, I think extending that topic ban to Plasmas as well would be prudent as well. For example, dusty plasmas is under the plasma physics category (although dusty plasmas are mainly used in astrophys it seems). IRWolfie- (talk) 20:00, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@TDA The issue is that this is just going to repeat. This occurred almost immediately after his unban; and so a lot of editor time will be devoted to making sure it doesn't happen again and then dealing with it when it does. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:50, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@Strat, Why would a notice be needed? The discretionary sanctions exist because of his very case. He has just come off a arbcom topic ban. This proposal is to enforce the previous ruling, it falls under the topic as TDA pointed out. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :



Statement by Iantresman
I am surprised that this RFAR has been placed, as the discussion was still in progress, with some constructive information emerging slowly, dispute resolution was not considered, and I expressed being open to using the Reliable Sources Noticeboard (WP:RSN). I disagree with the characterisation which I feel is a misuse of the term Wikilawyer, as I am providing "reasoned arguments in a debate". I would summarise the issue as follows (some of this is repeated in the Dusty Plasma thread mentioned). I never expected that, what should have been a simple restoration of the actual source, to become so protracted, and hope that "reasoned arguments in a debate" is not mistaken for being difficult. But Wikipedia is not built on facts which editors just vote on, but independent verifiable reliable sources, which everyone can check, without relying on the opinion of fallible editors (myself included). --Iantresman (talk) 02:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Some time ago, I added a section on "Dynamics" to the article on Dusty Plasmas. The information came from a scientific textbook I am familiar with, The Physics of the Plasma Universe, and that I know other mainstream plasma physicists use. You can compare the article content with the source, here. Since it IS the source, I am uncomfortable removing due credit.
 * 2) I took note of why the reference was removed in 2007, and found that the editors appeared to be mistaken: (a) one was comparing the 1992 book with another theory which did not exist until at least 6 years later in 1998 (b) another editor thought the book was not relevant, which my image scan above shows to be incorrect.
 * 3) As an extra measure, I reviewed WP:IRS, and reviewed the existing mainstream literature, looking for independent verifiable assessments (so that no-one needs rely on the fallible opinions of editors, myself included). I found that the book was republished by academic publisher Springer in 2012. I found two positive reviews of the book in mainstream peer-reviewed journals, one of which specifically mentions the "useful appendix [..] on dusty and grain plasma" I found that the book was being used as a reliable source in a couple of other textbooks, All seem consistent with the book meeting WP:RS, and I found no negative use of the book as a reference.
 * 4) IRWolfie expressed his concerns about the book, suggesting that it was not a reliable source, and fringe. Later himself and another editor advanced the opinion that the book was advocating a fringe view called "Plasma Cosmology"
 * 5) I enquired at WT:IRS about assessing reliable sources. and one editor responded that "fringe" isn't a synonym for "unreliable". I checked the WP:FRINGE section on Reliable sources which seems to suggest that my reference met the standard. I also went back to mainstream peer-reviewed journals, and found that my reference was used as a reliable source in 10 different journals (see thread for links to each), and by an industry organisation with a long list of reputable members, whose publication on Space Plasmas is written by the same author.
 * 6) I also found that my reference itself states that "cosmological issues are not discussed here" (preface, page v), ie. it is not a book advocating "Plasma Cosmology". None of the sources I found, suggested it was either.
 * 7) Since all the reliable sources that I checked seemed to contradict the concerns of the other editors, it seems reasonable that that they were aware of something I had not read, and there should be some independent verifiable reliable sources (as suggested by WP:IRS and WP:FRINGE) which share their concerns, and can be reviewed by other editors. None have been forthcoming.
 * 8) I am not pushing this book, as (a) it is the source used (b) I have welcomed other editors use another relevant source. (I have not found one).

Just found the hidden text at "more details about the fringe editing". Comment: (1) I actually explained why there might indeed be a connection between the book and the subjects concerned. (2) We are not dealing with the fringe subject Plasma Cosmlogy, so we don't need any sources about it (3) We are dealing with a specific book, of which there are many sources that I have already provided for review, (so no-one has to look hard), that contradict the concerns. (4) If a book published by an academic publisher this year, 10 peer-reviewed journals, 3 academic textbooks, 2 peer-reviewed book reviews, and an industry organisation, that meet WP:IRS, is not enough sources, how many need to be provided? I can probably come up with another 10. (5) I think the reason that it is hard finding sources that suggest the book is unreliable, or fringe, is because the book is "educational reading for any astrophysicist" and "The plasma principles, equations and cosmic applications are well described" --Iantresman (talk) 02:50, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @My76Strat I welcome any criticisms concerning my interactions with the other editors. --Iantresman (talk) 15:52, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @Enric Naval Lied?!!! Surely you mean that you have a difference of opinion to (a) the book stating that "cosmological issues are not discussed here" (preface, page v)", and (b) the book reviews, (c) what you imagine the contents of the book to be about as you seem to be inferring it from the index. --Iantresman (talk) 16:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @Enric Naval (1) Did you really suggest of the book, that I have "authored one of the appendixes". This is ludicrous. (2) The book has no chapters on plasma cosmology. The book has no sections on plasma cosmology. The book states that "cosmological issues are not discussed here". You can easily resolve this matter by providing a source that supports your concerns. --Iantresman (talk) 17:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @The Devil's Advocate I'm not sure where I "plainly state this source pertains to plasma cosmology" as I have consistently stated the opposite, per my point #6 above. I gave my reason for wanting the source included, in my point #1 above, it was the source I used, and I have no reason to doubt its veracity. I have not pushed the source, per my point #8 above. I have not edited the article since 2006. I note that IRWolfie has now provided alternative sources, which seem fine. --Iantresman (talk) 18:06, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @All. IRWolfie has now provided a couple of alternative sources to the article, which look satisfactory, and I have no problem with them replacing the source I originally used for the section. --Iantresman (talk) 18:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @The Devil's Advocate: (1) There is no doubt that the author of Physics of the Plasma Universe, Anthony Peratt, is an advocate then, and probably now, of "Plasma Cosmology", see for example, which is the application of what might be called the "Plasma Universe" to cosmology. Hannes Alfven was also an advocate, (he received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1970 for his work on plasmas). Many of Alfvén's theories on plasma physics are not only found in his work cosmology, but are also cited to this day. That would suggest that he is still a reliable source, even though he often deals with obscure theories.
 * (2) I have never insisted on using the source. I gave my reasons for wanting to use it per my point #1 having taken due care to assess it as a reliable source, and welcoming other sources, per my point #8. --Iantresman (talk) 18:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @T. Canens The article "Plasma Cosmology" was even tagged directly with the Category:Pseudoscience tag twice, by the same editor. I think you have to ask yourself why the tag is no longer present, and suspect it was because it was baseless and incorrectly added. The other tag "Fringe subjects without critical scientific evaluation", was also probably removed for the same reason, and one we can easily check. Per WP:V and WP:RS, I assume that a citation to an article infers that someone has bothered to read through it and scientificly evaluate it. Here are three items by Alfvén:
 * "Antimatter and the Development of the Metagalaxy" (100 citations)
 * "Antimatter, Quasi-stellar Objects, and the Evolution of Galaxies" (23 citations)
 * "Cosmic Plasmas (Ch.6 is on Cosmology)" (119 citations)
 * Plasma Cosmology may be wrong, and largely ignored, but it does not appear to be "without critical scientific evaluation". This is not an endorsement, or support for the subject. --Iantresman (talk) 20:11, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @IRWolfie You don't ban people for engaging in discussion (and not having edited an article since 2006), nor because your view differs from all the published sources, and nor because you do not wish to consider the dispute resolution process. The Result of my Appeal to BASC, and, Arbitration motion, describe the issues and how to deal with any problems. --Iantresman (talk) 00:23, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by My76Strat
It is disquieting to see this request. Discussion is the means for collaborative editing and it is intuitively counterproductive to call for measures to stifle an opposing view without reviewing its merit. The discussion is too current to allege Iantresman is pushing against a consensus. Having observed several discussions within this topic area, I find IRWolfie asserts him or herself ubiquitously as a controlling authority on matters of content. Statements like: "The Plasma universe is a fringe viewpoint and it will not be getting space in this non-fringe article per WP:ONEWAY" is a manner of stipulating the outcome to accord with an ordained (non-consensus) premise. You IRWolfie, state that it is "a fringe viewpoint" and treat reasonable dissent ineffably. I respect that you are learned in the sciences, but you are far too stubborn for my comprise. It's a content dispute, discuss it and reach a consensus, if you can't, seek adequate wp:dr. Don't seek wp:ae unless you can show bad faith, which should be some form of wp:battleground conduct in defiance of a consensus resolution. Iantresman, by all means, please do not edit war to effect change. The 1RR is technically per 24 hour period, but I think it would be best to reach a consensus before you consider repeating the 1RR in any subsequent periods. Gain a consensus or let it go. IMO, My 76  Strat  (talk) 06:20, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: A discussion was started at WP:FTN and I do not see where Iantresman was notified that his conduct was being discussed. I posted a comment there and consider the link relevant. My 76 Strat  (talk) 08:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Greetings IRWolfie. While you are technically correct that "no notification is required for FTN discussions", it is clearly recommended in the red letter admonition which states: " If you mention specific editors, please notify them. You may use  to do so. " Additionally, the third bullet atop the FTN page states: "Familiarize yourself with the fringe theories guideline before reporting issues here." Therein the compromise appears to lie. The statement; "A theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea" suggests the "mainstream article" does not preclude an appropriately proportional extenuation of the less broadly supported view. On the other hand, your assertion that "The Plasma universe is a fringe viewpoint and it will not be getting space in this non-fringe article" attempts to supersede that guideline by compelling absolute omission. To me it seems clear that the compromise lies in a proportionate inclusion greater than null, unless it is shown completely unreliable, with no secondary validation, tantamount to a hoax. On the surface, this does not appear to be the case. My 76 Strat  (talk) 12:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Let me be clear that it is not my intention to prescribe any conclusion or to selectively diminish a guideline. I did advocate proportional inclusion if and only if the fringe theory was reliably sourced to include secondary validation. Unless this topic has been thoroughly explored in an archived discussion, I've not seen the current discussion reach the clarity of consensus. At least one participant seemed to align with Iantresman's assertion, so his argument does not appear extraneous. And there are several thoughtful editors, like yourself, who have not posted regards, and I suspect will. The bottom line is this, I want Iantresman to succeed at his stated endeavor to reintegrate into this topic area as a productive contributor. I'd like you to help ensure nothing less; as a colleague! Perhaps this is asking too much, but I think you can be a bit more nurturing, and a bit less dismissive. I challenge Iantresman as well to show likewise considerations when thoughtful editors express dissent with his or her views. Certainly it must be possible for your collective kind to find agreeable areas for compromise, or collegial methods of expressing disagreement. And I do feel seeking AE is premature at this time. I wish you all the best. My 76 Strat  (talk) 14:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, the focus of this request is on measures to enforce the amended Arbcom sanction. Suggestions to impose a community topic ban should be drafted as a separate proposal and !voted on by the community at wp:an. It would be a stretch for a single non-involved admin to stipulate a topic ban under the guise of AE. If this topic is covered under discretionary sanctions, the measure could be imposed, but I recall a requisite 30 day notice that would precede implementation. What am I failing to consider in stating my opinion? My 76 Strat  (talk) 22:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I'll retract my assertion of a 30 day notice, I believe that relates to adding a new topic to the existing list. Pertaining to this topic; "articles relating to pseudoscience, broadly interpreted, are placed under discretionary sanctions. Any uninvolved administrator may levy restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action on users editing in this topic area, after an initial warning." (emphasis mine) No matter how it is sliced, Iantresman did not violate his recent amended sanction and if you want to levy discretionary sanctions against him it is incumbent that he first be warned. WP:AC/DS further states "Warnings should be clear and unambiguous, link to the decision authorizing the sanctions, identify misconduct and advise how the editor may mend their ways". It's time to close this discussion and move on. My 76 Strat  (talk) 00:48, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Greetings EdJohnston. I would feel remiss if I didn't respectfully disagree with your regards to me. Fear not however, for I am considerably out of touch, with the beautiful people; whose wisdom dominates this site. I am deeply aggrieved! My 76 Strat  (talk) 02:48, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Enric Naval
I am sorry, but the source in question and its author have very close ties to the fringe topic Plasma cosmology. The context index suggests strongly that several chapters are directly related to the fringe topic. And I see the source being used in discussions about the fringe topic in many skeptic forums and fringe websites. The name "Plasma universe" seems to be only an alternative name of the fringe topic, maybe used to avoid negative connotations. "Electric universe" is an even fringer version of the topic, and its proponents also use the author's theories. The author also collaborated in The Big Bang Never Happened, another fringe book rejected by physical cosmologists. I think this is clearly and unambiguously a fringe source from a fringe author.

And the author has been heavily discussed in the talk page of the fringe topic because of his close relationship to the topic, and if you look at the results you will see that many times the author was first mentioned by Iantresman himself. Like here, here and here] in defense of the fringe topic. lantresman himself added papers by this author to support what "advocates of plasma cosmology" think. Iantresman has strongly defended the classification of the author as a "plasma cosmologist". In the last diff he even bolds the words "Plasma universe", which are also in the title of the book we are discussing here. Thus, lantresman is prefectly aware that "Plasma universe" in a title indicates that the source is about plasma cosmology. There are many more examples and indications that Instresman knows that the source is fringe. Many of the concepts he defends as part of plasma cosmology appear as chapters in the source he was trying to introduce, like Bennet pinch and Birkeland currents. Iantresman himself cites in two different occasions two different chapters of the book in support of the plasma cosmology ideas of the author. Despite this, he used the book reviews and book summary to claim that the book had no "Plasma cosmology" ideas.

Summary: it is indisputably a fringe source, and Iantresman knew it. Iantresman lied about the content of the book. And he wikilawyered at length to support this lie. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:06, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I would like to also add that the author of the book has thanked Ian tresman in his other publications, so I think there is also probably a "knows him in real life" connection here too. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@Iantresman. You knew perfectly that the book had chapters on plasma cosmology because you had cited them yourself in wikipedia in support of plasma cosmology. Your statement "If you recall, I noted that the the book includes nothing on cosmology." and "(...) the quote I provided shows that the book has nothing to do with cosmology." are direct lies. Your statement "None of the sources I have already provided suggest that the book includes contentious material." is wikilawyering because you had previously cited the contentious material in wikipedia. Idem for "Likewise, you have suggested that the book is "advocating plasma cosmology"[26], and I have provided a source from the book, that you can check yourself, indicating that it does not (my point #5 above)." since the book does advocate the theories of plasma cosmology. Idem for " For example, you have mentioned "plasma cosmology" now for the third time, and as I have previously shown with a quote, (my point #5, above), the quote seems to contradict this characterisation". And doubly for "00My source seems to contradict your suggestion that the book is an "advocating plasma cosmology". I don't think it is unreasonable then, to have some independent reliable published sources, in order to review your conclusion, per WP:IRS. Have you looked through a copy of Physics of the Plasma Universe?''" since Iantresman has actually read a copy and he has authored one of the appendixes, and he has seen the plasma cosmology content himself. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@T. Canens. Hum, we are asking that |Arbcom's lifting of the topic ban by arbcom is overturned and that the community topic ban is restored. The community topic ban was about "general POV-warrior of all sorts of pseudoscience and fringe science ideas", not just pseudoscience. Should this be made as a amendment to arbcom? I think that the disruptive behaviour should be enough to restore the community ban under normal provisions, but well..... --Enric Naval (talk) 16:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate
Ian plainly states this source pertains to plasma cosmology and WP:ARB/PS was brought to ArbCom by Ian specifically in relation to the subject of plasma cosmology so obviously it falls under the topic area subject to discretionary sanctions. This is certainly a fringe view now, but it does not appear to have always been fringe. With that under consideration, using a source from when it was still a noteworthy minority view to support material unrelated to the actual view in question would not appear to be a problem in itself. However, unless I am mistaken, the section that it was apparently being used to support is now sourced to more recent works. If the material is reliably referenced, then it appears the only basis for pushing to restore the source is because Ian wants it to be in the article, which would be a problem.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * My apologies then, Ian. It seems that we are left with some element of uncertainty then. From a little reading, it seems the author of the 1992 work is an advocate for plasma cosmology. Do you dispute that?--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 18:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Since it seems Ian is now dropping his insistence on including the source given IR's new sourcing, I believe there is no further basis for pursuing action.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Iantresman

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

I'm closing this now. It is well settled precedent that named parties to an arbitration case are considered to be on notice of the discretionary sanctions authorized within that case; this is especially so in the case of Iantresman, who until recently was under a topic ban in this area. Moreover, Iantresman was in fact notified of the motion authorizing discretionary sanctions by a clerk. Under these circumstances, I see no reasonable probability that arbcom will require yet another warning as a result of the clarification request, and therefore no reason to delay closure of this thread. I also think IRWolfie-'s suggestion that we the topic ban cover plasma physics as well is sound.
 * I'm not sure if this one fits WP:ARBPS. It's fringe, but is it pseudoscience? T. Canens (talk) 15:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * AE can't overturn arbcom. You'll need either a fresh community discussion or go ask arbcom directly. I'll need to read up a bit more on this to see if it fits ARBPS. If it does, we can proceed to the merits. T. Canens (talk) 17:33, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * TDA has a good point. At the time of the decision, plasma cosmology was in Category:Fringe subjects without critical scientific evaluation which was a subcategory of Category:Pseudoscience. Given the phrasing of WP:ARBPS ("The term "pseudoscience" shall be interpreted broadly; it is intended to include but not be limited to all article in Category:Pseudoscience and its subcategories."), I think it clear that the arbitration committee that decided the Pseudoscience case in December 2006 intended that plasma cosmology be considered as related to pseudoscience as that term is used in that decision, and I can see no evidence that later arbcoms that placed the topic area under discretionary sanctions intended anything different. I think the complaint has merit. Whether or not Iantresman is ready to contribute in other physics-related areas, I don't think they should be editing anything related to plasma cosmology in particular, or astrophysics in general, and I think a topic ban is appropriate. T. Canens (talk) 18:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * With respect to your original point, pseudoscience and fringe theories are so closely linked that in general, we can probably just treat scenarios as falling under "broadly construed" if we are unsure. I have no objection to your topic ban proposal. NW ( Talk ) 00:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 * In answer to My76Strat: User:Iantresman was a named party of the WP:ARBPS case. A party should not require a special notice that the discretionary sanctions of that case can apply to them. EdJohnston (talk) 01:23, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Accordingly, under the authority of WP:ARBPS, is banned from all articles, discussions and other content related to plasma physics and astrophysics, broadly construed across all namespaces. T. Canens (talk) 06:41, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Al Ameer son

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Plot Spoiler (talk) 07:59, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA


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


 * 1) 03:14, November 15, 2012 Reverted AZDub
 * 2) 21:26, November 15, 2012 Reverted MarixstApples
 * 3) 23:10, November 15, 2012 Reverted Florincoter
 * 4) 00:47, November 16, 2012 Reverted Santurwoman
 * 5) 21:27, 15 November 2012 reverting this added by Shrike  Right FPAS I am sorry I thought that he reverted and not just moved--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 15:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The page of Ahmed Jaabari is clearly subject to ARBPIA sanctions. The four reverts are not only in violation of 1RR of ARBPIA, but broader 3RR restrictions for all articles.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :
 * Shrike is correct that "only reverts that exempt from the rule are vandalism, BLP and sock reverts." Al Ameer's reverts on POV grounds violates 1RR. The 1RR restriction is frustrating for rapidly evolving subjects like these, but I believe it was implemented for a reason and needs to be enforced uniformly. But perhaps the policy needs to be looked at again...? Plot Spoiler (talk) 17:34, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would like to withdraw this AE if possible. Punitive of action of any sort is not necessary, but it does make clear that the 1RR of ARBPIA needs to be reexamined -- especially in these high volume situations. We can't always rely on WP:IAR. It could easily lead to a situation where the rule is not uniformly enforced. Plot Spoiler (talk) 20:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by Al Ameer son
Wasn't thinking about AE to be honest. The Ahmed Jaabari article is one that will attract a lot of inflammatory edits for the next few days as he was just killed in a major military operation. So the idea that I wouldn't remove grossly POV edits by what appeared to be relatively new editors such as edit #4 which basically peppered the article with insulting or clearly biased language like "terrorist" (unacceptable unless in attributable quotes), "criminal" and "brutal" or #2 which replaced "political" with "terrorist" seems ridiculous. Edit #3 was obviously a lengthy, irrelevant and slightly flawed description of Israel with no place in the article and could be described as vandalism. The only revert that I think could be construed as not grossly biased would be revert #1 which saw me replace "as a response to" to "amid" in reference to the tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and Hamas. Any editor, including Plot Spoiler, could see my edits are simply an attempt to maintain the neutrality of a currently "hot" article in accordance with WP:NPOV and WP:TERRORIST and nothing more. --Al Ameer son (talk) 19:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Al Ameer son
@FPAS: The only reverts that exempt from the rule are vandalism, BLP and sock reverts. POV reverts and WP:TERRORIST is not one of them its a content dispute so Its clear breach of the rules.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 12:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Looking at at the history of the page it is clear that AAS is not the only one who could have a case filed for technical breach of 1rr. See e.g Brewcrew, ,. I don't present the diffs because I believe anyone else should be looking at sanctions, (in fact a case could similarly be made about my own edits to the related Operation Pillar of Cloud article). But I would like to know why Plot Spoiler has singled out this particular editor who is clearly acting in good faith and making valuable contributions. Dlv999 (talk) 10:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Then your too as edited and changed the text of the article many times.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 11:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I know, that is my point, if AAS is guilty so are half the editors to Ahmed Jabari and Operation Pillar of Cloud (including me). The fact is the situation is developing rapidly and I'm not sure strict application of 1rr rules to sanction editors who are trying to maintain the quality of these articles as content is added minute by minute will be good for the project. Especially if it is not being done consistently with only one editor being singled out for sanctions. Dlv999 (talk) 11:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably everyone who edited the article on that day is guilty of violating 1rr as being construed in this instance. Its a fast moving story constantly being updated. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 11:47, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would agree with if the reverts were simple updates for example of casulties but here we see a clear a content dispute.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 12:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate
There should be consideration given to the fact that this man is recently deceased and that therefore WP:BLP is still seen as applying to edits to his bio. In that respect calling him a "terrorist activist" instead of a "political activist" and other extreme POV edits should be considered obvious BLP issues and thus exempt, especially when the edits are being made by single-purpose accounts with hardly any article edits. However, one of the edits listed as a revert is clearly not a revert. An editor added a quote to the lede and Ameer moved the quote to the article body. That is not a revert no matter how you slice it.

I would add that there is another revert that hasn't been mentioned where Ameer removed some categories, but as there is a BLP consideration given that he is recently deceased one has to consider it from that perspective and the sources in the article do not seem sufficient to support the criminal cats per WP:BLPCAT. Removing the "terrorism" cat would be a little more shaky even though it is already covered by the Hamas cat. Personally, with such a fast-moving article as this I think sanctioning someone over the removal of an unnecessary cat and a minor adjustment to wording would be unduly punitive.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 14:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Plot Spolier has himself violated the 1RR on the article. Both this and this are reverts and they are non-sequential. Boomerang indeed.  nableezy  - 15:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment by Nableezy
 * That is not the same article and by my understanding this is not a violation of 1RR. They're obviously sequential as well, having been made minutes apart. Plot Spoiler (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Different article, correct. Sorry. But no, not sequential, there was an intervening edit by another editor, and both are reverts. I could open a report here if you really want me to.  nableezy  - 16:33, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * When I was doing the edit, there was no intervening edit. Do whatever you wish with filing a report, but don't insinuate intimidation or blackmail. Plot Spoiler (talk) 16:41, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure thing, I'll be that petty. As far as When I was doing the edit, there was no intervening edit, that is quite clearly nonsense. Between those two edits is this. Do I need to provide a dictionary definition of sequential or intervening?  nableezy  - 16:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * When anybody is making an edit and goes into the editing screen, other editors can make edits at the same time without creating an edit conflict -- creating intervening edits when one was not intended. That is particularly in the case in rapidly evolving articles such as these. And you well know this. Plot Spoiler (talk) 16:51, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * What do you guys mean by "not the same article"? Of course it is the same article (though not the same passage in that article). But I agree they should count as sequential – it was in the context of very fast editing by multiple parties, and the one intervening, unrelated edit that happened to slip in between Plot Spoiler's two could easily have been overlooked. It makes no sense to count 1RR "violations" on the basis of such trivial technicalities. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The case here is in relation to Ahmed Jabari‎. Nableezy was highlighting my edits at Operation Pillar of Cloud‎ (of course they are closely intertwined). Plot Spoiler (talk) 16:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

@FPAS, I agree it is trivial, but not much more trivial than this report. If Plot Spoiler is going to file a report based on an excessively technical reading of the restriction than I dont see why a just as technical reading of the restriction would not apply to Plot Spoiler.  nableezy  - 18:18, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

This filing is ridiculous. The article has a host of vandalism/blatanly pov edits (and was locked for the said reason). and 'EVERY article on Palestine is not ARBPIA. the article in question that could fall under that is only the death section (most edits of his which are elsewhere), and there is no warning on that page or the talk page. Its on the main page too and needas monitoring, many unsourced changed were also overlooked by people and there was no monitoring of such hot-topic issues. (such as the repeated unsourced additions of his midlde name and date of birth, that i removed). Al Ameer son has been invaluable and in keeping the npov. its a shame to scare of such people and let IP crap pass through without monitoring. He has also kept the israel view just as much as the other side (IVE ALSO eenaccused of not seeing the irsareal side on the one hadn, and then accused of being blindly pro-israel)
 * Comment by Lihaas
 * Per the below comment its seems liek BOOMERANG.Lihaas (talk) 01:19, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

To apply 1RR the way Plot Spoiler wants to would be a extreme violation of WP:IAR, edits 2-4 were fine (no opinion on edit 1). If I understand Plot Spoiler correctly, he wants to disregard WP:IAR when it comes to 1RR. There is no 1RR exception to IAR, we can not just disregard one of our core policies like this. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk)
 * Comment by Emmette

This enforcement request should never have been filed, it has the potential to cause a chilling effect that would sabotage IAR. I strongly urge Plot Spoiler to withdraw this request. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 01:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

An unbelieveably misguided report. If only because it singles out one of the most reasonable and level-headed editors in this topic area over edits that should be construed as common sense per our policy. I do urge Plot spoiler to withdraw this report. Yazan (talk) 02:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment by Zozo2kx

I think TC's reading of this situation is opening up a can of worms. Editors should abide by 1/rr in the topic area as it is currently worded. I have noticed that there have been instances where I wanted to revert but instead waited a few minutes and someone else did it instead. Alternatively, there is always the talk page to give a heads up. No action may be needed here but what about next time? TC will certainly get accused of being biased again if he pulls the trigger on an editor with a different POV for making an edit that doesn't look too bad. I'm not saying enforcement is needed but a reminder to pay attention to 1/rr (the editor admits to not even thinking about it) to both the editor and anyone else watching is appropriate. The reminder does not need to be in the form of a sanction.
 * Comment by Cptnono


 * More rules will make an already complicated restriction more complicated and 1/rr has been the one thing that has kept this topic area from ARBPIA3.Cptnono (talk) 03:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Al Ameer son

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

Of the four reverts listed, number 2 [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahmed_Jaabari&diff=523216805&oldid=523216634] is reverting obvious vandalism, so it doesn't count. Number 4 [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahmed_Jaabari&diff=523246088&oldid=523240747] is reverting something that Al Ameer son quite rightly described as "Grossly POV edits". Number 3 [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahmed_Jaabari&diff=523232274&oldid=523230764], removing "terrorist", is not quite as crass, but it's clearly enforcing a long-standing project-wide consensus understanding of NPOV ("WP:TERRORIST"), and I note that the reporting editor himself has also made a similar revert [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahmed_Jaabari&diff=523290637&oldid=523290266], so I reckon it is basically consensual. This leaves us with one (minor) revert over a genuine difference of opinion. This may well in effect be a violation of the letter of the restriction, but I'm still puzzled: if the revert restriction penalizes obviously legitimate cleanup edits like #3, then something is wrong with the revert restriction. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Also agree with TDA that the diff that was newly added to the report by Shrike [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahmed_Jabari&diff=prev&oldid=523216975] is not a revert at all. Shrike, please mind those boomerangs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I really don't think these reverts are what the 1RR restriction is meant to restrain. I don't think we have the "recent news brings in flurry of new accounts with little knowledge or regard of our basic content policies" scenario in mind when we imposed the topic-wide 1RR. I don't think any action is needed, but maybe we should amend the 1RR to include an exemption for reverting very new accounts? Also, the bickering above needs to stop immediately, before I start handing out AE bans. T. Canens (talk) 22:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning 159.1.15.34

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Dailycare (talk) 20:51, 20 November 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBPIA


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


 * 1) 19:15 19 Nov First revert, edit summary is " Delete the bit about subtracting 8% based on "culture and experience". Not in source".
 * 2) 20:30 19 Nov Second revert, edit summary is "Undo - The 8% bit was not there. Also, I don't think the word "subtract" was used. They said "adjust". Also, the source is positive towards Israel while we're just taking one negative passage. Also, the document described may not have been used".

The issue here is the claim that the 8% bit isn't in the source. Now the source is behind a paywall, which is why I twice (1, 2) requested the IP to provide something of the source so we could verify the information really isn't there. As the IP claims the information isn't there, it means s/he has access to the text. The IP effectively refused to provide the information twice, claiming that it might be obtained by repeated reloading (1, 2). However, as the doc is behind a paywall, no amount of reloading will bring it forward.

I obtained a copy of the source via email, I can email interested parties copies. It says that "Bringing this quantity into the Strip would require 170.4 truckloads per day, five days a week." It then says that an amount is subtracted to account for food production in Gaza, and finally "From this total, 13 truckloads were deducted to adjust for the "culture and experience" of food consumption in Gaza, though the document does not explain how this deduction was calculated." 13 of 170.4 is 7.63 %. Now setting aside whether the specific text is the best way to reflect this, the fact remains that the 8% information is, in its way, in the article, as performing a division doesn't amount to original research per WP:OR. I see this as a conduct issue on two levels, 1) claiming the source doesn't have this, and 2) failing to provide the text on request.

Since the IP hasn't been specifically warned of ARPIA, this AE request should probably be seen as a request to formally notify the IP of ARBPIA. I recall that an admin should do that.
 * 159.1.15.34, like I write above the question here isn't whether the wording in question is the best way to represent the source or no, that's a content issue. The question here is that you claimed that the item is absent in the source and were not forthcoming in sharing the source. In other words, you made claims concerning the content of a document that you didn't share despite requests to do so. In light of the actual contents of the document, your claims turned out to be untrue, arguably untrue or at least misleading since the item is, in some shape or form, in the document. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 07:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Dailycare, your bad faith is more and more evident the more you repeat false claims. Two editors have now been able to access the full text of the article via Google.  That's lie #1.  The document does not include the 8% figure.  That's lie #2.  At best, you're arguing for the insertion of a blatant violation of WP:CALC which as I've shown does not qualify as a "routine calculation".  Since the article stated that the reduction was in the number of trucks and not the number of calories, this is not math that we are allowed to do, per WP:OR.  But please, keep repeating the same disproven accusations and don't bother to respond to the points I've made regarding how obviously wrong the sentence is.  Your bad faith becomes more and more transparent with every message you write. 159.1.15.34 (talk) 15:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Notification

Statement by 159.1.15.34
So many things wrong with this. Where do I begin? This dispute is pretty short so I invite any admins to browse both my history and Dailycare's. Let me go through this bad faith summary point by point.


 * 1.) First of all, I wasn't aware of the 1RR until it was pointed out.
 * 2.) Dailycare claims that the source is behind a paywall.  That is a lie.  I have been able to view it multiple times in Firefox.  I don't know why it loads sometimes and not others.  I can provide screenshots or text passages if need be.
 * 3.) I don't know what Dailycare was expecting when he asked me to supply the text of the article.  I don't see why I need to go out of my way to supply him with the text of the article when I've been able to access it online several times, including now.  Saying I've "refused" to supply the text is an exaggeration.  I told him how to access it both times he asked.
 * 4.) The policy Dailycare refers to is WP:CALC.  It says that "routine calculations" do not count as original research, but the text that I deleted goes as follows:


 * "In January 2008, the Israeli government calculated how many calories per person were needed to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza strip, and then subtracted eight percent to adjust for the "culture and experience" of the Gazans."


 * ...which is a enormous leap from the 3 paragraphs the 8% figure is derived from. WP:CALC says that these calculations may be included provided there is consensus among the editors, and clearly in this case there is not.  Along with WP:BURDEN it seems clear to me this deletion was justified.
 * 5.) Regarding the comment that the source includes the info, it is trivially verifiable that the 8% figure does not exist, as I said.  It's hard not to see bad faith in Dailycare's claim that I'm misrepresenting the source.  In fact, this is the first I'm hearing of the calculations that were used.  I don't know how he thinks discussion is supposed to work, that he starts an arbitration case without even mentioning this, lol.
 * 6.) A quick glance at Dailycare's talk page shows a long history of editing articles relating to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  I don't suppose I should be surprised to find he is so aggressively trying to maintain questionable material.  I'm just trying to keep informed due to recent events.  I would have been content to remove this unsupported material once I couldn't find it in the source and move on, but here I am, dragged into yet another editorial dispute.  *Sigh*

159.1.15.34 (talk) 21:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)


 * A few more things. I'm not sure if I should be justifying my edit here or justifying my behavior.  Both were in good faith.  But as long as I'm describing the appropriateness of the deletion, there are a few other reasons I thought it needed to be done.  Full disclosure, the mathematician in me can't deny the accuracy of his arithmetic, but I know that WP:OR is one of the more zealously enforced policies, and I've seen simpler extrapolations deleted for similar reasons.  But even past the WP:OR issues, I had some other problems...


 * 1.) The article in question also says, "COGAT, appealing a District Court ruling to release the document, stated that it was merely a rough draft, that it was never actually implemented, and that it did not guide Israeli policy in practice."  I mentioned this very briefly in an edit summary, and if Dailycare had been interested in discussing the merits of this passage's inclusion, I would have said something on his talk page.
 * 2.) I just discovered this while reading more carefully, lol.  "While this adjustment actually led to a higher figure for sugar (five truckloads, compared to only 2.6 under the Health Ministry's original model)".  They changed the composition of the trucks so that the food they contained had more calories per truck.  This is exactly why non-trivial calculations are not allowed.  That pretty much settles the correctness of the deletion, I think.
 * 3.) The weight of this sentence in the relatively small section really stood out to me.  I've read enough articles to recognize when a new or anon editor randomly adds a damning bit from a news article to the end, and that's what this smelled like.  When I couldn't find the figure given in the source, deletion was obvious.
 * 4.) This is the title of the article: "2,279 calories per person: How Israel made sure Gaza didn't starve".  Haaretz is a left-wing Jewish publication, and was implicitly praising Israel for its humanitarian work.
 * 5.) I recall hearing that it's typical for an adult to get 2000 calories per day for maintenance.  2200 is higher than that.  We're at 2200 after subtracting 8%...?  Again, not proof but this is one of the reasons the sentence looked wrong to me.
 * 159.1.15.34 (talk) 22:10, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning 159.1.15.34

 * Accessing the article via Google gives you the full text. Here is the relevant section of the article:

The "red lines" document calculates the minimum number of calories needed by every age and gender group in Gaza, then uses this to determine the quantity of staple foods that must be allowed into the Strip every day, as well as the number of trucks needed to carry this quantity. On average, the minimum worked out to 2,279 calories per person per day, which could be supplied by 1,836 grams of food, or 2,575.5 tons of food for the entire population of Gaza. Bringing this quantity into the Strip would require 170.4 truckloads per day, five days a week. From this quantity, the document's authors then deducted 68.6 truckloads to account for the food produced locally in Gaza ­ mainly vegetables, fruit, milk and meat. The documents note that the Health Ministry's data about various products includes the weight of the package (about 1 to 5 percent of the total weight) and that "The total amount of food takes into consideration 'sampling' by toddlers under the age of 2 (adds 34 tons per day to the general population)." From this total, 13 truckloads were deducted to adjust for the "culture and experience" of food consumption in Gaza, though the document does not explain how this deduction was calculated. While this adjustment actually led to a higher figure for sugar (five truckloads, compared to only 2.6 under the Health Ministry's original model), it reduced the quantity of fruits and vegetables (18 truckloads, compared to 28.5), milk (12 truckloads instead of 21.1), and meat and poultry (14 instead of 17.2). Altogether, therefore, COGAT concluded that Israel needed to allow 131 truckloads of food and other essential products into Gaza every day (via the "back to back" system, in which goods are transferred from an Israeli truck to a Palestinian one at the border). Of these, 106 would go through the Kerem Shalom crossing and the rest via the Karni crossing (which was closed a few years later).

Presented without comment (for now). NW ( Talk ) 22:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning 159.1.15.34

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


 * I was able to get a copy of the Haaretz article by Amira Hass, using the 'email this article' function on their website. Dailycare and the IP seem to be warring over how to present something that is actually *in* the article, so I don't think WP:3RRNO gives any exemption for the edits of either party. For instance, removal of WP:Original research is not listed there. This case does not involve actual falsification of a source; at the very most we might have a slightly skewed interpretation. The IP is the one who has broken the 1RR rule. I suggest this be closed with issuance of an ARBPIA warning to the IP. How to interpret WP:CALC falls in the domain of the editors rather than admins. If the IP reverts again before consensus is reached, semiprotection of the article might be considered. EdJohnston (talk) 00:10, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree in part; I think it is actual falsification of a source, but WP:3RRNO doesn't give an exemption for removing falsifications except clear vandalism or WP:BLP violations. (It might be said by some that I'm not uninvolved, but I would challenge them to produce any specifics in regard my interaction with the parties or in the article.)  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 00:18, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Arthur is saying that the IP is indeed removing a falsification. I'll accept his conclusion for now. Although removal of falsification isn't mentioned by name in WP:3RRNO we are also not required to impose a block of someone who has a clear justification for their reverts. I'm closing this with no action against the IP. However, since the IP has been reported here at WP:AE by Dailycare and the complaint cites WP:ARBPIA as his authority, it is clear that the IP is now aware of the discretionary sanctions. Thus I'm entering him in the ARBPIA log of those notified. EdJohnston (talk) 02:57, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

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

Request concerning Logiphile

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Jprg1966   (talk)  17:46, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA


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


 * 1) Unexplained deletion
 * 2) Deletion of material after I reverted the initial deletion
 * 3) POV edit citing an unreliable, POV source
 * 4) Insertion of similar material after revert
 * 5) Re-insertion


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :
 * 1) First warning by
 * 2) Second warning by
 * 3) Notification of talk page discussion by Jprg1966
 * 4) Final warning by Jprg1966

Editor has made no attempt to communicate with others, either by edit summary or by talk page communication. Topic ban at the least is required. -- Jprg1966  (talk)  17:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by Logiphile
why again! totally unfair the information is cited and in the last time i added another citation from Israeli sources and this part is continuously removed so you must punish who remove not who readd. i didn't access my account since days and i didn't see all these warning. Logiphile (talk) 01:27, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Logiphile

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


 * Pretty blatant POV pushing; suggest a 6 month ban from editing Operation Pillar of Cloud. I would also note that continued behavior of this nature on other I/P articles will lead to a full topic ban.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 18:09, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * For continued edit warring, I've blocked Logiphile for 24 hours. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 22:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Cla68

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Mathsci (talk) 02:57, 5 December 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBR&I:  is indefinitely prohibited from commenting on, or interacting with,, broadly construed, anywhere on Wikipedia, per AE thread.


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


 * 1)
 * 2)

I accept the closing advice, as summarised by Future Perfect at Sunrise, for how to handle these matters, if they ever arise in the future. I have asked him to clarify whether by "private communication" he means by wiki-email or on a user talk page. Either or both is fine. Mathsci (talk) 18:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

Statement by Cla68
Admins, could you please do something about this? I think this is the third or fourth enforcement action Mathsci has filed against me. Do you need the links? Admins User:Timotheus Canens and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise, I'm especially interested in what you have to say. You helped make this mess. Cla68 (talk) 03:12, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * My comment was referring to Mathsci and to whoever this banned editor is that he has been fighting all over Wikipedia for the last three years. They are both clearly obsessed with their pursuit of each other, so much so that Mathsci was, by his own admission, dueling with this guy from a hospital bed.  As far as I'm aware, I'm allowed to comment on the subject in related dispute resolution forums such as here, ArbCom admendments, and ArbCom case requests, etc.  If I'm not, then that's news to me. Cla68 (talk) 03:47, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Admins, if you look at Mathsci's contribution history over the last few months, you will see that 90%~ are dedicated to sock puppet investigations, blocking IPs, and filing AE requests or AN notices against editors or admins who comment negatively on his behavior in pursuit of this (admittedly real) boogeyman. In my opinion, your actions in the past have facilitated or encouraged Mathsci's behavior.  Could you please do something to stop it, at least as far as it is affecting other editors? Cla68 (talk) 04:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Future Perfect, you're an admin and this is your interpretation of the rules? Good grief.  To say that I'm not allowed to comment on the complaining editor in the AE thread he opens against me is one of the craziest things I think I've seen one of Wikipedia's administrators utter, and I've seen a lot of foolishness in my six years of participation in this shite shindig.  I notice that one of the admins below has said that Mathsci is now "trying his patience."  Imagine how it must feel for the rest of us who have gotten in the way of the Mathsci steamroller, including Nyttend and Collect, as well as myself.  Notice, Future Perfect, that you were the one who "warned" Collect because he objected to Mathsci's obsessive behavior.  You helped create this monster, Future Perfect, and to try defend your bad decision-making you threaten to block me?  Future Perfect, compare mine and Mathsci's editing contributions for the past month.  Just do it, then explain which editor is doing what they're supposed to be doing, and which editor you should be helping instead of threatening.  Again, good grief.  You have made some really bad decisions on this issue.  Will you insist on making more?  Cla68 (talk) 07:19, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Cla68
As an administrator who doesn't frequent AE I'm commenting here. It would have been better if Mathsci hadn't filed this request. It would also have been better if Cla68 hadn't responded to this request.

Cla68 is of course entitled to comment on Arb motions that name him as an affected party, but that doesn't mean he has carte blanche to make snarky comments against Mathsci, especially ones that refer to medical conditions. As far as I can see, Mathsci's editing affects Cla68 only insofar as Cla68 chooses to make it an issue. If Cla68 would decide to ignore Mathsci's posts to Arbspace, and ignore Mathsci's removal of sock posts, would there be an issue? Similarly, if Mathsci would decide to ignore Cla68's posts to Arbspace, annoying as they may be, would there be a problem? --Akhilleus (talk) 05:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As Akhilleus says. Both Mathsci and Cla68 are at fault here. Mathsci shouldn't cry foul about edits in unbanning requests, and Cla68 shouldn't use every opportunity to publicize his opinions about Mathsci. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * @Mathsci. They don't need to modify the ban, it's implied by default in all bans, and this type of exception is mentioned in WP:IBAN. Mathsci, your interpretation of bans is too restrictive, you are hurting you own position.
 * @Cla68. General comments about how other editors are not helpful. You are supposed to explain how you don't deserve an iban. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)


 * From all the solutions available, Fut.Perf's solution seems the most likely to reduce drama and collateral damage. Hopefully Mathsci will take the lue and he will stop reacting to Cla68's comments. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Cla68 can comment in arbitration amendment about him, and Mathsci suppose to know it, given his experience. Therefore, this request by Mathsci is inappropriate use of one-way interaction ban with Cla68. Of course if this request by Mathsci was legitimate, that would be a completely different matter. The only reasonable solution is to make this interaction ban mutual because one-way interaction ban is obviously not working.  Sorry, I am not really familiar with history of the conflict My very best wishes (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Mathsci now withdrew his request. However, filing this request will have negative consequences for people who asked to lift their sanctions at arbitration page (including Cla68). I guess none of their sanctions will now be lifted. I am not sure if it was Mathsci intention, but this actually worked. My very best wishes (talk) 20:38, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge
I've been watching this sorry mess for the last few months with dismay, and this constant disruption needs to end. Sadly, this RfE is another example of Mathsci's battleground conduct. I don't know if this is best handled at AE or by ArbCom, but I don't see how this is going to end without a topic ban for Mathsci and an extension of the 1 way interaction bans to both ways. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)


 * @AE Admins: Before rushing through this proposal, some careful consideration should be given to the fact that Mathsci's battleground conduct extends beyond AE. So while limiting Mathsci's ability to file RfE is a step in the right direction, it does nothing to address the disruption caused outside of AE.  Quite frankly, the reason why we're back here at AE again, is AE's inability to solve the problem.  If AE isn't capable of solving this problem, hopefully ArbCom is. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:56, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Cla68

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

Right. In the interest of getting this over with, and (I believe) in consensus with most of the other commentators here, I'll close this as follows: Did I get that right? If somebody feels the wording should be tweaked, let me know. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Cla68, for clarity, are you denying that the comment in question was in regards to MathSci? If so, an explanation of what its intent was would be very helpful. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm in general agreement with T. Canens, after reviewing the surrounding context. It would be extremely rare to prohibit someone from appealing sanctions against them (in fact, I know of no such case where that has ever been done), and comments in the context of an appeal in the proper venue (which ArbCom is one of, for an AE sanction) is broadly and generally considered an exception to a topic or interaction ban, since disallowing the sanctioned editor from discussing the matter in the appeal would essentially prohibit them from appealing at all. What are they going to say? "I'm appealing something I can't name, on grounds I can't discuss"? This is essentially a frivolous request given that, and I would support the restrictions proposed on future enforcement requests. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:30, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Erm...FPAS, you went ahead and blocked? That seems a bit off to me too. I think given the disagreement here, we should've discussed it some more before applying any sanctions. I don't intend to unilaterally reverse you, or anything like that, but perhaps a bit slower on the trigger? Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The block was only for his actions right here during this thread, i.e. this posting in direct defiance of my immediately preceding warning . It's not meant to prejudge the overall outcome of this thread. But now that another editor has actually removed that last offending post, I have no problem with unblocking him again, as long as he agrees to keep it off. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:47, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd unblock him anyway, seeing as there's absolutely no consensus here for your actions—or any consensus to remove that comment, considering the positions of Seraphim and Timotheus—but that's just me. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * FPAS, now that the comment has been restored by others rather than by Cla68, do you have any objection to an unblock? Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd like to first hear him commit to respecting the spirit of the interaction ban during these proceedings. He can of course comment on any proposed sanctions and defend himself, but he cannot make accusatory comments about Mathsci that go beyond this narrow scope. Since it wasn't Mathsci but Cla himself who first chose to interact with the other party in this instance, he cannot cite a generalized "right of response" as if it was a waiver of the interaction ban. An AE thread is not a self-produced get-out-of-jail-free card. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * To answer to your concrete question: (If they are still bound to the interaction ban, then) "what are they going to say?" Well, he could of course have said (in the Amendmend thread): "Yes, I believe our restrictions should be lifted, because I don't think they are achieving anything and I don't plan on pursuing any conflict with the other parties anyway." Or, he could of course have said (in this thread): "I was only commenting on an Arbcom page, which I believed was exempt from my restriction, so I don't think this was a violation". What he did instead say were things like: Mathsci is obsessive, Mathsci has not been making encyclopedic contributions, Mathsci's behaviour is a monster, etc. No, he is not entitled to say things like that, not here, not at Arbcom, nowhere, and he needs to stop. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I can see where you're coming from, as far as right of reply not being a carte blanche, but I also see that line being very difficult to draw. I'm especially hesitant there in the case of one-way interaction bans, where the conduct of the other party might necessitate a modification of the sanction. (Not saying that's the case here necessarily, just as a general principle.) I'm also very hesitant for AE to get involved with cases of conduct at ArbCom. ArbCom and the clerks are perfectly capable of warning, sanctioning, refactoring/redacting, etc., if someone gets out of line there, and I don't think getting AE involved is either necessary or helpful in such a case. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:09, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I must contradict you about the point of Arbcom being able to police their own pages. Of course, yes, they ought to be able to do so. But experience shows they never do. Clerks feel afraid of "censoring" participants, and arbs usually reserve their intervention until their final judgment, and leave participants to fend for themselves until that point. Arbcom is notoriously incompetent at preventing its own pages from becoming uncontrolled mud-fests. As for the difficulty of drawing the line, yes, the exact line may be difficult to draw, but there can be no doubt in my mind that wherever the line is, "ongoing, personal, years-long feud between an obsessive, established Wikipedia editor and an obsessive, established banned editor" was beyond that line. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * In that last sentence what is it that takes it over that line? Other than the characterisation of "obsessive" I don't see anything apart from fact. I'd probably skirt around directly calling Mathsci obsessive, but his actions do have the appearance of obsession about these trolls. The vast majority of his recent interaction seems to relate to them - and this is in the middle of a serious illness, which was able to tear him away from much of his other editing but not this. Which is what is most deeply concerning, and the core reason I think the one remainign portion of this issue is Mathsci himself. --Errant (chat!) 12:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Is that characterization as "obsessive" not enough to stamp it as beyond the line? It's a personal attack, period. Cla68 is prohibited from commenting about Mathsci, period. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:09, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for Fut. Perf., but my patience is wearing thin. The amendment request at issue does request that Cla68's interaction ban be lifted. Cla68 is therefore allowed to comment in that thread unimpeded by the interaction ban. (I voice no opinion about the accuracy of Cla68's characterization of the overall situation, as that is irrelevant to the question whether the interaction ban applies.) Moreover, AE generally does not interfere in arbcom's own pages. I think Mathsci's enforcement requests are doing more harm than good, and I propose that we direct him
 * to seek enforcement of the interaction bans at issue arising out of edits on any page whose title begins with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests only from arbcom clerks or arbcom itself, and not from any other venue, including AE; and,
 * to not seek enforcement of the interaction bans at issue arising out of edits on any other page by means of an on-wiki posting, unless he has obtained permission for such posting from any uninvolved administrator by email. T. Canens (talk) 04:06, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I have to say I disagree with my colleagues above, and I stand by the principles I have expressed elsewhere on similar matters: we must stop people from abusing Arbcom pages to circumvent their restrictions. If the community imposes interaction bans, it means: "person X is not allowed to pursue conflicts with person Y", anywhere, in any form. It does not mean: "person X is invited to escalate their conflict with Y to Arbcom". Of course Cla68 is free to comment on the idea of lifting his restriction. But he could have done so without using it as an opportunity for taking yet more cheap and unprovoked potshots against Mathsci. So, no, even when answering on an Arbcom page, he is not "free to comment in that thread unimpeded by the interaction ban". Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, and before I forget: to avoid another weeks-long blowup like we saw last time, this same principle goes for this thread here too. Cla68: on this page, you are allowed to talk about yourself. You are still not allowed to talk about Mathsci, and I will block you if you do (the way you did in your second and third posts in your statement above.) In return, Mathsci, please make absolutely no further posts in this thread. You've made your position clear; now please leave the rest to others. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * So, two admins comment in favor of Cla's position... and then a third admin unilaterally blocks him without consensus? I'm not an AE admin, but that seems a bit, erm, off. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As I said last time, I think action is needed here to limit MathSci. Good judgement appears worryingly absent from this request, and it is time to stop the cycle of comment - AE - comment - AE. I struggled to see a firm basis for Cla68's Iban in the first place as much of his criticism of MathSci (on my examination) seemed fair - he is obsessed with these trolls and constantly feeds them. Our role as administrators is to limit disruption to Wikipedia; I think T. Canens suggestion is sensible and is the first step to take, short of active sanctions like topic bans or blocks, to try and convince Mathsci to step back. (FWIW I vaguely support the block of Cla68 for feeding fuel on the fire here too, although we shouldn't even be in this situation). --Errant (chat!) 09:09, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Another option, which I am considering, is asking Arbcom to look broadly at the whole Mathsci issue (harassment, IBans, admin actions et al.) in a new case as the matter is a sprawling mess and needs some tidying up. --Errant (chat!) 09:15, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A new case was considered just a month or so ago, and rejected. This is just a rehashing of the same thing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:49, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, so we should take the advice of arbitrators and, as admins with remit to protect Wikipedia from disruption, seek to end this matter for good. Which takes us back to T. Canens interesting proposal. Barring that probably a topic ban for Mathsci talking about or interacting with the banned sock on-wiki. Also a clear explanation to Cla68 that whilst commenting on the lifting of a restriction has widespread acceptance, it must be done in a seemly way. i.e. not used as a platform to lay into the other editor again. What does concern me about this is the long list of people Mathsci has managed to seek IBans against, some of whom it appears largely because they were critical of him... which is a bad precedent. It is clear to me, from reviewing significant portions of the recent history, that Mathsci is utterly unable to detach himself from this root conflict and has found a venue to very quickly silence people getting in his way. It is our responsibility as admins to end the cycle of disruption. -Errant (chat!) 12:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait, now you're mixing up the issue of Mathsci seeking enforcement of the interaction bans (against other established editors such as Cla68) with that of Mathsci seeking enforcment of the ban against the sockpuppeter. Two very different things. I could agree to something along the lines of T.C.'s suggestion regarding enforcement of the topic bans, if it is coupled with the reminder to Cla68 you speak of. I certainly would object to any restrictions about anti-sock actions. The banned sockpuppeter is still very much around; reporting him and disposing of his socks has become pretty routine and noiseless, and it certainly continues to be necessary. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to take a broad spectrum here and address the core issues that are continuing to lead to problems; and that runs back to the banned sock-puppeteer. I'd agree that our first step should be to try T.C's suggestion and see if that has an effect (at least it will reduce the amount of essays we have to read through :S). But I feel that my restriction from last time (restricting Mathsci to requesting action against the banned editor only via private methods) would end all of the problems for good. A key part of the reason that banned sock is hanging around is because he is obsessed by Mathsci, and by continuing to respond to the individual Mathsci is merely persisting this interest. I suggest that without us to break him out of this cycle, even with T.C's restriction, we will be back here with more essays and more discussion. Since suffering from a severe illness Mathsci's main contributions here appear to be the contimuation of old battles, and that is something we need to address. --Errant (chat!) 12:49, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Other alternatives; Mathsci takes a x month voluntary break from Wikipedia, which will help his recovery and possibly deter the sock. Or he takes the option of a "fresh start" to evade the sock's scrutiny. Sucks, but there are few options left. --Errant (chat!) 12:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope, sorry, but that's an absolute non-starter. Suggesting a "voluntary" break in this context is nothing but a euphemism for a project ban, and that really means penalizing the victim and is completely out of proportion. Mathsci's actions regarding the banned sockpuppeter are not at issue in this thread at all; no disruption has occurred because of them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * My sympathy for the Mathsci is limited every time I dig further into this sorry debacle. But fine, we can discuss solutions to the wider issues in a more appropriate forum at another time. I see Mathsci is back on the "feed the troll" game so I agree this should be closed out quickly with the agreed sanctions. --Errant (chat!) 16:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I cannot agree with the notion that Arbspace should be a exempt zone from interaction bans, particularly in cases where the request in question is not an appeal of said ban. If this were a case where Cla were appealing his interaction ban, I could see a case that he needs to be allowed to mention Mathsci, but when it's another user seeking to have a topic ban lifted, there's no reason such a comment is necessary, and in this case, I can't see it as anything but potshots and an example of the very behaviour that leads to interaction bans in the first place. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It is potshots (which I why he is at fault), but in fairness Cla68's IBan is included in the request so I would consider it reasonable for him to make a comment. --Errant (chat!) 12:41, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if he did need to make a comment about Mathsci, which I can't really see that he needed to (since he his comment didn't seem to at all address his ban, just make general comments), the way in which the comments were made seems clearly against the spirit of than ban (and, I would submit, the letter, too). I do tend to agree that there's a need for Mathsci to disengage in this case (from those who've been banned from interacting with him, not from the banned sockmaster), and that after this many requests, it may be necessary to make that happen rather than just hoping it will. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * On this understanding, and in the interest of reducing conflict, shall we just close this quickly? No further action, instruction to Mathsci to seek advice before making further iban enforcement requests, no-further-potshots reminder to Cla68 (WP:IBAN provides only for a limited exemption narrowly restricted to discussing the appealing editor's own sanction), and with that reminder I'll lift the block as being now obsolete? Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:01, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Cla68 is reminded that he is expected to stick with the spirit of the existing interaction ban even while engaged in an Arbcom process. Per WP:IBAN, he may appeal the ban and "address legitimate concerns about the ban itself", but may not use that as an opportunity for unnecessarily levelling criticism against the other party.
 * Mathsci is instructed to refrain from posting further enforcement requests regarding the interaction bans in question on-wiki without prior private consultation and permission from an uninvolved adminstrator. In the case of complaints arising from edits on Arbcom pages, he is instructed to seek enforcement only from Arbcom itself or the Arbcom clerks.
 * Sounds good to me, with perhaps a change from "permission" from an uninvolved administrator to "agreement" or "consent" of an uninvolved administrator, because I think "permission" has a few unfortunate connotations that might be best avoided. John Carter (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me as well. T. Canens (talk) 18:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I would agree to the phrasing changes suggested by John, and otherwise would agree with this as the resolution. I also would add that Mathsci should preferably contact an admin involved in this request for such approval if any are currently active, as others may not be familiar with the situation, and that if Mathsci disagrees with a refusal to provide such approval, he should privately refer the matter to ArbCom rather than contacting a different admin with the same request. Seraphimbladepublic (talk) 18:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Darkness Shines

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Nableezy 00:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA


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


 * 1) 6 December Profanity laced tirade in which the editor accuses Sean.Hoyland of lying for having the outrageous audacity of linking to google books.
 * 2) 6 December Involved user closing a deletion debate that had already been relisted. This follows several unpleasant interactions between the two of us and just happens to be one of the last pages that shows up in my contributions.


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


 * 1) Notified of the case

Following a series of disputes, at Israeli settler violence and a DRV of an article created by DS that I nominated for speedy deletion (and before anybody accuses me of hounding, I saw the notification of the redirect for speedy on his talk page, saw the article redirected to, and saw the AfD, and made the obvious determination that the target article also qualified for speedy deletion. I emphatically did not go through his contributions to get there), DS goes on a bizarre tirade about restoring a source that is verified through google books because he has a different version in pdf form, in which he also accuses an editor of being dishonest. He then closes an AfD of an article in the topic area that had already relisted for lack of consensus as an obvious keep, an AfD that I had been involved in.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

@KC: 4 for the edit to Talk:Israeli settler violence, disruptive editing for the AfD close, which as far as I understand is covered under the standard discretionary sanctions (6).  nableezy  - 15:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The disruptive part of the close was the obvious vindictive hounding that led the user to do so. Coupled with the claim below that because he had not edited that specific article he was entitled to close the AfD, I am left with an even firmer conviction that he lacks the judgment necessary to edit in a topic area as contentious as this. But Im cool with a warning if thats all you think it merits.  nableezy  - 16:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * @EJ: following my nominating an article for speedy, DS just happens to close an AfD I had been involved in 5 days prior to it being scheduled for close. The Afd was not listed in any of the places that would lead an admin, much less a non-admin, to think that it needed closing at that time. Just how do you think DS found his way to an AfD that had been relisted 2 days prior to close it is as an "obvious keep", 5 days prior to it being scheduled to be closed? The user vindictively sought out conflict as payback for nominating an article he recreated for speedy deletion, and he did it in a not so subtle way. That he has the gall to claim that it is me displaying a battlefield mentality is either an incredible display of cognitive dissonance or a not at all funny joke.  nableezy  - 19:38, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Uhh, DS, Sean didnt vote to keep that article. How about you say how you got to that AfD and why you closed it 5 days prior to it being scheduled to close. That would be just awesome. I would love to see what explanation you can come up with.  nableezy  - 21:39, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

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

Statement by Darkness Shines
All this does is show nableezy has a serious battlefield mentality. Let me know when I actually break a rule which can be brought to AE. Darkness Shines (talk) 13:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Reply to A Quest For Knowledge, move by KC
 * Exactly how was I involved in this AFD? I have not edited the article either. In fact I think I have edited all of three articles in that topic area. Hardly involved am I? There are no rule against the use of profanity on Wikipedia as it is not censored. And I have already apologised to Sean over the misunderstanding which lead me to calling him a liar. As I said, if I do anything which violates these sanctions give me a call. Till then toodle pip. Darkness Shines (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oi Nab, given I had an argument with Sean do you not think if "vindictively sought out conflict" I would have closed as delete, what with Sean having voted keep? What with Sean and I have had quite the verbal ding done ovet this comment Darkness Shines (talk) 20:05, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Darkness Shines
There is currently a discussion at AN regarding this same matter. I believe a contentious non-admin closure of an AfD would fall more closely under the purview of AN or ANI than AE. Seems the other issues would be better handled together with that in the AN discussion.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 00:46, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If it wasnt predicated by hounding and didnt accompany the edit to Talk:Israeli settler violence I would agree with you. This isnt just about a random NAC gone wrong, it is about an editor demonstrating an obvious lack of the temperament and judgment necessary to edit in this topic area.  nableezy  - 00:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * My concern is the potential for overlapping noticeboard discussions. Still, I suppose all that matters is that one of these discussions is given priority with regards to DS.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 01:05, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Reading this, I'm not sure which part of the arbitration decision was violated. It just seems like two complaints. Was anything actually violated? Ryan Vesey 01:28, 7 December 2012 (UTC) @KC Darkness does not have to violate a specific arb ruling. Any violations of policy in the topic area can lead to the use of discretionary sanctions. I will say that profanity is not prohibited under any policy and it shouldn't be fucking prohibited. On AfD the relevant guideline is WP:NACD. It was clearly a contentious close and the wording of the close is rather absurd. Even an admin closing it that way would meet with some heat.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 15:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ( Comment from uninvolved editor ) - I know Darkness Shines for quite some time now. I can vouch for his good intentions and integrity behind that close. Yes, that close might not have seemed to be on par with the standards expected from an administrator closure but that is not a reason to bring a veteran editor under arbritration enforcements. The fact to keep in mind is that here has created contentious articles about very notable topic that may seem offensive to some editors around here. For that, on some occassions he has had to face vilification and even, to some extent, retribution. (deliberately eschewed going on a diff-hunt)  Mr T  (Talk?)  [ (New thread?) ] 11:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge
@Darkness Shines: You clearly cannot be dropping the F bomb or accusing other editors of lying. These are violations of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. You also appear to have closed an AfD on an article in a topic space that your involved with. Discretionary sactions require that you adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, including expected standards of behavior and editorial process. Your opening statement doesn't seem to acknowledge these mistakes, so I'm left wondering why you shouldn't be sanctioned? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:45, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Shrike
DS already said sorry to Sean so I don't think any harsh sanctions are warranted here.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 16:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Sean.hoyland
I guess I should comment. There are thousands of profanity filled insults that would have had a degree of accuracy. DS picked exactly the wrong one. This calls his competence into question. He made a mistake. So did I by not spotting a mismatch between google books 'about this book' info and the actual book that the google page scans come from. He apologized. Nobody died. I'm not familiar with DS so I can't really comment on anything else. I will say though as a rule of thumb, having edited in the topic area for a long time, people who come into conflict with me (or Nableezy for that matter) are usually either sockpuppets or they have confused Wikipedia with a propaganda/public relations department and are here to advocate for some inanely divisive cause. Either way, just blocking them saves time. DS is not a sockpuppet. I don't know whether he is an advocate who makes consistently biased edits. Since he is a fan of plain speaking perhaps someone should ask him.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 19:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Darkness Shines

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


 * I'm seeing accusations of misconduct by DarknessShines; it all seems to have a sound rationale. The Afd closing and the incivility are problematic. I would appreciate a specific Arb ruling which he is thereby violating, however. Are you speaking of item #4? I'd say the profanity and hostility are clear violations there. I'm not seeing what remedy he violated with the Afd close, though. Killer Chihuahua 14:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you Nableezy. I'm not sure we need to do anything about the NAC at Afd; that was poor judgment, but not necessarily disruptive. I realize it could be viewed that way, but it has been handled at AN and I don't see the need to beat a dead horse. However, I will caution Darkness Shines to be more circumspect about closing Afds in the future.
 * Regarding the hostility and language: While profanity or specific words are indeed not prohibited, we expect editors to make an effort to follow the policy on civility. Part of the linked edits include an NPA violation with a failure to AGF. "Sean was obviously dishonest" is in effect calling Sean a liar, a serious charge. Far better to AGF and say "Sean is mistaken". All that said, this is sanctionable behavior, but barely. I'm inclined to give a warning about NPA and civility and let it go at that. I must be gone for most of the day; if another AE admin feels this rises to the level that a sanction is called for, I do not demur. Darkness Shines, attempt to treat your fellow editors with more civility and respect. There is no need to make Wikipedia a hostile battleground. Killer Chihuahua 15:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see that Darkness Shines was a party to the original case, (FWIW), and I'll note that the discretionary sanctions linked in the request have been struck and superseded by this motion, so my first question would be "have any restrictions been imposed by an un-involved admin.? Now, the "close" was certainly not an "obvious" one (and has since been reverted), and I have seen behavior issues regarding DS brought to AN and AN/I in the past.  So I do have to wonder if perhaps an AN topic ban discussion might not be the more appropriate venue here - unless there are other links I've overlooked. — Ched :  ?  15:48, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * We don't need to go to AN to topic ban; we can simply do it here. Killer Chihuahua 15:59, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Given the circumstances, I think I'd prefer to support that over a block or project ban as DS is a long term, and valued member of the community. Perhaps time in areas where he/she is less emotionally vested would restore some perspective and reduce a bit of the vitriol we're seeing. — Ched :  ?  16:08, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I apologise if I was unclear, I suggest a warning only. I was only clarifying that topic ban is within the remit of AE, not that I thought that was the best solution. Killer Chihuahua  12:24, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding Nableezy's point #1 in this complaint, "Profanity laced tirade in which the editor accuses Sean.Hoyland of lying for having the outrageous audacity of linking to google books." It appears that the sourcing issue about a book called Streets of Crocodiles is at the point of being resolved. See a comment by Nableezy on Talk:Israeli settler violence dated 15:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC). Sean Hoyland points out that Google Books may have an incorrect header record for Streets of Crocodiles. This still doesn't excuse vehemence of DS saying.
 * It looks like this comment deserves a warning. —EdJohnston (talk) 15:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Per Ched's comment below, I take note that DS has apologized to Sean for his remark. Nableezy, what do you mean by 'obvious vindictive hounding' in your comment above? EdJohnston (talk) 17:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Nableezy's hounding complaint appears thin. DS's non-admin close of the AfD was an example of poor judgment, but nobody has documented a *pattern* of improper closes on his part. And, unless somebody thinks DS has a bad record for his long-term editing of ARBPIA articles, I'm not seeing enough here for a restriction. I suggest closing this with just a warning for the personal attack. EdJohnston (talk) 22:48, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * for reference link to the apology — Ched : ?  17:10, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * At this point, I'd concur with EdJohnston. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 03:52, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Result: Darkness Shines is warned for his bellicose and profane comment about Sean's editing. Nobody was lying. There was a glitch in Google Books. No other action taken. EdJohnston (talk) 17:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Request concerning Evildoer187

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Moxy (talk) 17:30, 8 December 2012 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles
 * "All articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict broadly construed are under WP:1RR (one revert per editor per article per 24 hour period). When in doubt, assume it is related. "


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


 * 1) 11:42, December 8, 2012 - No edit summary
 * 2) 00:32, December 8, 2012 - - No edit summary
 * 3) 08:11, December 7, 2012 - The documentation is right in front of you, you just choose to ignore it
 * 4) 16:54, December 6, 2012 - No edit summary


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


 * 1) Warned on 12:34, December 7, 2012 by
 * 2) Warned (reminded of the 1 revert rule) on 06:11, December 8, 2012 by


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Not sure this is the best way to proceed as there are many involved in the edit war. However after this post to quote "I have just reverted your edit (it's been 24 hours, I believe)". 24 hours is not the point - 1 revert rule is in place to make editors talk - not a invitation to revert at will after 24 hours. I believe we need to get all talking over editing and I believe this will send a message to all involved to talk it out.17:30, 8 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Notification here

Discussion concerning Evildoer187
Question to Moxy:Why did you only bring the request only regarding Evildoer187?

It seem to meet that at least one more user has broke 1RR.For example

--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:44, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) 20:14,  6 December 2012  (edit summary: "There is no source listing Israelites as indigenous under the lead def. and the world org  sources. As per talk")
 * 2) 10:22,  7 December 2012  (edit summary: "Removed wp:or essay from what is a 'list. No documentation supports the entry, and the essay is pure WP:synth")
 * 3) 17:41,  7 December 2012  (edit summary: "/* Western Asia */")
 * User:Nishidani did do so but as seen linked above and here he is aware of his mistake. However as linked above and here Evildoer187 seem to have every intent on reverting again.Moxy (talk) 17:51, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Evildoer187
I only reverted it because the 24 hour limit had passed. I will revert my revert if that resolves the issue.Evildoer187 (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Ubikwit
I am new to this discussion and editing conflagration, but it seems that in addition to Bedouins, Kurds should be on the list; I added them earlier. There is a fair amount of discussion relating to "contemporary status" regarding the characterization of a people as indigenous, not anachronistic claims related to "origin" or the like. It would seem that the focus should be on history and politics, not religion and genetics, but the discussion has been hijacked. The claim being made by the pro-Israel group is clearly an ahistorical claim. Given the references in the UN document I cited on the article Talk page, it seems that Palestinian Arabs in Israel should be on the list as well as Bedouin Arabs. The overall question of Palestinians in the Palestinians territories would seem to be much more difficult, and perhaps intractable at present, but it seems clear that there is no basis in modern history to include Jews, let alone the anachronistic "Israelites" on the list. --Ubikwit (talk) 15:34, 9 December 2012 (UTC)Ubikwit

Statement by Evildoer187
Given the criteria of the definition of indigenous peoples as defined under international law, particularly "Defining Indigenous People" Section 2 which I will explain in a moment, it would be inaccurate and an exercise in historical revisionism to include Palestinians in the list and not Jews. Here I have produced a word-for-word copy of the criteria, lifted directly from the document, as it is download-only and cannot be linked to on here. However, a quick Google search of "UN working definition of indigenous peoples" should lead you directly to the document itself.

Now without further ado...

"This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present of one or more of the following factors:


 * a) Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least part of them;
 * b) Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands;
 * c) Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.);
 * d) Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language);
 * e) Residence on certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world;
 * f) Other relevant factors."

Reading this, it should be apparent to anyone with extensive knowledge on Jewish history that Jews fit the bill to a tee. All of this is roundly supported by genetic, historical, linguistic, archaeological, and cultural evidence. There is also a consensus based on archaeological and other findings that the Jewish people are an outgrowth of Canaanite culture, and are not foreign conquerors from Babylon as has been posited by less than reliable sources. The idea that Palestinians are indigenous, and the Jews are not, is not supported by the facts on the table, especially considering Palestinians are ethnically Arab/Muslim, who are arguably even more recent than the Roman colonization of the Levant. It's also worth mentioning that denial of Jewish indigeneity resulted in charging Chandra Roy-Henriksen, Chief Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, with violating provisions of Declarations of Rights of Indigenous People and Universal Declarations of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Convention of the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and other UN and United States anti-discrimination laws. To this day, Israeli and Jewish representatives continue to attend the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. http://firstpeoples.org/wp/tag/american-jewish-world-services/

One last thing, I would also like to charge Ubitwik of promoting some rather crass antisemitic conspiracy theories on the talk page, as evidenced here:

"Harry Truman was a Christian biblical literalist who also happened to be a Freemason and close acquaintance of Zionist activist Chaim Weizman, which many associate with the Knight Templar, who rose to prominence through the Crusades to the so-called Holy Land. The Crusaders thought that they had a claim to "land rights", based on religion--Christianity. Your assertions are all either misdirected and irrelevant, or simply incorrect. The questions relating to Jews seem to be primarily about religion, and staking claims based on an anachronistic religious basis, encompassing the continued attempt to physically disposes through illegal occupation by "settlers" of the current and actual holders of the rights to lands in question.--Ubikwit (talk) 06:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)Ubikwit"

And here....

"It would appear that the Israeli participants were trying to hijack the forum in order to bolster their assertion of a claim to "indigenousness". Chandra Roy-Henriksen was not "charged" by a prosecutor, but charges were leveled against her by the Jews organization that is filing a civil suit, apparently. The last sentence in the article states: "There is no question that the Jewish People meet the UN Criteria for being considered indigenous." That is obviously not the case, and what unfolds in the civil suit should be relevant regarding the disposition of Jews to claim indigenous status. The modern state of Israel is considered to be illegally occupying Palestinian territory, in case you need to be reminded of that salient fact.--Ubikwit (talk) 06:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)Ubikwit"

Thank you.Evildoer187 (talk) 21:50, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Evildoer187
Also, there's this. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf

"Considering the diversity of indigenous peoples, an official definition of “indigenous” has not been adopted by any UN-system body. Instead the system has developed a modern understanding of this term based on the following: • Self- identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their member. • Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies • Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources • Distinct social, economic or political systems • Distinct language, culture and beliefs • Form non-dominant groups of society • Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities."

With the exception of part 6 (i.e. "Form non-dominant groups of society"), according to which Palestinians (whose culture and ethnic identity is that of the Arab colonists from the 7th century) and Arabs in general would also be excluded, Jews meet virtually all of the criteria listed.Evildoer187 (talk) 00:36, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Followup Statement by Ubikwit
Since I have basically been called a bad name by someone who is collaborating with other individuals with a blatant religious bias, I feel compelled to contribute a substantial post related to the subject matter of the article at hand vis-a-vis the misleading and selective presentation of material by Evildoer187. Before advancing, however, I would like to point to the statements of Crock81:"'Tritomex,while Wikipedia may not recognise religious texts as reliable sources, because the Torah is a central source of identity of the Yisrael, to deny it means to they identity to the cultural heritage and entire of the entire ethnicity. This is NOT within the providence of an encyclopaedia. It is the culture's own choice what it regards as a 'reliable source' of it's own practice, given the source was from God. You may be an atheist, but denying the use of the text to this culture IMPOSES ATHEISM, which is actually a denial of human rights according to the UN universal charter. Based on this I will seek to take administrative action against you and any other editor that takes the same line of 'argument' in disrupting editing Crock81 (talk) 02:20, 10 December 2012 (UTC)"

Note that Crock81 makes a brazen statement denying the validity of WP:RS, and threatening to take administrative action against editors that insist that said policy be followed.

I should integrate the following information into the Talk page when I have time to sort through these questions a bit more, but here is a preliminary discussion for the sake of assessing the editing practices of the pro-Israel/Jewish contributors.

First, with respect to the article mentioning Chandra Roy-Henriksen, Chief Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the following quotes appear in the article [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144202#.UMYFJ9dMgib. Jewish Organizations Barred from UN Conference]. "OFICL investigated the issue and subsequently discovered that another organization called the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, an Israeli Bedouin rights organization, was also barred from attending the same conference."

"“We attended last year's conference and actually floored 12 Representatives during the Conference,” said OFICL chairman Dr. Michael T. Snidecor. “I don’t have access to the actual records, but our Secretary was told that we had the largest number of representatives from outside North America at the conference.”"

"“The Special Rapporteur for the region said that for years the Forum had tried to obtain information from the Israeli Government about complaints regarding issues with Bedouin in the Negev,” said OFICL director Mark Kaplan. “The government has never responded. So, we were able to forward a report by another organization about the situation containing studies about the serious ecological damage posed by illegal Bedouin construction and proposals on how to work with the Bedouins to solve the issues."

In light of the fact that the following reference is cited in the document State of the Indigenous Peoples of the World, p. 151, it would appear that the Israeli organization sent an overwhelming presence to the conference in order to dominate the forum, and that to prevent that from recurring both the Israeli and Bedouin groups were blocked. It can be imagined that the issues at hand regarding the world's multitude of indigenous peoples demanded the attention of the participants, whereas the issue of the plight of the Bedouin had been stonewalled by the Israeli government, and from the description of the report the OFICL presented, they would seem to have been presenting the governments position vis-a-vis the Bedouins as a proxy of the government: Abu-Saad, Ismael. 2003. “Bedouin Arabs in Israel. Between the Hammer and the Anvil: Education as a Foundation for Survival and Development” in The Future of Indigenous Peoples: Strategies for Survival and Development, ed. Duane Champagne and Ismael Abu-Saad. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA American Indian Studies Center.

It seemed to me that Evildoer187 had blatantly misrepresented the content of that paper in his post on the Talk page.

Regarding the subject matter of the list, though a bit rough and including OR (it is a discussion toward an edit, not an edit), I offer the following toward reaching some sort of consensus.

The attempt to claim retroactive status of indigeneity after more than a thousand years of no historical continuity with the land in question is anachronistic, and represents an effort to mask the actual status of the Zionist returnees to Palestine, which is that of “settlers”. In a sense, the Zionist settlers can be seen to have served as a proxy for the colonization of Palestine. Meanwhile, the definition of “indigenous peoples” has been put forth mainly with respect to tribal minorities an aboriginal peoples that have been subjugated on their lands by modern nation states. There is a definition that contrasts “setters” to “indigenous” from a relevant reference below.

First, here are definitions from the article Indigenous peoples: "The political sense of the term defines these groups as particularly vulnerable to exploitation and oppression by nation states. As a result, a special set of political rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank." "The status of the indigenous group in this relationship can be characterized in most instances as an effectively marginalized, isolated or minoritised one, in comparison to majority groups or the nation-state as a whole. Their ability to influence and participate in the external policies that may exercise jurisdiction over their traditional lands and practices is very frequently limited. This situation can persist even in the case where the indigenous population outnumbers that of the other inhabitants of the region or state; the defining notion here is one of separation from decision and regulatory processes that have some, at least titular, influence over aspects of their community and land rights."

The claims to land based on their religious documents, which contain a large proportion of fictitious material, are put forth as superseding the exigencies of historical reality in terms of seeking to retroactively assert an anachronistic claim of indigeneity, on the one hand, while on the other hand, it has been admitted that the tale of Moses leading Israelites out of slavery in Egypt was a fabrication in order to claim direct genealogical connection with the Canaanites, whose kingdoms and cultures the Israelites usurped. It has also been claimed that Israelites were prohibited from intermarrying with Canaanites, further complicating the convoluted assessment by the introduction of unreliable sources in the form of religious documents.

It could be said that those attempting to push these views are attempting to assume the mantle of Canaanites in a manner that monopolizes such an anachronistic claim for the Jews and excludes the Palestinians, who in fact have historical continuity in the land of Canaan, whereas it would appear from a cursory assessment of the history of the region that the Jews were completely absent for centuries on end before the modern era, with a mere 4% of the population of Palestine consisting of Jews in the mid-19th century.

In another sense, neither the Jews nor Palestinians would need to be considered as indigenous if not for the intervention of Britain and Zionist colonization, because nether population emerged as the original occupants of the land, and even the myths of the Israelites describe them as migrating from Egypt. However, because the Zionist colonization has resulted in oppression of people that had unbroken historical continuity in inhabiting Palestine, discussion has taken place in UN forums relating to the plight of Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin Arabs in Israel.

In short, the discussion of religious references and genetics are largely irrelevant to the immediate exigencies of modern history and the plight of the Palestinians, which are simply glossed over by the pro-Israel contributors.

There is a fundamental contradiction between an “indigenous community” and a “diaspora”.

The following link is the webpage from which the document cited by Evildoer can be downloaded, and includes more information. [http://www.ifla.org/indigenous-matters/background “OP 4.10-Indigenous Peoples” The World Bank. July 2005]

"Trask observes that “indigenous peoples are defined in terms of collective aboriginal occupation prior to colonial settlement.” She points one an important difference between indigenous history and that of settler history: settlers can claim a voluntary status-- they chose to relocate to lands where their descendants now claim a legal inheritance. Indigenous peoples have an involuntary status: their physical lives on homeland areas are tied to emergence or other creation stories. Their formal nationalities were imposed upon them by outside governments."

Additional Definitions 2. Jose Martinez Cabo's working definition of “indigenous communities, peoples and nations”: "“Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system."

Evildoer187 is correct to draw attention to the portion of the above passage (my emphasis), because it brings to the fore the aspect of contemporaneity that is integral to the issue of indigeneity. He leaves out the remaining portions that indirectly relate to aspects which could be associated with oppression of the minority Palestinians residing in the Jewish state of Israel, and the Palestinians residing in the Palestinian territories.

"3. “Indigenous peoples are the inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to other people and to the environment. Indigenous peoples have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Despite their cultural differences, the various groups of indigenous peoples around the world share common problems related to the protection of their rights as distinct peoples."--Ubikwit (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)Ubikwit

Comments by others about the request concerning Evildoer187

 * User Nishadani also violated 1RR, at least 3 times.

1. 2 3 4 Moxy, it seems that the only reason why you did not report Nishadani was because he support the same political POV as you.


 * It looks like the page will be locked for 2 months. I recommend leaving the West Asia section as Bedouin, Marsh Dwellers, and Samaritans, i.e. what Maunus suggested. For the time being, it's best to omit anything pertaining to Jews or Palestinians.Evildoer187 (talk) 04:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I suggest sticking with this version of the article until we reach a final agreement. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_indigenous_peoples&diff=527053471&oldid=527053378 Evildoer187 (talk) 04:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I second this suggestion very strongly. Maybe with a few additions, but absolutely excluding Israelites, Arabs, Jews and Palestinians, for the time being.HaleakalAri (talk) 04:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning Evildoer187

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


 * This dispute at List of indigenous peoples seems to have the potential to run for a long time. There is endless opportunity for low-quality reasoning and original research, coupled with the word 'indigenous' which is practically a Rorschach subject to a great variety of interpretations. I would suggest placing a long period of full protection, such as two months. Meanwhile, as I scanned back through the history I found this version by Middayexpress from October which seems to be the last one prior to the current edit war. I suggest that admins restore that version while discussion proceeds on the talk page. Consider using an WP:RFC to reach agreement. There seems to be a UN definition of 'indigenous' which might be used to guide the analysis. EdJohnston (talk) 18:11, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ page protection request - Requests for page protection.Moxy (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2012 (UTC) Removed Moxy's post here. My comment was not a request for someone to file at RFPP. It was a proposal for an admin action with which to close the present AE. The question will hopefully get more participation here before we close this. The protection would be an easy call, except it's rather long. The revert to an old version will ideally find support. EdJohnston (talk) 02:43, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It appears that Evildoer187 self-reverted at least one of his changes, per his comment above. Nishidani has asked that other editors simply revert his change if he inadvertently goes past 1RR, and he has apologized for this particular lapse at this edit. He also left a comment at User talk:Evildoer187 acknowledging making 'the same slip of two reverts in 24 hours'. I left a notice at Talk:List of indigenous peoples asking for feedback about the proposal for full protection. EdJohnston (talk) 03:38, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Full support for the proposal for page protection at List of indigenous peoples. I think filing an RfC regarding the criteria for inclusion of a group in that list would be a very good idea as well. John Carter (talk) 18:27, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm closing with two months of full protection of List of indigenous peoples. I'm leaving official notices of the ARBPIA sanctions for Evildoer187 and Ubikwit. EdJohnston (talk) 18:21, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Thomas Basboll
''Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).''


 * Appealing user :


 * Sanction being appealed : Topic ban from the subject of the September 11 attacks, imposed at Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive20, logged at Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories


 * Administrator imposing the sanction :


 * Notification of that administrator :

Statement by Thomas Basboll
I've been topic-banned from the 9/11 articles for over four years. (The ban is indefinite.) It was implemented in the early days of the WP:ARB9/11 ruling, when there was a great deal of conflict on those pages, and I've since tried to have the ban lifted on a number of occasions, without success. I recently noticed that on August 20, 2012 all mention of conspiracy theories were removed from the article about the collapse of the World Trade Center. It would seem, then, that the view that the conspiracy theories surrounding the events of 9/11 should be mentioned in the articles about those events has been completely defeated at Wikipedia, strongly supported by arbitration enforcement. I therefore request that I be allowed to return to the topic of 9/11 (focusing on the collapse of the WTC) in order to represent this extremely marginalized view, reestablishing some balance. I emphasize that I am not intending to "push" conspiracy theories, but to argue for mentioning them, on par with their inclusion in articles on, say, the JFK assassination. At the moment, an arbitration ruling seems to have both emboldened and empowered those who hold particular views about conspiracy theories to leave Wikipedia's readers less informed than they could be about those theories, and the historical events they are (like it or not) an essential part of. Ironically, August 20 is the same day that Philip Roth's biographer, at Roth's request, tried to remove any mention of the theory that the The Human Stain was inspired in part by the life of Anatole Broyard. That effort was obviously misguided and he did not, of course, get his way. Respectfully, --Thomas B (talk) 21:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

As a standing response to the sorts of claims made by MONGO below, please see my user page, where I'm developing a statement of what my position on conspiracy theories actually is, as well as why I find Wikipedia interesting. MONGO presumably thinks I'm lying about my motives. I have no intention of responding to that charge.--Thomas B (talk) 13:16, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Response to Binksternet: I agree that I'm not the best person to take up this challenge. But this appeal has already had a positive effect towards establishing balance if your "see also" edit is allowed to stand. That minimal but necessary action would have (and has) until now been impossible to implement because the enforcement of ARB9/11 has given an enormous advantage to those who are against conspiracy theories (i.e., those who believe they are false and evil), over those who are neutral about them (i.e., those who simply believe they exist and are notable). It is not so much that I exhausted the patience of the community, but that the community has exhausted the patience of editors like me.


 * Response to Seraphimblade: Somewhat related to my response above, I agree that the case for lifting my ban specifically is not very strong. I left (refusing to further demonstrate my worth to the project) in protest over the treatment that the view I've made explicit in my request here gets at Wikipedia. Surely the community must understand that it risks losing the support of members whose actions it restricts with things like topic bans? Your remarks suggest that you think the original ban was wise, and on that assumption my case for appeal is quite weak. That is why I am emphasizing what seems to be the negative effect of the general policy (namely, ARB9/11) that my ban is merely one small part of. My point is that no-one who believes that 9/11 conspiracy theories are notable, in the same way that, say, JFK conspiracy theories are notable, can enjoy the work of editing Wikipedia. The anti-CT climate is simply too virulent, and Wikipedia is therefore simply not informed by that perspective. (I know a great deal about CTs, for example, and I'm not contributing that knowledge, in part because I'm not allowed to make such a contribution, and in part because, even where it's not about 9/11, I simply don't want to work under the conditions that I first experienced while working on the 9/11 pages.) That's a loss for the project, in my view. If the Committee does not see the complete removal of any mention of "controlled demolition" from the collapse of the WTC article as a loss of what could have been perfectly informative content, then I don't have much of a case.--Thomas B (talk) 07:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Reply to EdJohnston: See my replies above. In answer to your specific question, no, I don't believe there's any sort of conspiracy. There is an entirely open effort on the part of some editors to "defend" Wikipedia against conspiracy theorists. That struggle, while perhaps well-intentioned, is having some negative effects on the content of the articles. The opposition I've experienced has been entirely above-board and I've never had any reason to suspect that I was the victim of a conspiracy to suppress my views. It has always been very clear to my why some editors did not want me around and their collaboration on the articles was open and legitimate; it has never quite made sense to me why ArbCom would support them, however, especially given the very aggressive rhetoric they often employ. In any case, the overall effect of their efforts seems now demonstrably to make the encyclopedia less informative. As I always say, I have enough respect for the spirit of Wikipedia to offer my assistance in improving it, even if I'm somewhat disappointed by the reality.--Thomas B (talk) 07:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Reply to EdJonston 2: My ban was based on a particular interpretation of ARB9/11 that, like I say, I think is now revealing itself to have undesirable effects on the articles. I was a supporter of ARB9/11 when it closed because I thought its emphasis on civility would be applied equally on both sides. In practice, however, it has been used as a stick to beat conspiracy theorists off with. I got hit with that stick, though I did not push conspiracy theories. (I did argue that they should be described fairly where appropriate.) The purpose of ARB9/11 was to raise the standard of discussion in dispute resolution. In practice, it just got rid of one half of the dispute.--Thomas B (talk) 18:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Reply to Raul654: Yes, the reason I think I should allowed to return is that the anti-conspiracy theory agenda seems to have succeeded a bit too well. (You and Mongo express the position with admirable forthrightness as usual.) So the question for the Committee to decide, as I see it, is whether the purity that you have accomplished is actually a good thing for the project in the long run. I think better articles result from editors who have learned to work constructively with editors they don't agree with. While it is difficult at times, it ensures that factual errors and misreadings of sources are spotted and corrected. It's also good to have people involved who are committed to informing the reader about what is known (even if they sometimes have an agenda). I would encourage the Committee to look at the state of the article before I arrived on the scene and compare it to the way it looked at the time I left. Then, like I say, I would encourage them to think about whether the complete cleansing of the article of any mention of CTs on August 20, was a good thing.--Thomas B (talk) 17:20, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Closing Remark: My appeal has clearly failed. Let me say in closing that the reason I don't work on other parts of Wikipedia is that I don't want to be part of a community that treats fringe views the way Wikipedia does and bans editors like me (after treating them the way I've been treated). I don't like having such a negative opinion of what I still think of as one of the most promising projects on the internet, so every now and then I come out of exile and ask the community to reconsider. The events of August 20, 2012, seemed like a good occasion to me, but the general effect of the trend that they indicate does not seem to trouble the Committee as much as I thought they might. Fair enough. It remains your project, and not something for me. I thank you for your time and wish you all the best in building the encyclopedia going forward.--Thomas B (talk) 05:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Raul654
This user is here to do exactly one thing: promote fringe conspiracy theories. His own rationale for why we should unban him, stated on this very page, is that to go around adding conspiracy theory "mentions" to our articles. The four year topic ban hasn't taught him anything - he could not edit in any other way, so he simply left, and stayed away. As Mongo says, we have enough users here with an agenda to push, the last thing we need is another one. Raul654 (talk) 16:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by MONGO
A quick examination of Basbolls editing history provides proof that this editor doesn't care about Wikipedia...he cares about using this website to promote his conspiracy theories about 9/11 and is a self-proclaimed SPA. When Raul originally wrote his essay on Civil POV pushing, Basboll was one of if not the main editors he had in mind. It had been explained before to Basboll that his ban was merely topical, and even I encouraged him to assist in other areas...but he declined, opting instead to cease editing. We have enough editors around here with an agenda...but to remove the topic ban on a self proclaimed SPA in this matter would be preposterous.MONGO 12:43, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

A fair argument to lift the ban could have been presented IF Basboll had shown substantial evidence of good work in another topic area. I encouraged him to seek out other areas of the pedia where he might enjoy contributing, but as I already mentioned, he hasn't done this. I'd like to take this opportunity to once again suggest he contribute to the pedia on other topics.MONGO 17:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by A Quest for Knowledge
I'm against lifting the ban. I don't see any acknowledgement of misconduct or any indication of how they plan on avoiding problems if the ban is lifted. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:48, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Cla68
I've edited the 9/11 articles a little, so I guess I'm involved. If I could offer a suggestion to Thomas Basboll...please find another topic that interests you and have at it for about six months. Try to take a couple of articles to Good Article or higher status. Avoid the administrator forums like AN or ANI. Then come back here and try again. The "involved" editors might still object to the lifting of the ban, but the the administrators here would be more likely to hear you out. Also, instead of giving an opinion on what you think is wrong with the articles, simply promise to obey all of WP's editing rules. Cla68 (talk) 01:46, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Thomas Basboll
I never encountered Thomas Basboll during my 2008 GAN review of World Trade Center, because he was already banned. That was pretty much my only involvement on the general topic. After looking through some of his contributions to the topic area back then, they appear to be useful. It's hard for me to believe that not even a bare "See also" link to World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories was present at Collapse of the World Trade Center article. However, if someone is to restore a bit of balance to the article in the manner achieved at the JFK assassination and conspiracy articles, then I strongly oppose selecting a user who has previously exhausted the patience of the community. Binksternet (talk) 02:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate
Ed, I do not believe that you are providing a fair interpretation of his comments as what he said does not suggest an on-wiki conspiracy at all. People, guided by their own prejudices, are more than capable of pushing a slanted perspective in a content dispute and removing individuals who oppose them in that dispute without engaging in any unsavory collaboration. Anyone who has looked at how the various nationalist disputes play out at AE can see plain as day that the enforcement system is regularly used by one side to try and get rid of the other side. No conspiracy is required for that to transpire.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 07:11, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you violated you topic ban or maybe it was lifted?--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 12:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe TDA's topic ban has expired. Tom Harrison Talk 15:20, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, like two months ago.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 16:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Might I suggest that you consider replacing the topic ban with mandated external review? It has not seriously been tested and Thomas would seem to be an ideal candidate for this type of restriction as I imagine he will make use of it.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 17:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Ed, again I think you are misconstruing what Thomas is saying. He is suggesting that enforcement of WP:ARB911 has been lopsided. I would agree and note that it is not just lopsided against conspiracy theorists, but anyone perceived as being too open-minded about conspiracy theories. Sometimes people who are clearly not conspiracy theorists get branded as such for disagreeing with other editors and claims that are clearly not conspiracy theories are treated as such because it is essentially considered gateway criticism to conspiracy theories.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 19:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Heim, I am not sure why you would say there is no indication of him doing any editing outside the topic area. These substantial edits are definitely outside the topic area:. He also created an article following the topic ban.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 00:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Thomas Basboll

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


 * Thomas, one of the major concerns raised in your previous request to lift the topic ban was that you had not demonstrated convincingly, by editing in other areas unrelated to the topic banned areas, that you could edit constructively and collaboratively. Looking at your edit history, it appears you have still not addressed that concern, instead just having left the project entirely when you couldn't edit that area. Is there something I'm missing? If you've still failed to address that concern, I wouldn't be comfortable supporting any modification of the topic ban. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * At this point, I believe the outcome is clear. Unless any of my colleagues object, I will close shortly as declined. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I hope we will be able to see a better rationale for lifting the ban. I made some suggestions over at User talk:Thomas Basboll. We would expect to hear either that the original ban was procedurally wrong, or that Thomas' approach to editing has changed since then. In the case of an indefinite topic ban a mere assurance of better behavior would not carry much weight. Agree with Seraphimblade that the lack of edits in other areas leaves us unable to perceive any progress. Some points made above by Thomas hint that POV-pushing would still be a concern if the ban is lifted. "..an arbitration ruling seems to have both emboldened and empowered those who hold particular views about conspiracy theories to leave Wikipedia's readers less informed than they could be about those theories". You seem to suggest that there is a conspiracy on Wikipedia to unfairly minimize the coverage of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and that the enforcement system is part of the problem. EdJohnston (talk) 06:37, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I struck out part of my post above, after seeing responses by Thomas and TDA. You are not claiming at all that this cooperation by a group of editors occurs in secret, so 'conspiracy' is not apt. What Thomas wrote is
 * This suggests to me not only that you want your ban lifted, but you think that WP:ARB911 was wrongly decided. Since the mission of this noticeboard is to enforce whatever remedies are on the books, this is not a place where ARB911 can be overturned. EdJohnston (talk) 18:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * On the evidence here, I would agree with declining this appeal. EdJohnston (talk) 04:57, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * In agreement with Seraphimblade and with the second comment by MONGO. No significant pattern of policy-compliant editing (or, for that matter, any editing) in areas outside the topic ban after the ban was imposed leads to no confidence the behaviour has improved. I cannot support lifting this ban. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 23:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with my colleagues that this appeal is entirely unpersuasive and should be declined. T. Canens (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)