Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive130

Request concerning SMcCandlish

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : SarekOfVulcan (talk)  17:00, 8 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation and Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation


 * Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it :
 * 1) 2013-02-08 Violates ARBATC's instruction not to personalize disputes


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


 * 1) Warned on 2013-02-01 by

Two of the violations in this diff include is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (perhaps among other more legitimate intents) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views and further fantasizes that MOS should have thought-policing, neither of which appears to be supported by the candidate's statements.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

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

Statement by SMcCandlish
1. I have a right like any other editor in good standing to raise problems with a candidate's statements at, and behavior patterns relevant to, their RFA. The fact that in this case those of this candidate – as evidenced by not one but  anti-MOS introductory rants by the candidate! – involve MOS in disturbing ways does not magically mean that WP:ARBATC can be used to censor RFA, for me or anyone else. Such an idea is illogical, since RfAs are named on a per-candidate basis and entirely consist of reviews of the personal behavior of candidates and their espoused positions on Wikipedia editing and administration issues, and thus are already personalized, by definition. Thus raising issues about the behavior and statements of the candidate is not "personalizing" a style (or other) issue even as broadly construed under WP:ARBATC, the case that SarekOfVulcan is making.

If SarekOfVulcan believes I am misinterpreting the RFA candidate's arguably extremist views expressed at the RFA with regard to WP:MOS (e.g. that WP:CONSENSUS and WP:BRD be "suspended" with regard to MOS and that control over MOS be turned over to lone censors, some kind of super-'crat or something!), and his/her history of tooth-gnashy debate about MOS, from talk page to talk page, then that is something SarekOfVulcan can seek clarification about at the RFA page. It's not an AE matter. I am also not the first or only RFA respondent to note that the anti-MOS (and anti-MOS-editors, bad-faith-assuming) rants by the candidate are alarming.

2. Sandstein's warning is subject to an open dispute, yet this new AE by SarekOfVulcan depends on it . At WT:AE (and at User talk:SMcCandlish and User talk:Sandstein before Sandstein opened the matter at WT:AE), I am disputing the validity of Sandstein's warning, which SarekOfVulcan is here relying on, because I have shown that it is based on false accusations and Sandstein himself admitting he was not aware of the background of the issue. Two other productive editors, Neotarf and Noetica. have already quit Wikipedia over the same Sandstein warning/threats they received for the same discussion. Sandstein refuses to retract the warnings (and even seems to suggest they "cannot" be retracted, for unclear reasons). I have to note that at WT:AE and at both relevant user talk pages, various editors, including other admins, have raised serious concerns about the propriety of Sandstein's "warning" actions and subsequent refusal to even reconsider (and they have done so on more than one basis).

Sandstein himself started the thread at WT:AE in an effort to get Arb input to help resolve the issue (unsuccessfully so far, though various other admins and non-admins have responded), and notes that there's a procedural question of how one can even appeal such a warning and the basis for it at all. (This is a nontrivial issue, because a discretionary-sanctions warning under WP:ARBATC is not a normal warning one might discuss at WP:AN, but a special ARBCOM one that is very akin to an out-of-process topic ban). As none of this is resolved yet, the basis for SarekOfVulcan's new AE request is subject to multiple levels of dispute already, and it does nothing but muddy the water. It appears at this juncture that I will have to at least formally request clarification on the scope, applicability and intent of ARBATC and its overbroad and vague discretionary sanctions, and possibly also request an RFARB separately to get the false warning expunged. Or I may simply quit Wikipedia, too, because I am tiring rapidly of being followed around from page to page by SarekOfVulcan and a couple of others trying to find any excuse to abuse ARBATC to punitively block me.

3. ARBATC sanctions are being misused unintentionally if not consciously abused, by two very involved admins, to get around a consensus against their proposal for censorious, punitive MOS-related administrative action. Sandstein previously sought to topic-ban Noetica in a related discussion,  (insert SMcCandlish, Neotarf, whoever, on the basis of whatever whim) who raised related issues, but. This was in the "Mexican–American War" dashes-and-hyphens dispute. Post-ARBATC anti-dash tendentiousness by Apteva was what led Noetica to successfully have Apteva topic-banned at WP:AN. that ban, Apteva filed a retaliatory, frivolous AE request against Noetica. When myself and others attempted to point out that Apteva was simply abusing AE as part of his established pattern of forum-shopping and disruption, Sandstein, with no knowledge of what had been going on, declared that we were personalizing a MOS dispute and issued bogus warnings for making "broad and unfounded allegations" and using AE as some kind of forum for random venting, when in fact our statements with regard to the posts of Apteva and other parties were narrow, relevant, and proven true at WP:AN already, where Apteva was then blocked for sockpuppetry, too. This baseless warning by Sandstein and its near-immediate abuse by SarekOfVulcan here to shut me up or hound me off the system right on the heels of Noetica and Neotarf, shows that ARBATC is simply being programmatically misapplied to thwart consensus against ham-fisted efforts to censor anything related to MOS disputes. This is a case of two admins deciding that a style matter should be perpetually off limits simply because they think it is "lame" (Sandstein's word), and trying to use ARBATC to accomplish what consensus already told them they can't have (shut-up-or-else punitive bans). That makes it both a content dispute and a dispute over administrative authority, not an editor wrongly claiming an admin is "involved" because they've argued about something with the editor.

4. The illegitimate admin goal of personally censoring and character-assassinating me has escalated to the level of blatant harassment already. As noted toward the bottom of WT:AE and at User talk:Sandstein, I believe I am being subjected to a clear tag-team WP:HARASSMENT effort (particularly WP:WIKIHOUNDING), and this frivolous, "how dare you be critical at RFA" AE request by one of the admins directly involved in the ongoing dispute the resolution of which is still under discussion at WT:AE, is further evidence of this. Again, I am not the only one who has raised concerns about this at WT:AE and User_talk:Sandstein.

'''5. This AE request is frivolous and vexatious, is based on "facts" that are disputed, and interferes with normal operation of RFA. It also amounts to a drawn-out case of WP:FORUMSHOPPING.''' It is asking the toher parent for new permission for Sandstein and SarekOfVulcan already-rejected proposal to issue blanket topic-bans to just forcibly shut up everyone in the dash vs. hyphen debate. It's a style dispute that later resolved itself in a poll that ArbCom endorsed. Yet here we are, with Sandstein and SarekOfVulcan (effectively even if not intentionally) tag-teaming to censor me, Noetica, et al., into oblivion for non-disruptive posts only tangentially related to the same discussion. What part of "no, you don't get to censor everyone because you don't think MOS discussions are important" didn't they understand? Sandstein's recent, bogus warnings to us were issued due to him severely misunderstanding our responses to Apteva's filing a vindictive AE request against Noetica. But SarekOfVulcan, perhaps because I supported Noetica's criticisms of Sarek's involvement in the discussion, is taking Sandstein's warnings as blanket license to follow me around and make WP:WIKILAWYERish trouble, like supposing that I can't be critical in a RFA if MOS issues are mentioned. I quite understandably, in my view, feel like a witness who has himself been falsely accused of being the criminal and threatened with prosecution, after testifying against someone who was actually found guilty already in part due to my good faith testimony. I defies reason and strongly suggests a personal, emotional motivation. The continuing campaign to personalize everything to do with MOS (even tangentially, like it being among the background concerns about someone's RFA) as an excuse to abuse process, like special warnings and AE filings, to, is the real WP:ARBATC violation that's going on. Good editors are leaving Wikipedia in droves, and this sort or browbeating misuse of admin authority is one of the main reasons why.

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  20:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish's response to Cailil's initial "Result" post
SarekOfVulcan added me to the party list at ARBATC, but I did not post a statement there and no findings of fact or remedies addressed me, so I was not a party in any relevant sense. This is important as background to begin with, but note that Sarek said "I didn't dive far enough into [the issue he started the ARBATC case over] to figure out who was 'the problem' ... Remember, 'involved party' does not mean 'potential recipient of sanctions'..." So even Sarek knows that the basis for sanctioning me in particular is shaky to begin with. But the problems with this AE filing go far beyond this. The two pages at issue here (WP:AE itself, a post of mine to which Sandstein issued a confused warning about that was not cognizant of any of the salient facts that led to my post, and badly misconstrued it; and the RFA now at issue), do not have the ARBATC warnings Cailil refers to on them. Being process pages at which MOS issues can legitimately be discussed, including with particular reference to specific parties, no one would reasonably assume that ARBATC could possibly apply to them, pretty much by definition. They are pages in which the discussion are automatically "personalized" because they are by their nature about specific parties. (WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA of course still apply, but WP:ARBATC logically cannot.) I reiterate what I've said at my talk, Sandstein's talk and WT:AE: Sandstein's warning/threat in relation to my participation on WP:AE is blatantly procedurally invalid and necessarily void, and should be explicitly vacated as such, but whatever process there may be to do that. Partly resultantly and partly severably, SarekOfVulcan's new AE request is also procedurally invalid under ARBATC, both as an extension of Sandstein's warning, and individually as an attempt to enforce ARBATC beyond its scope. Sorry to sound kinda legalistic, but I didn't make ArbCom operate this way. Now, if I go to WT:AT or WT:MOS and call someone a poopie-head because I don't like their style ideas, I expect to be AE'd legitimately. Until then, I have other stuff to do that's actually useful. PS: The idea Cailil raises, that Sandstein's warning could be moot due to my "being a party", supposedly, to ARBATC originally would actually resolve half of my WT:AE dispute with Sandstein on a technicality, [The new discussion at WP:ARCA supersedes all that entire. 04:06, 9 February 2013 (UTC)] but the false accusation issue would remain and I'm not going to let that go just because some admin buddies of his follow me around and harass me. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  20:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: I am not making ad hominem comments about SarekOfVulcan (and that was my talk page, not his) or Sandstein. Ad hominem is a logic fallacy, in which facts or allegations about a debate opponent are raised in an effort to distract attention away from the actual point and from flaws in one's own argument. In this case, I am making an actual claim, under WP:POLICY, that WP:HARASSMENT policy is being violated with regard to me. I had already elaborated on this claim at WT:AE before this vexatious AE was opened by Sarek. If it doesn't stop, I will be seeking a remedy at WP:RFARB. I have also specifically stated and defended beyond any reasonable doubt that Sandstein made false accusations against me in the course of issuing and defending his warning; this previous discussion at WT:AE and our user talk pages is pertinent and summarizing that or referring to it also does not constitute any form of ad hominem attack. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  20:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

PPS: Yes, I understand that I have been notified of ARBATC's outcome, that I have been warned whether legitimately or otherwise. It is not my intent to unduly "personalize" anything here, but I cannot be expected to respond to entirely personalized accusations with entirely impersonal responses that pretend that specific parties are not involved. That's not ARBATC's intent, and AE cannot actually operate that way. If you (Cailil or anyone) have concerns about any particular statement I've made, I'll be happy to address them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  21:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish's statement in response to the two particular accusations by SarekOfVulcan
Sarek writes "Two of the violations in this diff include is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (perhaps among other more legitimate intents) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views and further fantasizes that MOS should have thought-policing, neither of which appears to be supported by the candidate's statements." So, um, I kinda have to stick to my criticism of this admin candidate's candidacy, exactly as I wrote it. Even if I were wrong about either of these points, the only two SarekOfVulcan makes, neither of them are WP:ARBATC violations, but normal criticism at a RfA. They also do not violate WP:NPA or any other policy. Being civil does not require being sweet or pretending to be happy about what someone is proposing. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  20:55, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Candidate issued not just one but two rants in his RFA Q&A section indicating an extreme level of dissatisfaction with MOS, others editors of it whom he/she feels need to be administratively sanctioned under ARBATC, and an intent to see to it that WP:CONSENSUS and WP:BRD be "suspended" with regard to MOS.
 * 2) Candidate also outlined an imagined system whereby a special admin, whom he/she calls a "moderator", would have essentially unlimited authority to act as a benevolent dictator on MOS matters.

In response to your later comment ("insane shit"? seriously?), I did not bring a MOS-related dispute to RFA and "personalize" it. I don't have any extant MOS or AT dispute with that editor. I did not need to bother digging up anything specific to quote from MOS talk that the candidate may have said, since addressing the alarming proposals the candidate made at the top of their own RFA, and noting their own admission of having been an MOS editwarrior, was enough to strongly oppose. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  23:59, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: Making an attribution error is not "making stuff up" (an accusation of bad faith), it's just an attribution error. This is twice in one discussion, which according to you and Sandstein is subject to ARBATC discretionary sanctions despite being only tenuously connected to MOS/AT issues, in which you've needlessly personalized the discussion against me. Care to continue? :-) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  22:55, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish's response to NE Ent
Your second point is interesting, and echoes something Cailil said. I reiterate that it would moot the procedural grounds for my dispute with Sandstein [The new discussion at WP:ARCA supersedes all that completely. 04:00, 9 February 2013 (UTC)], but not resolve the false accusation issue, nor make SarekOfVulcan's claim that [in my interpretation, not his exact words] ARBATC prevents an editor from raising "personal" concerns at RFA if they happen to mention MOS, since everything about RFA is personal by definition and ARBATC is intended to stop personaliz of disputes , which that wasn't anyway. Your third point isn't even one I would go so far as to make; I consider the "big yellow box" up top of WT:MOS, WT:AT, etc. to be sufficient at  talk pages, but such templated warnings would not be appropriate or applicable to WP:AE or WP:RFC. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  21:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish's response to Bagumba
Of course a response to your editing behavior at RFA (namely, following up someone else's comments with a declaration that you refuse to read them and a non sequitur statement that concerns are satisfied, without addressing whether the concerns raised by the other editor were satisfied) is "personal" to you, since it's about your behavior. This has nothing to do with anything under discussion here. It is certainly unrelated to WP:ARBATC, which is about ah hominem personalization of style and article title disputes. Basically, I'm seeing now a pattern of misinterpretation of "personalize" and of what ARBATC covers, not just in Bagumba's post here, but more generally. Anyone who has not actually read the findings and remedies at ARBATC should do so before commenting here, or you're just muddying the water. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  22:04, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: I feel that blatantly labeling a candidate "incompetent", as you recommend, would be far more of an incivility or personal attack than suggesting that their double-barreled ranting about MOS and proposals for out-of-process dictatorial control over it indicates a desire to gain admin authority for purposes we don't give admin authority for. I did not need to cite anything that the candidate said at MOS, because the candidate already indicated regretting having said them, and meanwhile their own introductory Q&A material was far more damning. Others had alread quote MOS and one of its subpages and the user's own talk archives for MOS-related issues, anyway, so my doing so would have been redundant. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  22:11, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish's response to Cailil's later "Result" post
Understood, and thanks for being both clear and reasonable about this. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  08:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish's response to Sandstein's "Result" post
I don't think your response belongs in that section, because even some other admins here think you are involved. I believe I've demonstrated at WP:ARCA, WT:AE, and our mutual talk pages that you're involved in the issue generally on a non-administrative level, and have been for some time, e.g. proposing topic bans against Noetica and others in the Mexican-American War dispute (an editorial, not administrative action) that ultimately led to all of this via the various RFC/U, AN and AE cases involved Apteva. (Not having taken a content side in that dispute is irrelevant; you tried to shut the entire conversation down as "lame", and then a year+ later warned me in a sanctioning and accusatory way after I defended one of the editors you wanted by name to topic-ban, in an AE filing that ultimately derived from the same dashes-and-hyphens dispute as at that article; it's not the most common kind of connection and involvement, but it is there). Other than your assertion of non-involvement, I don't have any disagreement with what you've said below so far, including your critique of my post at RFA. While I maintain that it did not violate any policies by posting it, it could have been worded better. The outstanding issues I have with regard to issues between us have already been outlined at ARCA. I don't feel I need to clarify anything here further. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  22:43, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by ErikHaugen
This request is pretty far out in the weeds. ARBATC says DS are to be applied at "all pages related to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style and article titles policy, broadly construed." I think it's difficult to stretch this to RFA, but even if one does, the entire point of RFA is in some sense to discuss the editor, ie "personalize". Discussing the editor's conduct and/or intentions at WT:MOS or AT can not be considered in itself to be a violation of ARBATC. This obviously has to be done in as civil a manner as possible, so it might be worth examining SMC's comments there to see if they rise above acceptable standards per WP:NPA/etc. I think they do not.

Additionally, whether or not the statements quoted by the filer here are supported by the candidate's statements doesn't seem relevant. Did SMC misunderstand the candidate? If so does that mean we block him for misunderstanding someone? That would be strange.

@Calil—Regarding SMC's comments that you quoted (on SMC's talk page): that was in the context of responding to an accusation, and on a user talk page. This is not personalizing a MOS dispute. Please; this kind of clampdown on how people can defend themselves has gone too far. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 20:31, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

@SarekOfVulcan—Yes, I noticed your quotes and in my statement I commented on your analysis of them. I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 20:58, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * SoV, I still don't understand what point you're trying to make with these quotes. Are you trying to imply that SMC should be blocked for misreading a comment? Do you believe SMC is deliberately fabricating things that another editor said so that he can shoot that editor down for some unknown reason? ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 22:26, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by NE Ent

 * This filing is ridiculous. If an Rfa candidate brings up MOS, an editor is entitled to express a related opinion related to MOS.
 * The purpose of a DS warning is to ensure the editor is aware of DS and therefore can be pretty much be placed by any admin at any time. (Whether a non-admin can I think is an open question.) Therefore the claim that Sandstein's warning is "invalid" is as ridiculous as this filing.
 * @Cailil: no, in general, the big yellow box is not sufficient in general because we have a not bureaucracy / bold policy around here, and editors can edit articles without reading the talk page. But clearly is this case it's moot point as SMC is aware of the sanctions. NE Ent 20:27, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Further comments by SarekOfVulcan
@ErikHaugen: if SMcCandlish had said "I have grave questions about the candidate after reading his proposed 'solution' to MOS problems", this wouldn't have been an issue. His comments I quote above are what make this into an ARBATC vio, in my view. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:52, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Erik, I'm not sure how any reasonable "misunderstanding" can turn Dirtlawyer's comments into what SMcCandlish claimed. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Both Bagumba and I have specifically called out SMC's claim that Dirtlawyer is seeking adminship for the (possibly) sole purpose of having power in MOS disputes. Why do you keep insisting this is a "misreading"? -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: SarekOfVulcan's claim that ARBATC prevents an editor from raising "personal" concerns at RFA -- never said any such thing. I just indicated that ARBATC prevents you from making insane shit up about people with whom you're having disputes about the MOS.-- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Speaking of .... -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:18, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * To be clearer, I didn't add SMC to ARBATC - Noetica did. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:27, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Bagumba
I am not involved with MOS, but interacted with SMcCandlish at the RfA in question before this AE request was opened. I had called SMC out for his charge that the RFA candidate "is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (perhaps among other more legitimate intents) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views, in ways that thwart WP:CONSENSUS policy."

This is quite different from your usual "I oppose because he appears incompetent based on A, B, and C incidents at MOS". SMC followed in kind with a response to me, which appears personalized—but perhaps I'm too involved too judge.—Bagumba (talk) 21:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Hans Adler
This report is in such incredibly poor taste that it absolutely needs to become a boomerang. Cailil, you are way out of line. There is nothing inappropriate in, and if you think otherwise you should look for something else to do that is more in keeping with your qualifications. A certain degree of sense, common and otherwise, is expected of admins using their privileges. This applies to you as well as to SoV and to Sandstein. Apart from the obvious ethical concerns, I don't think it is wise to play power games while Arbcom is looking at a matter. Hans Adler 22:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate
I believe the tone of Sarek's notification was a bit provocative myself so SMc's response is somewhat understandable. Honestly, I feel SMc is going overboard at this point, but I think it is largely because of the fallout from the recent AE case against Noetica and the rather frivolous warnings given out at the end. Overall, Sarek's conduct in this topic area has been a big part of the problem as of late by my estimation. Review the recent AE cases in this topic area and you will see what I mean.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 23:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by -sche
I agree with the Statement by ErikHaugen, and I think this filing was an overreaction to SMC's comments. -sche (talk) 23:04, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning SMcCandlish

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


 * I'd like to hear SMcCandlish's response before commenting further. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:17, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have a few thoughts after reading through the massive wall of text that's developed in this section over the past few hours. First, I don't think the RFA comment is actionable under the discretionary sanctions authorized by ARBATC. From a skim of the final decision, that was not at all contemplated as part of the scope of their remedies. Do I like the attitude/civility in the remark? No. But I think it's on the line to the extent that I wouldn't be comfortable imposing any sanction for it. Second, even if this remark was made in a discussion on the MOS pages (as some other links have shown) I don't feel they're enough to impose a block. It's a heated area, that can't be denied, but imposing sanctions for any and all signs of frustration would not help anyone. All parties need to calm down, but that's not something I feel we can force in any manner at this time. Third, and this isn't really related to the merits of this dispute, but I would advise SMcCandlish to shrink down his responses, if only because it's getting a bit too much. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 01:57, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The admins who have commented here all agree this request isn't actionable. If there's no objection, I'll close this with that result in a few hours. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 21:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Like Lord Roem I'd like to hear SMcCandlish's response. However WRT the diff presented by Sarek, whether this is acceptable conduct at RFA or whether it crosses the line into evidence of a battleground mentality is the question. It's also worth noting that the RFA candidate did raise the issue of their experiences on the MOS so SMC was not just jumping in with this out of the blue. Also as a technical note whether SMC was warned or not is not especially relevant, they were a party to WP:ARBATC and would need no warning before being sanctioned if it comes to that. Furthermore contributors to pages with a big yellow box alerting all to active sanctions have had sufficient constructive warning of sanctions anyway-- Cailil  talk 18:47, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Still going through this but I'd advise you SMC to stop making personalized or ad hominem comments about anyone anywhere, for your own sake. Your comments at SoV's your talk page are not helpful to your case and your response above contains significant counter-productive personal commentary. Commenting about a candidate at RFA might be acceptable, but using other fora to cast aspersions about others is not. Also FYI, as above enforcement of the RFAR against named parties to the original Request for Arbitration do not rely on them having further warnings of discretionary sanctions. You've had sufficient warning by being involved in that RFAR and you were notified of its outcome-- Cailil  talk 20:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm in agreement with Lord Roem, I don't think we can issue a sanction for this remark. However, I do disagree that the RFAR does not cover areas beyond the specific MOS pages, if a dispute about them is brought elsewhere, (but that makes no difference in this particular instance). As I see it since the RFA candidate raised the issue of disputes around the MOS SMcCandlish was not brining an issue there out of the blue. Like LR I think SMC's comment is overly, and needlessly personal - it assumes bad faith and conjectures on the motives of another editor - but frankly ARBATC does not empower us to stop that at RFA. Like RL I'd ask SMcCandlish to please post more briefly and when upset please take a step back. I'd also remind all participants in discussions around this topic area to stop making personal remarks - such behaviour is forbidden by the RFAR-- Cailil  talk 19:13, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * As the admin who issued the warning cited in the report (and contested by SMcCandlish), I've not yet commented here because I wanted to wait and see whether a recent clarification request results in anything immediately applicable to this case. That's not the case. Notably, arbitrators disagree as to whether warnings are subject to appeal. However, given that the warning has so far not been appealed, it is at least currently a valid basis for discretionary sanctions. If it is ever successfully appealed, it would be up to the authority hearing the appeal to decide what to do with any sanctions imposed based on it. This request is therefore actionable even without us having to decide whether, as Cailil argues, involvement in the underlying case is a sufficient warning for the purpose of discretionary sanctions. I agree with Lord Roem and Cailil that SMcCandlish's comment at issue is problematic, in that it reflects the kind of battleground attitude to MOS disputes that WP:ARBATC, to which he was a party (as were SarekOfVulcan, Tony1 and ErikHaugen), was intended to stop. In that decision, the Committee reminded editors "to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style". In the reported diff, SMcCandlish wrote that the administrator candidate "is seeking administrative power for the specific intent (...) of shutting up opponents of his/her MOS views", and that "we do not need another confused anti-MOS campaigner as an admin. I'd rather saw off my feet and eat them than have another of those running around censoring people" (in the edit summary). In doing so, SMcCandlish has cast his disagreements with the candidate about the MOS in terms of allegations of pernicious intent on the part of the candidate. This violates the Committee's instruction. It is also concerning that SMcCandlish's response reflects no understanding of this. However, as Lord Roem wrote, the comment can be seen as "on the line": SMcCandlish is correct in stating that in the context of an RfA (notably one where the candidate himself highlighted his involvement in MOS disputes and alleged misconduct on the part of unnamed others), the discussion is of necessity personalized, because it is specifically about the personal merits of the candidate – whereas the ARBATC case focused more on the parties' conduct on the MOS pages and talk pages. SMcCandlish also correctly highlights that his comments, however phrased, were directly related to the discussion's topic, namely the candidate's suitability as an administrator. SMcCandlish therefore had reasons to assume that he has more latitude of personally criticizing others in this venue (although not necessarily in terms that come close to personal attacks) than, say, on MOS talk pages. For these reasons, I suggest to give SMcCandlish the benefit of the doubt on this occasion and to close this request with a reminder that the instruction not to personalize MOS disputes applies to all pages on Wikipedia, and a warning that noncompliance may result in a sanction such as a topic ban. SMcCandlish's statement can be read as contending that I can't act as an uninvolved administrator here. However, I have interacted with him only in an administrative capacity, and any disagreement between us is limited to his contention that I shouldn't have warned him. As the policy WP:INVOLVED makes clear, "an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role (...) is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters, at length if necessary. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms (...) do not make an administrator 'involved'". I therefore refrain from recusing myself as regards this request.   Sandstein   10:30, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hm, I didn't even remember until now that in 2011, I did propose at WP:AN to ban all editors (irrespective of their position) who where then participating in a hyphen-vs-dash edit war from changing the punctuation in the article at issue. Reviewing that discussion again, it appears to me that I attempted to find a perhaps too simple solution (it didn't find consensus) for an issue then causing noticeable community disruption and now subject to discretionary sanctions. Because I didn't take any position on the underlying style question, was not otherwise involved in the whole issue, and proposed to sanction all disputants (which didn't include SMcCandlish) in the same way, I'm not sure how that proposal (substantially made in an administrative capacity, because the edit war was discussed in several admin fora) could be an indication of any bias on my part in the instant case. However, bias is in the eye of the beholder – I'd welcome advice from uninvolved admins as to whether, because of this, I should recuse myself in future AE cases concerning either dashes or MOS issues generally.  Sandstein   23:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying you are involved, but there are plenty of admins paying attention right now that you should just avoid the appearance of involved and let someone else handle it.--v/r - TP 19:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Request concerning Brews ohare

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : NE Ent 02:52, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


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


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


 * 1)


 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :
 * 1)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Comments by JohnBlackburne
Here are the diffs I added to the Admin Noticeboard thread, with the relevant physics content
 * , includes 'a concept only relevant to the mathematical models of physics and other physical sciences'
 * ; 'That limitation leaves open the question whether there is a physical "theory of everything".'
 * ; 'In different words, physical determinism holds that all physical events occur as described by physical laws.'

These all add physics to the article. In fact the first edit is the edit that creates the article and Brews ohare was the only substantive contributor to this article up to this 3 Feb revision. The above diffs and the content of the article at this point are all breaches of the topic ban from physics, WP:ARBSL #7.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 08:35, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Beyond My Ken
Just a note to remind all that Brews ohare's sanction was the topic of this enforcement request in December, which was closed with this closing statement by Seraphimblade: "Brews ohare will be issued a final warning, logged to WP:ARBSL, that the topic ban covers all material reasonably and closely related to physics, regardless of what page such material is on. Brews ohare is further urged to request clarification from an uninvolved administrator (preferably one familiar with the case) or here at AE prior to beginning editing any material where its relation to the topic ban may be in question. Such clarification requests made in good faith will not be considered a violation of the ban." Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:03, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning Brews ohare

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


 * Waiting for diffs and a brief explanation of how the edits violate. Killer Chihuahua 03:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The request (as now complemented by JohnBlackburne) is actionable. Motion 7 provides that "the Committee topic-bans Brews ohare indefinitely from all pages of whatever nature about physics and physics-related mathematics, broadly construed". The creation and editing of the article Physical determinism by Brews ohare violates this topic ban by virtue of its subject matter alone. The motion provides by way of enforcement that "Should Brews ohare violate this topic ban he may be blocked, initially for up to one week, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year". This seems to be the first topic ban violation resulting in a sanction, and we may therefore impose a block of up to one week. Considering the very lengthy log of blocks and arbitration sanctions applying to Brews ohare, and the long duration over which he repeatedly violated the topic ban (26 January 2013‎ to 13 February 2013), I am of the opinion that a one-week block is appropriate.  Sandstein   09:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I concur with Sandstein. This is a clear topic ban violation, and Brews ohare's warning at Arbitration Enforcement in December, plus the record of previous blocks and sanctions, points towards imposing the maximum initial block length of one week. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 11:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Clear violation, I support the one week block proposed above. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  13:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with Sandstein, DQ & Mr. Stradivarius this is a very clear (perhaps even blatant) violation of the ban. A week-long block is appropriate-- Cailil  talk 13:36, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree that there was a violation. Given the history of Brews ohare, I'm not sure had I been the first to respond I would not have suggested longer, and I certainly can support a week. Killer Chihuahua  14:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * So closed, then. Just for the record, Brews ohare has been actively editing between his notification of this thread and this closure, including on the talk page of the article at issue, so I assume that he has voluntarily chosen not to make a statement here.  Sandstein   17:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

517design
Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning 517design

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Grand  master  12:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBAA2


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


 * 1) February 4, 2013


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


 * 1) Warned on January 26, 2010 by

This report is a follow up to discussion at talk of Sandstein: I already provided the info about this violation in a previous thread, but since misconduct by each individual editor should be the subject of a separate AE request, I'm filing a new one. User:517design joined an edit war in the article Shusha and made an rv without leaivng any edit summary: However 517design was placed on an editing restriction, which limits him to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism, and he is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page:, but he left no comment at the talk page either. So 517design clearly violated his restriction. Grand master  12:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by 517design
I am now not a very regular editor, and, honestly speaking, I forgot about the restrictions that were imposed 3 years ago. Aren't these restrictions stale? Me not adding summary etc. was simply a mechanical mistake, not an edit war. I simply forgot. I think therefore this doesn't merit any a restriction or ban. I created many good quality articles and never violated any rules since 2010. Now compare this with User:Grandmaster, who filed this request. He is repeatedly getting away with many violations of WP rules. He edits exclusively the most controversial articles in AA2 area , and just days ago he filed the second un-actionable AE request against User:Oliveriki . Look at this acts of tendentious editing by User:Grandmaster and his intransigent WP:BATTLEGROUND spirit , , , . With his Unclean hands, this should be WP:BOOMERANG. And yet he has never been sanctioned so far. 517design (talk) 05:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning 517design

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


 * The revert without explanation plainly violates the editing restriction imposed on 517design. They've never been blocked before, on this or any other issue, so I think a one-week block is sufficient. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but 517design edits only very intermittently (only 12 edits since 2011), which gives credence to the contention that the reported revert at Shusha (a page he has apparently not edited before) was canvassed offsite. In view of this editing pattern, a considerably longer block or a topic ban may be necessary to prevent continued noncompliance with the editing restriction.  Sandstein   21:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point; I'd support something longer, perhaps 2 months? Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * OK. But in view of this editing pattern we should also give 517design a bit more time to make a statement in his defense - say a week. The following postdated timestamp (originally 09:15, 11 February 2013) is to make sure that this thread isn't archived until then:  Sandstein   09:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Violation seems to be plainly clear, but I'm awaiting a statement from 517design, though with the current inactivity level, I don't think we are going to get there in time for this to be closed. If there is no response within a reasonable time, maybe like Sandstein's week, I would be in support of something more preventative than a block, as they can just come back next time once the block is up and do the same thing. A topic based restriction would prevent any continued warring and would help work out the issue more. If we see violations of that, then we can step up to the longer blocks. I would suggest a topic ban at the very least for a month, again, if no reply. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  18:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @DeltaQuad: What are your thoughts on both a 2 month block as well as something like a one-year topic ban? That should resolve any outstanding concerns about disruption in this area after the initial block expires. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * My thoughts are with KillerChihuahua, I've seen people blocked as little as 48 hours for violations of DS, so two month first block seems excessive. Nothing more than 2 weeks in my opinion since we are already sanctioning a ban for the year. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  11:25, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Violation is clear; and while I'd like to see a statement from 517 as well, I do have some thoughts. I think a 2 month block for a first block is a bit excessive. I support the 1 year topic ban, but would prefer to see a shorter block. Should the other admins here disagree, I will not quibble, but suggest they consider that without experience editing on other topics, we cannot expect 517 to return to editing with experience needed to work within a topic about which they apparently have an interest. As they edit so little, a shorter block would be indicated, so they can have sufficient time not blocked and while topic banned in which to gain the needed experience. I suggest a week block. Killer Chihuahua  03:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The statement by 517design shows a misunderstanding of WP:BATTLEGROUND, in my opinion. I don't see any evidence of battleground behaviour by Grandmaster in his diffs, but I think the way 517design tries to blame Grandmaster for what happened does show a battleground mentality on the part of 517design. However, I do find 517design's excuse - that he forgot about the sanctions - to be fairly plausible given his intermittent editing. The editing was a clear violation of the restrictions, so I think some kind of sanction is in order, but I think both the two-month block proposal and the year-long topic-ban proposal are both too strict given the fairly likely possibility that 517design is telling the truth. Myself, I would go for a two-week block and a six-month topic ban. A two-week block should at least be noticed, and six months seems like a long enough time to learn our standards of behaviour in venues outside of the Armenia-Azerbaijan topic area, but not so long as to make 517design give up hope of editing in the topic area at all. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 09:58, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The response by 517design does not alter my assessment that enforcement is warranted. That the sanction was imposed long ago and may have been forgotten does not change the fact that it is still binding. The complaints regarding Grandmaster do not strike me as immediately and clearly actionable, though there are indications of engaging in conflict-related advocacy (somewhat similar to Yerevanci's case below) that may warrant a closer look in a separate, broader AE review of that user's conduct. Either a one-week block and one-year topic ban, or a two-week block and six-months topic ban as variously proposed above are acceptable in my view. We should remain open to shortening the topic ban on request if 517design engages in active, unproblematic editing in other topic areas.  Sandstein   10:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It appears that admins are now resolved on a block and a ban of 517design, and the only question is about the durations. I would support any block of at least a week, and any topic ban of at least six months. Judging from the list of articles created at User:517design, this user will be able to continue at least some of his article work even if he is banned from the AA conflict. EdJohnston (talk) 17:23, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

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

Request concerning Ohconfucius

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : MONGO 18:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Date delinking and Request to amend prior case: Date delinking Here


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


 * 1) 01:54, February 16, 2013 One of over a hundred examples of insistance on applying boilerplate (example) ) when the article doesn't do this in the references and isn't required to. I have 8 FA's that use different dating formats in article space than is used in the references...no one ever complained about it at FAC. MOS does not require that references use that format or match the style in which the dates are written in the article itself. He was also asked by User:Novaseminary to cease doing this
 * 2) 02:22, February 14, 2013 Again, m/d/y boilerplate and overly pedantic interpretation of overlinking...this is one of hundred plus examples. While MOS clearly states that obvious things should not be linked, edit warring over this matter is unnecessary. I don't see any reason why United States cannot be linked to once in an article (at least in the infobox), regardless that most everyone knows of the United States.
 * 3) 11:49, February 1, 2013 uses script to insert d/m/y which is different than the format he was using in preceding articles on glaciers in the U.S....When I asked him about reformatting the dates in d/m/y here, Ohconfucius responded "It's a rather odd yyyy mm dd format, recognised I think, by one style guide – perhaps the APA, but can't say for sure. It's not considered acceptable per my reading of MOSNUM" . At this point, the tampering around with dates in this matter, since he even admitted it isn't MOS expected, appeared to be little more than trolling.
 * 4) 04:59, February 7, 2013 Ohconfucius removes U.S. state link and using script assist adds US (my bolding) citing OVERLINK. I asked him about this issue and his response was not reassuring. US doesn't mean U.S. or U.S.A. or United States. Many dozens of articles now still have this misspelling issue. He was also asked by User:BlueMoonset  about this issue.


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


 * 1) Warned on 16:18, February 1, 2013 by Related to the issue of MOS compliance and use of bots to do mass editing.
 * 2) Arbitration amendment which narrowly passed. The arbitration opposition to this motion made it clear that there were still issues, including by User:Risker "...I see this current bot-editing by OhConfucius as being nearly identical to the behaviour for which he was initially sanctioned (i.e., using bot editing to impose his own preference, regardless of the wording of the MOS guideline"

My attention was drawn to this matter a couple of weeks ago, when I saw Ohconfucius doing bot-editing on glacier articles on my watchlist. Part of our exchange was about a preceding zero in the dates and he is correct that MOS recommends (remember folks, MOS is a guideline, not policy) that dates formatted YYYYMMDD or similiar have a preceding zero. Okay thats fine. However, the insistance on adding use m/d/y boilerplates, the misspelling of US for U.S., the pedantic demand to follow OVERLINK beyond to the point of ridiculous is simply tendentious editing. I could treat this the same way I might treat a misbehaving child, ignore the bad and reward the good (and some of these edits are fine), but since I am apparently not the only person who has seen issues regarding Ohconfucius' use of bot assisted scripts on MOS issues, I think its time this editor be reminded of the difference between usefulness and tendentiousness. If this editor is going to continue to be allowed to make mass edting with a bot, then they need to make sure they're not being disruptive. Edit warring over the issue, even a slow war, is unacceptable...,, , , , , , , , I don't use a bot so whatever (mostly minor but still more than annoying) alterations made to articles will have to be done manually. If I rollback, then someone may complain that Ohconfucious wasn't vandalizing. This has gone on long enough.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

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

Statement by Ohconfucius
I am unaware that I have breached any Arbcom ruling, nor have I received such a warning from any editor this year. MONGO is an editor who edits mainly in the field of glaciers, where my scan of the WP database revealed problems with the date formats employed. As I already explained when engaged my MONGO on my talk page that my efforts were to put the article's dates into compliance with the MOSNUM. He didn't like the format I substituted 'his' non-compliant dates with, so I self-reverted all those I had changed up to that point, and instead re-inserted the missing zeros on his faux-ISO dates. So as to avoid making inconsequential edits, I often bundle some other fixes, of which unlinking common terms is one. When MONGO challenged my substitution of U.S. with US, I immediately amended my script to make the unlinking punctuation-neutral. It seems that MONGO has subsequently been coming up behind all my glacier-related edits to reinsert a link to 'USA', which is discouraged per MOSLINK, whilst at the same time removing the use mdy dates template. I don't usually revisit an article in such a short space of time unless there are problems to be addressed, but the lack of the template causes me to revisit the article. --  Ohconfucius  ping / poke 02:09, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I refer to my response above. I have communicated with MONGO on the issue, and I have admitted where I was at fault and made the necessary corrections; the same cannot be said to be true for MONGO, who has stopped engaging me and now accuses me of edit-warring when there is no evidence or warning of same. If I may be just a little more bold in defending myself, I'd say it's not uncommon for me as a gnome, working transversally with a policy/guideline area, to come across territorial behaviour. I fail to see how Jonathan Clemens can say in good faith that I am dodging the issue, and if he has any doubts that I am conducting myself in good faith here in applying the provisions of the MOS, he should clearly state in what way there are "ongoing failures to avoid this issue" on my part, rather than appearing to cast aspersions as to my behaviour or motives. --  Ohconfucius  ping / poke 06:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment by GoingBatty
MOS:ABBR indicates that "US" is an acceptable abbreviation for United States. GoingBatty (talk) 19:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Miscellanea indeed, heh. God bless Wikipedians. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:29, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The authoritative Chicago Manual of Style "reversed" its previous ruling to include the dots, in its 16th edition (late 2010, I think). en.WP seems to have done the practical thing by allowing both without and without dots, given the amount of retrofitting that would have been required by a mono-rule. I don't really see a big issue about removing dots; most Americans don't use them in their own writing nowadays, with the exception of the names of government agencies, which have understandably been slow to react. Tony   (talk)  06:37, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate
I don't think this matter is a valid AE issue. Confucius is under no active restriction from the relevant Arbitration case. Should this be about WP:ARBATC, then I am a little perplexed as to why the date de-linking case is being cited as the basis for enforcement rather than ARBATC. Looking at the proposed decision for discretionary sanctions at that case, it does not seem that remedy was intended to be enforced in this manner. Seems the intent was that discretionary sanctions would apply specifically to edits relating to the relevant project pages themselves, rather than edits in articlespace applying the policies and guidelines.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 19:41, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Tony1

 * Per The Devil's Advocate. May I add that this area really does need to be cleared up and better expressed through consensus at WP:MOSNUM; and that as far as I can see, Ohconfucius has been doing a very good job of cleaning up what are in too many articles just plain messes of ref formats. We do have a general principle of within-article consistency, which I believe OC follows in good faith. His work is valuable—there's no way we can tend such a huge messy garden without some kind of automation. Having said that, I'm sure he's open to advice and discussion. Tony   (talk)  06:34, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning Ohconfucius

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


 * The request does not make clear which specific and enforceable decision by the Arbitration Committee (in the form of a particular sanction or remedy logged on a case page) is supposed to be violated by the edits at issue, and how. If this is not clarified promptly, this request is likely to be closed. I also don't see how my warning is relevant to the edits at issue. The warning was about conduct in MOS disputes, and had nothing to do with automated editing or the use of dates in articles.  Sandstein   21:59, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * MONGO has left me a message on my talk page, but it still doesn't clarify which particular provision of an Arbitration Committee decision is supposed to be enforced in this case. Accordingly, I am closing this request as not actionable in this venue. If there are concerns with Ohconfucius's editing, they would need to be addressed through the normal dispute resolution process. That process may include a new request for arbitration, if any concerns can't be resolved at the community level, in view of the Committee's decision at Requests for arbitration/Date delinking ("Ohconfucius is reminded that this subject remains within the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee").   Sandstein   07:33, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * As a former arbitrator who has previously blocked OhConfucius for socking to avoid answering a previous date issue, I am entirely unimpressed by OhConfucius' ongoing failures to avoid this issue. Having said that, Sandstein brings up a very good point: I am not familiar with any outstanding sanction or issue which would bring this under the arbitration enforcement umbrella.  In other words, it seems a legitimate user conduct issue... but not, as far as I can see, an arbitration enforcement issue. Jclemens (talk) 06:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Yerevanci
''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 : –  Ե րևանցի  talk  23:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Sanction being appealed : topic-banned for one month from everything related to Armenia or Azerbaijan, broadly interpreted. The reason for this sanction is recorded in the administrators' noticeboard thread you started, specifically here.

Sandstein stated on his talk page that I was blocked, because [sic] "I tried to add quite pronouncedly non-neutral material, or by making statements about "Azerbaijani pseudo-scientists" or that "the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life"


 * Administrator imposing the sanction :


 * Notification of that administrator : notified

Statement by Yerevanci
I don't think I deserved getting banned because
 * I was not the creator of the article (as claimed by Sandstein)
 * I only advocated it to be recovered, as I believe it had numerous reliable sources, though it was far from perfect
 * I provided alternatives to the article such as renaming it, because "falsification" seems to be POV and use more neutral language and provide more English third party sources, in addition to already existing ones.
 * "pseudo-scientist" and "the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life" are my personal opinion and as I already said to Sandstein "my emotions and opinions do not reflect in my edits on articles"
 * I have made no intention to add my POV to any article. Nevertheless, I always believed I am entitled to write my point of view in talk pages and noticeboards. My language doesn't and never reflected this in any of the articles I edited or created.
 * You can see from my long-time activity on Wikipedia that my goal isn't to be disruptive, insult other users, or push my point of view. I always discuss with others. And in fact, in my 4 year activity in Wikipedia, I have been blocked twice. However, if there is anything I have said that might have offended someone, I am open to apologize.

P.S. : If I will not get unblocked, my only wish is to let me edit Armenian American, on which I have worked for months and it is now a Good Article nominee and if it gets reviewed I will not be able to respond and make any necessary changes to the article as I'm banned from Armenia-related articles. Thank you. -- Ե րևանցի talk  23:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * @Gatoclass, as I stated above, my goal was not to push my POV and I only advocated for it to be recovered and then cleaned up and renamed if agreed by the community.
 * What concerns my voting pattern. See in the Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan page, there are tons of quotes from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance. One of them says "In general, hate-speech and derogatory public statements against Armenians take place routinely". I don't see why that European agency would take sides. Now go to Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia, I do not see any third-party sources proving that "anti-Azerbaijani sentiment" exists in Armenia. In fact, I will to vote 'keep' on that article if a user provides us with ECRI reports or any other third-party statements proving that "anti-Azerbaijani sentiment" exists in Armenia. But now the article looks more like original research than an actual encyclopedic article. That is the reason why I voted in favor of deletion.-- Ե րևանցի talk  21:13, 15 February 2013 (UTC)


 * @Gatoclass, what I mean is I documented the facts presented by non-involved parties. I don't see how this can be considered WP:FORK, when the Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia was created few days later by User:Brandmeister, who was recently blocked for a month and topic-banned for two years. I think this alone says alot.
 * Take a look at articles like Anti-American sentiment in Korea, Anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, Anti-American sentiment in Iran. Just because I'm an involved party, doesn't make the articles I create POV. If there are clear POV signs, then I should like to hear them and I promise I will work to the end to remove them.
 * And what if the Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan is, in fact, "legitimate whereas the "mirror" article created in response to it is not"? The whole problem is there. The content itself is the main issue here. "both articles look to me like POV forks which by definition exclude a balanced treatment of the issues" why don't we first discuss the content of those articles and see what is balanced and what is not. I think Wikipedia is a community and just because they "look like POV forks to you", doesn't mean they are such.
 * Blocking users isn't the best solution, believe me. Unless they have clearly disruptive behavior, they shouldn't be blocked. I believe this in case of Brandmeister, too. Blocking or banning users don't make the problems go away. As you can see, I'm not here to vandalize all articles and put the blame on Azerbaijanis for everything. Both sides have done this or that, but when ECRI, for example, says that "In general, hate-speech and derogatory public statements against Armenians take place routinely", then we should take that into account. If the X, Y organization or a non-involved party says that "bla bla bla there is K in L and U in H", then yes I will have to deal with it to whichever side it may concern. -- Ե րևանցի  talk  05:26, 16 February 2013 (UTC)


 * @DeltaQuad, I didn't even know what DRV was. I just asked the question in the Administrators' noticeboard, because I didn't know that there is a special place for such requests. This might not interest you, but I'm just saying that if I knew about it, I would go there instead. -- Ե րևանցի talk  21:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein
I recommend that this appeal be declined as concerns the question of whether the conduct at issue is sanctionable, though I have no objections to any adjustments my colleagues may wish to make regarding the type, scope or length of the sanction.

I imposed the sanction – this is also in response to Lord Roem below – because Yerevanci sought to have undeleted a very obviously non-neutral article to which he had contributed, (which assigns fault to one side of the conflict, with no mention of any opposing views), and also because he used the respective AN thread as a soapbox for his personal views about the underlying real-world conflict, writing inter alia that "The fact that the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life isn't my fault. Why you are advising me not to document their vandalism? What is Wikipedia for? There are numerous cases of Azerbaijani pseudo-scientists trying to present Armenian cultural monuments as Caucasian Albanian and even old Turkic". Although I've tried to convey to him at my talk page why in this particular topic area it is especially important to observe WP:NPOV and avoid using Wikipedia as a forum for re-fighting the underlying conflict, the statement of appeal reflects no understanding of this.  Sandstein  07:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Gatoclass: You make valid points. There may well be an academically notable subject matter at the core of the deleted article. If there are competent editors who are willing and capable of developing it neutrally, I think a userfication could be a good idea. That's not central to the conduct issues examined here, though. I am not sure that anyone who thinks that "Falsification of history in ..." could be a good title for a Wikipedia article should edit in highly contentious topic areas at all, and given the past problems in this area, as seen on the case page, I tend to err on the side of the banhammer in such cases. We should expect not only defensible, but exemplary conduct from anyone who wishes to edit in this area. However, if other admins prefer to apply a higher threshold of concern, I could understand that too, although it could lead to more trouble in the long run.  Sandstein   17:54, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Yerevanci
I would like to add my 2 cents. The history with this deleted article in some regards reminds me of what's going on in the article about Caucasian Albania, and also in 2 AFDs, Articles for deletion/Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and Articles for deletion/Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia. A while ago a number of sock accounts inserted in Caucasian Albania a strongly POV section which they called "Caucasian Albania and Azerbaijani historical revisionism" (now changed by others to more neutral "Caucasian Albania in Azerbaijani historiography"). At the first glance it looks like verifiable info, but that is until you look at the sources quoted. The fact is that every source quoted speaks about both Armenian and Azerbaijani historical "revisionism", or whatever it might be called, but the section only mentions Azerbaijani authors. I.e. this is a violation of WP:Cherry, when an editor takes a source and quotes only the parts that suite the purpose of denigrating one side, saying nothing about the other, while the source clearly mentions both sides. The reason why I mention Caucasian Albania is not because of socking, as it has nothing to do with the editors involved here, but because the POV section that was inserted there and the issues with it have never been addressed and it is now being made into a separate article, and the same WP:CHERRY is being violated. Now with regards to the articles Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia, one can see that we have 2 articles describing pretty much one side of the story leaving out the context. For instance, sources such as HRW make it clear that anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan is a result of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, while the article makes no mention of it. One can see at AFDs that uninvolved editors tend to support the merge of both articles into one dedicated to either to a particular ethnic group in a country, or general relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I think the community needs to look into the issue in a wider context and decide what to do with WP:CHERRY style articles and article sections which attempt to denigrate one side of the conflict and present the other in a better light, using selective quoting, etc. Otherwise articles like Falsification in ..., Anti-.... sentiment in ...., or similar kind of articles will continue to be created, and this will escalate tensions in AA area. Grand master  09:32, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Without commenting on the original topic-ban itself, I don't think Yerevanci's request for an exemption for Armenian American during its GA process is unreasonable. Unless it can be substantiated that there are serious concerns with his editing there, preventing him from participating in the process is purely vindictive and not "preventative" of anything. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:37, 15 February 2013 (UTC)


 * @Gatoclass: I'm willing to provide the info about selective quoting and WP:Cherry in Caucasian Albania. The sources there are mostly the same as those used in the deleted "Falsification" article. I'm just not sure whether we should discuss it here or elsewhere. In any case, I want to initiate a discussion with involvement of a wider community about POV section in Caucasian Albania, where we can decide what to do with it. As for Yerevantsi's comment about Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan being better sourced than its mirror, it is not so. As I explained in DYK nomination of that page, the article contains gross misinterpretations of sources, and presents opinions as facts. Just look at the first line of the article: Anti-Armenianism (Armenophobia) exists in Azerbaijan on an institutional level[8] and permeates daily social interactions in that country, where opinions of individuals and groups are presented as facts, which is not in line with WP:NPOV. Why the opinion of some journal editor in chief in Russia should be presented as a fact? And further the line in HRW report which reads "The unresolved conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh stimulated "armenophobia" is interpreted as "However, contemporary Armenophobia in Azerbaijan traces its roots to the last years of the Soviet Union, when Armenians demanded that the Moscow authorities transfer the mostly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR", while the actual source says nothing of the sort. The line "In response to those Armenian claims, Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front,[13][14] organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku" refers to 2 sources, neither of which supports the claim, moreover, there was no Popular Front in Azerbaijan in February 1988, i.e. during the Sumgait events. HRW clearly states that any negative sentiment towards Armenians in Azerbaijan is related to the ongoing conflict with Armenia (Due to the unresolved conflict, there was still suspicion towards ethnic Armenians, especially those coming from outside of the country), while the article makes no mention of this. As you can see, selective quotes and questionable interpretations of the material make this article very POV laden, and the suitability of the topic for a stand alone article also remains a question. The above concerns may not be directly relevant to the topic of Yerevantsi's ban, and I will not express any opinion about that, this is just a response to the claim that one article is better sourced or written than the other. Grand  master  11:00, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I read the article "Falsification of history in Azerbaijan" before it was summarily deleted, and I thought that the content was not bad, although the title was inappropriate. The English was not brilliant, but a core pillar here is that everyone can contribute, so it just needed to wait for renaming and copyediting.

@Gatoclass, it's totally possible that there's more anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan than the reverse. As an analogy, there's a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment in India because of the 1962 border war, but the different media and political climate in China means that most Chinese don't remember or care about that history, so there's little negative (or any really consolidated) sentiment towards Indians there. Point is, Yerevanci's vote on the Azerbaijanophobia AfD might just reflect a judgment on the quality of a non-notable, problem-ridden article that was created in a hasty, retaliatory fashion without much thought.

@Grandmaster: It doesn't look like you've proved that Yerevanci misinterpreted HRW. The source made a compact reference to a "conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh", and Yerevanci described the same general conflict with a fuller description. This difference from the source's wording is even necessary because of the close paraphrasing danger.

@Sandstein: I think "pseudo-scientists" is poor wording, but it is a fact that there is an ecosystem of nationalists in such conflicts who masquerade as trained historians, archaeologists, or sociologists, and whose publications are critiqued by mainstream academe. As I mentioned before, one group in a bilateral conflict might be much more excited and active in their propaganda (giving us more to document) than the other.

I think Yerevanci was banned rather reflexively, and a deeper inspection of his work will reveal consistent good-faith efforts to "write for the enemy", to request third-party neutrality review at venues like DYK, and to accept suggestions by those third parties for the purpose of making his writing more encyclopedic. The most shocking aspect of these sanctions is that Yerevanci wasn't even the one who created the now-deleted article. He just mistakenly brought what should have been a DRV to a trigger-happy noticeboard for administrators. Shrigley (talk) 22:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree, because google books return plenty of hits for Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia: Also, how can you describe a conflict with a fuller description referring to a source that made, as you say, a "compact reference" to it? According to WP:V, we must "use sources that directly support the material presented in an article and are appropriate to the claims made". You cannot take a short mention and build on it a history of the conflict, making very questionable interpretations. For instance, how could Popular Front of Azerbaijan be involved in Sumgait events in February 1988, if it was only formed in July 1988? The sources make no mention of this, it is just Yerevantsi's own interpretation. So I stand by my opinion that Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan is not well written, and sourcing is also questionable, as one can see from the above examples. And those are only the ones from the intro.  Grand  master  09:43, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Dear Grandmaster, the article says the following:

In response to those Armenian claims, Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front, organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku. An estimated 350,000 Armenians left between 1988 and 1990 as a direct result of the violence directed towards them.
 * These sources make it clear that the Azerbaijani Popular Front had a significant role in organizing the protests during which anti-Armenian rhetoric lead to the pogroms in (at least) Baku. I agree, it does not say that the PF was responsible for the Sumgait Pogrom and the article doesn't claim that either. The article says "Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front,[1][2] organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku" and I think from reading this sentence, hardly anyone will assume that all everything was organized by the PF. The phrase "Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front" makes it clear that other groups or individuals were active at the time as well.
 * Maybe the wording isn't that great and that's what makes it complicated. We can change it to "In response to those Armenian claims, Azerbaijani nationalist groups, including the Azerbaijani Popular Front,[1][2] organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku. An estimated 350,000 Armenians left between 1988 and 1990 as a direct result of the violence directed towards them.[3]" -- Ե րևանցի talk  17:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't want to discuss the content here, because it is not the right place to do. But I must note that what you wrote above again is not an accurate interpretation of sources, and the article created by you does say that AFP organized the pogroms in Sumgait, while AFP did not even exist back then. It is quite obvious from the quote that you provided. Whether you name AFP one of the nationalist groups or the only one, you still place the blame for the violence on them, while the sources you quote don't. The sources say that AFP organized rallies where anti-Armenian rhetoric was present, but they never say that AFP had anything to do with the actual violence. This is the problem that I see with your editing, you present the material in a non-neutral fashion, and refer to sources that do not directly support what you write. Grand  master  18:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This is the problem that I see with your editing, you present the material in a non-neutral fashion, and refer to sources that do not directly support what you write. Perhaps, you should care more about your own editing style, dear Grandmaster. I have witnessed you misinterpreting facts, according to your own personal believes. Such as the Persian mosques' issue, Aliyev's statement about main enemies being "Armenians of the world", Nizami identity. -- Ե րևանցի  talk  19:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I assembled the main English sources here, Azerbaijanian sources a few later. Divot (talk) 17:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I would like to add one observation here. Most of the sources quoted by Divot describe revisionist historical schools both in Armenia and Azerbaijan, in particular Philip Kohl, Robert Hewsen and Victor Schnirelman. For instance, once can check Kohl's book online at google books and see that it has a whole chapter on Armenia (from page 155 onwards):, same as on Azerbaijan. So why should we have an article on Azerbaijan, and not one on Armenia? If we really need to describe the revisionist historical schools in Armenia and Azerbaijan, would it not be better to have a section in Armenia–Azerbaijan relations, dedicated to this subject? The thing is that users supporting the Armenian position here try to create articles directed against Azerbaijan, but object to creation of similar articles on Armenia. I personally do not see much use in having such attack type articles here. Any controversy could be described within the existing articles dedicated to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, which are quite numerous. Grand  master  18:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course there are revisionism in Armenia and Azerbaijan and the United States, etc.. But these sources say "Patently false cultural origin myths" (Kohl), "replacement of the term "Armenian state" by "Albanian state" and with other distortions of the original manuscripts" (Shnirelman), "Not only has he not translated any of the poems in the text, but he does not even mention that he has not done so, while he does not translate certain other prose parts of the text without indicating this and why. This is in particular disturbing because he suppresses, for example, the mention of territory inhabited by Armenians, thus not only falsifying history" (Floor). This is not revisionism, this is fake. There will be more sources. Divot (talk) 20:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Yerevanci

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


 * @Sandstein: was there anything besides the creation of that article that triggered your topic ban? --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 01:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * After reading through Sandstein's reply, I think he made the right call. I see no reason to reverse or alter the topic ban he's imposed. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 15:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * If the AN thread had solely stuck to the topic of the deletion of the article and the process of that deletion, I feel we would not be here. But the issue is that the political conflict was not only played out on the noticeboard, but on Sandstein's talkpage. It was the biased non-neutrality that had to be dealt with, not backing up of "statements" in the article or the title. Yerevanci continued to try and make a point by asking for another user to be banned also. I therefore agree that the appeal should be declined. I won't speak as to the length of the topic ban, as I'm not completely familiar with them, but the ban does seem appropriate. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  18:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm probably not going to make any friends by saying this, but I am somewhat uncomfortable both with the original deletion of the article and the topic ban of Yerevanci. A preliminary review of the article in question suggests to me that it is based on mostly academic sources, and while the academics seem to be mostly Armenian or with likely Armenian sympathies, that does not necessarily disqualify them as reliable sources. It would of course be better if the article included some Azerbaijani sources but for a topic of this nature, they may well not exist. The article title is of course POV but the addition of the word Alleged might arguably be sufficient to address that problem. Certainly there are also some POV statements in the article but these could be modified according to the usual BRD cycle. My overall impression is that "falsification of history in Azerbaijan" is a topic of genuine academic interest. In accordance with Froggerlaura's suggestion on Fut. Perf's talk page, perhaps a DRV would be justified in this case?

With regard to the ban on Yerevanci, though I think it is true his comments at AN were somewhat hyperbolic, it seemed to me that the general thrust of his comments were attempting to address the question of the validity of the topic rather than an example of WP:SOAPBOXing per se, though again I think a more suitable venue for his concern would have been DRV. As for the overall quality of Y.'s contributions to the topic area, I am unable to make a definitive judgement at this time but note that he has managed to get quite a number of articles past the DYK process, indicating that he is at least capable of NPOV editing. Gatoclass (talk) 13:53, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response Sandstein. I am currently re-reviewing the evidence in order to make a more considered comment, which I hope to provide either later today or tomorrow. Gatoclass (talk) 08:43, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

On reflection, I think I have probably seen enough evidence already to come to a conclusion.

Firstly, I think the validity of the sanction imposed by Sandstein hinges on the question of whether or not one considers the now-deleted article Falsification of history in Azerbaijan to be inherently or irredeemably POV or not. If one proceeds from the assumption that it was, then I think Sandstein's topic ban would be both justified and proportionate, since haggling over the deletion of an irredeemably POV topic could readily be considered disruptive. If on the other hand, the article dealt with a legitimate encyclopedic topic or contained substantial legitimate content, Yerevanci's calls for restoration might be considered reasonable and the topic ban excessive.

My concern derived primarily from the fact that when I looked at the deleted article, while I could certainly identify some obvious POV issues, including the article's name, it was not immediately obvious to me that the topic was inherently POV or that outstanding problems could not be rectified, and I felt obliged to express this concern.

Then again, while I have not done an exhaustive examination of Yerevanci's contributions in this topic area, I have looked at a number of his articles. On the one hand, I found some admirable examples of writing for the opponent in this article of his. But I also stumbled upon his latest DYK submission, Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan, an article about which I have a number of concerns - concerns which are obviously shared by others given that the article already has multiple tags and is currently up for WP:AFD. Suffice to say here that I have serious reservations both regarding the topic and content of this article. Moreover, the article has almost inevitably spawned an equally dubious topic on the other side of the fence, Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia, also with multiple tags and currently up for AFD. I also note that while Yerevanci authored the first article, he has !voted delete on the second.

The bottom line for me is that I am uncomfortable with the notion of defending a user whose record of editing in the relevant topic area looks inconsistent at best. While I therefore maintain my concerns about the deletion of the "Falsification of history" article and the ban it led to, I am prepared to defer to the judgement of my fellow admins in this case. Gatoclass (talk) 13:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I do want to reply to Gatoclass' comments, I just haven't had the chance to yet with being tired coming home the past few days, and i'll try to have my comment in by morning. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  22:20, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

@DQ - I refactored the above comment slightly as I felt the original comment didn't express my position with sufficient clarity. @Yerevanci - it is notionally possible to take the view that the article you created was legitimate whereas the "mirror" article created in response to it is not. My concern however, is that both articles look to me like POV forks which by definition exclude a balanced treatment of the issues. I also have concerns about some of the content, such as failure to attribute statements appropriately and so on, but this is not the right venue for discussing those concerns in detail. Gatoclass (talk) 04:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

@Grandmaster - thankyou for adding your viewpoint. I am unable to test the veracity of your claim that the "Falsification" article is an example of WP:CHERRY, because most of the sources are either in a foreign language or offline. You would need to provide more concrete evidence of a claim like that, but such a debate is probably beyond the scope of this appeal. My impression of the deleted (now userfied article, I think) is still that much of the content is legitimate and not obviously POV, regardless of whether or not it needs to be balanced by content from Azerbaijani sources or presented in a different context. That was the basis on which I was willing to provide some support for Yerevanci's appeal, but if the consensus of uninvolved admins here is that Yerevanci's actions were nonetheless problematic, I won't take issue with that. Gatoclass (talk) 08:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Bearing in mind Gatoclass's points, Yerevanci's topic ban is for battleground behaviour at WP:AN and frankly I see good reason for it to stand - thus I would decline this request. I agree with Sandstein that in areas under multiple ArbCom mandated probations: "We should expect not only defensible, but exemplary conduct from anyone who wishes to edit [them]". The principles of the second RFAR for this topic make that clear, as they do the issues wrt sourcing of articles for neutrality in this instance btw-- Cailil  talk 17:59, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Gatoclass I was not completely comfortable with the original deletion either (though respect the decision), and I took a while to pour over it. Yerevanci had the chance to take it to the proper venue at deletion review, but instead he continued on AN, then Sandstein's talk with the battleground behavior like mentioned by Cailil above. That's how I came to my conclusion. Had he used DRV instead, I would most likely not be supporting the ban if there were one. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  21:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Request concerning Nado158

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 09:30, 20 February 2013 (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 :

While looking at the recent Articles for deletion/Persecution of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo, it came to my attention that Nado158 should be cautioned for persistent battleground mentality in WP:ARBMAC topic areas.


 * My old warnings about it are already gone from their User talk:
 * In November 2012, they blithely accuse me of editing based on ethnicity. In response to my warning, they walk back on it with a few platitudes. The context is described at Talk:Ante Gotovina
 * In January 2013, they try to blank an article instead of proposing deletion (despite having seen AfDs before); no response to my warning. User:Praxis Icosahedron complained to me about them then.


 * They were involved in the coattails of the recent User:Oldhouse2012 flamewar by making these kinds of edits for which User:Shokatz complained to them and to myself already.


 * In this latest discussion, first WhiteWriter makes a largely pointless accusation (who in turn has something of a history of being so wrong to be disruptive on the topic of sockpuppetry), and then Nado158 proceeds to copy and paste the same pointless accusation later in the discussion, despite the fact WW had at that point already been criticized for making such accusations.


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


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

I didn't analyze the entire contribution history of the user, but the common thread with these incidents appears to be Serbian nationalism topics and talking points - Ante Gotovina is someone who must be a villain; Bošnjani can't have existed in the 14th century because Serbian historians know it was all Serbia in the 9th; Zemun is Serbian today, so its history as part of other states can't be but a worthless concoction of Hungarian and Croatian irredentists (both!); Kosovo is, well, Kosovo, so there (no analysis of WP:SYNTH necessary).

(I apologize if the readers don't appreciate my sarcasm. I've been exposed to this stuff for a long time now, and I have to find some humor in it, otherwise it's just too depressing.)

Given the problems, Nado158's contribution in these topic areas does not seem like a net positive for the encyclopedia. I've tried to do due dilligence and tried to find proof to the contrary, and found only some more gems of the unrelated kind in the Persecution... article:
 * In, they added a chunk of information, seemingly sourced, but accompanied with a huge blockquote that is essentially soapboxing
 * - lots of broken English
 * and - lots of copy&paste from an OSCE Report, whose reference is in turn copied and pasted each time
 * - copy&paste from Radio Netherlands Worldwide
 * - copy&paste from The Guardian

I suggest an initial temporary topic ban on anything related to such talking points. I have no prejudice against other topic areas - although I did just notice this incident while searching for their AfD history.

I'm not enacting such a topic ban myself because a possibility of WP:INVOLVED, and because any such action by myself could be generally construed as persecution of a poor Serbian user by the evil Croats, which would just compound the problem, regardless of the notion being baseless. It's best for this to be reviewed by neutral editors.


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


 * Random discussion comments


 * WhiteWriter, the part that made your accusation largely pointless was that you wrote a generic clause invited here off line by one of "Delete" users above. If you have doubts in the good faith of any particular "delete user", you should say that clearly and precisely. Casually lumping them all together and throwing around an unspecified accusation of sockpuppetry is simply bad form. It subtly perpetuates the illusion that there are "delete users" and "keep users", and it's all too easy to extend that into an "us vs. them" relationship - battleground mentality. And as we can see from this example, once you do something like that, someone like Nado158 can pick up the cue and make things worse. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * ...and I should also mention, User:Peacemaker67 already told you this a week ago over there:
 * as I am one of those "delete" users you have referred to, I am offended by your suggestion that I might have invited a sock or SPA to !vote here. You are attacking the man, not the argument, which is always the tactic of the desperate. Either produce the evidence you have of the canvassing of the SPA/sock or strike your attack on the integrity of all of the users that happen to have recommended "delete".
 * Yet you nevertheless now accused me of misrepresenting and misleading. You too need to lay off the battleground mentality. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:54, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Regarding Nado158's questions - I'm willing to do a point-by-point answer/rebuttal session if anyone else confirms that they want an answer to anything. In the meantime, I'll just give you a general answer: you say this behavior is the product of 'errors' and that you can improve, but at the same time you freely admit that you seem to hold some sort of a grudge against myself for "writing anti-Serbian". I'm doing no such thing; I generally try to use the encyclopedia for what it's for: to describe things that exist in the real life. If I (or anyone else) describe something relevant that is negative towards Serbia, Croatia, trees, toasters, or any number of other things or concepts, you should not automatically attribute that to an inherent bias. Assuming bad faith is a fairly typical sign that you need to steer away from some topics. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I not to hold some sort of a grudge against you for "writing anti-Serbian" but you do it with me and I wonder why? I do not write "anti-Croatian". I generally try to use also the encyclopedia for what it's for like you: to describe things that exist in the real life.  You said: "If I (or anyone else) describe something relevant that is negative towards Serbia, Croatia, trees, toasters, or any number of other things or concepts, you should not automatically attribute that to an inherent bias." The same is also true for me and I have not bad intentions.--Nado158 (talk) 20:28, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Reply to Joy
@Joy - You looked at the recent Articles for deletion/Persecution of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo, and you recognize that I persistent "battleground mentality"? I have just answered and I just defended my opinion. This falls on you that I used "battleground mentality", but you not saw that the users have to start before with this mentalitiy, and have used the same language? I wonder why? I have offended nobody, and have dealt respectfully with each. I was the one who actually proposed to end this without meaningful discussions and I answered politely and always ended every sentence reasonable. So why complain only to me and represent me as if I the user treat bad what is not true?--Nado158 (talk) 12:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Joy - About the Gotovina topic: You had removed a comment by Carla del Ponte (soruces from The Guardian...), who was a very important person to this case, and my suspicion was that you've only done this because they had judged negatively about Gotovina. I do not knew you and just bevore I meet many users from all the ethnic group who write is not objective, use the POV or NPOV. I unfortunately made ​​the mistake and react too quickly. I realized my error and I apologized to you. It is 3 months ago and I have since then, specifically to the Carla del Ponte topic, did not return right? Did I continou to discussion with you about this? No. I learned from it so make me please not so bad or that there would be a constant problem-with me. About the Bošnjani topic: It was my mistake. I have not read the sources, not the talk page etc. I was too fast and made rookie errors. After I read the sources and the Talk Page, I saw that I was wrong. I have apologized for it and also I never returned again to this page. About the Zemun topic: I dont know who is Oldhouse2012. I came to this site because I wanted to write about sports because I mainly for 80% write about sports and this topic very interrested me. I finally done this, but also I saw a large part of the text without sources and who was added again and again by someone, or from the new user Shokatz. To me its looked like POV, I thought it was a sock. And because there are no sources for this was given, I decided to remove it. But I was never rude, etc.--Nado158 (talk) 12:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Joy - About the topic Sockpuppet: Your accusation that WhiteWriter is rightly criticizes was wrong, because he was right. I saw the accusation of WhiteWriter was not meaningless, because they led to discovery to a sock. Also User Peacemaker67 was agree with WhiteWriter. The suddenly emerging user Kosovo 2008 Albania 1912 has been blocked. I also saw the other users have expressed their opinion on suspicion. So I thought I also have the right if there is suspicion. My suspicion was mainly related to Keithstanton, and what eventually happened? He has been blocked due to abuse of editing privileges. I was right. And I wonder very much about your accusations, because you yourself complained about him as you can se here.. So why you may that and I not?I would add further....--Nado158 (talk) 12:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Joy - You said, that you didn't analyze the entire contribution history of me, but you saw my beginner errors while you overlooked a lot of my good articles have which nothing to do with these topics. You've picked out the 5% of the "bad things" and all the other good things omitted represent bad about me. You've been looking for a hair in the soup. You overlooked that I worked already with Croatian, Hungarian an other users. You made allegations that I have maybe Nationalist background, that I want to Gotovina look bad, although 98% of anything I not wrote about him (I could also say that you want to let Gotovina look much prettirt or? And I remind you that Carla Del Ponte said the things about him which I want to add at that time. Why can her opinion appear at other politicians and not on his page? However) You make me all the allegations even though I do not edit anything or  98% of pages which are in relation to Croatia, ist history, the wars etc.? At the same time you make me the reproach even though you edit numerous Serbian articles (about politicians etc). There you write often anti-Serbian and confront the things are worse as they are. You make me the allegations even though I even already written Pro-Croatian ect and I can prove this? In addition I have hardly anything (98%) ever written about Republic of Kosovo. Why do they try to transfer a stereotype to me? I am willing to work with all of you. With me about everything can be arranged. I respect every one here, but I would add that I also have a rights.--Nado158 (talk) 12:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Joy - About the broken English: I improve my English every day and if I make a grammatical error, then I am pleased if another user corrects me and and I happy if I learn from it. You could have improved my fault instead of criticizing me for such a thing. I also wrote numerous articles which showed a good English, and  nobody complains about this. Also that you overlooked. I would appreciate if you let me upgrade and I learn from it.--Nado158 (talk) 13:11, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Joy - About the copy allegations: The copy allegations are exaggerated. There are 1-2 sentences or few words but that all. How should I rewrite 1-2 sentences from Radio Netherlands Worldwide and The Guardian? The goal was to add a source who proved the act. I have not invented this. Similarly, the OSCE report. How should I write this? And as you see I have mentioned there the persecution of Croats, as you can see your accusation that I had a problem with Croats is wrong. And at least I work with sources in contrast to some other users.Thank you.--Nado158 (talk) 13:25, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Reply to others
@ZjarriRrethues - About the topic: "In August 2005, two Serbs were shot dead and two injured when their car was taken under fire". Please do not twist my things. I've already added a new source from Germany which describes these things etc. These things are written there. If I have made ​​a mistake then say it to me please? Here the source. The answers to all the rest coming soon. Thank you.--Nado158 (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

@To all of you - I am willing to work with all of you, and of course in accordance with the laws. I not realized really that my changes are a problem or that they are a big problem. Where I realized that I made mistake (I made rookie errors) I have apologized and stopped it, and you can see this. With me about everything can be arranged. I respect every one here, but I would add that I also have a right to reply to the entire mentioned problems and to defend myself, because I see some misunderstandings and I want to solve these things peacefully.--Nado158 (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

@Zero - About the topic: Gnjilane Group: The sense of the source was, that the various ethnic groups in Kosovo were killed by the Gniljane Group, and where have I made ​​a mistake? It was written in the source. There are also enough other sources. The article is about the persecution of ethnic groups. I understand not my error here? And when I made it, then you can explain it to me yet and improve this thing. Where is the problem? I desire to learn and to work high quality. Thank you!--Nado158 (talk) 09:51, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@KillerChihuahua - You've listened to me at all and not condemn me already in advance. I think that's not fair. You have to know that I am a beginner and then not know the rules or known very bad. I just looked out from other users how they act and failed to notice the error. There was an error. Today, I know a lot more, and I have not repeated some errors. I learn every day something new to it. I am willing to work with all of you. With me about everything can be arranged.--Nado158 (talk) 10:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * You said to Joy he should ignore any further aspersions or attacks by me, who is rapidly sinking his ship even deeper. Dear KillerChihuahua, which attacks and aspersions do you mean please? Besides this, you said nothing I have said which could change your mind. Please read all my comments again. Thank you!--Nado158 (talk) 17:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Zjarri - About the attack with a bombs on Serbian house topic: I have given first a soruce and you not. And if you done this, then I may have overlooked it and you would have me point out more precisely. The accusation, better the the arrest of the suspect from the same ethnic group was sharply criticized by the affected family etc. They have condemned and rejected the arrest. The offender is free again and there are enough sources to this topic etc.I should add that an another user explained it to me better and we are then removed this and there were no problems from both sides. What do you say? I whish to add that...--Nado158 (talk) 13:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Zjarri - About the Kosovo-Albanian topic: Yes, I put the source to show that it is called Kosovo Albanian. You can put also an other source which proved that. Where is the problem? It is called Kosovo-Albanian. About the mass accusations of sockpuppetry: Which mass accusations of sockpuppetry? Whith the help of WhiteWriter and Peacemaker67 we discovered a sock. The suddenly emerging user Kosovo 2008 Albania 1912 has been blocked. I also saw the other users have expressed their opinion on suspicion. So I thought I also have the right if there is suspicion. My suspicion was mainly related to Keithstanton, and what eventually happened? He has been blocked due to abuse of editing privileges. I was right. And the last of your accusations, the topic about "In August 2005, two Serbs were shot dead and two injured when their car was taken under fire by Albanians during a tire change"...I already refuetes with a new source. If you want you can write take under fire by unknown persons, although the injured Serbs said it was Alabanians. I can finde sources but who you wish.--Nado158 (talk) 16:32, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@EdJohnston - I now understand the problem, and I admit that the source is unfortunate and we can replace it with another source, but is not add from my side to assume ethnic bias. In addition, can you explain to me where I misreading the source about the Gniljane Group? Please read ALL my comments again, check it etc. I whish only to understand. Besides this, I already refuted some allegations here. I worked also with Croatian, German, Hungarian, Englsih etc an other users. I am willing to work with all of you and to improve myself. Why am I so quickly sentenced? or put in a drawer? Please read ALL my comments again. Thanky you--Nado158 (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

@Lord Roem - Please wait? Please see also my opinion (and please read my comments above). By the way, we both have worked together a few weeks ago. In this collaboration, they have given me even partially right. I, another user and you have found a solution in the end. There were no problems. I do not think that I deserve such hard punishment.--Nado158 (talk) 17:08, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

ZjarriRrethues
-- — ZjarriRrethues —  talk 18:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Nado had added an event that had no culprits and motives and wasn't labeled as a persecution or ethnic crime in an article under a list of incidents of persecutions. When I removed it, explained that his argument contained much original research and even provided a news piece that stated that a suspect from the same ethnic group was detained as the crime seems to be related to a dispute between two families, he reverted me and asked for a source which I had already brought forth.
 * There are also plain ethnic-battleground type edits like adding a source about a Kosovar committing a crime right on the lead of the article because it will show that it is called Kosovo Albanian.
 * Blatant source misrepresentation: In August 2005, two Serbs were shot dead and two injured when their car was taken under fire by Albanians during a tire change., source:Two Serbs shot dead and two injured when their car is fired at.

NE Ent
Proposed sanction by puppy (1 week block followed by 1 year topic ban) seems inappropriate; while the ban is reasonably preventative, adding a block to the mix seems punitive (what will a block accomplish that a ban won't?) NE Ent 16:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Thehoboclown

 * While I don't know anything about Nado158's recent actions regarding this Serbia-Kosovo issue, I can say it's not the first time he edited in a somewhat ethnic related battleground mentality. In fact he removed links pointing to Hungarian-related articles, sometimes even doing it blindly, without checking what he is really doing – here he just undid the link removal carried out by an IP minutes before. I also submitted an ANI report, where I described the situation and warned the involved users that their actions might fall under WP:ARBEE, therefore they should be aware of being on thin ice. The report eventually concluded without getting any attention, later, however, the reported users (except Nado158) turned out to be Oldhouse2012's socks and got blocked.
 * I removed it, because there are not the a Hunagrian minority etc., the same for Zrenjanin and therefore there was no reason to keep them there.--Nado158 (talk) 10:44, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Additionally, Nado158 was active in a "name-removing" game in the Subotica article (here and here) and also got involved in a war over the usage of the Hungarian name of Srbobran, which actions are also very likely to fall under discretionary sanctions. Given these, I think if the the topic ban comes into effect, it should cover this area as well. Thehoboclown (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * About Subotica, the problem has been resolved. Why do you not tell the here users that I have left after the name and that I have improved the whole page with 2 other users? among them an Hungarian? Why do not you mention that? you say I was in a war because of Srborban? I have DISCUSSED with others about the topic. On the Talk Page is everything visible and where there is a war please?--Nado158 (talk) 10:52, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

WhiteWriter
Regarding questionable accusation of my contribution by user Joy, you should see contribution of the user in question. You will see that user WAS INDEED the sock puppet SPA, so accusations WERE NOT largely pointless. Therefor, i am asking from Joy to quickly remove this misrepresented info from this request. -- WhiteWriterspeaks 19:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I was talking about this:


 * In this latest discussion, first WhiteWriter makes a largely pointless accusation (who in turn has something of a history of being so wrong to be disruptive on the topic of sockpuppetry), and then Nado158 proceeds to copy and paste the same pointless accusation later in the discussion, despite the fact WW had at that point already been criticized for making such accusations.


 * I don see what is wrong with recognising sock-master in questionable area. User:Sinbad Barron have 50+ socks, so it is essential to mark them as fast as possible. He is as we speak on WP:AN to be community banned, so, there is nothing wrong with Nado commenting same thing again. Also, after finding all those socks and reporting them, i know that user reappear each time to vote in some questionable area, often with months pause. So, someone invite him off wiki. You should not be genius to see that... :) Anyway, all of those are unrelated to this request... -- WhiteWriterspeaks 19:48, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, but far as i know guidelines, i cannot just remove it now, its on ARE... And i added this much only as you asked for explanation. Anyway, Joy comment was misleading, and i will not talk about this anymore. All best. -- WhiteWriterspeaks 20:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Evlekis
Moved out of the admin section. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  23:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

If I can request that any admin dealing with this exercise restraint because Nado158 is very much a good faith editor who has made mistakes and realises these. Part of the problem regarding "battleground editing" is that this occurs in sensitive areas where rival factions exist in the first place. To this end, comments submitted by users perennially opposed to Nado158's outlook on article presentation should be taken with a pinch of salt. I know a lot about slinging mud because less than a year ago, I found myself at the dirty end of four AN/I inquiries and one editor to have dished out filth on this very post was instrumental in these purges - thankfully they all failed miserably but one did land me with an ARBMAC warning. I just wanted to add that not every idea of mine corresponds to Nado158's but we have been able to discuss and agree between each other and I can say that he has never reverted me when I have removed his contributions. Please see this thread which I add is live as I send this. Disciplinary at least, temporary ban at most, but indef is plain cruel. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 21:46, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning Nado158

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


 * A quick first look shows a definite problem. Consider this edit.  It says "The Gnjilane Group ... committing brutal crimes and murders against killing dozens of Serbs, Roma, and also ethnic Albanians civilians..." but the source says that a court had just overturned a conviction for such crimes and ordered a retrial.  This is a blatant misrepresentation of the source. Zerotalk 11:22, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Please move your comment out of this section. My answer: I can read the source myself and you misrepresented it. Zerotalk 00:49, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Such flagrant misuse of sources to promote a POV require equally strong measures, IMO. I cannot see any situation in which Nado158 can explain away such edits with any plausibility. Propose a 1 week block followed by a 1 year ban from the topic area. Killer Chihuahua 18:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * WhiteWriter, your post is a bit opaque. Please rephrase so I can puzzle out what you're talking about. Killer Chihuahua 19:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is completely unrelated to this request and I would prefer you simply remove it, and remember not to add off topic posts here. Such posting may lead to sanctions for you. Killer Chihuahua 20:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Nado158, I said I couldn't imagine you being able to explain away your edits. Had you surprised me and done so, then I'd be willing to reconsider. Unfortunately, nothing you have said has changed my mind. You can gain experience by editing other topics, after your block expires. May I suggest you also work on your English language skills, which you will find helpful in editing the English Wikipedia. Killer Chihuahua 13:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Joy; Oh please no; refrain from any point-by-point rebuttal (unless you see a question from an admin in this section) and indeed, simply ignore any further aspersions or attacks by Nado158, who is rapidly sinking his ship even deeper. Killer Chihuahua 16:31, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * ZjarriRrethues: Although the BBC source does not support the edit about the two youths in a car, there is another source there too. Unfortunately it is behind a paywall; can you read it? Zerotalk 00:49, 21 February 2013 (UTC) Added: I see it is visible here. It could be cited for this incident but following the source more closely.  It says they were shot by "Unbekannten" (strangers) not by Albanians. Zerotalk 01:05, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This diff brought by ZjarriRrethues is a real gem. Nado158 added a source "Kosovan Albanian admits killing two US airmen in Frankfurt terror attack" right on the first two words of the article! KillerChihuahua, I agree to your proposed sanction. Zerotalk 00:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Zero0000 that [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albanians_in_Kosovo&diff=536908524&oldid=536905162 Nado158's change to the opening sentence] of Kosovo Albanians is certainly inappropriate. Anyone seeing this edit is likely to assume ethnic bias on the part of the editor. Nado158's misreading of the source about the Gniljane group, which he seems to repeat in his own comment just above, is also a concern. A person reading the press article should be careful enough to tell whether a conviction is being upheld or overturned. A sanction against Nado158 is justified. EdJohnston (talk) 01:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * After looking through the comments and diffs above, I concur with Ed's description of the situation and feeling that a sanction is necessary. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 04:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Nado158 may be well intentioned and may not completely understand the effect of some of the words he is writing or copying, but several issues such as 1) copying from other sources, even if it's one sentence here and there is not appropriate 2) having a battleground mentality towards other users that they are meat or sockpuppets without proving them 3) blatantly biased sourcing within the first two words of an article as mentioned by Ed above. These issues combined alone have me supporting a sanction. Can I get my fellow admins' comments on a 6 month topic ban on Kosovo-Albanian relations broadly constructed, and a final administrative (aka non-ArbCom) warning for copyright issues and for sock accusations without evidence. Maybe I am overdoing it, but I'm willing to consider lifting the ban early if they can clearly demonstrate change in the area and the consensus of current admins here when it appeals agree. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  20:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I suggested a year and no one flinched, so I imagine 6 months would be agreeable to most. I'm withdrawing my initial block proposal tho. Either one, I'm agreeable. But the article intro edit has me leaning towards the year. Think about it: If you were from ethnic group X, and I edited the article on X to make sure the very first thing anyone learned about your people is that you're murderers and terrorists.... Seriously, this is a big deal. Killer Chihuahua 12:06, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This is true. 1 year does sound more appropriate. Joy has a point on my talkpage though that some of the problematic area is not covered through Albania-Kosovo relations, and I'm not exactly sure how to word that in to this proposed topic ban. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  16:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It's covered, and we add "broadly construed" anyway, but I'll make a point of making it as clear as possible. If there are no objections, I'll close this shortly. Killer Chihuahua 18:05, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

bg:user:Алиса Селезньова

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : --Aleksd (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested : bg:user:Алиса Селезньова


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: removal of administration rights of the user

The user is administrator of Bulgarian Wikipedia who together with bg:user:Мико were continiously harrasing me on religious basis (I am Buddhist), threaten me with the words "Its your time" usually in both English and Bulgarian used as part of the fraze "time to die", reverted my edits in Buddhism to imply irony in issues and harassed my talk page with finally blocking me from Bulgarian Wikipedia. In Bugarian Wikipedia there isn't any type of arbitration and generally administrators act like little 'dictators' and in the case of Bulgarian Wikipedia they are pro-socialist, Orthodox Christians who largelly don't believe in diversity and multiculturalism, and use irony, reverts and deletion to suppress information that doesn't fit what they like. I also made a complain about the situation prior to the ban here, in the English Wikipedia, User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 126


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


 * 1) - using '' to imply irony on Buddhist term, 29 January 2013


 * 1)  - the user says "it's Your time", 21:01 13 February 2013
 * 2) - deletion by the user of my statement that I don't want to discuss any more since they were starting a quarrel (my talk page), 21:59 13 February 2013
 * 3) - deletion of the statement again  (my talk page), 23:26 13 February 2013
 * 4) - 3rd deletion, 12:14 14 February 2013
 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :

There was no warngs because of the administrator status of the users, only pleads:
 * 1) Warned on 17:04, 25 January 2013 by - asked to stop with irony


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

Users and administrators bg:user:Алиса Селезньова and bg:user:Мико where continuously stepping over my edits in Buddhism making fun and irony of both the religion and my religious believes (not only in Metta article but there mainly), with making fun of me too and trying to make me nervous to have a reason to 'get rid of me' in Bulgarian Wikipedia and stop me from contributing in the area of Buddhism. I admit that they were successful in this but also I think the lack of arbitration and diversity among administrators in Bulgarian Wikipedia should be intervened with a type of arbitration.


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

I am unable to notify the user since I am blocked there.

bg:user:Алиса Селезньова


 * I am sorry, I don't see anything personal in what I have reported. I hope Martin Luther King was not told in his time not to disturb with 'personal problems' the community? If there is not existing rule of such type of resolution I am sure you could have found other and better (kinder) type of explaining it. Namaste. --Aleksd (talk) 00:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Request concerning Grandmaster

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Zimmarod (talk) 00:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced:


 * ARBAA2


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


 * Grandmaster's stalking of User:Oliveriki with repeated un-actionable AE requests. Second (recent) AE request: . First request:.
 * Edit-warring or/and WP:TE, with no attempt to discuss on talk pages, in the highly contentious article Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia largely authored by the topic-banned User:Brandmeister,.
 * Display of bad faith via continued labeling of several accounts for two consecutive years despite several warnings and multiple negative SPIs, ,
 * Conflict-related advocacy in the thread regarding Yerevanci's appeal, as per User:Sandstein
 * Promotion of bona fide POV sources, such as the Azerbaijani state news website 1news.az, while suppressing peer-reviewed Western academic references by gaming a consensus-building effort, per WP:GAME, WP:NPOV, and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

Example of disruptive behavior that went unaddressed in 2012:


 * On 18 April 2012, as previosly reported by several editors, Grandmaster vandalized the Nagorno-Karabakh article by removing 38Kb of material, in the process undoing the edits of User:Oliveriki, User:Dehr, User:Winterbliss, User:Sprutt, User:Vacio, User:VartanM, User:Sardur; User:Hablabar; and User:VahagnAvedian. These edits were supported on talk pages, in a consensus negotiated for over a month by most above-mentioned accounts, plus User:Nocturnal781 and User:Zimmarod ; summary of the consensus-building effort is here.


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


 * Warned on 7 February 2013 by
 * Warned on 5 February 2013, 10 February 2013 by and by
 * Warned on 7 March 2012 by
 * Warned on 18 April 2012 by


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

This discussion is a follow-up on User:Sandstein's suggestion to more closely inspect User:Grandmaster, in light of his recent abuse of AE process by filing the second un-actionable AE request against User:Oliveriki. This was preceded by Grandmaster's edit-warring or/and WP:TE, , with no attempt to discuss on talk pages, in the highly contentious article Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia. The article was started and heavily edited by User:Brandmeister - a repeatedly topic-banned account, now for two years. User:Grandmaster maneuvers almost exclusively within the most contentious AA2 topics, editing articles from a partisan viewpoint as per WP:TE. Here is just one example provided by User:517design that illustrates Grandmaster's aggressive style: , , , . Despite multiple warnings, Grandmaster continues harassing a group of editors, including User:Oliveriki and myself, implying that their participation in WP should be ignored or restricted, because of edit count and other real of imaginary issues; at the very same time Grandmaster has aggressively defended the previously topic-banned User:Brandmeister who was sanctioned for the second time just recently because of edit-warring. Grandmaster applies double standards regarding academic sources as well. Here he promotes a bona fide POV Azerbaijani state website 1news.az  as reference, while here  he tried to suppress the use of a high quality work by peer-reviewed Western academics  by gaming the system as per WP:GAME and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

Recent AE actions against User:Yerevanci and User:517design showed a trend toward the use of stricter standards in regard to AA2. User:Cailil said: I agree with Sandstein that in areas under multiple ArbCom mandated probations: "We should expect not only defensible, but exemplary conduct from anyone who wishes to edit [them]". Given that Grandmaster partisanship, intermittent display of anger and other breaches of WP rules are hardly defensible, his continued editorial participation at WP comes under questions.


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :



Reply to Gatoclass and Sandstein

 * Yes, some of the diffs are old but relevant since they illustrate the continuity of patterns of disruptive behavior. True, some of the recent concerns – regarding Oliveriki - were lightly reviewed and a warning to Grandmaster has been mentioned in the closing AE paragraph; this review, however, did not amount to a full assessment since actionable assessments need separate AE requests. Neither was there a formal warning on Grandmaster's webpage - please place it there so that everyone could see it. In other words, both older and newer issues are relevant and should be carefully examined. Grandmaster's WP:TE editing of Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia is the most recent issue. There, instead of explaining himself on talk pages as a response to a bold action by Eupator, Grandmaster simply yanked back this highly controversial, WP:OR-based paragraph, thus continuing an edit war in which parts of the text were deleted and then restored again without any attempt at proper consensus building . It also seemed that the definition of vandalism has been changed, and in its present edition I would qualify Grandmaster's actions on Nagorno-Karabakh as an especially disruptive case of WP:TE instead of vandalism. Zimmarod (talk) 01:54, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Reply to Devil's Advocate

 * The Devil's nickname is a symbol of a commitment to be unfair, and the Devil does not fail to live up to that moniker. The Devil was warned by User:Sandstein that his unreasonably partisan style and aggressive language is not helpful in AE forum . I urge the Devil to retract his emotional statement, and think that AE administrators should limit Devil's participation in delicate topic areas such as AA2 due to his intention to provoke and to confuse. Zimmarod (talk) 01:55, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Reply to Grandmaster
Yes, there were those like Golbez who to this day entertain various theories about meating and socking. This is a violation of WP:AGF. However, neither Golbez nor Sandstein did file two meritless AE requests against Oliveriki. Zimmarod (talk) 01:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Grandmaster
To tell the truth, I do not understand what exactly I'm being accused of. I'm not the only one who thinks that the activity of Zimmarod, Oliveriki and 517design in Shusha looks very suspicious. Sandstein agreed "that the history of the article gives the impression that sock- or meatpuppetry may be involved". Golbez also stated that he believed Zimmarod was a sock account. I wonder why Zimmarod does not report those admins, they expressed the same or even harsher opinions than myself about Zimmarod? With regard to the article Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation there was dealt with in this thread:, by imposing article level sanctions that would limit the ability of editors with less than 500 edits to rv the article. Admins made it clear that this was done to stop socking and meatpuppeting in the article:, while my activity did not lead to any sanctions. Also, Zimmarod does not mention that back then he 3 times restored the edits of the sock of the banned user, without any consensus at talk. In any case, we are talking about something that took place 1 year ago, and most of accounts that Zimmarod says were supporting him are now banned either from editing the whole Wikipedia, or AA topics. That also demonstrates that those accounts were engaged in disruptive activity. My reporting on Oliveriki was dealt with in the appropriate report, where I was warned, so I do not understand what the point is in repeatedly filing enforcement reports on issues that have already been reviewed? If Zimmarod thinks that the edit warring in Nagorno-Karabakh 1 year ago or me filing a report on Oliveriki were not dealt with properly, he needs to file an Arbitration enforcement action appeal and contest the decisions of the admins. Grand master  19:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, I consider accusations of vandalism to be a personal attack, because there's a clear definition of what vandalism is, and my actions 1 year ago did not fit that definition, and admins believed that it was "not appropriate in such a contested article to add so much content in a single edit without discussion, and that the additions need to be discussed section by section by the parties concerned so that outstanding issues can be properly addressed". So clearly the disruption was caused by accounts that tried to restore the edits of the banned editor and mass puppeter, and not by those who tried to get them to discuss and reach consensus first. So I believe admins also need to look into bad faith assumptions and personal attacks by the editor who filed this report. Grand master  19:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

In response to Zimmarod. Golbez filed this SPI request:, where he described in much detail what was going on in the article about Nagorno-Karabakh. And since you raised here that old story, the edit warring on NK was started by and, who were banned as socks on 15 and 18 September 2011. And then it was picked up by a group of accounts that were created around the same time in October-November 2011.
 * October 1, 2011: created a user account
 * November 11, 2011: created a user account
 * November 16, 2011: created a user account
 * November 19, 2011: created a user account
 * November 22, 2011: created a user account

I’m just presenting the facts here, and letting others judge. But the question is, what are the odds that a group of unrelated people could create those accounts and start editing the same page in order to restore the edits of sock accounts of a banned user? It is also of interest that those accounts appear after long absence to support each other, like it was in Shusha recently. Sometimes they are joined by older accounts, which also demonstrate only sporadic activity. Just an example, Zimmarod appeared on 13 December 2012 to support Sprutt at AE: But Zimmarod's last edit prior to that was on 8 October 2012, i.e. he was absent for more than 2 months. So did 517design, who was absent since 28 October 2012, but who appeared on 14 December 2012 to support Sprutt at AE: How did these users become aware of that AE report? We may consider these facts to be just coincidences, but aren't there too many such coincidences? Grand master  00:12, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments by The Devil's Advocate
I once more call for a WP:BOOMERANG on Zimmarod. Talk of "vandalism" and "stalking" is completely beyond the pale and does not match the facts by any measure. Honestly, I feel Sandstein's warning about filing reports against Oliveriki was misguided given the level of disruption created by that account in so few edits. Action against Grandmaster on the basis of Zimmarod's report, even if Zimmarod is sanctioned, would be a mistake, in my opinion.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 06:00, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning Grandmaster

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

Most of these diffs either look very old or concern conduct which has already been reviewed. Linking to an article history page is not a very helpful method of demonstrating "edit warring". Which particular edits on that page in your view constitute evidence of edit warring? Gatoclass (talk) 02:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Reviewing the diffs presented, I'm not convinced that there is something actionable here. The request uses very strong or even hyperbolic language, accusing Grandmaster of severe misconduct such as partisan editing, gaming the system, vandalism, stalking, harassing or edit-warring. Yet the evidence submitted is not sufficient to substantiate such severe accusations. For example, the charge of edit-warring is only supported with a link to a history page and one diff. We can't determine edit-warring on that basis. Zimmarod alleges that at, Grandmaster engages in "promotion of bona fide POV sources" such as 1news.az. Yet even assuming for the sake of argument that this news medium is indeed biased, Grandmaster only cites it to attribute a statement allegedly made by a person to that news medium, which appears unproblematic. The edit at , which Zimmarod characterizes as vandalism, seems to me to reflect, at most, editing contrary to an (alleged) consensus. That is not in and of itself sanctionable, because consensus can change. It only becomes problematic if it is done repeatedly (by edit-warring), or as part of a pattern of tendentious editing. But that would need more than one diff to establish. Likewise, Zimmarod alleges that Grandmaster is "editing articles from a partisan viewpoint as per WP:TE", but cites as evidence only edits to an AfD page (i.e., not an article), which moreover do not appear unduly partisan or aggressive to me.
 * Only one part of the evidence is more concerning. It is not acceptable to allege abusive sockpuppetry on the part of an editor, as Grandmaster did at, without evidence, and in an inappropriate context (on an article talk page, which is supposed to be about content, not conduct issues). As a positive counter-example, at , Grandmaster did supply (what he considered to be) circumstantial evidence of sock- or meatpuppetry, and did so in a contextually appropriate forum.
 * On that basis, I recommend closing this request with a warning to both Zimmarod and Grandmaster not to accuse others of severe misconduct (such as vandalism or sockpuppetry) unless such accusations are made (a) in the appropriate dispute resolution or enforcement forum, and (b) with adequate evidence to support these accusations. Failure to heed this warning could lead to a topic ban for either editor.  Sandstein   15:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * While I've been waiting for Zimmarod to respond to my request for specific diffs, I have been considering laying a brief topic ban for filing what appears to be a meritless report. However, the pattern of his evidence, including heavy reliance on old diffs, suggests a lack of familiarity with this process, which requires evidence of recent misconduct. I guess we could give him the benefit of the doubt but I think a warning not to file meritless requests would be appropriate. With regard to the "comments on contributor", given the tensions in contentious topic areas it is not surprising that users might be inclined to vent a little once they arrive at a dispute resolution forum, so rather than a warning I would probably lean to a reminder to both parties that charges made against other parties need to be backed up by evidence. Gatoclass (talk) 16:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Zimmarod has been here before, several times. I think a warning is merited, and an action may be. Editors who have been here before surely know that diffs are required and brevity and clarity is strongly encouraged. Killer Chihuahua 18:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Given that Zimmarod's intemperate commentary in this request has just been flagged by Sandstein as possible grounds for a warning, I am not at all impressed by Zimmarod's response, where he says of another user: The Devil's nickname is a symbol of a commitment to be unfair, and the Devil does not fail to live up to that moniker. That strikes me as a totally gratuitous and indefensible breach of WP:AGF, not to mention WP:BATTLEGROUND. It seems the message is not getting through here. Gatoclass (talk) 04:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Sandstein explained very well how this request is not actionable towards Grandmaster. I also have to agree with Gatoclass that Zimmarod's comment about "the Devil" is inappropriate, and very much playing with a battleground mentality. At the very least, a warning needs to be issued to Zimmarod. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  15:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't see anything actionable against Grandmaster. Also agree that the clearly inappropriate and inaccurate interpretation of another editor's name Zimmarod made above probably does qualify for at least a warning, and probably more, although I guess I would probably lean toward lighter rather than heavier sanctions. John Carter (talk) 20:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * In consideration of the above discussion, I am closing this request with a warning to Zimmarod. Any continued battleground-like conduct is likely to result in a block or ban. I'm not issuing a separate warning to Grandmaster, because his one edit problematic in this regard is rather old now, although of course the advice applies to him and all other editors active in the topic area as well.  Sandstein   10:11, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Request concerning Sprutt

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Parishan (talk) 09:55, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2


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


 * 1)
 * 2)


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


 * 1) Topic banned and notified on by

User:Sprutt was banned indefinitely from the topic of Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts. Despite this, he removes information from the article which mentions the support of the Armenian organization for encouraging separatist movements in Azerbaijan.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by Sprutt
Armenia Fund is a charity and has nothing to do with Armenia-Azerbaijan topic in Wikipedia. Sprutt (talk) 15:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It is directly involved in sponsoring projects in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an Armenian-occupied part of Azerbaijan, and was criticised for supporting separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh, as mentioned in the paragraph removed by you. Parishan (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning Sprutt

 * I also agree with the submitter that this violates Sprutt's topic ban. Regarding my edits on the article Armenia Fund, I didn't put biased sources. Most of the sources are from blogs, videos, articles, papers, researches done by Armenians (not by Azerbaijanis) and have lots of proof & evidence for the listed facts. Therefore I don't think that my edits lack neutrality and don't understand why I have to receive warning (even formal one). Best, Konullu (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * My intention wasn't to warn WP readers not contribute to Armenia Fund. I just didn't want to paraphrase that sentence assuming that it will be deleted claiming that it is my "own work" and I might be accused for bad faith. Therefore I left that sentence as it is, you can easily check on Google and see that I used the same wording used by Armenian researcher regarding the fund. Best, Konullu (talk) 22:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Since there are doubts with regard to the scope of AA sanctions, this request for clarification might be helpful: My understanding of this is that any tendentious editing related to Armenia or Azerbaijan or related regions falls within the scope of AA2 sanctions. In this regard, Sprutt did violate his restriction, as his edit was related to AA topics, from which he was banned. Grand master  22:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I honestly find it downright amusing that Konullu would write that he didn't "want to paraphrase that sentence assuming that it will be deleted claiming that it is my 'own work' and I might be accused for bad faith." This is exactly what we encourage editors to do: to paraphrase, not copy and paste and pass the work off as your own. Konullu's edits place such obvious undue emphasis on the negative aspects of the Armenia Fund that it's possible that it didn't quite matter to him so long as he thought the content of the edits spoke for itself. To add this text without placing it in quotation marks is not only plagiarism but, as the administrators below have noted might be construed to be an endorsement of Wikipedia's views.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 03:31, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning Sprutt

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


 * The request is actionable. Contrary to Sprutt's statement, the edit at concerned the topic of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict if only because it removed the following text: "Support for separatism. The financial assistance does not only go to Armenian Republic, but also to non-recognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. As it is considered integral part of Azerbaijan Republic by all international law and organizations, Armenian Fund is claimed to finance separatism." This violates the topic ban imposed at . I suggest a two-week enforcement block. Also, although this isn't relevant to this particular request, the wording of the topic ban ("the topic of Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts") doesn't make clear whether the ban also extends to anything related to each of the two countries, or only to their conflict(s). I suggest rephrasing it as "anything related to Armenia, Azerbaijan or related ethnic conflicts" to make clear that we mean the former.   Sandstein   16:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with the submitter that this violates Sprutt's topic ban. @Sandstein, I suggest not widening the ban, because Sprutt has also made edits about Armenian architecture. This seems harmless, and it fits with advice we have given in the past. We sometimes remind topic-banned editors that non-conflict-related edits are OK. Note that the material Sprutt reverted was recently added by User:Konullu and it exhibits obvious lack of neutrality. Konullu was warned for AA following an ANI report in 2012. I suggest that we formally warn Konullu for his non-neutral edit at Armenia Fund. I will notify him that he's been mentioned here. Some of his material may be able to stay but he is accepting all criticism at face value and putting it in Wikipedia's voice. EdJohnston (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Konullu: Here is the actual wording of the 'Criticism' paragraph that you added: "Despite their willingness to lend a helping hand, numerous contributors tend to think twice before making a donation, due to multiple reports and evidence of corruption linked to the activities of the Fund." Do you think Wikipedia should be warning our readers not to contribute to the Armenia Fund? Should we be announcing in Wikipedia's voice that the Fund is corrupt? This needs to be given in indirect speech and cited to the source. If there is any rebuttal, we should include that also. Cherry-picking negative material about the Armenia Fund is obviously non-neutral. EdJohnston (talk) 18:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No objection to a warning of Konullu on that basis.  Sandstein   20:52, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I concur that this is actionable and that the edits violate the topic ban. The Armenian Fund article's content, as mentioned above, is clearly within the realm of the injunction on Sprutt's editing. Unlike Ed though, I also support Sandstein's proposed rewording of the topic ban. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what exactly justifies for an extension of the topic ban, can someone explain this? -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  21:05, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily an extension, but rather a clarification. The wording "the topic of Armenia-Azerbaijan", which is unfortunately also found in the ArbCom decision, is unclear as to whether it refers to only the relationship between these two countries, or also to everything related to either country alone. I've assumed that the latter is what was originally meant, but if not we should clarify the scope in the former sense. I'll ask the admin who imposed the topic ban to comment.  Sandstein   21:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * This edit violated the topic ban, but the primary issue last time was with Sprutt's tendentious behavior. Any extension of a topic ban should be tailored to addressed that if possible. If you think you can find a better way to do it, by all means please feel free to change the wording of the ban. Agree with Ed that Konullu ought to be warned or sanctioned. NW ( Talk ) 21:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Tha'ts not exactly what I was asking regarding the intended scope of the ban, but never mind, that's probably better asked as an ArbCom clarification request.  Sandstein   13:15, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm sorry. Let me clarify: I believe the topic ban ought to cover anything relating to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, whether that covers the actions that the governments have taken with respect to each other or individual citizens doing things that antagonize citizens of the other country. The scope of the ban attempted to be narrowly tailored enough to cover where Sprutt was being most tendentious. If it needs to be expanded to cover Armenia or Azerbaijan as a whole to stop that kind of behavior, that is one option, but I'm not seeing it as particularly necessary. His edits clearly related to antagonism between peoples of the two countries and as such violated the topic ban as it currently stands. NW ( Talk ) 17:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that clarifies it for me. If there are no objections, I'll close this with a two-week block for Sprutt, with a clarification that the topic ban applies to anything relating to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and a warning to Konullu to observe WP:NPOV closely when editing in this topic area.  Sandstein   18:09, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Request concerning Konullu

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : Proudbolsahye (talk) 21:34, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :

Konullu has been a Turkish/Azeri POV pusher with a severe case of battleground mentality and a long history of disruption on Armenian-Azeri/Turkish-related topics. He has been consistently engaging in tendentious editing, edit-warring, and several other forms of disruption, documented below.
 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBAA2


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


 * 1) Reverted the blanking of the article by an admin without any edit-summary. The article is one big POV pushing, Copyright infringing, unreliably sourced article. Please see the TP of article for more details.
 * 2) Many cases of tag bombing (this is just one example)
 * 3) Changing the coordinates of Mount Ararat just because it "appears to be in Armenia"
 * Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required) :


 * 1) Warned on 24 February 2013 by
 * 2) Warned on 4 December 2012 by
 * 3) Warned on 7 December 2012 by

I would first like to point out that Konullu is under a serious suspicion of SPI. This SPI has been going on for awhile but it has received no responses. The SPI is very problematic and disruptive. All IP addresses under the claim are in the same agenda of the mentioned user. The IP addresses have been used to vote stack, edit-war, violate WP:BLPCRIME, and severe POV editing.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

Additional concerns:

Tried to manipulate E4024, a user who is banned due to the very same accusations which has brought me here, to POV tag the Armenian National Congress (1917) article. This was an article which he has sent to AfD before. Just for reference: E4024 has POV tagged this article 3 times already through edit warring

He has copied and pasted large sections of "Armenian Genocide" denial in 6 Armenian related articles:
 * 1) Armenian Genocide
 * 2) Armenian Highland
 * 3) Armenia
 * 4) History of Armenia
 * 5) Armenian resistance (1914–1918)
 * 6) United Armenia


 * The entire Justice for Khojaly page of the mentioned users creation and edits is in serious violation of Copyrighted material, POV, and unreliable sources which include Facebook, YouTube, and various blogs. See TP for more details.


 * Justice for Khojaly He has copied and pasted large sections of a highly POV and unreliably sourced paragraph about the Khojaly massacre. The section itself is highly POV using words like "brutally", "violently", "totally exterminated", and references to it being worse than the Srebrenica Massacre and it being one of the worst Genocides in the 20th century. Might I also add that the sources used to make these claims is a letter [of a reader] to an editor by a certain "Sumer Aygen" and a post by a certain username "südkaukasus2" made to have the German government recognize the massacre as genocide (which anyone can do). I have raised these concerns to him in the Talk Page but to no avail. As far as I know, this massacre paragraph is currently in at least three different articles (1,2,3).


 * Almost all his edits don't have edit-summaries making it extremely difficult to point out his POV edits.


 * AfD for Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians clearly a disruptive move


 * once again tendentious copying and pasting of unsourced information.


 * Armenia Fund he added sources of some Ara K. Manoogian and his postings on keghart.com and his personal website thetruthmustbetold.com

I propose that he be banned from all topics relating to Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenians, per WP:ARBAA2


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Statement by Konullu
Let me answer one by one: 1. I reverted article Justice for Khojaly, because it was completely cleared and redirected to Khojaly Massacre by User:Someguy1221 without any discussion on talk page. According to WP guidelines proper way: As there was no discussion, nomination and consensus, I reverted back the article to the previous version.
 * to delete the whole content is nominating for AfD (Article for Deletion), so that the community could discuss and reach consensus;
 * to redirect to another article is nominating for merging or redirecting;

2. It is not called tag-bombing. It is clarifying the statements and sources. I put citation needed template in that article and explained why citations are needed. This is not against the statements. If I didn't agree with those statements and had facts opposing these facts, I could remove them. I wanted the improvements in the article and encourage editors to provide sources, no bad faith at all.

3. I raised Mount Ararat issue on Wikiproject and got clarification. It was also discussed on my talk page and solved long ago. Conclusion was that my coordinate edits, albeit mistaken, were made in good faith.

4. I didn't manipulate User:E4024. If I wanted, I could do it via personal message, not on talk page. I just wanted to help him to follow the rules on WP. Generally, I am trying to be helpful to other users and give some recommendations in case I see that they might need my advice.

5. I put Genocide denials by Armenians section into some articles with verifiable reference and I don't see anything wrong here. There is article Armenian Genocide denial, category Category:Armenian Genocide deniers. The information I put in the article was not mine, it was from Vahan Cardashian who was originally Armenian. I just wanted to include verifiable information about certain views that exist within the Armenian community.

6. I have already answered your concerns regarding the JFK article on its talk page and you answered that "I am not willing to work on an article". Therefore I do not understand why you wrote after that here "I have raised these concerns to him in the Talk Page but to no avail". If you think that the content of the article needs improvements, go ahead according to Dispute resolution. I have already encouraged you and others on talk page. Some users have already improved that article, changed some wordings, deleted sentences, etc.

7. AfD for Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians was not disruptive move at all. I would like to recall that after this AfD request WikiUsers started to discuss this congress and found out that Congress of Eastern Armenians, Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians and Armenian National Congress (1917) are all the same and WikiUsers redirected / merged all of them to the one article.

8. I was warned for my edits on the article about Armenia Fund, it is not correct to bring this here again. No one receives punishment twice for the same thing.

I am ready to provide any clarification if needed. Thanks. Best, Konullu (talk) 23:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Folantin
Konullu is a prime example of a blatant POV-pusher. He is an Azerbaijani nationalist whose chief purpose here is to use Wikipedia as a battlefield to fight Armenians (over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, inevitably).

His grudge against Armenians is evident from his edits to the article Fraud where he added people with Armenian names to the section on "Notable fraudsters", ,. He then arranged the list in alleged "alphabetical" order (by first name!) so an entry with an Armenian name would be first. The person in question is not a convicted criminal and this was a clear violation of WP:BLPCRIME. On a related article, he logged out so he could re-add the person in question's name back in January, again in violation of BLP.

He was disruptive at Articles for deletion/Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians. The closing admin, found evidence of "tendentious and sock editing". He continues to disrupt the resulting article, Armenian National Congress (1917), with bad faith tagbombing (if anything, the article is overreferenced). He's just canvassed, who is currently blocked under ARBAA2, to help him meat puppet there by adding NPOV tags.

I am still awaiting the results of an SPI I filed on Konullu almost two weeks ago. There is clear WP:DUCK evidence he has engaged in abusive sock puppetry at AfDs and elsewhere. He regularly edits logged-out to evade ARBAA2 sanctions.

This guy can barely speak English. He contributes nothing to Wikipedia except racial warring. He does his best to make Transcaucasian topics an immensely frustrating area for neutral users to edit. Why do we need him? A solid ban is in order. --Folantin (talk) 10:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)


 * ^Basically what he said.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Result concerning Konullu

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

Indef topic-ban seems quite appropriate to me here. Will impose one if nobody objects. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:21, 26 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree with Future Perfect's solution. The SSPI needs investigation also but that can be handled there-- Cailil  talk 12:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Topic ban imposed. [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Konullu&diff=540725023&oldid=540370362]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)