Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive154

Sean.hoyland
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning Sean.hoyland

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 16:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA - topic ban :


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


 * 1) 16:01, July 28, 2014 Revert #1
 * 2) 19:13, July 28, 2014 Revert #2


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) 11:07, June 28, 2014 Blocked for disruptive editing in ARBPIA topic area
 * 2) 22:07, 21 September 2012 Blocked for edit-warring


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.

I notified Sean.hoyland that he violated 1RR at Palestinian tunnel warfare in the Gaza Strip (the article name has been changing) and should revert but he refused and in effect said he was above the law. Unfortunately, Sean.hoyland has become an increasingly combative editor as of late (see his recent disruptive editing block) and has been editing more or less exclusively in the I/P topic area over the past several months (just see his contributions). I think he would be well served by taking a break from the I/P topic area and making constructive edits elsewhere.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :
 * @Sandstein, there could be a better title than "attack tunnels" ("terror tunnels" would be a pretty clear POV title, in comparison), but the term has been used throughout many mainstream media outlets e.g.:
 * Christian Science Monitor
 * Times of Israel
 * AFP
 * Huffington Post
 * Associated Press
 * Financial Times Plot Spoiler (talk) 21:11, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * @ZScarpia, your reading is mistaken. I was not advocating for the title "terror tunnels" - that is a pretty clear POV title. I was demonstrating that the term "attack tunnels" has been employed in mainstream media -- not that there might be a be a suitable title than "attack tunnels". Plot Spoiler (talk) 01:32, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * @Nishidani, I don't appreciate your bizarre personal attack that my username signifies that "there is a plot against an unnamed country in wikipedia [Israel] and I as editor will unravel its insidious presence." My original username was "ShamWow", but I was forced to change it on short notice because that is a trademarked product. Sorry if I like movies. You should know better than to make bizarre personal attacks of no merit. Plot Spoiler (talk) 13:52, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Discussion concerning Sean.hoyland
''Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.''

Statement by Sean.hoyland
I'm not going to contest the 1RR violation. I made 2 reverts. The first was to remove material that was unrelated to the subject of the article, something the editor who added it really should have known if they had read the source, and the second, intended to allow a discussion on the talk page to proceed and come to consensus without drive by interference from a non-participating editor imposing their personal view. As I said "I don't mind being blocked for that. I stand by the edit." I do however contest the notion that what I said on my talk page" can be reasonably be described as "in effect said he was above the law". That is, in fact, gross misrepresentation. Editors should not be allowed to do that because it's wrong. Not sure about "increasingly combative" either. Increasingly robotic perhaps. My response was the opposite of combative. I'm not a combatant and editing Wikipedia is not a battle, and yet battle rages everyday in ARBPIA.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 18:06, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * My actions were necessary and correct. I removed content unrelated to the article and nullified the effects of an editor who ignored the ongoing discussion, a discussion that showed the lack of consensus for PS's edit. PS ignored BRD and imposed their personal view, a view inconsistent with numerous sources. Editing like that cannot be tolerated in ARBPIA and it must be nullified regardless of the consequences for the individual editors who understand and do what is necessary. The fact that admins can't see that is unfortunate but an inevitable consequence of being uninvolved. I do what is necessary in ARBPIA fully prepared to take the consequences because admins don't police the topic area.
 * Just in case someone raises the issue that a self-revert was not an option by the time I logged in because the article had already been moved at 2014-07-28T21:27:30 as a result of the discussion (which of course resulted in a title that didn't include the word 'attack'), I want to be absolutely clear that I would not have self-reverted even if it were an option or I had been specifically instructed to do so by an admin. I can't make edits that I believe are not in the interests of the project. That includes self-reverts that facilitate editors who ignore ongoing discussions. I can't do that and I will never do that.
 * I see admins making comments about the content. Are you involved or uninvolved ? If you are want to be involved and comment on content, you need to do the research, do it properly by examining a large set of sources and participate in the discussions that produce consensus. Of course there are sources that use the term 'attack tunnels'. Sources use a whole spectrum of terms but advocates don't care about complexity and contradictions and will pick the language they like most. It's a characteristic feature of advocacy in ARBPIA, systemic bias in source sampling rather than rational source based discussion to find consensus. It would be better if admins became involved and made hundreds of edits in ARBPIA. In fact I think it should be a requirement so that admins have a better understanding of the topic area and can make decisions that address the core issues. They will quickly figure out what is necessary to keep a lid on the non-stop WP:NOTADVOCATE disruption there.
 * When considering the length of my topic ban consider that in 3/6/12 or any number of months times, if I see an editor do what PS did I will revert them no matter whether it happens to be my first edit or part of a sequence of contiguous edits or a technical 1RR violation because someone else happened to make an edit after my first edit. Editors can't be allowed to ignore ongoing discussions in ARBPIA and it is foolish for admins to facilitate that behavior. It's one of the root causes of conflict in the topic area and has been for years. It has to be suppressed. Technical 1RR violations and all sorts of policy violations occur countless times a day all over the topic area. Almost nobody cares, least of all admins. I don't mind being topic banned for a 1RR violation but it really isn't in the interests of the project to perpetuate the illusion that admin actions are preventative or have any effect. Admins have no control over what happens in ARBPIA and cannot prevent anything. Anyone who edits regularly in ARBPIA already knows this. The presence or absence of editors like me and the tens of thousands of edits I've made in ARBPIA have had and will always have a negligible impact relative to the very substantial numbers of editors and socks who violate WP:NOTADVOCATE every single day.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 08:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Huldra
The back story:
 * 14:18, 28 July 2014‎: article  Hamas attack tunnels  is started by a rather new  editor, user:ShulMaven   -arguing that this was different from  Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels


 * 14:23, 28 July 2014: ShulMaven moves article to Palestinian attack tunnels


 * 15:21, 28 July 2014 I moved the article to Palestinian tunnels (not a very satisfactory title, but just to get rid of the rather NPOV article title); I also participated on the talk-page, together with the article author and User:Sean.hoyland, and several others. Basically, only the original author argued for the original title, with the controversial word attack in it.


 * 16:01, 28 July 2014:  User:Sean.hoyland removes a part which was only  relevant to   Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels.


 * 19:00, 28 July 2014: Plot Spoiler  unilaterally moved the article from  Palestinian tunnels  to Gaza Strip attack tunnels. Plot  Spoiler has never  participated on the talk-page,
 * 19.13, 28 July 2014 : User:Sean.hoyland moved it back to   Palestinian tunnels

The article is (presently) named Palestinian tunnel warfare in the Gaza Strip; an article name most editors seem to be able to live with. Now, you can argue if there should be two different articles about these tunnels, but if it is, then we should clearly not  have  material in article A which only pertain to article B. And this is what    User:Sean.hoyland 1.st revert was about: removing irrelevant material.

Plot Spoiler unilateral move of the article, without any form of consensus, without any discussion, to an extremely controversial article name which was not supported by those who participated on the talk-page: this was clearly out of line. I think Plot Spoiler should perhaps edit in other areas than the I/P area for a while. Huldra (talk) 17:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Shrike: good question. The way I saw it was that there was clearly no consensus for keeping the contentious  word attack in the title. So I moved it to the easiest option: ie, the same title, minus the word "attack". Huldra (talk) 17:55, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Shrike
User:Huldra did you had any consensus to move it in the first place?--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Huldra As far as I can see there was no consensus to move it either.There is no WP:Deadline you should have waited and initiate discussion per WP:RM/CM to gain consensus .I think it should be true for any WP:ARBPIA article--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 18:07, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by ZScarpia
Plot Spoiler wrote: "the term has been used throughout many mainstream media outlets e.g ... ." The only one of the linked to sources which uses the term "terror tunnel" (an alternative source for the Financial Times article is here) is the Times of Israel, but then, apparently, only as a category for grouping articles. In the four most recent articles included in that category the phrase used is 'attack tunnel'. 21:56, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

@Plot Spoiler, apologies, my mistake. You might like to remove the Financial Times from your list, though. It doesn't, as far as I can see, refer to attack tunnels.    ←   ZScarpia  15:49, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Nishidani
The inflamed events of the I/P world have recently lead to a huge overload as editors rush to write new articles. Naturally, reports of ARBPIA infractions increase. There’s exasperation over both the inhumane work load being created for any conscientious practitioner of WP:NPOV, since the volume of bad edits is unmanageable, and, more particularly, the 1R is now being broken every other hour, even by serious experienced wikipedians, whatever their sympathies, pro/contra/neutral. I don’t report them because I respect the editors involved – their interest is in page improvement, so reporting them would be getting at editors to game wikipedia, even if they revert me. Worst of all, in several cases recently, admins, who should (a) give us guidance and (b) find a way out of the problem several editors (Sean Hoyland, Zero, Scarpia) have mentioned, have, perhaps understandably, just concentrated on 1R application, while, as is evident to everyone, the rule is being interpreted differently from admin to admin. There is no agreement, from complaint to complaint, among esteemed and highly experienced admins, as to the way that rule must unequivocably be read. All someone like myself can do is proceed thinking ‘I can only edit a page once a day’, while watching most editors happily copyediting, revising, removing, adjusting any one text, under furious attention from numerous posters, without paying much attention to the extreme niceties of interpretation. It is immensely frustrating to old I/P editors who have survived the insanity of this area for years. The only people being reported are egregious newbies or notable editors sanctioned in the past, or people often thought of as having membership in an I/P gang or clique. This is the context of the two cases where Sean Hoyland has been reported. In both instances, he broke the rule, and of course, a sanction is inevitable. But application of the sanction in lieu of remedies for the chaos, though inevitable in this case, will not solve anything but only complicate things. Take the reporter, Plot Spoiler.

If you look at Plot Spoiler’s contribs, most of it exhibits chronic instant reverting: he’s a removalist of anything critical of Israel or favourable to Palestinians, and one who rarely confers with editors on the talk page. I always think of him as a drive-by reverter. He ‘talks’ only when reporting someone. Here a just a few examples from the last few days. I find most of his edits questionable, but will use these as a minimal sampler of what he does.
 * 1.Thane Rosenbaum’s ‘Controversy section’ is removed wholesale on WP:BPL grounds, when all controversialists have controversy sections here

What did he remove?

(a) Conor Friedersdorf, The Dangerous Logic Used to Justify Killing Civilians The Atlantic 23 July 2014.

Comment. The article appeared in The Atlantic, which is a perfectly middle-of the-road, respectable magazine, impeccably S. Plot Spoiler defied the usual rule to respect strong rs retention.

(b)Thane Rosenbaum Hamas’s Civilian Deaths Strategy Wall Street Journal 21 July 2014.

Comment: The article appeared in the Wall Street Journal, which no one questions as RS. Plot Spoiler ignored the usual rule to respect strong rs retention.

(c) Daniel Larison, Non-Combatants and Gaza The American Conservative 21 July 2014.

Comment: The article appeared in The American Conservative, eminently rs, and Plot Spoiler ignores the rule to retain such strong rs

In sum, three eminently adequate RS are expunged because Plot Spoiler apparently either dislikes criticism of Israel, even in mainstream journals, or does not tolerate any expansion of articles by notable journalists that see problems with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. That kind of editing is self-evidently POV pushing, and the pretextual expunging of S can find not basis in wiki policy or practice.

Comment. PL removes links to the man whose bio is dealt with on the page, links to him speaking on youtube, or a detail of where he lives. That is hostility to his views operating, and many BLPs have links to their youtube talks. There is nothing wrong in this. But Braverman’s talks are about Palestinians.
 * (2) Mark Braverman removing some advert.


 * (3) activist sources do not qualify as WP:RS.

Comment. While Plot Spoiler spends much of his removing references to Electronic Intifada, this is a mechanical removal at sight which is wrong, because while EI can be questioned, the scholar interviewed by EI here, Gilbert Achcar is an authority in his field who happened to concede an nterview to EI. Achcar is often highly critical of Palestinian figures as well, and Achcar’s stature is such that it trumps the venue where his views, which PS expunges, are aired. Most of us understand that. PL doesn’t care. He just reverts, and doesn’t notify the talkpage of why Achcar cannot be cited directly from EI.

Comment. This is a bravura piece of specious edit summarizing, which deceives anyone who does not go on to examine what PL actually did. On any comparable page dealing with figures like Gideon Levy, Alan Dershowitz, Jeffrey Goldberg or even Pamela Geller, you will find numerous citations from their op eds and articles published in the mainstream press. Plot Spoiler won't allow this for a Palestinian intellectual. The mass revert not only expunges Moor's articles published in the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Al-Jazeera ETC., but 'takes out' precisely the kind of material Plot Spoiler himself stipulates is required Namely, secondary sources like Rachel Gotbaum, 'Local Groups Mobilize Support For Israelis, Palestinians,' WBUR-FM 9 Nov 2012, which are 'secondary sources commenting on his (Moor's) opinions.' This is the ultimate of editorial whimsy and chutzpah, removing precisely material that satisfies the otherwise arbitrary criterion for inclusion set by the deleter himself. I'll lay a bet that nothing like this defiance of the most elementary rules can be discovered in the long history of Sean.hoyland's edit history, but Plot Spoiler's spoiling to get rid of him. Why?Nishidani (talk) 13:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * (4) Gutting the page on Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian born in the Rafah Refugee Camp, with the edit summary need secondary sources commenting on his opinions, not just op-eds published by the author, meaning the mass removal of 17,000 bytes.

Comment The repeated use of ‘activist source’ for any non-strictly ‘mainstream newspaper’ is improper. Mondoweiss is borderline –it has a notable number of highly empirical reports that are superior to much mainstream reportage in it, for example- but can be used, as can Electronic Intifada, depending on circumstances, for notable opinions, not for facts. In this case, Scott McConnell is a respectable journalist and founder of The American Conservative, and that is sufficient to permit his views to be cited on a case regarded that scholar. The point is identical with the suppression of a comment from Gilbert Achcar above. If the author is notable, the grey RS area of Mondoweiss, or Electronic Intifada is less relevant.
 * (5) Shawan Jabarin again, a Palestinian.activist source not RS removes Scott McConnell 'The assault on Human Rights Watch and Shawan Jabarin.


 * (6) Nigel Kennedy activist sources do not qualify as WP:RS.

Comment The facts reported could have been ascertained in five seconds of googling, providing any editor with confirmation that the same information reported by Mondoweiss and other ‘activist sources’ was reported by mainstream RS. i.e. here (The Huffington Post), here (Jews for Justice for Palestinians); or here (The Telegraph). Rather than build the page by improving sourcing, PS just uses the RS argument to expunge an exbarrassing fact, widely attested.


 * (7) Udi Aloni Udi Aloni is a critic of his government’s policies.wikify, most of these fail WP:RS, WP:EL

Comment Deceptive edit summary, note most. The sources removed include several articles from the Israeli mainstream press on Aloni, i.e., Haaretz and Ynet, and Columbia University Press which qualify as rs. Here, here, here, here, here and and here. Rather than build the article, Plot Spoiler just expunges a list of several eminently good sources that direct editors to improvement.


 * (8) Yehuda Kroizer ‎remove non-RS

Comment. This is an edit summary in egregious bad faith. He removes his usual object of his objections Mondoweiss, and yet immediately after that source we have the Israeli West Bank settlers’ mouthpiece, Arutz Sheva, which has no pretensions to reportorial investigation characteristic of much of Mondoweiss, and which on identical grounds could be challenged as not rs. So Plot Spoiler understands by non-Rs anything critical of Israel, but does not apply the same criterion to a source with a ultra-Israel ideological slant.


 * (9) Nadia Hijab Palestinian scholar.Cleanup WP:Advert, WP:Peacock, Wikify

Comment: removes rs sources (though the urls had to be corrected) Institute of Palestine Studies (rs);  The Guardian (rs);  The Nation (rs), together with two of her own articles appearing in Counterpunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/hijab08072006.html here) and Mondoweiss (http://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/without-political-framework.html here). My understanding is that a reputable scholar/author/writers articles can be used as reliable sources for his/her views, even if the source is not ‘mainstream’. Were that not so, only people writing for the partisan mainstream press would ever be heard on wikipedia.


 * (10) Morad Fareed, again a Palestinian soccer player turned businessmen.remove WP:Advert crap, WP:Peacock, wikify

The ‘crap’ about this ‘peacock’ Palestinian consists also in (1) an article on him appearing in BBC News

(2) a write up appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle,

(3) Another on his company in here from Reuters, i.e., impeccable RS, etc.

From these 10 cases just over the last two days, a very high hit-rate for bad edits, it is evident that Plot Spoiler trawls articles, particularly on Palestinians, and systematically removes content, easily resourced, verifiable, or already present in mainstream rs, by a mechanical or contentious spin on rs policy, simply to impoverish articles rather than fix or improve them, and throwing the burden of improvement on other editors. The editing is generally hostile to the subject of the article. I should add that virtually every article on Rabbbis in wikipedia is largely sourced to articles that fail RS, but only an antisemite would comb through them to wreck them on a strict or distortedly severe reading of that policy. Nishidani (talk) 17:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC) PL has complained here (cui bono?), and expects his record to be ignored. Well, frankly his record is infinitely more problematical than HS’s, whose interest in the I/P area is mainly focused on isolating abusive serial violators of NPOV, and POV advocacy warriors, like Plot Spoiler (the name says as much: 'there is a plot against an unnamed country in wikipedia and I as editor will unravel its insidious presence'). Of course, he has asked for a sanction and will get it. But the peculiar hypocrisy of the plaintiff in objecting to SH while behaving precisely in the manner SH has identified as deleterious to the encyclopedic ends of wikipedia merits examination, and, in my view, a sanction as heavy, at least, as anything that admins will duly hand out to Sean Hoyland, whose exasperation is such he is asking to be guillioteened. Nishidani (talk) 12:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * My aside on what your handle suggests to a close, native reader of English in context is expendable. The evidence I supplied constitutes the gravamen of my argument, and this you ignore. Such snippets culled from a short sampling of a vast record I could expand ad nauseam and only cite because I'm fed up with the abuse by bad or indifferent editors of administrative recourses to get rid of competent contributors. Nishidani (talk) 15:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * IjonTichy AE is no place for special pleading because when rules are broken, exceptions can't be made because people are nice guys, good contributors, etc. My own remarks above are not in extenuation of SH's behaviour. I did as he has two or three years ago at Zeitoun. It was pointed out I broke 1r inadvertently: I was asked to revert, and since that mean reverting to a deliberately falsified text introduced by a now banned povwarrior, I refused to budge because for me reverting to allow falsehood into an article is unacceptable, and thus I prefer to wear the rap (2 or 3 months suspension). The point is, however, that the gaming of A/I and AE with supercilious complaints requires that whoever complains has his own behaviour examined. It's not a matter of exculpation, but of finding out if the plaintiff's recourse to rule enforcement reflects integrity and respect for wikipedia, or double-standards of which the plaintiff himself may fall well short. SH must be sanctioned. The question is, should Plot Spoiler, an egregiously bad editor, be allowed to get his scalp while persisting in his own daily infringement of the 5 pillars.Nishidani (talk) 19:56, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Sandstein. They are not content disputes. If you consistently remove with false edit summaries mainstream RS while pretending that you are removing non-RS, you are gaming the system. You yourself, and many challenge your reading (I don't) write often in judgements that respect for WP:npov, meaning care to edit in such a manner both sides are duly represented, is obligatory, and even the short amount of evidence above shows the contrary in PL's case. You noted some days back that (a)you have almost no knowledge of the I/P area history. The assumption is that you can judge without understanding if an edit if patently false, or stupid or not. Perhaps (I strongly disagree, but it's a legitimate position). That is why I wrote out the context (b) which gets your response:WP:TLDR. Well, checking every text used in PS's edits, checking the veracity of the context, some of which I don't care to know, meant several hours. His reverts without reading what he expunges take 2 minutes.  Fuck it, those of us who have to work at ground level see rubbish every quarter or half an hour and if we allowed ourselves to run to mummy and complain, running up diffs (I'm hopeless at that) the encyclopedia would never be written. Those diffs are crap edits, one in every two or three, over a short 2 or three days, chosen almost arbitrarily and I have had to witness this whenever PS works a page I have earmarked. Just bringing perspective into this complaint meant I burnt a half a day I usually spend actually writing up articles, not fooling about gutting them to make life hard for some other joker. In  8 years I've made one complaint, also because this stuff is unrelievably tedious. So, by all means rid this place of one of its best editors, who like you and me, is fallible and fatigued by having to look at bullshit every day, instead of doing something useful with one's time, like ensuring that the encyclopedia is built with scruple. If you think people like myself are going to becoming addicts of this place to punish the plaintiff afterwards, you're wrong. PS will have one of the major obstacles to his execrable messing with wikipedia removed (thanks to your insistance that nothing but a petty infraction is the case here) Nishidani (talk) 20:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by IjonTichy
This is a clear case of Boomerang against PlotSpoiler. I first became aware of PS due to this edit on July 16, where PS removed yet another notable point of view/ opinion by a notable writer/ columnist appearing in an RS (the Israeli paper Haaretz) with the specious edit summary "fails WP:NPOV, WP:RS". I then proceeded to study PS's list of contributions and concluded his/ her edits are almost entirely focused on removing content, often well-sourced, that may paint Israel or Israel-supporters in a bad light. My own study of PS's edits leads me to strongly agree with Nishidan's analysis (above) of PS's disruptive editing.

Sean.hoyland's track record proves beyond a shadow of doubt he is here to build an encyclopedia. PS's contributions show PS is not here to build an encyclopedia. In my view, PS, and not Sean, should be topic-banned. IjonTichy (talk) 19:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't object to Sean.hoyland being mildly and temporarily sanctioned. But, in my view, for every day SH is sanctioned, PlotSpoiler should be sanctioned for at least ten, due to all the reasons both Nishidani and myself have outlined above. PlotSpoiler's long-term "work" is highly disruptive and detrimental to the project (unlike Sean's work which is highly beneficial). And, like Nishidani, I also wasted far too much time studying PlotSpoiler's edits in order to conclude PS's contributions are fundamentally biased and one-sided and a clear case of long-term, systematic civil POV pushing.  IjonTichy  (talk) 21:45, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Result concerning Sean.hoyland
''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.''


 * Because Sean.hoyland does not contest violating the 1R restriction, we must evaluate which if any sanction is appropriate. Sanctions are preventative, that is, they should be set up so as to effectively prevent the recurrence of the conduct they are imposed as a result of. As Sean.hoyland says that "I don't mind being blocked for that. I stand by the edit", it is apparent that a block would not have the necessary preventative effect. Under these circumstances, only a topic ban would have that effect. – Concerning Plot Spoiler, while I know very little about the particulars of the ongoing conflict, I find the move to "Gaza Strip attack tunnels" worrying from a NPOV perspective. That's not the kind of neutral terminology I've come across in mainstream media, but rather appears intended to convey a moral judgment about these tunnels.  Sandstein   20:54, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * PS probably needs time out from the area as well. Unfortunately, because of how Sean responded to PS, I would recommend a slightly longer TBAN to Sean, but also TBAN to PS. - Penwhale &#124; dance in the air and follow his steps 22:13, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Since User:Sean.hoyland declined to self-revert when given the opportunity to fix his 1RR a three-month topic ban may be justified. User:Plot Spoiler was [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&diff=616921692&oldid=616921530 warned at AE] less than two weeks ago but I'm not seeing what we would consider to be the bannable offence here. One of the newspaper articles cited by PS shows the tunnels being called 'cross-border attack tunnels,' which is not that different from [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/Plot_Spoiler&offset=&limit=2 'Gaza strip attack tunnels'] as used by PS. Wanting to distinguish these from smuggling tunnels is a valid motivation, though the term now in place (after discussion on the article talk page) is Palestinian tunnel warfare in the Gaza Strip which has a more neutral sound. EdJohnston (talk) 02:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Inclined to agree with 's reasoning, which is evidence-based.   02:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, if this "attack" terminology is being used in the media, then we probably don't have grounds for a sanction against Plot Spoiler. Agreed with the 3 months topic ban for Sean.hoyland.  Sandstein   06:32, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Concerning Plot Spoiler, I'm open to examining their conduct, but a lot of the stuff now submitted by Nishidani looks at first glance rather like instances of content disputes to me, such as about which sources are appropriate. If there is evidence that Plot Spoiler has been engaging in misconduct by, for example, misrepresenting sources or edit-warring, or persistently one-sided editing, then focused evidence about this should be submitted as dated diffs in a separate request within the length restrictions indicated at the top. Right now I am all, like, WP:TLDR; and the signal-to-noise ratio is not good enough (for me, at least) to take action.  Sandstein   19:57, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Closed per the discussion above.  Sandstein   06:48, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Monochrome monitor
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning Monochrome monitor

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 10:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA :


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


 * 1) 09:03, 28 July 2014 First revert
 * 2) 08:42–09:33, 28 July 2014 Second revert


 * Regarding the first revert: The text deleted was first introduced in 2011 but has been fought over countless times since then (I can supply a list of more than 20 diffs in which the text was modified in a hostile fashion).  The most recent edits were in March this year:    .  The most recent of those can be taken as the reverted edit, if it is thought that a specific edit must be indicated.


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) 06:43, 10 July 2014 36 hour block for 1RR violation


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * Given formal notification of ARBPIA discretionary sanctions
 * Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 10 July 2014 (as above) by.
 * Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, Wikieditorpro section.


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

I don't make reports like this unless I think we would be better off without the editor concerned. Shows a strong pattern of editing to a personal POV.

@Callanecc: I think that a ban would require a more extensive report than I have made, so in this instance I believe a temporary block would be adequate. Given this editor's recent block for the same offence, the block should be of duration appropriate to a repeat violation.

@Shrike: The first contiguous sequence of edits deleted existing text together with it's academic source. I wouldn't call it a revert if it was a mere rewording or replacement by a better source, but in fact it was deletion of cited text in order to substitute text with a different pov. Ergo, a revert.

@the panda: Actually I think the meaning of "revert" has been taken too literally recently and there is a danger of losing sight of the purpose of the rule, namely to suppress or at least slow down edit warring. I regard the first diff to be a revert, not just because it changes and deletes previous text but because it is done for the clear purpose of pressing one pov while deleting another. These edits removed two pieces of text, both well cited, that refer to the Palestinians having deep roots in Palestine, and inserted in the place of the first a reference only to recent times. This is one of the major point of contention in the subject and such a change is clearly edit-warring. In addition, the edit that deleted the sentence cited to scholar Alan Dowty had the edit summary "sentence flow, slight reword" which is very hard to see as a summary made in good faith. Zerotalk 12:15, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

@Sandstein @Monty : I have added to the complaints section an indication of which previous edit was reverted, of March this year. Zerotalk 10:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :


 * notified

Discussion concerning Monochrome monitor
''Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.''

Statement by Monochrome monitor
Okay, I didn't violate anything. That's just shoddy reporting. The first citation is my edit to the article. The second edit is me reverting someone who undid my edits to the article. I stopped advocating my edit after that. I did absolutely nothing wrong. --monochrome _ monitor  11:01, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * What the hell? It was one revert. My first was an edit and the second was a revert to that edit. And are you serious? You think wikipedia would be better off without me? That's absurd. If you read my edits they were not biased and I've been told that I've greatly improved NPOV by different editos. The fact that the same admin wants to report me is also absurd. --monochrome _ monitor  11:12, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I did not mean to attack him ad hominem, if it was offensive I apologize. --monochrome _ monitor  11:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

So it seems like we established that I didn't break one revert, can I leave this kangaroo court? I already apologized for the offense I didn't know that we couldn't refer to users even if we didn't address their names.
 * @zero Your definition of revert isn't revert. And I did not substitute one POV for another. I used the prevailing POV—that Palestinians have roots in Palestine since 780ish, even the article admits Palestine wasn't Arab until then. This article endorses the historical revisionist view that Palestinians are all the the people who existed before them simultaneously. I was trying to make the article NPOV. The purpose of the article is obviously to promote the "palestinians as indigenous" narrative when it should address ALL narratives. I tried to use to most centrist narrative as possible. And as per the reference, I tried to add a reference from a more neutral source but broke the reference link so I deleted it. You don't need to presume that all of my actions have some sort of insidious intent. I just think moderation in this area is very important considering all the rhetoric right now and its accompanying violence. --monochrome _ monitor  12:35, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * So, yeah. I'm trying to make the article NPOV because it advocates a fringe idea. Just as scholars don't have a consensus on any Palestinian national identity, they don't have a consensus on Palestinian indigineity. However you spell that. I understand this will only further enrage the people who just want to see me reported, so be it. --<small style="font: 13px Courier New">monochrome _ <small style="font: 13px Courier New">monitor  12:54, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, that's it from me I obviously didn't violate the rule though I was rude and I'm sorry for that. I just wish there was someone who could understand where I'm coming from here. The page needs changing, I tried to change it by adding statistics/date and not the research of some Palestinian guy.--<small style="font: 13px Courier New><small style="font: 13px Courier New">monochrome _ <small style="font: 13px Courier New">monitor  12:58, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * @Nishidani "Like every other sentence"—nice ad hominem attack. How petty. "You made a grammatical error", hilarious. I usually fix grammatical errors as you yourself acknowledged in your reversion. Some of my edits in talk namespaces contain grammatical errors and I don't address them because the message is conveyed. Many other users make grammatical errors, yet you don't seem to care about them. Meanwhile, way to insult me by calling me "racist", an absurd and hypocritical accusation. I have not used one epithet except "antisemite", as you're a far-left anti-israel third-wordist with a talk page explicitly stating your contempt of Jewish editors and Israel. You consider Jews to be greedy land-grabbing colonialists and when someone calls you out you cry "racism". You call accepted demographic facts "talking points" just because they don't fit your fringe idea of Palestinians as some ancient civilization of peaceful olive-grove dwelling nomads. You assume that I have some insidious purpose because I (and any moderate person) disagree with you and the bias in this article. It does not present the mainstream opinion and instead uses an extreme as a default. I HAVE read the historical scholarship, including the historical revisionism peddled out by the likes of Yasser Arafat, and it's just that, revisionism. I'm not saying there are any "real owners", it's not some sort of blood-land feud, but this articles deliberately misleads the audience into thinking Arab Palestinians (who arrived in the late 8th century) are directly related to obsolete unrelated biblical entities. The fact that you consider Canaanites to be Palestinian, for example, proves I have legitimate concerns about your neutrality. My edit actually provided the definition of a Palestinian refugee, something it was missing, as well as a guide to the application of "Palestinian" vs "Israeli Arab".--<small style="font: 13px Courier New><small style="font: 13px Courier New">monochrome _ <small style="font: 13px Courier New">monitor  17:19, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * @sandstein Thanks for adding your input. Please check my other edits, like those on Rachel Corrie which have been very well received, to see I'm just trying to add nuetrality. I was being aggressive towards that user but in my personal opinion that doesn't justify a topic ban considering the actual content of my edit is not questionable. I apologize for the edit summary, it was written halfway through editing and not updating. I think it would be reasonable to assume good faith since I wasn't subversive. On my complaints, check that user's (very inflammatory) talk page, he has been called antisemitic many times before. I'm just one of many to object. Instead of shooting the messenger, ask yourself if our objections are valid. Along with some obvious extremely anti-israel POV the user is also very condescending to users who disagree with him.--<small style="font: 13px Courier New><small style="font: 13px Courier New">monochrome _ <small style="font: 13px Courier New">monitor  18:19, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

For the record, Nishidani changed "I don't particularly mind the crude racist insults documented on my page" to something very different, making him guilt of exactly the same offense he is currently outraged for (calling him antisemitic). When I revised my edit he reinstated it to make a point, therefore I will put it here lest someone think he's above petty libels. --<small style="font: 13px Courier New><small style="font: 13px Courier New">monochrome _ <small style="font: 13px Courier New">monitor  19:15, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * So anyway I'd really like to end the dispute it's really stressing me out. I hope you can understand my aggression as defensive when being targeted as breaking a rule I didn't even break. --<small style="font: 13px Courier New><small style="font: 13px Courier New">monochrome _ <small style="font: 13px Courier New">monitor  19:26, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Apologies to all. Especially Nishidani whom I addressed on his talk page. --<small style="font: 13px Courier New><small style="font: 13px Courier New">monochrome _ <small style="font: 13px Courier New">monitor  00:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Shrike
Exactly to what version "the first revert" was reverting?--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 11:07, 28 July 2014 (UTC) Also in general in past AE cases first edit was considered a revert if it was explicitly reverting something but this not a case as far a I can see.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 11:13, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Here what is written by User:Timotheus_Canens
 * @ Here is the past case

--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 11:35, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq
I noticed that Monochrome monitor added then removed a comment at User talk:Nishidani. The removal edit summary was "deleted my question, convo with you will get me no where (blatant antisemite)" (diff). The removed comment included "Looking at your page you seem to biased and a bit antisemitic, I think I'll consult more neutral parties". MM should be informed that discussion about an article belongs on its talk page, and that attacks on other editors are not permitted. Johnuniq (talk) 11:22, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Nomoskedasticity
This edit, referring to another editor as a "total tool", adds to my impression that Monochrome monitor is not going to make a constructive contribution to the I/P editing area. I was going to post about his calling Nishidani an anti-Semite as well, but I see that's already been addressed above. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 11:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Sandstein's fastidiousness is puzzling. The first revert indicated by Zero in the initial report is a revert insofar as it removes Dowty as a source and also changes "majority of the Muslims of Palestine, inclusive of Arab citizens of Israel, are descendants of Christians, Jews and other earlier inhabitants of the southern Levant whose core may reach back to prehistoric times" to "majority of the Muslims of Palestine, inclusive of Arab citizens of Israel, are closely related to Christians, Jews and other earlier inhabitants of the southern Levant" -- thus removing the notion of current residents being "descendants".  It doesn't matter who originally added it -- what matters is that Monochome deleted it: a revert.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:32, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Nishidani
'The article fails to history.' That, like every other sentence I've examined from monochrome writer, is ungrammatical. But the list of remarks that follows it, shows that this editor has zero knowledge of historical scholarship, since it systematically trots out clichés in 'fact sheet handouts' printed to 'guide' activists in the I/P area (for how complex this is see Demographics of Palestine. Whatever, by 1900 94% of the population was 'Arab'(Muslim/Christian), who were not blow-ins barging into a Jewish land to dispossess the real owners, i.e., since Byzantine times an exiguous minority. All this is straight out of Joan Peters's fictional book and even poorer sources.  I don't particularly mind the crude  insults (5)imputing  me with racism documented on my page, some while he was reported here. But in this area we do not need walk-in editors brandishing a programme of pseudoids to conduct edit-wars.Nishidani (talk) 13:28, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Since the editor is new to the area, no sanction is necessary. A warning on her page is sufficient. The WP:AGF problem was addressed on my page with an apology that is a first up for the dozens of people who have thrown that accusation my way, sign of reflection, and bona fides. Thirdly, mentorship is underway, and that itself is sufficient. One note to the newby. Optimal editing here, which is all that is acceptable given the conflictual bitterness, requires close reading of scholarly sources and avoidance of any meme-driven sourcing. One should never, particularly when young, delude oneself into thinking one 'knows' the facts about a situation and history as complex as this one.Nishidani (talk) 12:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I fully endorse N's suggested approach and appreciate the constructive, supportive advice to MM. I suggest we let this go. A page warning is sufficient. I doubt the wisdom of logging this. I will take full responsibilty for her future conduct. I am staking my extremely modest reputation on WP on MM's constructive future development into a long term and useful editor. I think she knows that now. Don't let this initial error of attitude haunt her record as she (hopefully) develops her WP contribution positively. Cheers. Irondome (talk) 00:22, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by ZScarpia
What constitutes a revert is defined in Wikipedia policy as follows: "An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert." On this page and other noticeboards, in adjudicating claimed breaches of XRR editing restrictions, there has been a long-term tendency for admins to apply their own personal interpretations of what a revert is, ignoring or modifying the policy definition in various degrees. This has led to arbitrariness in interpretation of the rules and confusion among editors as to what they and other editors can or cannot do. Thus, various admins in the Result section are maintaining that a modification to text in the article only counts as a revert if the original text was added or changed recently. The long-term confusion over what a revert is has led to various unsuccessful attempts to clarify the policy relating to it, such as this one by Passionless.

@The Panda: "If mono's first edit included any text that had recently been added and reverted, then the first edit can be considered to be a revert. It appears to be a rather extensive edit, but may have combined previous edits with new edits in order to make it appear to be a new edit." I find that there is so much ambiguity in that comment that I don't know exactly how to read it, but it appears to be saying that unless Mono (an unfortunate abbreviation for anyone who knows a little Spanish) changed text that had been recently added or modified, his change was not a revert. If that is the case, can you justify your interpretation of what a revert is by relating it to policy or derived consensus, or are you applying an entirely personal qualification to what the policy says a revert is?

@Monty: "In my opinion, an edit that makes a change to text that hasn't been touched recently is not a revert." We have a policy definition of what a revert is, so shouldn't you be relating your interpretation of whether or not a revert was made to that rather that applying your own personal definition? Perhaps what you should have written was not, applying your own definition, that "a change to text that hasn't been touched recently is not a revert", but that you don't think that a change to text which has not been touched recently should be treated as a revert when arbitrating how the 1RR restriction on ARBPIA articles is applied?

@Sandstein: "As submitted, this is not actionable because the request does not make clear which edit the first reported diff is supposed to be a revert of." However, the diff shows that a change was made to the existing text, which means that, unless Mono was altering text added by himself (and I'd say it's fairly clear it wasn't originally added by him), that he was altering one or more editors' actions in whole or in part, the policy definition of what a revert is, wasn't he? Why exactly are you insisting that evidence of the route by which the original text came into the article be given? Now, if Mono had been copy-editing the original text, that is, improving its style but not changing its meaning, you could argue that he has not 'altered' other editors' actions in a meaningful sense. What he did, though, was to grossly change sourced text which said that Palestinians are the descendents of many peoples who lived in the land, to saying that they are the descendents only of Arabs, who the Zionist version of history says arrived from Arabia displacing, rather than amalgamating with, the existing inhabitants. "We don't care about whose position is more historically correct ... ." You should perhaps care that Mono subverted sourced text to misrepresent the given sources, though?

<span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%">   ←   ZScarpia  12:54, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Irondome
I am MM's mentor. I took on the task a few days before I left for a ten day totally off-line break, so I have only caught up with events a few hours ago. I have been in email contact with MM extensively in the last few hours and I can gladly confirm that MM's completely unwarranted and inaccurate slur on Nishidani was based on skimpy reading of a past post without reading its overall context and inexperience. I have taken MM to task on that and MM unreservedly apologises. I am taking measures to ensure MM reads all WP policy guidelines and gets some WP:CLUE. Said editor will consult with me and on relevant talk pages when considering edits and will seek consensus in future. I think MM has a good future as a productive member of the community if given the correct guidance. Said editor's age is precocious with regard to a subject of such sensitivity, and I would suggest we attempt to retain young editors who have the guts to register and be so open about themselves. We must not scare off young female editors. MM has potential if she plays by the rules and is given communal guidance. Irondome (talk) 00:56, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Result concerning Monochrome monitor
''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.''
 * Are you requesting a block for the 1RR vio or a ban of some sort? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:06, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Regarding 1RR, when looked at as two groups the edits are a 1RR violation, see this one (separated by sean.hoyland's edit) then this one however we probably need to look more deeply into this. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:29, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * @ If mono's first edit included any text that had recently been added and reverted, then the first edit can be considered to be a revert. It appears to be a rather extensive edit, but may have combined previous edits with new edits in order to make it appear to be a new edit  the panda ₯’  11:24, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * As submitted, this is not actionable because the request does not make clear which edit the first reported diff is supposed to be a revert of. Everybody, please save yourselves and us the content discussions. We don't care about whose position is more historically correct – this is AE, we are all about conduct, not content – and personally I know so little about the history of the region that I wouldn't be able to identify any but the most evident bias. At a conduct level, I am concerned by Monochrome monitor's general aggressiveness as seen on this page, as well as by the personal attack ("tool"), the implicit and as far as I can tell unfounded accusation of antisemitism towards another editor above ("You consider Jews to be greedy land-grabbing colonialists") and the misleading edit summary "sentence flow, slight reword" (whereas in reality substantial alterations were made). Does this warrant a topic ban on its own?   Sandstein   17:43, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The 1RR issue is a bit convoluted but I'd concentrate more on the general attitude to editing from this editor. Historically in the IP area, persistently throwing out accusations of anti-semitism against other editors tends not to end well, and there are other NPA issues as well. Black Kite (talk) 20:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, an edit that makes a change to text that hasn't been touched recently is not a revert. In the absence of anyone being able to figure out how long the text has been there, I can't consider the first set of edits to be a revert. However I also agree that his recent attitude, including the personal attacks, combined with his previous block less than 1 month ago, and the fact that we even need to discuss whether the first edit is a revert, all speaks to the need for an additional sanction. Perhaps a topic ban in the 1-3 month range? Monty  845  21:34, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree with Sandstein that this is not actionable as a 1RR report. I recommend closing this. There is justified alarm about Monochrome monitor's attitude to other editors working on I/P articles but probably not enough for a topic ban. Unless this editor changes their approach they are likely to be back here soon and shouldn't expect much sympathy if that occurs. EdJohnston (talk) 00:32, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with a close with no restrictions, but given the evidence presented we would be remiss to close this with no action and hence giving everyone the opportunity to say that Monochrome monitor has done nothing wrong. Instead I think at the least we should be giving a logged warning. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Closed per discussion above. This is not a 1RR violation, but Monochrome monitor is warned that they may be blocked or banned if they continue to edit in a confrontative manner in the Arab-Israeli topic area. This warning is logged in the list of sanctions. If an administrator disagrees, they are of course free to impose a sanction on their own authority.  Sandstein   07:06, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Amoruso
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning Amoruso

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 18:28, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: ARBPIA


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


 * 1) 06:04, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 2) 06:05, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 3) 06:08, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 4) 06:16, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 5) 06:33, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 6) 06:34, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 7) 06:36, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 8) 06:37, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 9) 06:41, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 10) 06:43, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 11) 12:28, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban
 * 12) 12:31, 29 July 2014 Breach of topic ban


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) 20:38, 11 April 2010 Indefinite topic ban. details
 * 2) 13:46, 15 April 2010 Blocked for breach of ban


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):

*Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.
 * Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.
 * Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 11 April 2010 by.

Amoruso was indefinitely topic-banned on 11 April 2010. At the time, he was warned that "Any violation of this ban, especially in order to disrupt, may result in an indefinite block." On 15 April 2010, he was blocked for 24 hours for breaching this ban. After the expiry of this block. he made a few edits, but appeared to have retired from editing on 17 April 2010. He returned to editing this morning, immediately making several contentious edits to an article covered by the topic ban, and claiming falsely that he was no longer topic-banned.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :
 * Sandstein, of course Amoruso is mentioned by name in the final decision. He was one of the editors involved in the many disputes leading to the arbitration, he was mentioned by name in the discussions, and he was identified later as one of the first editors to receive a notification. In any case, even if I had made an error in not deleting that sentence (I did not add it, it was by default in the original template), that would not discredit the complaint nor absolve you of your responsibility to judge it on its merits. Your dismissive response demonstrates once again your pettifogging skills and your disregard for principles and essentials. I request that you recuse yourself from any further involvement in this request, which I do not believe that you are able to assess on its merits. RolandR (talk) 21:52, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

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

Discussion concerning Amoruso
''Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.''

Statement by Amoruso
I only came to Wikipedia this time to counter user:Zero0000's defamation here, and completely baseless accusations -Personal Ruthless Attack. I couldn't be bothered with it at the time but decided to respond now. He removed WP:RS which he by his own admission in the past confirmed that it's an WP:RS. There's really no doubt that something has to be done about user:Zero0000, his personal attacks and his personal disregard of Wikipedia policies. user:RolandR himself is a very problematic user too (both users have a history of blocks). He makes several mistakes/lies in his claim. For example, I never said I was not topic banned, just that it wasn't the right topic. His request was properly denied since it's full of mistakes. As for the topic ban of four years ago if still relevant, like was mentioned above, I did not think that this was anything to do with the Israeli - Arab conflict. It's simply an internal Jewish - German historical issue with no mention of Palestinians or Arabs at all. There was no indication in the talk page like mentioned above. If someone feels for some reason that this was a violation of some kind, I apologize. That was of course never my intention. It is not my intention to edit anymore on this or other related topics at this time anyway. Again, I apologize if I mistakenly violated the ban. Thank you. Amoruso (talk) 02:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * @ EdJohnston, Lord Roem: It really did not occur to me that because Lehi also deals with issues with Arabs [by the way, Lehi's raison d'etre was solely against British, and Arabs were even members of the organization] that this is under my ban. My ban was four years ago. I haven't made a single edit in violation of the ban since then. All my edits their purposes were simply to erase the damage of user:Zero0000 who erased an WP:RS, personally attacked me and called me a liar, even though he knew I was not editing Wikipedia anymore, so I restored the WP:RS and made a couple of other related edits on the way on this issue of Israel - Nazi Germany contact before there was any Israel-Palestine conflict, long before 1948 or even the Holocaust. I thought this had nothing to do with my ban. I realize this was a mistake now, but I don't see how a ban would serve any purpose. My intention is to edit on unrelated stuff and to contribute to Wikipedia in the future. I haven't edited since these edits on this sole page, nor do I intend to do any edits soon on any other subject, let alone on Israeli/Arab stuff. Just in the future I'd like to contribute to Wikipedia on totally unrelated non political issues. I haven't done anything wrong for 4 years so I ask to please disregard this and move on. I learnt this was a mistake, but it was simply a result of the WP:Personal Attack of user:zero0000 who basically baited me to come and restore my WP:RS. He should be reprimanded. And I have learnt and apologized. Thank you. Amoruso (talk) 02:01, 31 July 2014 (UTC)


 * By the way, I really was not involved with this ARBPIA at the time and I know very little about it. Looking now at that page, it seems user:RolandR knew I wasn't involved and tried to involve me further showing that he lied that he didn't know I was not "named". 02:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Shrike
I think there was some misunderstanding as talk page of the article didn't contain template that it covered by DS. I have added a relevant template --Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 19:16, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by ZScarpia
Sandstein wrote: 'The request incorrectly asserts that Amoruso is "mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above".' The Final Decision section of the ARBPIA request for arbitration consists of the whole of section 4, in which Amoruso is mentioned in subsections 4.6 and 4.7.3. Therefore Sandstein's assertion about the assertion made in the request is actually the one which is in error. <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%">   ←   ZScarpia  21:21, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Penwhale: "In theory, the Final Decision does not encompass the Logs (of notification and sanctions)." Maybe, but in practice (according to the section structure) it does. <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%">   ←   ZScarpia  23:49, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

@EdJohnston, it should be obvious to anyone familiar with the particular topic concerned and the ARBPIA area in general that the article is part of the latter. Anyone not familiar with the topic but familiar with the ARBPIA area would just have to look at the list of contributors to the article and its talkpage to know that it was. <span style="font-family: Perpetua, serif; font-size:120%">   ←   ZScarpia  20:21, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Zero0000
Amoruso is one of the most disastrous editors I have met in my 11 years in Wikipedia. I could easy list half a dozen offences worse than the offences he was topic-banned for.

But it isn't necessary. It doesn't matter if he was mentioned on any particular page either. Enforce the ban already.

@EdJohnston : You ask whether Amoruso was aware that the article was covered by his topic-ban. To help you decide, I'll mention: (1) One of Amoruso's violations refers to "establishment of a Jewish state". (2) The event that Amoruso calls "an internal Jewish - German historical issue" was an offer by this Zionist splinter group to fight on the Nazi side in return for German help to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Amoruso wrote a lot of that section: (3) Amoruso has edited this article more than 200 times so the fact that it is an article explicitly about the Arab-Israeli conflict may have come to his attention. Zerotalk 06:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Gaijin42
I am fairly new to the ARBPIA area, and have not interacted with Amoruso in any capacity, nor was I even aware of the Lehi article (or indeed real-world entity) prior to this report. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone would not think the article is within the scope of ARBPIA. The article repeatedly refers to the founding of Israel, The British Mandate, and directly (and directly contrary to Amaruso's statement) to conflicts between Palastenian Arabs and the group Lehi_(group). Even a cursory reading of the article would lead to the conclusion that this is solidly and clearly in the israeli-palestinian topic area. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:37, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Result concerning Amoruso
''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.''
 * The request incorrectly asserts that Amoruso is "mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above". I stopped reading the request at that point. Why should I take the time to assess the request when the requester doesn't bother to compose it with reasonable care?  Sandstein   20:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * ... In theory, the Final Decision does not encompass the Logs (of notification and sanctions)... - Penwhale &#124; dance in the air and follow his steps 22:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know why a (not necessarily) formalistic error in the filing is a reason to discard the request. There was an indefinite topic ban which the editor proceeded to violate several times in a row. The article in question is about a "militant Zionist group" that existed around World War II up through 1948; there's no question it's covered by the terms of the TBAN. We need to give TBANS a liberal reading to avoid attempts to circumvent them and cause disruption. I recommend a block. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 00:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Certainly this is against Amoruso's validly-issued topic ban, but I wonder if it was obvious to him that Lehi (group) was under WP:ARBPIA. Amoruso was not mentioned by name in the ARBPIA decision, but that could be fixed by the submitter of this report by striking out the errors. EdJohnston (talk) 02:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It's hard to imagine anyone not knowing that Lehi (group) falls under ARBPIA. I recommend going ahead with a block. EdJohnston (talk) 21:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Unless anyone objects, I think this can be closed soon with a one-week block. User:Amoruso didn't do himself any favors in his response here, but we should assume he is capable of following his ARBPIA topic ban in the future until such time as there is evidence to the contrary. EdJohnston (talk) 14:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Faustian and COD T 3
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning Faustian and COD T 3

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 00:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested : and   and


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: [] :


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

Faustian adds claim: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619508449&oldid=619465761

COD T 3 subtracts it: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619528264&oldid=619508449

COD T 3 changes a tag: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619531439&oldid=619528264

Faustian adds a tag and a statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619550326&oldid=619540106

COD T 3 removes a statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619550713&oldid=619550326

Faustian adds a tag and a statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619583862&oldid=619550713

COD T 3 reverts: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619649061&oldid=619583862

COD T 3 removes long-standing text: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Army_%28Poland%29&diff=619654410&oldid=619651298


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) Date Explanation
 * 2) Date Explanation


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):

Faustian alerted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AFaustian&diff=600491951&oldid=600491301

COD T 3 alerted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ACOD_T_3&diff=619568287&oldid=619556214

Subject article is Blue Army (Poland). My only involvement with this case is that there were two content RFCs, which I closed. One of the two edit warriors, COD T 3, then requested that I change the wording of a close. On review, I declined to change the wording of the close, suggesting that if he or she was dissatisfied, a closure review could be requested. The two edit warriors then began edit warring. I see the COD T 3 has been blocked. I request that the two edit warriors be placed under WP:1RR with respect to this article (COD T 3 after coming off block). Robert McClenon (talk) 00:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint
 * On reviewing the contributions of the two edit warriors, it appears that COD T 3 is a single-purpose account who edits nothing but Blue Army (Poland), WP pages that are applicable to Blue Army discussions, and talk pages of other editors. A topic ban would be a site ban.  Robert McClenon (talk) 03:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Faustian notified: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AFaustian&diff=619748761&oldid=619648748

COD T 3 notified: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ACOD_T_3&diff=619749235&oldid=619744329

Statement by Faustian
While I think that applying 1RR restrictions to COD T 3 on this particular topic is appropriate, I question why he and I are to be treated equally. I am adding referenced info to the article, he is removing it. In actively trying to resolve this situation, I created two RfCs (diffs: and ), waited until they were completed and resolved in "my" favor (diff: ) before adding the info (diff: ), and he reverted it again anyways:. I've worked on a lot of articles, have created many articles, and don't have a history of edit warring, yet that is all he does. Before his efforts here, he edited as an IP, with a history of blocks for just such behavior:. He may also be writing as an IP : where he just removed a bunch of info: and may have had another identity as   (if so - a sockpuppet?). I will note that whenever third parties did contribute they tended to support my edits but backed off in the face of COD T 3's reversions. For example here, an admin (User:Alex Bakharev) added the same statement that he was removing:, which of course was reverted by COD T 3:.

Yes, I have reverted also, but my reverts were re-adding referenced info he had removed. Building an encyclopedia. What can be done when one editor decides to sit on an article and basically just removes info he doesn't like? Just back off like other editors, and let the article be free of any information COD T 3 finds offensive? Is it wrong to stubbornly fight to keep information (reliably sourced) I took time to find, within the article? Or to add to the article? Why am I to be punished equally as the guy who removed the info?Faustian (talk) 03:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Further note Much of what COD T 3 wrote below involves false statements or cherrypicking of others' quotes. I'm not going to flood this page with all the rebuttals to his accusation, unless someone asks me to in which case I will be happy to address each of his claims. His accusing User:Alex Bakharev of being my "associate" seems particularly bizarre example though, and his demand that nobody adds any more negative information to the article after it has been purged of reliably sourced info he doesn't like speaks to his sole purpose on wikipedia, which is not to build an encyclopedia but in his words: "I don't edit Wikipedia. But, when I came up on this non-sense in the BA article I'm not gonna let someone just demonize the BA. Atrocities happened agains the Jews, but that needs to be properly noted, not have the article written as if the BA's sole purpose was pogroming".Faustian (talk) 12:06, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Additional note

Here is User:COD T 3 on his talk page, being abusive: .Faustian (talk) 22:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by COD T 3
I would like to address each charge leveled against me:

Every time user Faustian levels an accusation against me he discredits himself. Now, Faustian is suggesting that I'm a "sockpuppet" and uses a account that last made an entry back in 2011 (01:42, 5 October 2011 (diff | hist) . . (+569)‎ . . Blatnice pod Svatým Antonínkem) as purported evidence! Are we even trying to have an honest discussion here, or just throwing every false accusation at me? If I understand correctly, a sockpuppet charge would result if an individual creates two simultaneous accounts and uses them to support each other in ongoing discussions or edits.

Example:
 * user: Somename_01: This is a good statement. (5 May, 2019)
 * user: Someothername_02: Yes, this is a great statement, I agree. (6 May, 2019)

This is not the case here. This accusation is completely baseless, and is intended as a Red Herring, to draw attention away form Faustian's own inappropriate behavior. Also, I want to note that just because my COD T 3 account is now being perceived as a "single-purpose account", the creation of the account should not be interpreted as a malicious act. I am not a seasoned Wikipedia editor, and apart from making some minor edits here and there, I did not get too involved in WP. But, in this case I wanted to make my edits official and show continuity of my arguments when editing the Blue Army page, and so I created an account instead of editing as an IP.

Also, I would like to point to user Faustian's own inappropriate behavior, when he continues to insert disputed statements. The 3 edit rule also applies to Faustian when he continually adds disputed material. Also, as noted before Faustian has exhibited bias and offensive behavior when engaging in discussions regarding the BA. As one example he titled a discussion about the highly disputed rape charge "Blue Army Rapists" (this title was changed by another user on 15:26, 10 July 2014‎ who also considered it inappropriate). Also, in another discussion on a users talk page Faustian accused me of reverting the disputed material because it came from a "Jewish" source, thus in the process trying to demonize me and omitting the fact that my argument was based on technical merits not prejudice. Finally, one of Faustian's supporters accused me of jew-baiting on the BA talk page, and only changed his tone when another contributor entered the discussion.

Statement:
 * No User:COD T 3 is engaging in original research and Jew-baiting. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:30, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Finally, I would again like to point to the multiple statements made by other editors who also questioned or had general reservations about Faustain's approach to editing the disputed Controversies section, and the editorial style, tone and choice of sources he was using when inserting the highly controversial statements.
 * Due to highly controversial nature of this material, you need to limit yourself to the real subject: which is who said what and why. Stop stating everything like some kind of final court verdict. Poeticbent talk 22:13, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * You're right, Poeticbent. The controversies section should probably focus more on "who said what" rather than trying to state things as facts in Wikipedia's editorial voice. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 23:58, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * And here you have a tertiary source - an encyclopedia - which while not exactly prohibited, should be avoided, especially for controversial claims. Volunteer Marek 04:54, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Are there other sources confirming both rapes and scrolls? It looks like the entire very controversial statement is based on a single source. Faustian, if you feel that this statement is that important for the integrity of the article, you should be able to provide more sources. Personally, I do not see why it is so important, as most armies commit similar crimes.--Truther2012 (talk) 13:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Truther2012 that "most armies commit similar crimes", and thus insisting on levying a mass rape charge against the Blue Army is not really pertinent, as well as not actually feasible under WP:SYNTH with this particular sourcing. Please see also my how-to, WP:How to mine a source for a tutorial on how to get more information out of source material in a step-wise fashion. Regardless, you're going to need more of it than this very short, confusing partial quotation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem agreeing to leave the article as it stands now, and not involve myself in any further editing of the disputed section if user Faustian agrees to do the same, and that some kind of a protection process is set in place to prevent a possible "associate" to enter or delete more of the disputed text, as was the case with this edit: (09:01, 3 August 2014‎ Alex Bakharev . . (32,723 bytes) (+428‎) . . checked and restored the Encyclopedia Judaica reference, added weblink), when another contributor re-added the exact text that was being disputed, without making any statements on the Talk Page discussion that was taking place at the time and in the process forcing me to revert the text. --COD T 3 (talk) 10:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

+++++++REBUTTAL STATEMENT+++++++
I'd like to make a last statement before I get banned, please see my rebuttles to the bias and unfair accusations: Please note that the date of this statement is 14 June 2014 nearly two months prior to the statement I'm potentially being banned for 2 August 2014. Yet no admin questions his neutrality or intentions, maybe Faustain holds a potential Anti-Polish bias? I don't think that by WIkipedia standards this was a neutral statement. Ladies and Gentelman admins, Thank you for your unbiased honesty in overseeing the Wikipedia project! It's been a very informative experience to learn just how the process is being administered, and what kind of material is being allowed to flood a page with no admin noticing even if a Undue Weight tag is present. But, for the moment it's me that will get blamed for being disruptive to the Wikipedia process. --COD T 3 Last Statement (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * By Wikipedia standards Encyclopedia Judaica is considered a legitimate source, but not a neutral source. So, my objection was against Faustian using a claim made by EJ and writing it in the Wikipedia Editorial Voice, as if the Jewish interpretation of the events was the only definitive view of the events in question. User Faustian was reminded by other users on 22:13, 14 June 2014 (UTC) that due to the highly controversial and conflicting accounts of the events in question this kind of editing style is inappropriate. Also, please see the offensive statements directed at me:
 * 'No User:COD T 3 is engaging in original research and Jew-baiting. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 21:30, 14 June 2014 (UTC)'
 * User Faustian titles a talk page discussion "Blue Army Rapists" on 04:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Result concerning Faustian and COD T 3
''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.''
 * A few thoughts. First, just a note for the future, requests for enforcement are much easier to review when it pertains to a single editor, rather than the hodgepodge this is. Second, while both editors have high-running tension between them, I don't see evidence of any significant desire to cause disruption in the topic area. I think the block on COD T 3 for edit warring resolves whatever immediate issue there was. I think closing this with a warning to discuss content disputes on the talk page rather than reverting each other would be preferable to a sanction. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * CODT T 3's mainspace contribution history shows that they are a single purpose account dedicated only to editing the article Blue Army (Poland) from a point of view that seeks to minimize the acts of violence against Jews allegedly committed by the Blue Army. This is inherently problematic, see WP:SPA. I am also concerned about COD T 3's edit summary at 08:52, 2 August 2014 (UTC): "This article is not Encyclopedia Judaica, and will not be written from a Jewish perspective." This can be read as expressing antisemitic bias. Overall, this mode of editing Wikipedia is not conducive to writing encyclopedia articles in the light of WP:NPOV. COD T 3 should therefore be banned from the topic of the Blue Army. I agree with the warning to Faustian.  Sandstein   11:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * That slipped my review of the statements above. I'd a support a topic ban as well. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 16:12, 5 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I also support a ban of User:COD T 3 from the topic of the Blue Army (Poland) on all pages of Wikipedia including talk, with the ability to appeal in six months. I have some concerns about User:Faustian's edits but I don't think the problem is severe enough for anything more than a warning at this time. EdJohnston (talk) 02:42, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Both User:COD T 3 and User:COD T 3 Last Statement have been indeffed for sock-puppetry. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above, and I'll close this in the next 24 hours. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:40, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

goethean
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning goethean

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 22:08, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tea_Party_movement#Goethean
 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced:


 * 1) revert deletion of trivia on BLP. the candidate has attended/addressed several tea partys.  this story is a publication of the same company that was sourced in the revert.


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :
 * 1) editor has violated the topic ban before and was warned.

of editing topics related to the tea party broadly construed.
 * Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.

perhaps this is merely a misunderstanding of broadly construed on my part, if so, i withdraw and apologize.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Discussion concerning goethean
''Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.''

Statement by Gaijin42
At first glance this is a borderline case, so it depends on how "broadly construed" the topic ban is IMO. Brauner does not appear to be explicitly a member of the tea party, but he has spoken at the Illinois Tea Party, and was endorsed by them, and the left lumps him in with Koch, etc as their standard boogiemen, and certainly he holds many views that are consistent with tea party goals - but again, it all hinges on the scope of Goethean's ban. As the "right" front runner, its expected that his opponents will throw the sink at him in terms of trying to tarnish him. It seems that "tea party" may just be one more of the bunch of accusations.

If this is a violation, then Goethean's ban is in effect "all conservatives/libretarians"

As this is a borderline case, and the article does not currently mention tea party in article or talk space - if this is determined to be a violation I think a warning rather than harsh sanction may be appropriate. (And I say this as someone who has butted heads significantly with Goethean in the past)Gaijin42 (talk) 22:17, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Gaijin42 (talk) 22:15, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by The Four Deuces
This is too far removed from the topic to be considered. There is nothing in the article about the Tea Party, and the edit had nothing to do with it. If Darkstar1st construes it that broadly, then virtually any edit about U.S. politics would be part of the ban, because at some point any prominent politician will be supported by or opposed by the Tea Party. TFD (talk) 06:41, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by MrX
I don't see any violation even by the broadest interpretation of the topic ban. How is it that Bruce Rauner is considered a TPM subject when the words "tea party" don't even appear in the article? I assume that we don't require topic banned editors to read every source about a subject from a particular publisher to determine if there might be some obscure link with the topic that they are banned from.- MrX 15:15, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by SPECIFICO
I hope that Admins will make a strong statement admonishing editors, particularly involved editors who may not have clean hands not to be trigger-happy in bringing tenuous and aggressive complaints to this forum. It is a drain on editor and Admin resources. Where there are clear violations and clear damage, there's no shortage of editors who will bring a well-formed complaint here. In the case of user Darstar1st, he made a similar error with respect to me here. I hope he is able to learn from his errors. SPECIFICO talk  18:00, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Result concerning goethean
''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.''
 * I tend to agree with Gaijin42, this is in the grey area of broadly construed. My reading of the article itself would suggest it probably is not within the scope of the topic ban, but the additional info Gaijin42 points out (not found in the article) is what puts it in that grey area. The edit itself doesn't seem to have generated conflict and was totally unrelated to the TPM, combined with being in the grey area of even broadly construing the topic ban, I say we decline this. However, if there had been more of a conflict at the article, it would have been quite possible to stretch the topic ban to deal with it.  Monty  845  15:43, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline, "broadly construed" is not a Kevin Bacon game. Bishonen &#124; talk 15:53, 10 August 2014 (UTC).
 * The complaint does not make clear how exactly the one diff provided as evidence is supposed to violate the topic ban. Per the recommendations above, the enforcement request is closed as not actionable.  Sandstein   18:12, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

SW3 5DL
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning SW3 5DL

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 04:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tea Party movement


 * Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it :
 * , formerly known as Malke 2010, was topic-banned from "all pages relating to the Tea Party movement, broadly construed".
 * Recently, she has been posting at Talk:Donald Trump, in a thread specifically dealing with Trump's relationship to the Tea Party movement. (Whether or not one considers Trump covered in general terms, it clearly violates the topic ban to focus specifically on the Tea-Party aspect of his biography).
 * When I mentioned this obvious topic-ban violation on Malke's talkpage, she responded with "rmv trolling".


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):
 * Mentioned by name in ArbCom decision

SW3 5DL (Malke 2010) was topic-banned from Tea-Party-related content because of battleground behavior and incivility. Those tendencies are on display in the topic-ban-violating posts, where she responds to reasonable, good-faith commentary from by saying: "If you are easily offended, especially where no offense was intended, then you'd best find another project... You appear to be trolling. It's just an RfC. Take a wikibreak." MastCell Talk 04:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Discussion concerning SW3 5DL
''Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.''

Statement by SW3 5DL
''All Admins, N.B. Please do not base your decision on Collect's comments as it appears others have done. I'm not making any such argument as his. I do not in any way share or support his comment, and find it to be patently unfair to me that he would use this forum to express his views. Thank you.'' SW3 5DL (talk) 16:21, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Let me make this very clear. I understand why my edits to Donald Trump talk RfC violate the TPm topic ban. They violate the ban because the issue is the Tea Party movement and not a BLP sourcing issue which I believed it was at the time I made the edits. I realized that was the problem when Stephen Schulz said it was a violation. And also when Sandstein pointed out that the discussion on the talk page was about the Tea Party movement. That also made it very clear to me. I was looking at it all wrong. Let me also state, again, that I will never go near another talk page/article that even remotely mentions the Tea Party movement. And the reason is because to do so would violate the topic ban imposed by ArbCom in fall, 2013.

I would appreciate it if Sandstein, Lord Roem, and EdJohnston, would reconsider their decisions. This was an honest mistake. The topic ban has been in place for a year, and there is no past history of violating the topic ban. Since I now fully understand the terms and conditions of the topic ban (which includes not even being able to mention TPm except to defend myself), there is no danger of future violations. Blocks are not meant to be punitive, they are meant to stop disruptive behaviour in the moment. There is no danger of that. A block now would be punitive.


 * @EDJohnston: Yes, I would and I would have done it myself but for fear of being accused of continuing to edit despite the AE complaint.


 * EDJohnston, I'll restore the comments and collapse them. Thanks.


 * Also, I'd like to point out, I'm not "prone to violating" my topic ban. It's been a year since the ban was imposed and I've not had any problems. There's absolutely no evidence I've violated the ban previously, and certainly I didn't do it here intentionally.


 * @Collect, I find your comments here entirely disruptive and violate policy because you are refusing to see the obvious violation here. Because the topic ban means I can't even discuss TPm, I can't bring a request at ArbCom to have your TPm topic ban reinstated. But hopefully, others who are not so encumbered will.


 * @Philbrick, yes, agree and I'm taking 'broadly construed' to mean all political questions/topics are to be avoided lest there be a cryptic reference somewhere.


 * @MastCell, I certainly don't hate you, and communication is a two-way affair, as I've explained here.


 * @Bishonen, I'm sorry you feel I'm putting my violaton on MastCell. I'm not. Deleting MastCell's comment when there's been a history of abusive comments from him in the past, does not mean I knew right then that I'd made a violation. It means I thought he was harassing me. It would have been better to not delete his comments, but that is hindsight, and I can't go back and change the past. I'd also like to point out that you are confusing my reply to MastCell on Sandstein's talk page. I read MastCell's comments later, after I'd seen the admins comments here.


 * In addition, I've never denied that I've violated the topic ban. You seem to believe that because I deleted MastCell's comment without reading it, that's a denial. No, it isn't. It means I've had a lot of experience with MastCell. I've never denied this is a violation of the topic ban. I've admitted, I've stated I can see why it's a violation and I've stated I won't do it again. That's all I can do.


 * If I'd engaged with MastCell on my talk page and argued with him about it, then I'd say you have a point. You seem to be arguing that I can't ignore someone who has been abusive to me in the past.


 * @Sandstein, Does it seem right to give me a one week block simply because Bishonen is saying that it means they can't block me for a month "next time?" Have I violated the topic ban in the past year? I violate the topic ban this one time and I have to be blocked for what two admins, including Bishonen, have now called a 'minor violation' because Bishonen wants to block me for a month "next time?" Is there a diff of 'next time?'

I received a bot notice to comment on an RfC on Donald Trump. I read the RfC question which concerns whether or not Donald Trump should be included in a category "associated with the TPm." Sources were provided and the question was whether or not they were sufficient to include Trump in this category. It appeared to me that the sources were not sufficient. This isn't a TPm page or a TPm topic. It's a question on a BLP. Donald Trump is not part of the TPm in any capacity. If he were, I would not have commented. I am a good editor, I've made substantial contributions to WP, I've not violated any rules, and don't intend to.

If I'd desired to skirt the topic ban, I could have done it on Dave Brat. Recently, the bot sent me a notice about him. I'd never heard of him. I went to the page and discovered he'd been a 'tea party candidate,' and gave it a miss.


 * @User:Stephan Schulz, no problem avoiding that whatsoever.


 * @User:Sandstein, Stephan Schulz asked that I state I won't edit such a page again and I've stated that. My explanation above is meant to show my thinking at the time. It is not stating that I'm right. I'm not making any such argument. I've not stated that I don't see a problem. I've simply stated what my thinking was at the time and why I commented on the page in the first place. Especially in view of the complaint being brought by MastCell who bears no good will towards me. Now, two uninvolved admins have weighed in and said it's a violation. It wasn't intentional, it wasn't an attempt at avoiding a ban. It was an honest mistake. On the face of it, it appeared to be a BLP issue, not a TPm issue, and that's why I commented. Lesson learned on that one. Any mention of TPm is out. There's no need for a block in this case. And certainly as regards my user name, I had to change due to harassment. The name change was not done to avoid the topic ban and I even discussed the name change with an Arb from the case. So everything was above board there.

@Admins: Tryptofish's comment is not representative (nor is MastCell's misleading selective quote from that exchange) and does not at all portray the exchange with her after I posted my comment. I will get diffs now and post them. Also, I didn't deny there was mention of the Tea Party movement, as anyone can see by my comments here and on the Donald Trump talk page.

Here is the actual exchange with Trytopfish: Tryptofish makes a ‘reply’ to my iVote comment here that I didn't understand. It seemed to suggest that I’d somehow challenged her iVote, which I’d not done, which I explained here. And she persisted. I still didn’t get what the point of that was. It’s an RfC. You post your opinion and move on. So I made light of it. Tryptofish's next comment seemed circular, to keep things going without resolution, which is what trolling is. I then explained again my rationale for my ivote, and also stated I'd not intended any offense, and wouldn't be replying to her anymore since I considered her comments to be trolling.

Of course, none of this is germane to the issue of my ivoting on the Donald Trump talk page. I find it confusing that Tryptofish thinks I'm denying that there was any TPm mention on the RfC. I think I've been clear about that, as has everyone else. I certainly do understand the topic ban. At the time, it seemed to me that the category itself was not the issue, it was whether or not the sources could place Donald Trump in that category. I was thinking, 'sourcing a BLP.' Nothing more. No topic ban evasion intended, no name change to facilitate a topic ban evasion, an Arb is well aware of the name change, etc. My old user name was Malke2010. That is not my user name anymore. I've only one account, I've only ever had one account. Now that I'm aware that any mention of the TPm is suffice to cause a problem, I will simply avoid any page with any mention of it.

Also, note the actual question on the RfC was "Are the sources (and there follows a list of sources) sufficient to label Trump in the possibly contentious category 'People associated with the Tea Party movement?'"

@Lord Roem, You seem to be responding to Collect's comments and not mine. I'm not making any of Collect's arguments. I'm presenting what my thinking was at the time. I've clearly stated above that I understand now that it was wrong to take up the RfC request. And I'd like to point out that I only commented on the RfC request and not any where else on that talk page.

Statement by Collect
Note: The Category which is at the heart of this dispute is currently at CfD - with a proposal to tighten the criteria for inclusion. The proposed criteria would almost certainly exclude Trump from the category. Where a category is removed from a BLP, I suggest that the nature of its connection with a specific topic is likely to have been a tad marginal. Collect (talk) 00:08, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

The following are observations by Collect, and are not in any way to be interpreted otherwise.

IMHO, the infraction is of a minor nature as the Trump BLP was not connected in any way whatsoever with the TPm until 25 Jun 2014 when edits were made trying to connect Trump with the TPm. Again, IMHO, the sources did not and do not support the claims being made - AFAICT, if we assert anyone speaking before any audience which contains TPm members is therefore "associated" with the TPm, we are using the old McCarthyite system of "associating" people with groups with which the "association" is incidental at best. To that extent, I regard this as a BLP issue and not a TPm issue. The editor avers they will not edit on any future issues which even mention the TPm en passant, which is the case at hand, and so the "capital offense" position is, IMHO, unwarranted. Collect (talk) 17:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Those who seem to attribute my comments to the person who is the subject of this action are errant.

This case is akin to cases about LvM etc. The issue devolves on whether Donald Trump is actually "associated with the Tea Party movement" or not - which is a WP:BLP issue. The material is found in a single sentence in the BLP and in a category attached to the person.

I consider the categorization of a person with a contentious group to be a contentious claim under WP:BLP.

The primary source for the claim of membership in the TPm inth case at hand is a pseudo-quote in a headline in a reliable source. This has been discussed at length at Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources  where the discussionabut exactly whether a headline is reliable for claims has the OP here stating that the headline is absolutely as reliable as the article in the newspaper - a position on which I demurred based on numerous sources stating that headlines are written by copyeditors and nt by the journalist writing the article, and that they contain "pseudo-quotes"  Where pseudo-quotes are the basis for linking a person to the TPm, I suggest that discussions thereon do not run afoul of the topic bans, just as it was decided that mere mention of the LvM in a BLP did not make those BLPs subject to the topic ban. I would note that Dick Cheney was also one listed as "associated" with the TPm - where the "pseudo-quotes" were not in any way borne out by the RS content, and where assertion that such contentious categorization places a BLP into topic ban category stretches the bungee cord to the breaking point. In fact, I have decategorized a number of BLPs where not a scintilla of mention of the Tea Party movement was found in the BLPs at all, and that the Trump "association" was added   on 25 June 2014,  which suggests that the Donald Trump article had nothing substantial to do with the Tea Party movement in any way until a person added it as a claim a month ago.

Remaining is commented out by request.

@StSch - yeppers -- calling a post made in good faith by another editor "nitpicking nonsense" sure shows WP:AGF in action. Collect (talk) 20:22, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Tryptofish
When SW3 5DL showed up at the RfC discussion, I had no idea who this editor was, not realizing that this was the same person previously topic-banned under another username. After the personal attack on me, quoted above by MastCell, I figured that this was just someone to ignore, and let it pass. However, after realizing now that there is an existing sanction, let me point out some specific diffs to demonstrate that this editor was aware all along that they were commenting about the Tea Party movement. Here:, SW3 5DL explicitly states that they examined an analysis by Collect, and in the post that makes unprovoked and bizarre statements about me, there is also a repeat of the statement that this analysis was closely examined: "I examined the sources posted by Collect at the start of the RfC." (near the bottom of the diff). Now, here is that post by Collect:. Look at how prominent the words "Tea Party" are in that analysis. Someone examining the sources posted there cannot help but to notice that the material concerns the Tea Party. And, based on the attitude displayed by this editor during the discussion, I can easily see how this user would have been sanctioned. There is no question in my mind that these edits constitute a conscious topic-ban violation, if "the Tea Party movement, broadly construed" is the topic. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:03, 5 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I see now that SWS 5DL is planning to provide diffs about our interaction. No, I was not, and am not, a troll, but that has nothing to do with the terms of the topic ban. But it may well have a lot to do with whether or not the user understands that topic ban. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:26, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Following up on what I said, aside from not understanding what a troll is, or, more importantly, how discussions on Wikipedia involve editors discussing their positions with one another, I think the administrators here need to evaluate this question: Is it credible to argue that, if the answer to the question "should Donald Trump be described as associated with the Tea Party movement?" is "no", then answering that question has nothing to do with "the Tea Party movement, broadly construed"? It is obvious that it does, and the incredible claim to the contrary raises doubts about the credibility of promises to stay away from any mention in the future. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

If we are now evaluating SWS 5DL's promises to abide by the terms of the topic ban, then I think it appropriate to ask whether they might want to reconsider anything that they said here: (bottom part), and any of their commentary about it in the now-collapsed statement here at AE. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Is the reply? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

@MastCell: You are being neither selfish nor cranky nor incorrect. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Seeing what SWS 5DL has said here most recently, I am uncomfortable with the claim that she really does "get it" now. "Since I now fully understand the terms and conditions of the topic ban (which includes not even being able to mention TPm except to defend myself), there is no danger of future violations." . The talk page comments that got her here went well beyond "not even.. mention"ing – into analyzing in some detail sources that were centrally about the role of the TPm in the page subject. There is no indication that she understands that MastCell's warning was anything other than "trolling", or that her interactions with me were disruptive. I think that administrators here are being played. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:44, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Likewise, "I'd simply gone straight to the RfC discussion section, thinking BLP sourcing.", and "It was not obvious to me that it was more than a BLP issue" , are contradicted by the first two diffs in my original statement here. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

@S Philbrick and other admins: If we go with S Philbrick's proposal of no block now, but a one-year block following any re-occurrence, can we also agree to strike SWS 5DL's comments at Talk:Donald Trump? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:57, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Before this gets closed, I just want to say "thank you" to every one of the administrators who invested the time and effort to respond here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * About Collect's new post here, saying that the TPm category is being discussed, I started that discussion and am hopeful that it will resolve the content dispute. However, it is obvious that SWS 5DL could not have known that I would do this, when she entered the discussion. Should the decision be that the category does not apply to Trump, that still has zero bearing on the fact that the discussion was about the TPm. And, by the way, Bishonen is right. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

@Admins: I'm closely watching the discussion, and let me offer these suggestions. You have to decide whether SWS 5DL "gets it" now or not. If not, a 1-week block would not be particularly effective, so the block would probably need to be 1 month (the maximum possible). The other option is a warning now, that another violation will result in a 1-month block. Those are basically your two options. (In either case, the comments at the Trump talk page need to be stricken.) --Tryptofish (talk) 18:59, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

@Ed Johnston: What I said about a 1-week versus 1-month block is based upon S Philbrick's reasoning, with which I agree on that point. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:21, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by MastCell (filing party)
A couple of follow-up comments: first, if SW3 5DL doesn't have the judgement to recognize that her topic ban forbids posting to a thread entitled "people associated with the Tea Party movement", then what value can be attached to her promise not to violate her topic ban in the future? Secondly, when I raised this obvious violation on SW3 5DL's talkapge, she deleted my post with an edit summary reading "rmv trolling", and kept right on posting to the Tea Party thread. In other words, SW3 5DL's response to a valid concern was not to honestly consider whether she'd violated her topic ban, but rather to respond combatively based on her personal animosity toward me. In this context, why should we expect the self-awareness necessary to avoid future violations? Third, the link between SW3 5DL and Malke 2010 is nowhere mentioned on her userpage that I can see. I think it's inappropriate for an editor under an active ArbCom sanction to be editing under a new username without some clear link to her previous username. It places other editors at a huge disadvantage; had I not made the connection, she'd still be violating her topic ban as we speak. I'd ask that Malke/SW3 place a note on her current userpage mentioning her previous username, particularly since she seems prone to violating her topic ban. Finally, I realize I'm being selfish and cranky here, but I'm getting old in wiki-years and I'm tired of having my time wasted. A number of editors (including myself and Tryptofish) have had to waste a lot of time dealing with this blatant topic-ban violation, which SW3 5DL refused to even acknowledge until compelled to. Likewise, she's managed to derail an otherwise potentially productive talkpage thread. Presumably the entire point of the topic ban was to prevent SW3 5DL from wasting other editors' time and derailing talkpage threads. What reason does anyone have to believe that this sort of time-wasting won't happen again, promises to the contrary notwithstanding? MastCell Talk 04:59, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * One final request, before this thread is closed. When I raised this obvious topic-ban violation with SW3 5DL, she deleted my warning without so much as reading it, because of her deep personal animosity toward me. In the interest of avoiding future time-wasting exercises like this one, I would ask that SW3 5DL be instructed to not to summarily dismiss concerns about future topic-ban violations, regardless of how much she hates the editor raising them. MastCell Talk 20:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by R F
I think that there is no need to strive officiously to enforce this by a block, given that the behaviour is an edge case, and the editor states that they understand this type of action can fall within "broadly construed".

A block would achieve precisely nothing.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:20, 6 August 2014 (UTC).

Result concerning SW3 5DL
''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.''

The request template asks for diffs, but there aren't any in this request. Without dated diffs of the specific edits thought to violate the topic ban, there's nothing to do here.  Sandstein  10:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, there is this diff, this diff, and this link that shows several edits by the user. So the technicalities have been fulfilled (quite apart from WP:BURO). I agree that this is a technical violation. It also is a minor violation - I'd be happy with a statement by User: SW3 5DL that (s)he understands the issue and will refrain from commenting in such situations in the future. I'm a bit baffled why Collect thinks it is useful or appropriate to reiterate his position on the content issue here - that is not even under discussion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:48, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * @Collect: Sorry, but that argument is nitpicking nonsense. Trump may or may not be connected to the TPM. But the discussion if he is connected or not certainly is related, especially if "broadly construed". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:28, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The diff provided by Stephan Schulz shows that SW3 5DL has made edits to a discussion about whether or not Donald Trump should be categorized as "People associated with the Tea Party movement". SW3 5DL does not contest that they are Malke 2010, who has been "topic-banned from all pages relating to the Tea Party movement, broadly construed". The talk page was a page relating to the Tea Party movement because it contains the discussion mentioned above. SW3 5DL has therefore violated their topic ban. SW3 5DL's response indicates that they do not acknowledge this. Their brief response to Stephan Schulz does not persuade me that they really understand the meaning of the ban and that they would behave differently in the future. A block therefore appears to be necessary to prevent SW3 5DL from violating the topic ban further. I recommend imposing a one-week block.  Sandstein  14:00, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Small correction: The diffs I listed above were from MastCell's original request. I just reiterated them. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement with Sandstein here. I think Collect's argument about the scope of the restriction is overly formalistic. The point of the sanction is to remove the editor's involvement with an area where they have been disruptive. To say that the article didn't fall under the category, despite the discussion on the talk page clearly being about the Tea Party, removes the teeth from the restriction completely. This isn't the case of an editor commenting on a completely benign issue that tangentially relates to the restricted topic (e.g., a restriction on Scientology articles for an editor who then discusses some other issue on the talk page of a completely un-related religion article that mentions Scientology briefly). Instead, we have a discussion precisely within the scope of the restriction, that the editor participated in, who then refused to accept the connection. I support a one-week block. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 21:32, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Agree with User:Sandstein and User:Lord Roem that a one-week block is needed. The topic ban obviously applies. This is not even a grey area. In my view SW3 5DL could have avoided a sanction if they made clear that they understood the problem and wouldn't do it again, but it seems that they don't understand why their edits violate the ban. EdJohnston (talk) 02:51, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * SW3 5DL has pointed out that I might have been confusing his statements with those of Collect. He says that he has agreed not to repeat this. SW3 5DL, are you OK with having your own comments struck out from Talk:Donald Trump? I would also appreciate it if you would restore [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&diff=prev&oldid=620044742 your own edit to AE] because others may have already responded to what you said. You can put it in a collapse box if you want. EdJohnston (talk) 03:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll agree with Sandstein and Lord Roem that this constituted a violation and disagree with Collect that it qualified as an exception under BLP. The point of a topic ban is a decision that the editor is not trusted to edit in a certain area. While one can imagine BLP violation occurring in the area, we have in essence said, we do not want this editor making that call. The editor knows there are other ways to ensure attention to the issue other than actually making the edit. However, I do not support the one-week block. The editor either (now) gets it, in which case no block is needed (assuming we do not do punitive blocks) or does not get it, in which case a much longer block is warranted. My recommendation is no block now, with the understanding that a subsequent incident will generate a request (from me) for a year long block the maximum possible block. Editor should understand that broadly construed should be taken literally, and if there is any question, the right thing to do is point out the incident to someone else to handle.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  15:55, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with User:Sphilbrick's judgment on the violation at Talk:Donald Trump and would allow the complaint against SW3 5DL to be closed with no block. To clean up the violation, all of SW3 5DL's comments that are tea-party-related at Talk:Donald Trump should be struck out. My assumption is that if SW3 5DL shows by their future behavior that they are unable to stay away from TPM issues that the result could be different next time. EdJohnston (talk) 19:02, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm ok with the approach outlined above.  Sandstein   21:07, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Same here. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 21:57, 7 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Before this is closed it's important to note that we would be unable to block for one year if there is an other violation. Per WP:ARBTPM we may block initially for up to one month. However I do agree with a warning in this instance with it being made clear that any other violation will be meet with the maximum block we can impose. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:14, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Sphilbrick's approach, recommending no block now but a one-year block in case of subsequent violation, won't work, as Callanecc points out. If they're merely warned now, it can't be more than a month next time. Sandstein, Lord Roem and User:EdJohnston may want to indicate if they agree with SPhilbrick's recommendation all the same.


 * For me that's a minor point, though; regardless of the matter of the length of a subsequent block, I recommend a block now. The topic ban violations (posting to a thread entitled "people associated with the Tea Party movement", which, as MastCell says, shows poor judgement in itself) were not major. But the excuse made for them — not "fully understanding the terms and conditions" of an indefinite topic ban "from all pages relating to the Tea Party movement, broadly construed" — is weak. It becomes weaker still when the user ignores MastCell's concerns, which were voiced simultaneously on Talk:Donald Trump and in a civil note on SW3 5DL's own talkpage, with the edit summary "Violation of your topic ban". SW3 5DL removes this with a rudely dismissive edit summary and continues to argue on Talk:Donald Trump. Why? I'm extremely unimpressed by the user's explanation/excuse above: that "communication is a two-way affair" with a link to an edit they've made on Sandstein's page, where they'd explained that they hadn't even read MastCell's note (with its clear edit summary) before removing it. I confess I blinked when I saw that offered as an excuse. But apparently MastCell's "attitude" and "hectoring tone" in a comment on Sandstein's page (here) were part of the reason for the dismissive removal of his concerns, even though that removal took place a couple of days earlier. Trying to put their behavior on MastCell's "attitude" is just… I don't know how to put it. I've already said I'm unimpressed. There was little excuse for violating the ban, and no excuse at all for responding with an attack ("trolling") to civilly expressed concerns about it. A warning seems insufficient to me. The original topic ban was presumably placed because a battleground attitude does waste the time and efforts of other users, and here we go again. If SW3 5DL had responded reasonably to MastCell's reasonable concerns — taken them onboard — there would have been no need to waste further time at this board. Bishonen &#124; talk 23:34, 8 August 2014 (UTC).


 * I find this persuasive.  Sandstein   02:48, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree with Bishonen's view. It sounds like we are back to the idea of a one-week block. EdJohnston (talk) 21:24, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Closing comments: 's warning recommendation turned out to be impracticable per 's comments. Both and, who were in favor of the warning proposal, switched their !vote based on Bish's observation. Others in favor of the warning proposal were ping'd and they did not respond. So the arguments of those supporting Sphilbrick's warning proposal needed to be discarded. AE discussions are not supposed to drag on for a long time, the very purpose of the AE board is to limit the expenditure of limited admin resources on contentious areas. It had been two days since the last argument was made, and the warning !votes did not receive follow-up counter-arguments, so the result was a clear consensus for a 1-week block. 15:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Jaqeli
''This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.''

Request concerning Jaqeli

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 20:09, 9 August 2014 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced:
 * Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2, as per AA2 general sanctions public notice


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


 * 1) 31 July 2014 invalid removal of fact tag against the 430AD date.
 * 2) 6 August 2014 edit warring, invalid removal of fact tag, invalid edit summary (the cited sources do not say 430AD)
 * 3) 7 August 2014 edit warring, invalid removal of clarification required tag, invalid edit summary as before, refusal to address the points made to justify the tag, refusal to engage in talk page discussion.
 * 4) 8 August 2014 edit warring, invalid deletion of clarification required tag, invalid edit summary as before, refusal to address edit summary explanation. Refusal to engage in talk page, ignoring justification given for the tag's insertion.
 * 5) 9 August 2014 edit warring, invalid deletion of clarifiction tag, deletion of referenced content, insertion of content not supported by the references Jaqeli placed beside that content, refusal to engage in talk page discussion, invalid and uncivil edit summary.
 * 6) 7 August 2014 Talk page incivility, refusal to accept good faith, refusal to engage with an editor and address points he raised.
 * 7) 8 August 2014 Talk page incivility, display of battleground attitude, refusal to engage in discussion and address the points raised.
 * 8) 9 August 2014 Talk page incivility, extreme display of battleground attitude, a point-blank refusal to engage in discussion and address the issue raised (that the "dated 430AD" is different from "dates from circa 430AD").


 * 1) 3 July 2014 anon editor deletes content mentioning Mashtots connection to the Georgian alphabet. No edit explanation.
 * 2) 16 July 2014 Jaqeli restarts this edit warring by deleting content in an edit that is identical to the anon edits. Invalid edit summary explanation (the first of many "per Georgian scripts").
 * 3) 18 July 2014 edit warring, removal of referenced content, invalid edit summary, no talk page explanation.
 * 4) 31 July 2014 edit warring, removal of referenced content, no edit explanation, false claim to be reveting to a stable version, refusal to use talk page for explanation.
 * 5) 1 August 2014 edit warring, removal of referenced content, invalid explanation for edit, continued refusal to use talk page for explanation.
 * 6) 2 August 2014 edit warring, removal of referenced content, invalid explanation for edit, continued refusal to use talk page for explanation. Refusal to regard the edit summary of the edit he reverted.
 * 7) 3 August 2014 edit warring, removal of referenced content, invalid explanation for edit, continued refusal to use talk page for explanation, refusal to accept compromise edit.
 * 8) 16 July 2014 Talk page incivility: an aggressive, negative, battleground attitude from the outset, refusal from the outset to accept the good faith of editors who have worked on the article.
 * 9) 20 July 2014 Display of battleground attitude, talks about "sides", advocates a nationalistic approach to editing "I am totally for Georgian-Armenian co-operation on Wikipedia"
 * 10) 2 August 2014 Battleground attitude dismissal of sources that don't agree with his pov.
 * 11) 3 August 2014 Battleground attitude continues - refusal to use talk pages for explanation
 * 12) 4 August 2014 Battleground attitude again - refusal to engage in talk page discussion even when wikipedia guidance pages are cited.
 * 13) 5 August 2014 A point blank refusal to engage with editors in the talk page.


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) NB: Jaqeli has blanked his talk page so I cannot get the diff for the original sanction notice . This one refers to a later topic ban enforced as a result of the original violation.


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS):


 * Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

The disruptive editing covers two articles. On Georgian scripts, the content says an inscription "is dated 430AD". The inscription in question is actually undated, and the cited sources actually say "dates from c430AD". I initially added fact tags for the "dated 430AD" claim, hoping for some sources, but Jaqeli repeatedly deleted the tags. He did the same for the clarification tags I then tried as an alternative. He ignored the reasons I gave for placing these tags. Faced with no sources for the "is dated 430AD" claim, I altered the text to read "has been dated to c430AD" as per the cited sources, but Jaqeli simply reverted to the incorrect version. I have repeatedly tried my best to explain to him that "dated 430AD" is quite different from "dates from c430AD" used by the sources. His only response has been reverts and incivility.

On Mesrop Mashtots he has repeatedly deleted referenced content and repeatedly refused to discuss his edits in the article's talk page. All he does is repeatedly state "per Georgian scripts". It has been very carefully explained to him that this "per Georgian scripts" explanation is not valid: editors cannot use talk page content on one article as a reason for not properly justifying content removal on a completely different article. Editors have directed him to the Wikipedia pages giving this advice, but he seems incapable of taking that advice or realising he is in the wrong. Because of his actions and attitudes it is impossible to engage productively with Jaqeli.

Jaqeli has been topic banned before. When the ban was lifted it was on the condition that he would not return to edit warring and assuming bad faith on the part of others. The diffs show he has broken that condition. They show he has also ignored his own assertion that he would, in future, "edit constructively, will not edit war and will discuss it in a calm and respectable manner".


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

notification

Discussion concerning Jaqeli
''Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.''

Result concerning Jaqeli
''This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.''


 * Unarchived to allow processing by admins.  Sandstein   16:02, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * When lifting the previous topic ban from matters that relate both to Armenia and Georgia, I warned Jaqeli to "make sure to refrain from confrontational or otherwise disruptive editing in this topic area, such as edit-warring or assuming bad faith on the part of others." However, the evidence shows that Jaqeli did continuously edit war at and  since July. The topic ban is accordingly reinstated. Because Tiptoethrutheminefield has also edit-warred with Jaqeli on the same articles, they are, for three months, restricted from making more than one revert (as defined at WP:3RR) per page in any 24 hour period with respect to pages that relate to the history of Armenia or Georgia.   Sandstein   16:14, 15 August 2014 (UTC)