Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive261

SashiRolls
''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 SashiRolls

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 14:26, 7 February 2020 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBAPDS:


 * 5) Wikipedia editors are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other editors; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.


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

Assumption of bad faiths, WP:ASPERSIONS
 * 1) February 7, 2020 -
 * 2) February 1, 2020 -
 * 3) January 30, 2020 - (link omitted)
 * 4) January 29, 2020 -
 * 5) January 22, 2020 -
 * 6) January 22, 2020 -
 * 7) January 15, 2020 (logged out - see ) -
 * 8) January 15, 2020 -
 * 9) January 7, 2020 -
 * 10) January 5, 2020 -
 * 11) December 31, 2020 -
 * 12) January 5, 2020 -


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :
 * 1) November 10, 2019 - Topic ban; interaction ban; cautioned.
 * 2) May 27, 2019 - No personal comments restriction
 * 3) May 19, 2019 - Interaction ban
 * 4) June 23, 2017 - Indefinite block
 * 5) September 3, 2016 - Topic ban


 * 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.
 * Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on May 28, 2019 by.

The behavior documented here is unabated. At least four users: (MrX,, , and ) are now the target of baseless accusations of being members of a cabal. This bellicose behavior damages reputations, disrupts discussions, and erodes trust and collaboration. - MrX 🖋 14:26, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * has made a specious accusation of tag teaming, which according to the essay is "a controversial form of meatpuppetry in which editors coordinate their actions to circumvent the normal process of consensus." I am asking Pudeo to substantiate that accusation with ANY evidence of "coordinate their actions to circumvent the normal process of consensus". and if they are unable or unwilling to, I request that the accusation be stricken. - MrX 🖋 20:35, 7 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't think I need to respond to most of SashiRolls' post hoc ergo propter hoc claims about me, but I do want to rebut the ridiculous claim that I reported his behavior here because he tried to get me blocked for supposedly edit warring. Here's is the sequence of what actually happened:
 * 1) 00:50 - Aspersions cast by SashiRolls at me, but more so at WMSR.
 * 2) 02:57 - Having witnessed these slurs for months and seen several editors push back, I gave SashiRolls a final warning.
 * 3) 12:50 - SashiRolls deleted my warning with the edit summary "removeha"
 * 4) 14:01 - Realizing that SashiRolls probably would probably continue making aspersions, I started a sandbox to organize diffs.
 * 5) Six days later, after seeing SashiRolls' cabal accusation, I reported his conduct here. - MrX 🖋 14:38, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Discussion concerning SashiRolls
''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 SashiRolls

 * Immediate history:

I presented the facts on the talk page, showing beyond any doubt that nobody had ever deleted the content I had supposedly repeatedly edit-warred into the article.
 * On 31 January 2020 MrX was warned for edit warring on Media coverage of Bernie Sanders. He was at 3RR at 14:30 and had not reverted his (mistake) by 23:30 (and still has not).  I filed at ANEW, and after he was warned, MrX began compiling diffs for this revenge filing on the same day.
 * On 4 February 2020, Snooganssnoogans made a series of 6 reversions (one continuous revert) with insulting edit summaries:
 * fix poor, incomprehensible writeup
 * nonsensical descriptions
 * awful writeup
 * this has nothing to do with media bias against Sanders. one editor has repeatedly edit-warred this into the article over the objections of other editors ( diff ).
 * The cumulative effect was clear "baiting" to take advantage of the "no personal comments" sanction Awilley had imposed in a previous case MrX had brought against me, and which Snoog was also involved in.


 * WMSR, who has been trying to get me sanctioned for some time, denied the evidence on the talk page.
 * Objective3000 made a number of personal attacks against me which I tried to remove (one of which WMSR acknowledged O3000 shouldn't have said in yet another denial of the clear evidence that Snoogans had made up the edit-war he was complaining of.
 * WMSR, Objective3000, Slywriter and another contributor directed a number of personal comments towards me on the talk page (zero discussion of content) while I rewrote a paragraph about the section scrubbed from the article by Snoogans & MrX. I explicitly and politely responded to their concerns with previous content and continued a content discussion on the TP amidst the poisonous atmosphere being established by the five editors in the original thread.  In mainspace, WMSR just wholesale reverted when a better compromise could have been found giving the reader context.  No comment from WMSR on the TP about his revert quite a few hours (36?) later.  O3000 did, so I suppose that's ok, then.


 * qabbalah:
 * People have objected to my saying the entry & topic area is being controlled by a "house" cabal with a division of roles according to talents, tools, and experience points. Wait, no, I didn't say all that, did I? :) People have also previously objected to me drawing attention to the fact that Snoogans & MrX work together. As the record shows, these two have interacted on 41 pages within 10 minutes of one another, and 167 pages within 10 days of one another.  Their #1 and #3 interactions are on Media coverage of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard , two pages where I have had to deal with them extensively.


 * 19:29 12 Jan MrX - O3000 19:38 12 Jan (first edit to the page)
 * 18:03 29 Jan MrX - O3000 18:05 29 Jan
 * 00:18 12 Jan Snoo - MrX 20:28 12 Jan
 * 00:23 12 Jan Snoo - MrX 20:18 12 Jan


 * Repetition is the mother of learning (context matters)
 * Since I've been asked about the "underemployed" comment, note that it was plucked from a discussion conducted 3 days after I'd been taken to a noticeboard for removing my own (inaccurate) word "slightly" from the entry. Poke, poke, poke and you'll eventually get a reaction, maybe in the middle of the workweek...  The following is what led to that comment, as can be verified at this diff:


 * The absurd CTR content that has been challenged by multiple has again been edit-warred into the article by SashiRolls. How many times is this editor going to be allowed to edit-war newly added content into the article de spite the objections of multiple editors? It's a brazen violation of BRD and the consensus- required requirements that all the other editors are abiding by. The editor was just days ago war ned on the edit-warring noticeboard for edit-warring on this page, but immediately comes back to edit-war this nonsensical content into the article? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:31, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Chill. The content I restored was deleted on the grounds that the chapter title of one of the two sources was "fishy", seemingly suggesting that it did not exist. I restored the edit after proving that the source said exactly what I wrote that it said and providing a link to the page where it did. Please stop misrepresenting matters. I notice you did not provide a link to that discussion at ANEW which was closed within 27 minutes of being opened. In the interest of transparency concerning what really happened, I'll add a link since it was just archived. 🌿 SashiRolls t · c 08:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Please explain why you are repeatedly restoring content that has been challenged by multiple editors, and which has not been supported by any editor except yourself. It's a direct violation of BRD and the consensus- required requirements, and it makes it impossible to edit this article. You were literally " warned " on the edit-warring noticeboard, so your link just shows what I said. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * In fact, it shows slightly more than that.


 * WMSR's copyvio & harassment accusations:


 * On 28 January 2018, WSMR started an AfD on the "media coverage of BS" page and an ANI report against me which was closed the same day (though he reopened it a few hours after Bbb23 closed it as being most likely a disruptive timesink). Five days later, I challenged him to demonstrate the copyvio (the least subjective of the accusations).  Caught in the fib, he shifted the goalposts: "Regardless of whether the use of that image was a violation of copyright law, it was a clear violation of WP's fair use policy" in this diff.
 * WMSR removed the image from the article on 21 January 2020, I never restored it. Why was this worth discussion 7 days later?
 * WMSR also accused me of harassment on 28 January 2020, though I hadn't even commented on his talk page (though he'd been asked to stay off mine).


 * Working the refs


 * Obj3000, MrX, and Snoog have all commented on 7 admin talk pages. The closest association (by far) is with Awilley, who imposed the "no personal comments" sanction (20, 19, and 22 comments, respectively) (Snoog and MrX have 5 and 6 contributions respectively to Awilley/Special Sanctions). I have made a spreadsheet of their interactions separated into subject areas for ArbCom.  The two that concern me at the moment are among their closest collaborations. (rough text version)


 * Further evidence available


 * I can respond to each of the diffs presented above providing the context. (evidence phase)


 * Snoog has misrepresented the off-wiki information from 2017 he sent to ArbCom. Like the false claim of edit warring above, this is a tactical misrepresentation.
 * Given the clear evidence of coordinated harassment, the gaming of the "no personal comments" sanction Awilley unilaterally imposed, and the very clear misrepresentations of content (which is a behavioral issue about which I have solid evidence to share, especially concerning Snoogans), this case belongs at ArbCom, with the filer and first three commenters on this case as parties to the dispute.

-- SashiRolls 🌿 ·     🍥 14:34, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking back on the article I noticed that nobody had given anyone a heads up there that anything was happening. I wonder how anyone knowing anything about the dispute could have found out about it?
 * I also noted two discussions which have been opened but had not been substantively discussed (1, 2), drowned out by the wailing and gnashing of teeth about tone. --  SashiRolls 🌿 ·     🍥 00:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Thought-crime (addendum)
 * I notice that MrX has added one of my edit summaries on my talk page in boldface, suggesting that it is particularly important. For information, I had misspelled "harassment" with two Rs and while backspacing hit instead of . (I can't really claim "fat" fingers, but...)
 * A lot of people have found it inappropriate that I asked Snoogans about their qualifications to judge the "absurdity" of professional mainstream journalists' articles. I think it is interesting that on en.wp it is considered a major-major foul to ask what someone does for a living, whereas in life, this is usually one of the first things you know about someone.  I'm not trying to excuse my irritation with their pestering by pointing out how weird it is to hide your professional qualifications, I just think people should be aware how weird it is. (For complete transparency, I have taught foreign languages and computer skills at all levels (from middle school through graduate school and grandes écoles to continuing education) for 20+ years and have also worked in radio, retail, translation, academic research, photography, manual labor, and quite a few kitchens. In other words, I have legitimate working class bonafides.)
 * Levivich mentioned Cirt/Sagecandor. I'm not sure I ever said Sagecandor was a sockpuppet as such.  I was blocked in Dec 2016 for questioning whether there was "some today politics" in their desire to have their rewrite of "And are you lynching Negroes" promoted to GA status (which it was not), and later in June 2017, for documenting their production at Talk:Bibliography of Donald Trump.  I say this because opining you think someone might be a sock-puppet is a thought-crime in the 1st degree (as I understand it) unless you provide evidence (as I did twice for Bulldog Antz & User:The Bone Dorchester).--  SashiRolls 🌿 ·     🍥 11:59, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Snooganssnoogans
I will try to be brief:
 * (1) The editor has repeatedly insinuated that I'm hired by David Brock (a largely disreputable figure in US politics) to edit Wikipedia: (a) the "for some reason" line is the insinuation I'm working for him. (b) SR asks me if I know of headshots of David Brock that he can use, which is a clear insinuation that I'm working for him. (c) I've sent an email to the Arb Committee where SR explicitly names two other editors: Calton and Neutrality as working for David Brock.
 * (2) SR brazenly edit-wars on the page in question (I listed some of the many many clear-cut BRD violations here: ). The editor bullies changes into the article and attacks every other editor who challenges his edits, and has over time largely driven other editors from the page. The edit-warring, coupled with the personal attacks and the conspiracy theories about other editors, suggests at the very least that this editor is incapable of editing American Politics. He sees himself as the only pure editor whereas all who disagrees with any of his edits are editing for hire and coordinating against him.
 * (3) SR will inevitably respond with a Gish Gallop. If you don't understand what he's talking about and if you don't have time to chase down all the vague spurious accusations and irrelevant links he throws up, don't assume that there is something to it. Ask him to be clear and concise, and to actually provide evidence.
 * (4) When SR's ban was rescinded in Nov 2018, it was on the condition that he be kept on a tight leash. Additionally, when he was unblocked, many editors and admins voiced strong opposition to unblocking him, knowing from their past interactions with him that he would inevitably cause problems again. Since the unblocking, he has on three separate occasions by two administrators (El C and Awilley) been blocked for harassment, personal attacks and battleground behavior, and been warned countless times by both administrators and editors. This editor will be indefinitely banned at some point or another: it's just a question of how much time that Wikipedia editors and admins are going to have to spend dealing with him before that. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Pudeo argues that SR's civility violations and non-stop conspiracy theorizing about other editors is excusable because the conspiracy theories are true (!). The only evidence in support of the claim that I am tag-teaming with two other editors is that we happen to have edited many of the same articles. However, if you were to put in the names of all other active editors in American Politics who have been as active as MrX, Objective and I in the last few years, the editor interaction analyzer would show the exact same thing. If we happened to have edited the same very obscure American Politics pages or completely unrelated Wikipedia pages, then yes, that would indicate tag-teaming. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:27, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by WMSR
To be frank, the diffs cited by MrX and Snooganssnoogans don't even begin to scratch the surface of SashiRolls's constant incivility on talk pages and with regard to edit warring. Looking purely at Talk:Media coverage of Bernie Sanders and Talk:Tulsi Gabbard 2020 presidential campaign Sashi demonstrates pretty clearly their belief that WP:FOC |applies to everyone except them. I recently raised issues about personal attacks at WP:ANI, but they were not addressed. That complaint contains several more diffs. --WMSR (talk) 17:00, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm disappointed but not surprised to see Sashi respond with a Gish gallop that is well over the 500-word limit and continues attacking other editors, myself included. Since his reply to this complaint, rather than focus on content at the page in question, he is accusing editors of pouring fog into the page by bringing a case here. The claims made by on this page are equally outrageous and frankly offensive. If you want to drag me to a noticeboard, feel free to do so, but please stop casting aspersions. --WMSR (talk) 23:52, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Objective3000

 * 6 February 2020 – “One does wonder why this entry is so important to the 'no there there' folks.”
 * 5 February 2020 – "Here the 'digging' I'm referring to is reading the article and seeing what it says (and proving with wikiblame that Snoog was not telling the truth). Feel free to try it, rather than making comments vacated of any substance..”
 * 1 February 2020 – “Thank you for teaching me that your point of view is that the Media coverage of Bernie Sanders page should not contain any actual media coverage of Bernie Sanders' campaign. I feel so much wiser now!”

Sashi’s last comment this morning: It is obviously impossible to contribute to this entry as it has been taken over by Snoogans, MrX, WSMR, O3000 & Slywriter. Cf. WP:OWN is breathtaking. Sashi made 256 of the last 500 edits to the article with a great deal of resistance from at least five other editors. Sashi’s conclusion: those five editors are exhibiting ownership behavior, not Sashi.

If you attempt to engage Sashi in discussion, you can be certain of two things. Sashi will demand that you focus on content. Sashi will focus on you. Often both in the same edit.

Sashi has racked up an array of blocks from an impressive number of admins and arbcom for personal attacks, harassment, uncollaborative editing, aspersions, battelground, intimidation, nothere, disruptive editing and Wikihounding; has lost talk page access three times, and lost email access. Clearly there is a problem with behavior towards other editors. Blocks haven’t worked. Perhaps an indef TBan from AP2 and BLP to see if this is a problem dealing with controversial arenas. Or will that just shove the problem elsewhere? O3000 (talk) 17:48, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You stated: After Snooganssnoogans recently brought up SashiRolls on Awilley's talkpage, MrX and Objective3000 commented there within an hour. You neglected to mention that SashiRolls called both MrX and me multipliers of negative energy just before we responded. How on Earth is it tag-teaming for each of us to respond to accusations against oneself? I would suggest that this is not a good venue for casting aspersions. O3000 (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I would like to respond in more detail to Pudeo’s accusation/rationale for Sashi's behavior. They did not click “Pages edited by all users” when using the interaction tool. When you use the tool for three people without this option, it does not mean all three are in each interaction. It sums three interaction pairs and the triple interaction. Clicking the option drops results from 93 to 39. Secondly, the results aren’t surprising as we all have been editing the AP2 articles for years, and talk page discussions can be very long and intense with constant minute to minute interaction. As an example, if I replace Snoog with MelanieN and run the same tool, there are 87 interactions. Does this mean that admin MelanieN is a meatpuppet of MrX and me? O3000 (talk) 23:03, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I’ve read SashiRolls statement and don’t really see anything to respond to. I live two blocks from a Kabbalah center, which has not helped me divine any meaning from the qabbalah section. Yes, I comment on admin TPs on occasion. I have 15-20 admin TPs on my watchlist as I have found these pages highly informative. Hope I haven’t been a pest. If someone thinks there is something I should respond to; I’ll be happy to do so. O3000 (talk) 15:42, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Pudeo
It seems that all the editors who SashiRolls says are tag-teaming have already submitted statements. SashiRolls' general position in the contentious topic (Media coverage of Bernie Sanders) has decent acceptance, as the article survived two well-participated AfDs as "no consensus".

It is evident without a doubt that there is tag-teaming at play here. After Snooganssnoogans recently brought up SashiRolls on Awilley's talkpage, MrX and Objective3000 commented there within an hour. I noticed this as well in an AN/I thread last month. In two comments I posted there, both were replied to by MrX and Objective3000. Based on the editor interaction tool with Objective3000 and MrX, it's fairly obvious they are following each other's edits to give back-up. They sometimes even reply for users on behalf of the other person:. O3000 further states: I nearly always agree with MrX.

The editor interaction tool can yield results for three different users combined : Snooganssnoogans, MrX & Objective3000. Can you believe that! SashiRolls has every right to complain about tag-teaming. Whether those complaints need to be tone-policed, is up the administators. But please do not reward tag-teaming in a POV fight. It is understandble that being tag-teamed against is strenous, and can't really be acted against, so I'm afraid SR has been put in a difficult position. --Pudeo (talk) 20:11, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Acknowledged. A link with "pages edited by all users" ticked: It does halve the results, and a deeper dig is required, but I hope that SashiRolls will give a response here which might touch this given that this is the root of many of his comments. I must say that I don't consider "tag-team" an egregious personal attack, anyhow. --Pudeo (talk) 23:39, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment by GoodDay
I don't wish to elaborate, as it's difficult to pin down. But, it's frustrating to edit or discuss topics concerning the corporate-centrist -vs- progressive divide in the US Democratic Party. My experiences have left me feeling it's difficult to point out the DNC's & MSM's bias against progressives. Thus why I  don't hang around these disputes, very often. GoodDay (talk) 20:17, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by GMG
If I'm being honest, we have a user twice indeffed, and now subject to a one way IBAN, a two way IBAN, a TBAN, and a conduct restriction. Where exactly is the area where this user has contributed productively and collaboratively? Who is it this user has interacted with that hasn't been part of the cabal (myself included, four some odd years ago, which is exactly why I continue to generally avoid them, and most any article they're active on)? G M G talk  22:37, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that those opining would review the previous requests linked to the prior restrictions, specifically regarding elaborate mechanisms to enable this editor to continue to take up community time. I neither supported nor opposed the original unblock request, but correctly predicted that they would again be blocked within a year, which they were three times.
 * I await an answer to my original question. If we are to consider yet another topic ban, then where is it that we can expect this user to contribute in a way that is productive and collaborative? Do we have any evidence that this will somehow not result in either 1) cessation of editing having been eventually walled off from anything of any interest to them, or 2) an indefinite block regardless of the wall and what it cordons off?  G M G  talk  16:22, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Jusdafax
Sashi Rolls may or may not deserve sanctions here. However, a look at the link to the editor interaction tool provided by Puedo does in fact show remarkable unanimity in timing between 3 editors on a wide range of articles. I'd say that this deserves further scrutiny as well. Jusdafax (talk) 23:07, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I join others in pointing to the statement just below mine by Levivich. This A/E request is the tip of a complex, long-standing issue, and a deep, comprehensive analysis before judgement is called for, in my view. Jusdafax (talk) 04:43, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Levivich
Recently I lamented at AN about how procedural fairness is not valued at AE. "Procedural fairness" includes not voicing an opinion on a sanction before the reported editor has even responded to the complaint. "Procedural fairness" means at least pretending that you're keeping an open mind until after you've heard from all parties and reviewed the evidence. Even if you don't think one of the parties deserves fairness, everyone else is watching, and they see that the decision makers do not have an open mind, and that has a predictable chilling effect, preventing editors from seeking help, and leaving problems to fester unaddressed.

I'm not seeing personal attacks in the 12 diffs listed in this report, except for the "unemployed" bit. But that diff (along with others in this report) was already brought to a noticeboard, here: Administrators%27 noticeboard/IncidentArchive1029, and closed by an admin with the comment, "I see nothing sanctionable in SashiRolls's conduct." So is bringing the same diff here WP:FORUMSHOPPING? I've recently heard the opinion expressed that if you take something to ANI and it's closed as not actionable, bringing the same thing to AE is forum shopping. In fact, I think an editor was recently sanctioned for that. Do these forum shopping rules get applied equally to all editors? Or is it because WSMR filed the ANI (and pinged Snoog), but MrX filed this AE, that it's not forum shopping?

Of course no one is surprised that the noticeboard reports against Sashi are made by the same group of editors (who insist there is no cabal), each of whom has conveniently been available to comment quickly on the others' noticeboard reports, and who have the helpful habit of restoring each others' reverted edits, so none of them are pestered by WP:1RR, WP:3RR, or WP:BRD. I agree with Sashi that this is one for Arbcom (who won't voice an opinion on a final decision until after the evidence phase), as there seems to be no chance that the tag-teaming issue will even be looked at, never-mind addressed, here. Levivich 16:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * When Sashi filed an ANEW against X, you didn't see me or anyone else, jumping in to call for sanctions against X. But when X reported Sashi, Snoog and O3000 are both there in the hour, calling for sanctions, and Snoog saying "This editor is a nuisance and clear net negative on this page." Three years ago, when the socking admin Cirt/Sagecandor took Sashi to AE because Sashi repeatedly accused them of socking, Snoog and O3000 were there calling for sanctions on Sashi. This has been going on for years and I raised the tag teaming three weeks ago at X's ANEW against Sashi; we have new examples since then (as can be seen in this AE report). Everyone is a volunteer here, so no admin is obligated to do anything about anything, but it is disheartening to see an editor be sanctioned for saying the emperor has no clothes when the emperor is, in fact, naked. It's even more disheartening when it's the second time around.
 * By the way, about the editor interaction analyzer: Pudeo's 90something number is the correct measure. It's true that when you turn on the "all editors" switch, that number gets cut in half, but the "all editors" is when all three editors edited the page, and you don't need all three editors to edit a page in order for there to be tag-team editing: it only takes two out of the three. The "proof" isn't in the number of interactions anyway–it's in the details of those interactions themselves: who is making what edits exactly, and when. There are some concrete examples in the section of Sashi's statement, and Pudeo's link to the editor interaction analyzer leads the way to more edits like those. I'll take the other side of that bet on the Arbcom case, though; after reviewing diffs in the evidence phase, I don't think Arbcom will siteban Sashi, I think they'll find that the emperor has no clothes. Levivich  01:50, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * By the way, about the editor interaction analyzer: Pudeo's 90something number is the correct measure. It's true that when you turn on the "all editors" switch, that number gets cut in half, but the "all editors" is when all three editors edited the page, and you don't need all three editors to edit a page in order for there to be tag-team editing: it only takes two out of the three. The "proof" isn't in the number of interactions anyway–it's in the details of those interactions themselves: who is making what edits exactly, and when. There are some concrete examples in the section of Sashi's statement, and Pudeo's link to the editor interaction analyzer leads the way to more edits like those. I'll take the other side of that bet on the Arbcom case, though; after reviewing diffs in the evidence phase, I don't think Arbcom will siteban Sashi, I think they'll find that the emperor has no clothes. Levivich  01:50, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Jorm
SashiRolls and they way they operate actively prevents me from engaging in discussions or articles that they are involved in because I just don't want to deal with the headache.

The editor is an absolute net negative to the project and a simple topic ban is only going to kick the can further down the road and we will be back here within a handful of months, wasting time yet again. Hopefully people will not be swayed by pages of text attempting to rationalize their conspiracy theories.--Jorm (talk) 16:47, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Rusf10
I am not going to review all the diffs because it would likely be a waste of time. The verdict was already delivered by biased admins before all the evidence was in anyway. How can anyone in good faith suggest a topic ban before the accused (SashiRolls) even had the chance to respond here? Levivich is right, if the admins cared about even having the appearance of objectivity, they would have given SashiRolls a reasonable amount of time to defend himself before calling for topic bans. I would tend to believe that there probably is some type of tag-teaming between MrX and Snoogans (and possibly others). Even this filing here has the appearance of a coordinated effort since SnoogansSnoogans posted a lengthy statement within one hour of the original filing. This probably needs to go to ArbCom.--Rusf10 (talk) 22:02, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Sir Joseph
I want to echo Levivich. Some admins commented before Sashi replied which does not seem fair. How can you rule on an AE action without hearing from both sides? Further, as he pointed out, some of the diffs were already adjudicated. You can ban Sashi, but the net result will end up just making the articles in the area even more biased. There is a reason why people don't edit in certain topic areas. I for one, don't want to be faced with it, so I try not to edit in political areas anymore. And people know that political topics on Wikipedia are very skewed to the left. Perhaps take a look at who is filing the complaint and others providing diffs and see how often they are involved in disputes as well. See how often the same names show up in political disputes. Sir Joseph (talk) 23:38, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Jdcomix
I've honestly tried to be uninvolved, but after they alleged me of harassment on their talk page even though I've only made 1 addition to it (look at the history), and skimming through the talk page at Media coverage of Bernie Sanders, I am strongly in support of sanctions. The editor being discussed is clearly not assuming good faith of the other editors on that article's talk page, and often makes baseless personal attacks against anyone who opposes them (see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=939518348&oldid=939513414&title=Talk:Media_coverage_of_Bernie_Sanders). I'd probably be supporting an AP2 topic ban if it came to that. 01:47, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Xenagoras
My opinion about SashiRolls: Disclaimer: I have never read the Media coverage of Bernie Sanders article or its talk page and am therefore unfamiliar with SashiRolls' conduct there. But I have witnessed SashiRoll's conduct towards myself on pages where I edit and found him to be friendly, productive and helpful. From my brief gazing at AfD discussions with SashiRolls' involvement, he seems to be an emotional individual which might cause him to have a low tolerance for getting annoyed. The Media coverage of Bernie Sanders article getting nominated for deletion three times caused SashiRolls distress. I would recommend SashiRolls to spend more time relaxing, not taking Wikipedia too serious, and in calm hours, read all the policies and guidelines about behavior and editing. And perhaps he can find a mentor who can help him handle difficult situations on Wikipedia more calmly and guide him on how to be and respond more disenganged.

My opinion about content and/or conduct disputes with Snooganssnoogans, WMSR, MrX: I found it extremely time consuming, tedious and nearly impossible to insert pertinent reliably sourced content into articles when WMSR and/or MrX are opposed to it.

Snooganssnoogans attempted to damage my reputation and discredit my future edits by making a false statement of fact about me. He ignored my request to withdraw his damaging remark and doubled down on it. He also raised a false suspicion about me having a conflict of interest, for which he had zero evidence and no reason to believe I had a COI. For all of this I complained towards him, which he also ignored.

MrX has caused severe content disputes for misrepresenting sources one month ago and his refusal to respond to me addressing his edits, and the disputes got more severe recently for his political censorship, tendentious editing and stonewalling. The most recent part of this long lasting dispute can be read here and I complained to him there (many links to MrX' problematic edits and which policy they violate are included in my complaint).

WMSR raised a false and baseless suspicion about me being sock puppet and requested a sock puppet investigation against me and 8 other editors. As we all know, the penalty for sock puppets is an indefinite ban. He had zero evidence for his suspicion, for which his investigation request was thrown out of window by the admins/clerk.. WMSR recently made several severe false accusations against me, including but not limited to his failure to assume the assumption of good faith and accusing me of casting aspersions and and personal attacks , for which I complained to him, to which he reacted with denial and hostility. WMSR participates in the same severe content dispute as described above for MrX. WMSR's edits include political censorship and stonewalling and other problems, which can be read here and for which I complained to him, to which he reacted with denial. 

In this current content dispute, MrX, WMSR and Calton have been mirroring each other's arguments via edit summaries and talk page comments and repeated each other's reverts (which enhances the stonewalling referenced above by enabling them to prevent content from other editors getting into an article without violating WP:3RR themselves):

MrX makes an unwarranted large 3-part revert [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tulsi_Gabbard_2020_presidential_campaign&diff=938482228&oldid=938481698 poorly sourced and blatantly false claim. ...] This is WP:UNDUE [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tulsi_Gabbard_2020_presidential_campaign&diff=938482880&oldid=938482421 This material is excessive an unencyclopedic. Who cares who commented in her defense? ] "This is unencylopedic" alias "This doesn't belong" is not a valid argument. This gets reverted by two other editors  a couple hours later. WMSR repeats the revert of MrX a couple hours later with edit summary The content MrX deleted did not belong in the article per WP:DUE. ... Discuss on the talk page. Oh, the "doesn't belong" argument again. I explained to WMSR why his revert was based on invalid arguments. WMSR did not explain or even propose his revert on talk page before making it, but he requested others to discuss. 5 days later, after I discussed MrX' and WMSR's objections to the disputed content in great detail and made a much improved edit to adapt to their objections, Calton fully reverted  me 33 minutes later with edit summary No, make your argument for each piece. The "media bias" and "campaign sign defacement" stuff, for two, really don't belong here. Oh, the "doesn't belong" argument again. Calton's edit summary was an invalid argument as I explained him on talk page, and he - like WMSR - did not explain or even propose his revert on talk page before making it, but he requested others to discuss so far. Later, MrX implictly referred to WMSR and Calton when he erroneously implied consensus were a counting of heads of same opinion Three editors have now opposed this content, thereby ignoring that consensus is determined by ascertaining the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy, and that consensus cannot be created against policies and guidelines. MrX also termed me discussing content on the talk page you still continue to push it, thereby discouraging me from any further discussion or attempting to insert content into the article that he doesn't like. Xenagoras (talk) 07:19, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Additional interaction details on false "sock puppet" suspicions by WMSR and MrX:  WMSR raised false sock puppet suspicion against and  at ANI at 06:46, 26 December. MrX agreed with WMSR on every point 7 hours later at 13:52, 26 December. MrX raised this false suspicion again 16 minutes later at WP:SPI at 14:08, 26 December. WMSR added to MrX' report at WP:SPI and 4 hours later raised false and evidence free sock puppet suspicion against me and 8 other users at 18:10, 26 December 2019. The sock puppet suspicions against me,, and all other editors got dismissed (for zero evidence) at WP:SPI on 26 December.

was blocked at ANI for WP:NOTHERE on 31 December.

Later, in February, after I told WMSR that I know he had raised a false, evidence free sock puppet suspicion against me, WMSR claimed, ...suggesting that editors listed by a banned editor as being on their side should perhaps be looked into, which is a false representation of history of events because  was not banned at the time when WMSR suspected him and me and many others of being sock puppets, and  got acquitted at WP:SPI on 26 December, 5 days before he got blocked for something else at ANI. Xenagoras (talk) 13:37, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Atsme
I agree for the most part with, , and. The reason we have AE is to stop/reduce disruption in highly controversial topic areas that are subject to DS, and such actions should be executed without causing potential harm to NPOV. To single out one editor when all have been disruptive participants does not bring resolution to the heart of the problem, especially if our admins will/have reviewed the number of times each of the following named editors have been bringing opposing editors to AE, ARCA, ANI, AN, etc.; therefore, a plausible solution in this case (one that would send a loud message if our admins are treating all editors equally) would be a 6-month AP2 t-ban for the 3 key players here; i.e., MrX, Snoogans and Sashi. Each have a POV to contribute, and the only true way to reach NPOV is to engage in a civil level of debate/discussion on the TP, (and not t-ban an editor for participating in lengthy discussions that are required where DS/consensus required are imposed). Tag-team editing is a major annoyance and causes the editor being tag-teamed (perceived or otherwise) to become defensive - better yet, instead of referring to it as tag-teaming, let's call it collaborative editing among those with a similar POV who reject an opposing POV which carries with it the potential to be noncompliant with NPOV, so there is certainly justification for all 3 to experience a 6 mos t-ban. Atsme Talk 📧 20:36, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Result concerning SashiRolls

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




 * I'd suggest a topic ban from American politics and some sort of block to go with it. These edits blatantly breach the "no personal comments" restriction imposed here, which is still in effect. They're also way below what we expect from editor conduct and it looks like they're making the article a miserable place for everyone else to work.  Hut 8.5  19:28, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * the main reason I'm suggesting a block is that these edits violate a previously imposed sanction. Given the history I imagine it would have to be quite a long one. I think Snooganssnoogans does have a point that this behaviour is likely to result in an indef block sooner or later.  Hut 8.5  19:42, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I would support a topic ban. Something needs to change and it's clear my "no personal comments" sanction didn't work here. ~Awilley (talk) 23:02, 7 February 2020 (UTC)


 * ,, please be aware of 's clarification regarding the interaction tool: here. El_C 23:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * both SashiRolls and Mr.X had attempted to 1RR-penalize one another (SashiRolls was reported on first by Mr.X, then a few weeks later, Mr.X was reported on second by ShasiRolls) — I had closed both reports with a warning, incidentally. As for AN/I and forumshopping (latest here), as I kept trying to tell participants in that article, for example most recently when I placed it again under enforced BRD, AE is more suited for this complaint than AN/I. That, because a quorum of admins deciding the result in a structured discussion just makes more sense for this case and its history than the alternative. I suppose SashiRolls is right that an Arbitration request would also be a viable option (indeed, one in which they would have an evidence phase available to them). But a final appeal to the Committee also remains an option in regards to the result of this AE request and a related possible subsequent appeal, anyway. Anyway, my intuition tells me that the Committee is likely to be more harsh in an Arbitration request (siteban) than is possible here with a quorum of admins in this AE request (topic ban rather than an indefinite block). But that's just a hunch. El_C 17:23, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * SashiRolls' supporters (for lack of a better word) are, unlike his opponents, not involved this current content dispute (that I noticed, at least), which that asymmetry at AN3 may be a product of. Some of his supporters are also not actual supporters but constitute more opponents of his opponents. Word salad! Anyway, I think you are mistaken about what the Committee will conclude (or, another likely outcome could be that they will simply decline the appeal on various grounds), but I guess we'll find out. I say that, because if consensus among admins here would be to go with a topic ban. That can be appealed to the Committee directly, can it not? Or would the respondent need to undergo an AE appeal first? I'm not really sure. I always got the sense that appeal to the Committee has become kind of what an appeal to Jimbo used to be — that is to say, any administrative decision on Wikipedia (singular or quorum) can be appealed to the Arbitration Committee. Please feel free to correct me, anyone, if that is not accurate in any way. As for the interaction tool, I don't understand it well enough to trust (any) interpretations of it, sorry. El_C 03:11, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks for the explanation. Regarding an appeal, that more or less corresponds to my thinking, also. Regarding this appeal, I'm not sure. Sounds plausible. Again, intuitively, I get the sense that a full Arbitration request would result in sanctions which are more severe than those which this AE is now leaning toward. But, of course, that is counter-factual, so perhaps it represents a line of thought which is redundant to pursue. El_C 04:26, 9 February 2020 (UTC)


 * SashiRolls has requested 48 hours to respond, which is a relatively reasonable time frame given the volume of material here. But I honestly cannot imagine any way in which a statement like "...unemployed or underemployed Wikipedia contributors like yourself..." could be considered anything other than a clear violation of the "no personal comments" restriction, not to mention of the no personal attacks policy even absent such a restriction. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:04, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * SashiRolls is a negative in the American politics area, with his persistent lowering of the tone and playing the man rather than the ball; as Hut 8.5 says, "making the article[s] a miserable place for everyone else to work". I certainly wouldn't go on working in an area where I had to put up with being spoken to the way Snoogans is here, by an originally logged-out Sashi. See altogether MrX's diffs and eye-popping list of previous sanctions (which clearly have not helped). It would just be too dreary. I support an indefinite topic ban from post-1932 American politics, to be appealed no sooner than after six months. If something further is proposed (what "some sort of block" do you envisage, Hut?), I might support that too, after consideration. Bishonen &#124; talk 12:15, 8 February 2020 (UTC).
 * Absent something truly extraordinary from SashiRolls, I too think an indefinite topic ban from post-1932 American politics is the minimum necessary here, although I'm wondering just how much more rope we should be giving them given that nothing we've tried so far has resulted in them returning as a productive editor. Thryduulf (talk) 13:23, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * regarding appeals. The sanctioned editor can choose to appeal an AE sanction to AE, to ArbCom or to Jimbo. AE is somewhat bound to hear an appeal, arbcom is not bound but will usually give anything that's not frivolous or obviously doomed to failure at least some consideration. If you haven't tried an AE appeal arbcom will want to know why. Jimbo is not bound in any way and last I paid attention (which was quite some time ago to be fair) very rarely heard appeals (when asked publicly at least), especially if neither AE nor Arbcom had been tried first. You can't go back down the chain - you can appeal AE to ArbCom but you can't appeal ArbCom to AE. The actions of individual administrators can be appealed here only if the action was, or could have been, an AE action, other admin actions can be appealed at ANI and all can be appealed to ArbCom and Jimbo, but you would need to give a convincing reason why you didn't try earlier steps first before they'll hear it. Personally, I don't think an appeal of a topic ban or limited time block now would be likely to succeed. An appeal of an indef block would be a toss-up I think. Thryduulf (talk) 04:10, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I support what I consider to be the absolute minimum that is required here, namely a topic ban from post-1932 American politics. If similar behavior takes place in other topic areas, an indefinite block would then be called for. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  22:40, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Per above, an indefinite topic ban seems to be warranted. -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  23:23, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Adrummond67
''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 Adrummond67

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 19:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


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


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


 * 1) 18:39, 29 January 2020 Adds monarch field to someone who held one of the positions of First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Editor was specifically pointed here to Talk:Martin McGuinness/Archive 2, regarding the consensus regarding FM and dFMs not being appointed by the monarch.
 * 2) 18:39, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
 * 3) 18:41, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
 * 4) 18:43, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
 * 5) 18:43, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
 * 6) 18:44, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
 * 7) 18:45, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


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


 * Notified here

Based on articles edited and the edits made, they also edited as Special:Contributions/2A00:23C4:AB9C:F100:C592:536:29F4:4D2F prior to creating an account. They are a single-purpose account dedicated to adding "monarch" fields to infoboxes. They were requested here to stop edit-warring and discuss their proposed changes on the relevant talk page of the articles concerned. They ignored this and made the edits noted above.
 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :


 * That edit could be excused as simply being new, and I did notifty them of MOS:TERRORIST here on 20:30, 2 February 2020. However they have chosen to ignore my message and repeat the edit today. FDW777 (talk) 18:46, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I do think this is someone's first account, due to the clumsy nature of their editing. For example this edit caused their addition to be invisible due to using "Monarch" rather than "monarch" for the infobox field name. There are also three failed attempts to add a monarch field to the infobox at President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, none of which was successful as it's not a valid field for the article's infobox. I would have expected any reasonably experienced editor to have seen their changes weren't actually visible and to have attempted to work out the problem. FDW777 (talk) 19:11, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Notified

Discussion concerning Adrummond67
''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 Adrummond67

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


 * As has continued editing after being notified of this request but has said nothing here, I believe we should proceed on evaluating this request without their input (though they are, of course, still welcome to provide it now if they wish to do so). Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:51, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with, and also find myself rather skeptical that this is someone's first account. Jumping directly into a contentious topic like this is relatively common for sockpuppets of those previously excluded from those topics, or from the project entirely. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The user only made 33 edits, and one of the last edits, already after the request was filed, is . I conclude that they are not net positive to the English Wikipedia. My first choice would be an indefinite block; the second choice would be a topic ban on everything related to Ireland (note that they have zero edits in topics not related to Ireland).--Ymblanter (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like indefblock remains the only option.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:55, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * An indef block would be okay with me, but I am worried that this is stale now -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  18:35, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I will block indef now. The fact they have not edited for five days is not a free pass.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:48, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Cleisthenes2
''Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.''

''To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).''


 * Appealing user :


 * Sanction being appealed : Topic Ban from Toby Young


 * Administrator imposing the sanction :


 * Notification of that administrator : The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification.

Statement by Cleisthenes2
I was topic banned from Toby Young after trying to work towards a satisfying compromise on the language of the lede. As I think the record shows, I repeatedly suggested alternative wordings that would restore NPOV (all were almost immediately rejected), was always calm and polite in my comments, and was consistently open to compromise wordings. I did try to counter repeated reverts and attacks from one user called Fae, and this got me banned (together with a good number of attacks from Fae herself and a couple of close allies). Though I'd rather not talk about other users, I think it's worth pointing out a) that Fae has a long record of disruption on articles of this sort, and was eventually banned from all articles to do with sex and gender and b) that she seems particularly incapable of neutrality or compromise when it comes to Young (see e.g. her comment on Young's talk page that "Young is absolutely desperate to appear controversial, when any real analysis shows he's just a sad troll that confuses right wing politics with hating all minorities"). Obviously, she has a right to her opinions, but I'm not sure that it's good for Wikipedia if someone with that kind of burning antipathy can get someone banned from editing a topic, especially someone who was working very civilly to move towards a change that it looked like most of the other users were sympathetic to. Thanks for considering this. If the ban is removed I intend to continue to work towards consensus in a reasonable way, but I also don't see why I shouldn't act to counter the kind of bullying that I was exposed to by Fae (and that many others on here have also apparently experienced). Cleisthenes2 (talk) 19:07, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Response to Bishonen, moved here from Cleisthenes2's talkpage:
 * You ask how it computes that I have made several edits on one article, but claim that my purpose is to defend NPOV. I think that pattern is pretty easy to produce if (as is the way I see this) you make a sincere effort to reach compromise language on an important issue, supported by many other editors, and find your every effort to find middle ground abruptly rejected and reverted. The way I see it, I was just trying to stand my ground (and abide by norms like NPOV, building consensus, civility, etc.), and not cede that ground to (and have those norms subverted by) a couple of editors who seemed to have an extreme antipathy for the subject, an inability to discuss the topic in an objective way, and no compunction about using force rather than engaging in good-faith discussion. (In Fae's case, this tendency is extensively documented). I don't edit all that much on Wikipedia by some standards (though I have a bit over the years), so obviously there won't be that many other cases where I've stood up for NPOV just as a statistical matter, though there are a few (and not always from one side politically: see e.g. my concern about neutrality on the talk page of the entry on Salazar). The reason I haven't spent more time in the past few months editing other articles (though I have a bit: see my contributions file for new sections on ancient Greek democracies and ancient historians) is because I've been bogged down trying not to be bullied away from what I see as a perfectly reasonable attempt to engage with other good-faith Wikipedians on a lede that many others see as violating NPOV (see the relatively recent edits by Collect and the related discussion on the Toby Young talk page). Behind this, there's also a very important principle that needs defending: that a small minority of especially energetic and unscrupulous editors shouldn't be able to derail a constructive discussion by abusing editorial power, making irrelevant comments, and engaging in speculation about other editors' motive. So, that's why I've often come back to the Toby Young piece. If Fae and Black Kite had been open to reasonable compromise and hadn't resorted to constant reverts, snide comments, and edit-warring, I wouldn't have had to do this, and you would have had more new sections on ancient Greek democracy. Anyway, thanks for seeming genuinely open to an answer to your question. Best, Cleisthenes2 (talk) 15:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Black Kite
I'm posting in the involved section because it was myself who raised the original WP:ANI report that led to the sanction (which can be seen here). My observations; Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Until a week or so again, Cleisthenes2 had made no edits to Wikipedia after being topic-banned from Toby Young some ten months ago, bar one edit which was an appeal to the admin concerned.  This may be seen as unsurprising as for the year prior to the sanction, 90% of their edits had been to Young's article, effectively acting as a SPA.
 * They still don't understand why they were sanctioned, which was for persistent edit-warring against multiple other editors (I count at least five established editors involved over the nine months or so that this was happening).
 * They violated their topic ban by editing Talk:Toby Young (diff) 15 minutes before posting this appeal.
 * Irrelevant to this appeal, but despite two previous requests (one at each ANI) not to do so, they have misgendered User:F%C3%A6 yet again in this appeal.


 * Thanks for this contribution, Black Kite. My observations:

Special thanks to those reading this with an open mind, and a willingness to look back at the history of the entry on Young. Cleisthenes2 (talk) 10:22, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have much time to contribute to Wikipedia. When I do, as you'll see from my contributions, I try to turn create well-sourced sections on ancient Greek democracies and ancient historians. However, if an edit has been reverted without explanation when I've tried to work towards compromise, I do try to support Wikipedia norms. If it looks like a lot of my time has been taken up with the article on Young, that's mainly because I've had to spend a lot of time defending these basic norms (as well as NPOV, which is what the whole dispute has been about). I'm obviously not SPA, having made hundreds of edits and created a dozen entries and sections over more than a decade.
 * It's true that I don't understand why I was sanctioned, which is why I've appealed it. Anyone who hasn't taken a side already can see from the history of the Toby Young article what has been happening: editors listed as Collect, 2a00:23c6:8a08:1100:21dc:ac8e:5651:3361, 82.35.253.166, and Graham Ball have made repeated, polite attempts to work towards more neutral language in the lede. These attempts were continually and very swiftly rejected out of hand, usually by Fae, more recently with Black Kite in support. Most of these other users apparently decided they didn't have time to contest the immediate reverts by Fae or to argue with Fae's reasoning (e.g. that Quillette can't be cited because it's just a blog, even though it's a well-known magazine that gets a couple of million hits per day). I've decided that it's important to defend NPOV and Wikipedia norms, though, and have done so with pretty consistent civility. Note also the pattern (very visible in the history of the Young article) where I make an edit, explain why, and express a willingness to discuss or consider other options. These are then immediately rejected by Fae or Black Kite, either with no reasoning, or simply with statements like 'We can stick with misogynistic and homophobic.' (But why? You'd think it would have been better for Fae to explain reasons to think we could stick with that, when so many other editors suggested changing that to abide by NPOV.) In sum, both I and Fae engaged in some editing. I did so politely, always trying to work towards consensus. Fae did so without showing any willingness to compromise. So yes: I don't understand why I've been topic-banned instead of Fae (especially if we consider Fae's past record of vandalism and bad faith with respect to anything touching on sex and gender, which I may go into more later). As  w umbolo  said to BK, 'As for edit warring, you're more or less just as responsible for it as Cleisthenes2.'
 * Black Kite has shown a similar unwillingness to think seriously about whether the lede violates NPOV, something a good number of editors have agreed with (and, indeed, have tried to act on constructively). In fact, I'm not sure Black Kite should be allowed to post on this topic at all, since she seems to have a deep-seated antipathy towards Young which has compromised her ability to abide by NPOV. For example, on the talk page to the Young entry, Fae argued 'there is no reason to censor these famously misogynistic and homophobic' tweets (even though the discussion was never about censoring them, or even whether they were misogynistic or homophobic, but rather as to why Wikipedia (an encyclopedia) needed to take sides on the issue). Black Kite responded: 'Not to mention that he's still at it' (with links to Young's comments on Greta Thunberg). This is revealing: it shows that Black Kite is motivated by an political antipathy to Young, and that she views the decision to keep the 'misogynistic and homophobic' language, not as a matter of Wikipedia norms (like the crucial NPOV). But as a way of punishing and publicly shaming Young. In a way that's fair enough: she has the right of free speech. But maybe a better place to engage in such activism would be Medium, rather than an encyclopedia.
 * I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had been banned fro discussing the topic on the talk page. Now that you mention it, though, what I posted there was a response to Fae's argument that lots of 'sources' claim Young's tweets were m&h. But you can usually find sources supporting one side of a controversy: that's what makes it a controversy. Our job isn't to take sides (in fact: our job is to specifically NOT take sides) but just to indicate that Young's tweets were controversial.
 * As you say yourself, your last point is 'Irrelevant to this appeal.'

Statement by Fæ
I have not been made a party to this case and did not know this request was made until a ping today. Adding to this section just because my name has been used so much, but I do not consider myself involved apart from attempting to handle the massive amounts of disruptive editing to the Toby Young article a year or so ago, which appeared to be a spin campaign and I was interested in checking against better sources using my access to LexisNexis. As far as I am aware, none of my activities over the last 10 months has been anywhere near Cleisthenes2, so there is no edit that could possibly be linked to that Cleisthenes2 could claim is an argument or dispute.

Others have said enough, there is no extra evidence that I am aware of that would be useful to this case one way or the other. This is a single-purpose account, clearly with no interest in Wikipedia apart from repeatedly "massaging" the Young article in one direction.

With regard to the claim about "bullying", this is a serious claim of harassment that should have serious evidence, but there are zero diffs because it's nonsense. An appeal that opens with tendentious griefing against another editor and promotes a secret-cabal conspiracy with "close allies", but offers no verifiable evidence, shows that this is not a meaningful appeal.

By the way, this should be irrelevant considering how easy it is to avoid speculating about sex or gender of other editors when you are uncertain, but could everyone just stick to User:Fæ? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

With respect to the later (misplaced) statement from Cleisthenes2, the claim that I am a vandal is a personal attack. There are zero diffs because it's yet more nonsense deliberately misusing this Arbcom enforcement page to cast aspersions. The maligning of Black Kite and myself as being incompetent is bizarre. The decision to keep the simple fact that "[Toby Young] resigned over a week later after misogynistic and homophobic Twitter posts" is fully based on the best quality sources available and has been validated as a community decision after several lengthy discussions and votes.

This has never been about "sides", getting the article in the best state possible has always been about reliable sources and BLP policies. That Cleisthenes2's default position is to demean other contributors and attempts even now to reuse self publications as sources to prefer over basic facts of precisely the words published over several years in Toby Young's own twitter stream, and how good quality journalists have correctly and factually summarised the controversy, shows this appeal is a non-starter.

Wikipedia is tolerant of alternative viewpoints being expressed in order to ensure encyclopaedic articles are wide-ranging, but it should not tolerate the disruption caused by casting aspersions, or gaming the system.

--Fæ (talk) 12:02, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Cleisthenes2

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


 * Note I've blocked this editor 72 hours for violation of the topic ban, so any questions here will have to be answered at the talk page during that time frame. For me, the editor has both violated the topic ban and once again misgendered Fae after being repeatedly told Fae was male, during the process of this appeal. That gives me no confidence allowing the editor back into the area would be wise, and I would decline the appeal. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, I've just noticed that the sanctioning admin was never notified as required, and Cleisthenes2 had plenty of time to do that between filing this request and being blocked. Since they're now blocked I'll take care of that, but inability to follow simple instructions sure doesn't give me much confidence either. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:53, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The idea of topic banning a user from one particular article is that they'll be able to edit the rest of Wikipedia to show that they can edit constructively altogether, and then appeal the article ban. Clearly Cleisthenes2 has not done this; they were an WP:SPA before the ban, and remained an SPA after it. (Note that User:Galobtter explicitly advised Cleisthenes2, as early as August, to edit elsewhere in order to bolster any coming appeal: "A record of productive editing on other articles would help any appeal".) I'd really like to see some actual, and good, editing before I'd consider an appeal. Also, I wonder what the exclusive, tunnel-vision interest of this article, alone, could be for Cleisthenes2, as they deny having a COI and claim to have only the loftiest of goals with editing it. In 2018, Fæ inquired here if Cleisthenes2 had any personal or professional connection with Toby Young, and was told no, "I'm only interested in the language in this piece because I'm keen to keep Wikipedia a politically neutral and respected source". I'm sorry, but it's extraordinary to me that an editor tries to achieve such a generalized, and virtuous, goal by focusing so exclusively on one article — to the point, even, of editing virtually nothing for a year when one has been banned from that one article. It just doesn't compute for me. Would you like to have a shot at explaining how it computes for you, Cleisthenes2? Do you not feel that any of our other 6 million articles make a difference as regards keeping Wikipedia a politically neutral and respected source? Bishonen &#124; talk 20:40, 10 February 2020 (UTC).
 * Adding: I've just moved over Cleisthenes2's IMO rather unsatisfactory reply to me to their own section above. I should also mention that they say they're short of time and hope this appeal discussion can "stick around for a few weeks" until they have time to reply to others. For myself, I don't think it's reasonable to put it on hold — for weeks, yet — and so I've told them. After all, this is not some unexpected initiative from an opponent; it's an appeal that Cleisthenes themselves determined the timing of, and now doesn't have time for. Bishonen &#124; talk 16:28, 12 February 2020 (UTC).


 * This is an easy decline. -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  18:29, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * (Not commenting on the specific case, process point only.) Going forward, if an editor needs to be topic-banned from one article, has there been discussion of when the new "partial blocks" function should be used instead of (or as a means of) imposing a limited topic-ban? I see pros and cons to both ways of doing it: on the one hand, any block (even a partial block on one article) becomes a black mark in the block log in a way that an enforcement sanction by itself may not; plus a topic-ban from editing about a person goes beyond the actual article on that person. On the other hand, when editing of one article is the issue, imposing a partial block could eliminate the possibility of inadvertent, or even advertent, breaches and the potential need for threads like this one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've read all the above and am not at all convinced.I'd decline the appeal.  the problem is that if we blocked for just one article, an editor could still edit about that subject or discuss it elsewhere.  Doug Weller  talk 17:56, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Calton
''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 Calton

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 04:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


 * Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics :
 * Request enforcement of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA related to article that is subject to Discretionary Sanctions. Per recommendation here [] I brought this civility complaint to ARE vs ANI.  The diffs in question related to the Andy Ngo article which is currently subject to DS and 1RR per AP2.


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


 * 1) 31 January 2020 Bad faith attack placed on my talk page in response to a concern that editor is restoring material against BRD. Accusing me of being on a "whitewashing crusade".
 * 2) 11 February 2020 Same as above but different material 2 weeks later, "Not my problem, POV pusher."


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) 28 January 2020 Aggressively accusing another editor of pushing a POV on a Bernie Sanders related topic. "And you have a problem with anything that gets in the way of whatever POV you're trying to push at the time." This accusation of bad faith isn't related to my edits but it's evidence that Calton's uncivil behavior was directed at other editors during the same time period.


 * If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS): [], BLP and AP2.


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

This is a long term editor with an extensive history of civility related blocks taking what should have been a simple Bold, Revert, Discuss and turning it into a personal attack.

The Andy Ngo article is subject to DS and 1RR (reduced from BRD required 29 Dec []). In both of the above incidents new edits were added by one editor then rejected by another then restored by Calton. In both cases I asked Calton to self revert in the spirit of BRD. In both cases I was met with bad faith comments on my talk page.

The first diff I listed accused me of a "whitewashing crusade" via my talk page.
 * It was related to the following chain of events. In the January the BOLD material was originally added here [].  First removal here [].  Restored here [].  Second removal here[].  At that point the ONUS should have been on any editor wishing to restore the change.  Calton restores [].  I remove it noting the addition has now been challenged by 3 editors [].  The original editor restores it 5 days later [].  I revert noting NOCON and suggesting they start a talk page discussion for inclusion [].  Calton reverts again while suggesting the burden to get consensus is on me for rejecting the change []. At this point I ask them to self revert via their talk page [].  The reply was an accusation on my talk page of whitewashing. [].  I raised a civility concern with  as they are an admin familiar with the article  [].  As it was a single incident I was hoping for a "That did break the rules, don't do that again" informal warning.

Two week later a similar situation occurs and Calton posts "Not my problem, POV pusher" to my talk page.
 * It starts with a BOLD edit [] which was quickly rejected by another editor []. Another editor restores it [].  I revert with edit summaries [].  Calton quickly restores [].  I again ask that they follow BRD, self revert and open a discussion [].  The quick response on my talk page was an accusation of POV pushing [].

I'm afraid that Calton took the lack of response the first time as license to repeat the behavior.

Calton has an extensive history of civility issues per their block log []. Blocks related to civility on:
 * 3 Aug 2006, blocked for repeated personal attacks
 * 23 Aug 2008, Persistent incivility and taunting of other users
 * 19 Sept 2009, Continued incivility and taunting after previous block
 * 7 Mar 2013, Personal attacks or harassment: racist edit sumamries & general awful attitude to others. This was an indef block then reverted per ANI but included the following warning, "any further use of edit summaries to make any sort of disparaging comments about other editors will lead to another block"
 * 15 Apr 2015, Further use of edit summaries to make disparaging comments about other editors, after being clearly infomred that doing so would lead to another block.
 * 27 Jan 2016, Personal attacks or harassment
 * 25 May 2019, Same aggressive inperpersonal behaviour as last time

It is understood that some topics are inherently going to get people's emotions up. However, this is why it is critical to strictly follow rules like WP:FOC, WP:NOCON, WP:BRD etc. If new material has been rejected the next step should be take it to the talk page. Refusal to do so while posting bad faith comments to the talk pages of others should result in a topic ban or similar sanction. If the comments directed at me were isolated examples I would hope any admin would given them a mild rebuke with an understanding that they not do it again. Calton, however, has a long history of incivility and rather than taking my first admin talk page discussion as a sign they were crossing a line, they seem to take it as proof their posting to my talk page was OK to repeat. That is why I decided this should come to here (though I originally asked about ANI).

Reply to Calton
1. In both cases we had a clear disagreement between at least 4 editors regarding a revision. In both cases you were not restoring the long standing consensus version of the text per NOCON. In both cases you did not open or participate in a talk page dialog to justify why the edit should stand. In both cases I requested that you restore the previous consensus text absent any discussion to support the new text.

2. POV pushing example. One was a short term 1RR restriction from 5 years ago. The other is retracted warning. It was retracted once the admin saw that I wasn't the one who made the comment in question.[].

3. Accusing others of being a POV pusher is an accusation that they are acting in bad faith.
 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :

Notification here []

Reply to Bishonen
, I understand. I admit this isn't some sort of egregious CIVIL violation (as well as a violation of NOCON). I would be content if the closing is no action but with a warning that this behavior is not acceptable and if it continues some type of action will be taken. My concern is that Calton's behavior is a catalyst for incivility. If others reply as they have we end up with edit wars, and larger scale CIVIL problems. I think this is exactly what Red Rock Canyon was concerned about. I think Wikipedia might be a more civil place if we were quicker to point out civility violations even if no administrative action (official warnings, blocks, tbans etc) are taken. Springee (talk) 16:09, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion concerning Calton
''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 Calton
User:Springee -- long-time POV pusher (two quick examples)-- twice came to my talk page to demand that I reverse my undoing of his reversions, which he could not do because 1RR. That's his problem, not mine. --Calton &#124; Talk 11:49, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and a reminder for Springee about the misuse of terms: it's "bad faith" in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Now, anyone who's edited in any topic touching on American Politics knows about Springee's POV pushing. I'm still getting over the flu so don't want to waste time on this, but if I have to, I can simply go through the noticeboards for more than theses tidbits picked up from the Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log regarding gun control and American politics. --Calton &#124; Talk 11:59, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

P.S.: Maybe you shouldn't repeat that BS bit about "racist edit summaries", which was an absolute garbage claim.

Statement by Red Rock Canyon
This looks pretty clear-cut to me. Calton edit-warred to reinsert challenged material without discussion and then attacked Springee when called on it. That article is an unpleasant enough place to edit already without behavior like what Calton has shown here. Additionally, there's this edit summary ("pro-male myass") from a few weeks earlier. That certainly isn't sanctionable on its own, but it's clear from Springee's evidence and from Calton's reply above that this editor has exhibited a pattern of incivility, personal attacks, and battleground behavior and has no intention of changing. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 17:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Looking through the talk and article histories, it appears that Calton's only contributions to this article were reverts, and they have never once posted on the talk page to discuss those reverts. Some of those were justified, but as shown in Springee's evidence, they also repeatedly reverted against consensus to reinsert contested material. This article has been the subject of numerous edit wars and has been protected several times. Drive-by reverts and incivility only makes an already unpleasant situation worse. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:40, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Result concerning Calton

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


 * No uninvolved admins have so far commented on this report. I'm not sure how long we need to watch the cobwebs growing over this section, but I suggest waiting for another 24 hours and then, unless there are other admin proposals, closing as "no action". Calton has quite the block log for "personal attacks or harassment" over the years. He's sharp-spoken and sometimes rude. But for myself I don't think the diffs Springee complains about here rise to that, and puffing up the complaint with detailed extracts from Calton's block log is not highly relevant. An accusation of "whitewashing" is not a personal attack, Springee. Calling you a "POV-pusher" is one, theoretically (=namecalling), but, well, it's a common one, which doesn't usually get taken to AE. I would invoke De minimis non curat lex. Bishonen &#124; talk 11:55, 15 February 2020 (UTC).

Oldstone James
''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 Oldstone James

 * User who is submitting this request for enforcement : 18:35, 16 February 2020 (UTC)


 * User against whom enforcement is requested :


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


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


 * 1) Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RRArchive403 Indicating edit warring from Feb. 13
 * 2) Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring indicating edit warring from Feb. 15
 * 3) Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive316 Discussion where a topic ban extension was requested by myself to show that this is an ongoing and chronic provlem with this user's behavior.


 * Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any :


 * 1) 24 April 2019 Topic ban from creationism.


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


 * 7 October 2019.


 * Additional comments by editor filing complaint :

I filed an AN3 and then realized that this is probably not going to work to fix the problems with this user's disruptive tendentiousness at R&I. Enough is enough. This user is a menace to the topic area and needs to be ushered to other more productive fields to work on at Wikipedia. Please extend his topic ban to race and intelligence to see if he can improve. jps (talk) 18:35, 16 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested :



Discussion concerning Oldstone James
''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 Oldstone James
I would be happy to hear how my editing can be improved, without the need of an enforcement. If I've done something wrong, please tell me, and I will surely listen to you. Personally, I don't see how my editing is problematic: I don't edit-war, and I don't push a fringe POV on the talk page. If you think I am doing any of the two things, or that I am engaging in some other type of problematic behaviour, please let me know. But, as of right now, I am bit baffled as to why I, of all editors of the Race and intelligence article, am under consideration of a page ban (or even an indef ban?), aside from the fact that myself and jps haven't historically been on good terms. I believe the problems that exist, if they exist, can be solved by discussion without the need for any additional sanctions, as I am willing to listen to any suggestions as to how my editing strategy can be improved.

Also, as per IP editor, please take a look at the proposer's behaviour as well, and particularly at their tendency to edit-war without consensus and unwillingness to collaborate in a civil manner. O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲ J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅  17:28, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by JzG
I support this restriction. My impression of Oldstone James' edits has been that they are advancing fringe ideology, and his engagement on the talk page tends towards bludgeooning. Guy (help!) 23:02, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: the majority of editors who have engaged on the Race and Intelligence agree with my assessment of consensus on the issue (which is that differences in IQ scores between between different ethnic groups and self-identified races exist, and that the causes of these differences are not well-understood, with not enough evidence supporting either an all-environmental or a partially-genetic viewpoint). O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲  J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅  17:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by IP editor
Now that we're here at AE, I think the behavior of the person making this report needs to be examined as well, because it is worse than Oldstone James' behavior is. He has less tendency to edit war than Oldstone James does, but his activity on talk pages is constantly assuming bad faith about other editors, whereas Oldstone James is always civil. Here are a few diffs showing the problem:


 * This post is a veiled threat against those who disagree with his view that it's acceptable to edit war against consensus in some cases.
 * Justifying the deletion of a page with an assumption of bad faith against the person who created it.
 * Inappropriate removal of another person's talk page post, with a baseless accusation of sockpuppetry.
 * "Start an account and we'll take you seriously"
 * "It is either the mark of an inveterate racist or an ignorant person who claims otherwise"
 * "Begone, fascist!"
 * Repeating the "Begone, fascist" comment after it was removed for being an off-topic personal attack.

Looking at ජපස's block log, he apparently has been sanctioned several times under the "fringe science" arbitration case. Not everyone considers race and intelligence a "fringe" topic, but he indicated in his post here that he personally considers it an example of that.

Could you please examine whether ජපස is repeating the type of behavior he's been sanctioned for in the past? He was notified of the discretionary sanctions here, if that matters. 2600:1004:B117:10E5:D530:D014:5920:FA1 (talk) 23:29, 16 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Actually, in those diffs the only two that were directed against me are the third and fourth. The first two were directed against user:Peregrine Fisher, and the last three were directed against a different IP user. (Compare our respective geolocations.) I don't know anything about who the other IP is. 2600:1004:B117:10E5:D530:D014:5920:FA1 (talk) 00:02, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Grayfell
I said at AN/EW that this user was trying to game the system by selectively applying rules and policies. I still think that, but it appears to be unwitting. Oldstone James came very close to a fringe topic ban, and instead of learning from that or adjusting his behavior, he appears to have ignored the whole thing, which is unfortunate. At that AN discussion, Oldstone James said, as part of a very lengthy comment, that "I am super-attentive of what others are saying", which is a big red flag if every I saw one. Another editor described this comment as "a massive WP:IDHT monologue", and shortly after we get a second massive IDHT monologue, this time a pseudo-civil rant about some other editor's problems. This isn't the behavior of someone who knows how to take advice. Grayfell (talk) 00:48, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Dlthewave
It's becoming increasingly clear that Oldstone James is unwilling or unable to acknowledge and correct his behavior. "Just tell me what I'm doing wrong and I'll stop doing it" is a common refrain when one is facing a ban, but his recent comments show that he's been told plenty of times and refuses to listen. He actually argued that "I was a different editor then than I am now, which is reflected by the fact that all conflicts and content disputes which I have had in the past year were quickly resolved, without the need for edit-warring, which I would've reverted to, say, two years prior" while under a partial block for edit warring.

OJ has established a pattern of setting special expectations for other editors that he refuses to follow himself. A recurring theme is insisting that editors gain consensus before making major edits, a restriction that is not in place at R&I. For example, I removed an off-topic section from the R&I article on 14 February and opened a discussion when it was challenged. OJ reinstated the content, without participating in the discussion, on 15 February with the edit summary "Please, PLEASE don't remove such large chunks of the article without any consensus, much less edit-war these chunks out. This section is relevant because many geographical areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa, contain inhabitants of predominantly one race. If you don't agree, discuss the issue on the article - don't just edit-war your changes back in." He did eventually join the discussion after receiving a personal invitation, but not before whacking me with a wet trout for violating his made-up rule.

My final concern is a comment made here, "Note: the majority of editors who have engaged on the Race and Intelligence agree with my assessment of consensus on the issue (which is that differences in IQ scores between between different ethnic groups and self-identified races exist, and that the causes of these differences are not well-understood, with not enough evidence supporting either an all-environmental or a partially-genetic viewpoint)" This shows not only that OJ subscribes to and promotes the fringe view that there is a plausible genetic connection, but also that the R&I talk page is frequented by others who share this view. OJ's behavior is part of a larger pattern of "civil POV pushing" by a number of editors. –dlthewave ☎ 04:50, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Let me address your points briefly:
 * I indeed am willing to listen. So far, I have been advised things such as refraining from making compromise edits, but these piece of advice to me seem to contradict principles that I've also been advised to follow, such as WP:BRD. However, if an admin can confirm that such actions are indeed not advisable, I will immediately stop engaging in such behaviour.
 * I set no special expectations for myself. I expect other editors not to reinstate edits that do not have consensus, and I have not done so; in your example, I reverted such an edit. This rule is not made up: see WP:CON and WP:EW. Being bold and making an edit without consensus is fine, but reinstating it constitutes edit-warring and should be avoided. Not removing large chunks from the article was my personal plea (a few other edits made similar requests), but that's not what I trout-slapped you for - that would be for your reinstatement of an edit that you'd made in the past that was reverted, something which I'd specifically asked you not to do minutes prior.
 * I apologise for not engaging in discussion sooner. The truth is: I simply didn't pay attention to the talk page, which is my fault, given that that's exactly where I redirected you to make further progress. I will pay more attention to talk page discussions next time - especially when I revert others' edits asking them to engage in a talk page discussion.
 * I won't address the last point in detail, but I'll just paraphrase what I said earlier: a great number of users don't agree that this is a fringe view, and nor does a recent comprehensive survey of 102 randomly selected experts, and nor does the American Psychological Association. However, this is not the right place to discuss these sorts of issues. O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲  J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅  14:35, 18 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The "comprehensive" survey was authored by Heiner Rindermann, who per that article, "has been a frequent contributor to Mankind Quarterly" among other controversial activities. There are plenty of problems with that particular survey, as well. These dubious statistics, of which there are many, take time and effort pick-apart. It is much easier for editors to link to these obscure studies as though they proved something, and then walk away by saying this is not the right place to discuss these sorts of issues when challenged. This is pseudoscience at work. Grayfell (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Let's leave this discussion to R&I's talk page. Regardless of who the survey was conducted by, it's the only one that we've got, and the results won't change based on the conductor's sentiments, given that the procedure is rigorous. If you want to discuss the issue in more detail, you can create a new section on R&I's talk page, but it's been previously agreed upon that the sentence "the causes of differences in IQ test scores are not well-understood" is worthy of being in the article. O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲  J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅  22:09, 18 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Oldstone James this is a perfect example of setting expectations for other editors that you yourself do not intend to follow. Even after Grayfell explained why this is manipulative, you insisted that they raise their objections on another page "Let's leave this discussion to R&I's talk page" while continuing to argue your points here "Regardless of who the survey was conducted by, it's the only one that we've got, and the results won't change based on the conductor's sentiments." Whether you realize it or not, the effect is that you get to make your point but others aren't able to engage or offer a counter argument without being accused of going off topic. Don't bring it up here if you're not willing to discuss it here. Folks are taking the time to point out exactly what behaviors need to change and you're choosing to ignore them, which doesn't exactly instill faith in your promise to change your ways. –dlthewave ☎ 22:56, 18 February 2020 (UTC)


 * What expectations do I not follow? I don't agree with Grayfell that my comments were manipulative. Once again, if an admin confirms that me being manipulative is one of the major underlying issues of my behaviour, I'll listen to them. But, in this case, I think I've just given my opinion on the matter, something which I believe I am entitled to doing. Grayfell was welcome to post their opinion on the matter, too, but I just didn't want this to turn into a long-winded discussion about something which isn't completely relevant to the central issue. And now that both I and Grayfell have expressed our opinions, I thought we could discuss the rest on the R&I talk page. That's all that I wanted to say. I understand that, given that I somehow ended up on this thread, users will see bad faith in every little thing that I do or say, but I honestly had no intent of being manipulative in this case, nor did I set any expectations of other users that I myself did not follow. O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲  J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅  23:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by ජපස
I think this very enforcement page shows the problem in stark relief. Oldstone James refuses to listen to anyone who doesn't have the block button (if an admin confirms that me being manipulative is one of the major underlying issues of my behaviour, I'll listen to them. Implication is that this user only listens to administrators which means that further activity from Oldstone James is likely to be at this level of combat until there is administrative sanction. Needless to say, this is a highly problematic attitude to adopt when working on contentious topics. The documented problems with his rhetoric, style, and, unfortunately, competence (e.g. not understanding that WP:3RR even after having an administrator explain it to him) are not abating. If there is no application of judicious disciplinary actions, this will just become an ever more enormous time sink. jps (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The sockpuppetry accusations are given with strong evidence at Articles_for_deletion/Race_and_intelligence_(4th_nomination). Elsewhere, I asked for help to learn how to put together a sockpuppetry case against a dynamic IP. I have yet to receive a straightforward answer about this. If you have some advice for how to accuse a dynamic IP of sockpuppetry using the standard reports, I'm happy to know what it is. As it is, I cannot seem to figure out how to do it when the IP changes from moment to moment. jps (talk) 01:12, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Result concerning Oldstone James

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


 * I have partially blocked Oldstone James from Race and intelligence for one week via AN3. El_C 18:48, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * IP, from those diffs, I see both you and jps sniping at each other — exchanges which do not reflect well on either of you. As for the socking claim, perhaps jps can clarify what that is about (master is presumed to be...?) Sanctions may be due, however, regardless. El_C 23:44, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * IP, correction noted. Thanks. Anyway, clearly tempers flare when it comes to this article, but I'm still unsure about whether sanctions are due or not. El_C 00:08, 17 February 2020 (UTC)


 * This editor is a net negative and a waste of everyone's time, frankly . Personally, I would simply indef them. Black Kite (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
 * User talk:Oldstone James doesn't give me much hope that spilling bites here is worth our time -- Guerillero  &#124;  Parlez Moi  00:46, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a funny coincidence, but I was just about to say exactly the same thing as Black Kite says above. It's not worth fiddling with partial or otherwise tailored sanctions any more. Bishonen &#124; talk 17:46, 17 February 2020 (UTC).