Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Obama articles

Case Opened on 17:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Case Closed on 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Case Amended on 03:22, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Case Amended on 12:42, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Case amended by motion on 02:42, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: [/index.php?title=&action=watch 1], [/index.php?title=/Evidence&action=watch 2], [/index.php?title=/Workshop&action=watch 3], [/index.php?title=/Proposed_decision&action=watch 4]

Please do not edit this page directly unless you are either 1) an Arbitrator, 2) an Arbitration Clerk, or 3) adding yourself to this case. Statements on this page are original comments provided when the Committee was initially requested to Arbitrate this page (at Requests for arbitration), and serve as opening statements; as such, they should not be altered. Any evidence you wish to provide to the Arbitrators should go on the /Evidence subpage.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the as needed, but this page should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Requests for arbitration, and report violations of remedies at Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement.

Involved parties

 * , filing party
 * (added April 13)
 * (added April 14)
 * (added April 14)
 * (added May 10)
 * (added April 13)
 * (added April 14)
 * (added April 14)
 * (added May 10)
 * (added April 14)
 * (added May 10)

Requests for comment

 * WP:AFD/Barack_Obama/Criticism_of_Barack_Obama - AFD discussion of Barack_Obama/Criticism_of_Barack_Obama interrupted by speedy deletion. Template:Barack_Obama/Criticism_of_Barack_Obama was also deleted.
 * WP:DRVL#Barack_Obama.2FCriticism_of_Barack_Obama - a review of the change of an AFD in discussion to "speedy", nullifying the AFD discussion.
 * WP:ANI - an attempted topic ban which failed to find support
 * WP:ANI - Report on disputes at the Talk:Barack Obama/FAQ (history) page. Example diff.
 * WP:ANI - Reports on the deletion of a comment, first by Tarc (diff), and repeated by others.
 * WP:ANI#Moving WP:AN/I section #Talk:Barack Obama/FAQ by User:Grsz11, WP:ANI

And a list of incident diffs, in which the relevant ones should be appended to the Evidence section.

Statement by Stevertigo
User:Stevertigo, a 7th-year editor with nearly 35K edits, is said by various above users to be "POV," "disruptive," 'not abiding by consensus,' "trolling," "troll-baiting" "forum-shopping" ''violating WP:CIVIL, NPOV, WP:NOT, WP:AGF, WP:TE, and WP:NOCRIT (a much-alluded-to but not-existing policy) etc. This RFAR follows several policy/DR discussions/threads, (above) and was begun under the impression that some of the above charges may in fact be not true. Methods by which above editors claimed to enforce policy include:
 * deleting edits, deleting talk comments, personal attacks, personal characterizations, POV pushing, making threats, using swear words, ignoring opposing arguments, being unreasonable, early closing discussion threads, citing policy that doesn't exist...

All of course in the spirit of Wikipedia.

Stevertigo's response to Slrubenstein
 * Note: SLrubenstein's statement can be seen here. Though it featured prominently on the original RFAR page, it was for reasons of expediency not copied here to the RFAR/OA case pages.


 * I really had a good time reading this. Slrubenstein is indeed one of our most "Uninvolved" editors. I counted above three different references to my now infamous 'RFAR threat', but lost track when I tried to count his usage of a particularly scholarly epithet. (Is it really an epithet or is it an adjective? Hm.) Indeed, Slr referred to my arguments on Talk:Language using the same.. language... though we eventually made progress. I wrote:
 * "I'm pleased to find that the current version is different from the version which you (Slr, Andrew) previously defended. I'm glad you understand that that previous version was incorrect, unusable, and maybe even substandard. I only wish it hadn't taken most of a week and most of the talk page to make you both realize you were defending the indefensible: not just the article version, but the very concept you were operating under that Wikipedia articles are fine just the way they are, and don't require actual improvement."
 * Note that I let the 'Antisemitism may (occasionally) be used as an epithet' issue go (then), because in part I won that argument at Talk:AS#Threefold approach, and wanted to let that loss sink in with Slrubenstein and the other party. To my last comment there, there was only a silent response from both contesting parties, notably the respectable academic above. If my final argument there was indeed "cattle excrement," he would have finished me off. He did not because he could not. If he does have an actual response to it, he can of course answer it now. I did not make any further change to the article, as their silent agreement would have suggested, because I knew their silence only meant they couldn't come up with a reasonable answer, and any change I made to the antisemtism article would have been reverted; even though they capitulated on the talk page. With that all out of the way, I must say I wasn't altogether too interested in the subject anymore; for one, any discussion of Antisemitism will often involve Nazis; antisemitism is unpleasant enough as a subject, any way you look at it, to deal with too much; and Lord I really hate Nazis.


 * Note that Slrubenstein complains that I mark most edits as minor. This is set in my preferences, and sometimes I forget to uncheck the box when I make larger edits. I am indeed sorry. But why is Slrubenstein so annoyed by this? Recent wikistalking behavior on his part provides a possible answer (contributions); minor edits don't show up on his watchlist maybe? Why haven't I reported him? Because I know from experience that the Arbcom just doesn't want to hear it, discussions using the wiki CMS model are obtuse and hard to deal with dynamically anyway, and WP:DR itself is in need of some (reorganization/revitalization). -Stevertigo 16:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Stevertigo response to Grsz11
 * Note Grsz11 describes how 1) "multiple editors request[ed] a[n] Obama topic-ban for Steve," and adds that this was filed 2) "mostly before he picked up his disruption." Which sort sums up these affairs quite nicely. -Stevertigo 18:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Grsz wrote: "please move your comment." Eh. I kind of like it where it is, Grsz. Is that alright with you? In fact I'm quite unaccustomed to having my comments "moved" or even "removed" by anyone else, let alone myself. -Stevertigo 19:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Stevertigo response to Dank55
 * Dank55's comments are much appreciated, in all respects. He points out that I "should have known" (a common expression among my critics here) that "recreating" a page that had been speedied 5 times would be a problem. Perhaps, but this position, which he shares with a number of others, is largely based on the assumptions that 1) That non-sysop editors wanting to create the page would somehow know about its history, beyond the inexplanatory and unlinked-to-anywhere header above the edit window, (the talk page of that article was itself also deleted, if anyone's interested) and 2) that any new attempts at creating a page with that same title is just only going to be a "recreation" of a previous version. I have no argument that these needed to be nuked (I got an email), but what does that precedent have to do with me, or a new article?


 * We delete pages for two reasons; to delete the concept, or to delete the version. If its an article like 'God is a joke', we delete the concept. If the article concept is valid, but just badly executed, we delete to allow re-seeding. AGF told me this case was the second kind - a version issue - but I quickly found out my AGF was mistaken and misplaced; their arguments assumed the destruction of the concept, and only because of prior versions, they assumed that all such article attempts would be invalid. ( WP:NOCRIT is of course still a redlink, if anyone wants to make something of it.) From this second concept came two basic problems: The use of personal characterizations against the opposition rather than rational argument, and the basing of actions upon such characterizations, rather than the merits of the argument. If one doesn't know the difference between characterization and real argument, in both concept and in value, the claims that my edits were going to be the same as the previous, and that I (just as previous creators were) was simply POV trolling, were taken for granted rather than evaluated and weighted intelligently.


 * I started the draft subpage to transclude on the main talk, (draft+subpage+discussion == policy violation??) to try and work out with others what might be a valid article. Yes, all I had time to do then was form a skeleton, but even that wasn't really the issue with people who assume(d) that it or any page like it was just going to be an "attack page" no matter how it was written, or who it was written by. Of course this is a ginormous assumption. And according to the news-to-me "articles must completely and perfect formed at inception" argument, apparently quite common among BLP perfectionists/deletionists, I could not have met their impossible criteria no matter what their concept of how articles are actually edited was. Of course this WP:PERFECTSTART argument is a ginormous fallacy. Note also my creation of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT and WP:SHOULDEXIST (~WP:ATA) were met with disapproval too, along with attempts and neutralizing them.


 * So, I'm under the impression that at least two of the parties here think they can, perhaps in lieu of a winning argument, make personal characterizations ad nauseam, while calling any characterizations of their argument 'personal attacks' or WP:POINT. So why are things personalized instead of conceptualized? People want WP to be a social club, maybe. And this policy/process fallacy of deal with the rabble/ don't deal with the rubble comes straight from the Arbcom; with its fixation on behavioralism and its agnosticism/impotence on editorial matters. But that mis-mandate is actually the Founder's fault. His missing hands-on leadership is another key issue here. Bill Bones knows what I mean.


 * So, we have a number of things working-cross purpose here; that deletions need to be openly discussed is a plain fact IMHO, though the "delete on sight" precedent set by WP:OFFICE and the related WP:PERFECTBIO concept still skunks anyone not numbed to the idea of actual discussion. Deleting talk pages, and not providing links to any related AFD or DRV or other process discussions on the matter is simply unwiki. The conflict here is that XFD policy permits such deletions, for reasons which I probably would not agree with, due simply to my deprecation of process concepts like XFD and its particulars, to less materialist concepts like discussion and concensus; which some might argue are to some degree fundamental to the project. -Stevertigo 08:17, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Wikidemon
The only involvement I have is that I watch and patrol some articles, talk pages, and policy and other meta-pages the complaining editor attended to lately. As such I saw the disruption attempted to some degree to keep things under control.

The editor has clearly been involved in some over-the-top edits. I see he is a sincere, productive editor of long standing and wonder if that might be the problem -- having written some of the policy pages cited to reject his edits, he may have felt entitled to edit with a boldness not afforded other editors. Nevertheless, I wonder why this is here before ArbComm. Couldn't this thing be dealt with simply as a routine behavioral problem subject to civil discussion and warnings first, and failing that, blocking and/or a topic ban? Only if the community cannot deal with this would it be an arbitration issue. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:50, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, is there any way we can give a more neutral title to this request? - Wikidemon (talk) 15:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC) (noting - title has now been changed) 


 * Comment on scope of case. What remedies are under consideration here?  If ArbComm endorses the community article probation scheme as a whole what does that resolve?  If it rejects it, can ArbCom replace it with something better?  Stevertigo's disruption is a simple, obvious administrative matter that would nevertheless involve extensive evidence gathering and argumentation in the context of an Arbcom case.  Multiply that by dozens of other accounts that have engaged in disputed edits, incivilities, and edit wars in the past year, the editors involved in those other incidents, and dozens more editors on article patrol, and a broad ArbComm case could involve over 100 interested parties, hundreds of megabytes of source pages of evidence, and hundreds or thousands of diffs --  a huge investment in time to fix something that seems to be working.
 * Whatever its flaws, article probation works. It was instituted last fall in response to extensive disruption from different corners.  Terms are simple: stay civil, don't edit war, respect BRD / 1RR consensus gathering, and use talk pages for their intended purpose.  Key to article probation is that someone has to actually enforce it.  Administrators have been cautious and let things go for a while before acting.  The front line is a large crew of non-administrative editors (of which I am one) who have issued notices and cautions, managed the talk pages, reverted vandalism and nonconsensus edits, and bring emerging problems to the attention of administrative notice boards.  They fulfill a function administrators cannot, because they incur the inevitable counter-accusations in response, and thereby become involved parties - administrators have to stand back and act only when needed, lest their attempts to stabilize articles be seen as participation in a POV battle.
 * Under article probation 108 editors received official notice of probation terms, 27 accounts have been blocked or banned for disruption, and another 60 for trolling, vandalism, and sockpuppetry (see Talk:Barack Obama/Article probation). The actual numbers are probably higher, because some actions are not on the list.  Most of the enforcement actions were easy cases.  Notable among the more difficult ones, a core group of accounts claimed beginning in the summer that the article was a whitewash for not duly reporting derogatory claims raised by Obama's critics and opponents (e.g. non-US citizen, stole the election, hiding his birth certificate, friend of terrorists, closet communist/socialist/muslim).  They were particularly interested in Obama's connection with three individuals: Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and Tony Rezko.  They edit warred and complained accordingly, became adept at gumming up administrative process, and when they did not get their way or suffered an occasional block they accused Wikipedia of being a censorious liberal cabal of Obama supporters who had hijacked the article and punished editors who dared speak the WP:TRUTH.  In the end, most of these accounts were found to be sockpuppets of the notorious User:BryanFromPalatine.
 * Things were stable for months after the socks departed until a couple weeks ago, when a now-blocked account associated with real-world journalist Aaron Klein deliberately disrupted the Obama article, was blocked, then wrote a misleading article about it in World Net Daily that got picked up and then debunked by mainstream press.  Accounts new and old flocked in to purge Wikipedia of its supposed pro-Obama bias, commit vandalism, and complain again about a liberal cabal.  Although troublesome, this new group is no worse than we have dealt with before.  Although some clarification, endorsement, and formalization of article probation would be welcome, I see nothing that cannot be handled under the current regime.  We cannot make an ArbComm case every time a disgruntled editor gets sanctioned or, as in this case, preemptively tries to avoid sanctions by accusing his accusers. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Point of order - can we please dismiss Noroton's renewed attack on me from consideration here, and perhaps consider a asking him to refrain from carrying on his announced personal vendetta against me? He has many times posted an intention to stalk and harass me. This group of edits alone (he vows to stop me, "will not let [me] get away with it", will pursue me "a week and a month and a year from now" etc.) should disqualify him from having anything to do with me. See Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive484 for the disposition of this. His persistent personal attacks on me are most unpleasant, and getting dragged here to deal with them should not be my price of logging into the project. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Sceptre
I urge the arbitration committee to rapidly reject this and sanction Steve in an administrative capacity. Regardless of his tenure (I've been here four years and have around fifty-five thousand edits, doesn't make me any less disruptive if I do decide one day to be), Steve is just basically trolling because his POV-ridden article got deleted. At the very least, Steve's recent actions on DRV, ANI, WT:IAR, and the Obama talk pages are cause enough to sanction him even if the community probation on Obama didn't exist. Sceptre (talk) 09:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Grsz11
As a former sysop who has been here before, Steve should certainly know the definition of disruptive. He has been edit warring across multiple article- and Wiki-space pages with no regard for policy such as WP:NPOV or WP:BLP. His disruptive of administrative processes such as ANI and DRV need looked in to.  Grsz 11  13:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as any "uncivil language" by myself goes, I used "fuck" as a verb ("don't fuck with my comments") because I was frustrated with Steve's continuous editing of my comments.  Grsz 11  13:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, as far as previous dispute resolution goes, multiple editors request a Obama topic-ban for Steve, which did not receive much attention at ANI. This was mostly before he picked up his disruption. As to my involvement, I've just made a few edits in an attempt to check Steve's POV and disruption at ANI. He was forum-shopping when the slighest thing came up and received no outsiders support in these discussions.  Grsz 11  13:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

As this case is suppose to be about Steve's behavior, yet he only provided alleged wrongdoings against him, i'll put out the same evidence that I offered William Connonlley last night: Opening pointy ANI threads without the slighest hint of attempting to resolve the situation ; edit warring on a talk page; edit warring non-constructive comments back into DRV ; edit warring at ANI to keep his disruptive sections open
 * Steve has been around long enough to know that what he is doing is disruptive and inappropriate. If he were a newbie he would be identified as an SPA and indef blocked already. This isn't an issue for Arbitration, as administrative action under the terms of article probation could solve this.  Grsz 11  18:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This response by Steve when asked to follow the rules and move his comment is key. He knows what he is doing is wrong because as he says, he invented ArbCom. We allow new and inexperienced users a bit of leniency as they don't know all the rules and guidelines. Like he says, Steve is a 7 year veteran with 35K+ edits and a former admin...he knows the rules and knows that he's broken them.  Grsz 11  21:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Note to Clerks
 * Please move Steve's reply above to his own section. Just another example: he knows better, but chooses to be disruptive anyways.  Grsz 11  18:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment to Steve
 * Please move your comment to your own section where it belongs.  Grsz 11  18:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Reply to Wikidemon
 * "We cannot make an ArbComm case every time a disgruntled editor gets sanctioned or, as in this case, preemptively tries to avoid sanctions by accusing his accusers."
 * Agree fully, and that's exactly what this is an attempt at.  Grsz 11  22:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment on Noroton
 * I'm not sure the relevance Noroton provides to this situation. The issues he is discussing occured in October.  Grsz 11  17:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Bobblehead
Sweet, first time I've been named as an involved party in an arbcom. It would appear that I'm an involved party as a result of a single revert that I made on Talk:Barack Obama/FAQ. To save time, I'll just link to my comment on AN/I after Stevertigo cried wolf about the injustice of it all. If the arbcom takes this case, hopefully they'll explore more than just the behavioral issues around the whole Stevertigo situation, but of the Obama related articles as a whole. It is, quite frankly, impossible to get anything constructive done on the subject with the most trivial of edits resulting in an edit war and a less than collegial discussion thread. Just this weekend, Durova tried to add a featured picture, which was then reverted by another editor,, added back by another editor,, moved down into a lower section by the editor that reverted the addition, moved back to the previous location by another editor, removed again by the editor that reverted the addition, then re-added by myself with a lengthier caption. And that is just what it takes to add a freaking picture where Obama "looks angry". Try to add anything remotely negative about Obama and you might as well have thrown a match into a lake of gasoline because the talk page is going to explode into a huge flame war. All sides of the discussion no longer assume good faith and believe the other side is only acting for partisan reasons and behave accordingly. --Bobblehead (rants) 15:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Reply to FayssalF If this request is limited to just a behavioral arbcom on the named participants, then I think an opportunity will be missed to address the underlying problems that exist throughout the Obama related articles and there will just be another arbcom in a few months to address problems with another editor in relation to activities on the subject articles. I also don't see an issue with the inclusion of information from user:Slrubenstein in regards to user:Stevertigo as it goes towards showing a history of disruption where the Obama articles just happen to be the latest place where the disruption occurs.--Bobblehead (rants) 16:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - Since it seems ArbCom is making this a general Obama related ArbCom, should users such as User:Scjessey, User:Noroton, User:ChildofMidnight, User:Brothejr, User:Baseball Bugs, User:Ottre, User:Grundle2600, User:Dalej78, User:Cosmic Latte, and User:Ism schism be added as involved parties? I'm sure I've missed a number, but in addition to those already in the involved parties list, they seem to be among the ones causing the "biggest waves" so to speak. --Bobblehead (rants) 20:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Tarc
Um, what? So I see the arbcom notification today, figure sometime during the night someone finally got tired of Steveo's antics and filed a report. Come here and it appears that he is the filer? This seems like a continuation of them same forum-hopping/shopping that he's been doing the past few days, as linked to above. I believe the only real, specific tit-for-tat I had with this user was over a lame "Uncle Stevertigo's argument matrix" that he put into a deletion review discussion, which I removed (once) for the reason stated in the edit summary. This was the subject of one of this user's AN/I reports, linked above, in which I defended my removal here and here.

I've had no interaction with Steve beyond the Obama-related articles, had no idea he was even a fallen admin til I was browsing through some of his talk page archives, noticed one had a redlink (came back to fix it later), and saw in that #12 some links to an old arbcom case. Honestly, from that to Slrubenstein's statement to the present Obama-related stuff, this looks like a huge pattern of disruptive behavior.

As for the rest of the named parties, I'm, sure there's places where things could've been said with a not-as-sharp tongue, or explained better, sure. Many, myself included, endured quite a shitstorm of vandal-driven attacks on these articles in the wake of the WND/Aaron Klein/Jerusalem21 orchestrated mess. As that was cresting, some longer-established editors of the same POV came in with the same or similar edits, or edit demands in the case of locked pages and/or quick reverts, and there was a fair bit of tension all around. Now that the WND junk has died down, perhaps everyone can settle in a deal with content issues through normal channels. I really do not feel that Steve can be one of these, though, as his actions have been beyond the pale. Tarc (talk) 17:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Response to comment by Stevertigo : I haven't been involved in many arbcoms, but even I'm well-aware of the "Reply to another person's comment in your section" advisory. Stevertigo was reminded of this, and the response was, essentially, "no".  I believe that this incident needs to be highlighted here, to show just what many of us have been dealing with over the last few days. Tarc (talk) 19:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Dank55
I patrol the db-attack, db-spam and db-copyvio queues most days. When I saw this article in the db-attack queue, I took 3 things into consideration: first, it was an article that had already been speedied 5 times by 4 different admins, and the editors all knew this, eventually; it was mentioned in the first sentence of Articles_for_deletion/Barack_Obama/Criticism_of_Barack_Obama. Second, it was created as a subpage of Barack Obama, and subpages are not allowed in mainspace. Third, and most important, our WP:Attack page policy begins: "An attack page is a Wikipedia article, page, template, category, redirect or image that exists primarily to disparage its subject. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, these pages are subject to being deleted by any administrator at any time." "Disparage" does not mean "make wild accusations", it means "lower in esteem". If the purpose and effect of creating a page is to lower the reader's esteem of someone, our policy is to tag it for speedy deletion and delete it, on sight, without waiting for discussion. Criticism of George W. Bush is not a counterexample to our policy, because this and all other "Criticism of ..." pages were created by consensus to split one page into two; there was no prior consensus to create the various incarnations of Criticism of Barack Obama, nor was it the result of splitting one balanced article into two articles that remained balanced when read together. It was exactly the type of page which our policy requires me to delete on sight; the fact that it was done skillfully, with references, and in a way that might eventually have been balanced by other material is irrelevant to our WP:Attack page policy, and I think all the drama that has followed this and every other attack page that was discussed rather than speedily deleted is proof that our long-standing policy is a good idea.

As Steve points out above, he's a 7th-year editor with nearly 35K edits. Someone else mentioned that he's a former admin. I'm having trouble believing that he didn't know that recreation of an article that's been salted runs the risk of being considered bad faith, and also that he thinks that it's okay to create articles as subpages in mainspace, and also that he doesn't know the policy on attack pages.

Having said that: I completely supported Steve's right to be annoyed when an admin (me) strode into an AfD and terminated it by a speedy deletion without even asking permission, and I told him that I understood that he felt slapped down and that I did not mean for my actions to be interpreted as any kind of disapproval. I further supported his right to discuss the matter at DRV when he felt the page wasn't getting a fair hearing, and I don't think he got the hearing he deserved at DRV, in that no one except me addressed his concern that I acted "out of process". I support his right to bring this to ArbCom to investigate whether I and others acted improperly, but I don't have a position on whether ArbCom should take the case. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 20:14, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Response to Steve's reply, which was respectful and appreciated: fair enough, I've changed "speedied 5 times" to "salted" in my text. And btw: everyone take my middle paragraph with a grain of salt, because my weakest area is  behavioral issues.  Use your own judgment for what he was supposed to know and what we're supposed to do about it. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 17:30, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Another response: per WP:CSD: "Both the page title and page content may be taken into account in assessing an attack. Articles about living people deleted under this criterion should not be restored or recreated by any editor until the biographical article standards are met." A page title of "Criticism of X" fails the BLP standard right from the start, since it states an intent not to be neutral.  If "BLP standards are met" meant that they were met in the mind of the creator, then no pages would fail the test; it must mean something like by consensus or at least prior discussion. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 03:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Baseball Bugs
Thank you Mr. Wizard for notifying me of this discussion. Here is why I will not participate beyond this comment: On Sunday, March 8, there was an article in World News Daily alleging that the Obama articles in Wikipedia are biased. That triggered a siege of those articles by "sleeper" accounts as well as some new accounts. I was part of the effort to defend Wikipedia against that onslaught. After that, two things happened that hit me. One was User:ChildofMidnight criticizing the defenders of Wikipedia's integrity as being "tough on the newbies" and calling it a "dark night for wikipedia". which I found to be a very offensive and blinders-on viewpoint. Meanwhile, some who noticed that I was defending Wikipedia urged me to run for admin. That resulted in an RfA in which I was accused of "creating drama". Requests for adminship/Baseball Bugs I concluded that certain editors are more concerned with coddling vandals than with the integrity of Wikipedia content. Nonetheless, thanks to all the Opposers in the RfA, I am now on a self-imposed topic ban on the subject of Barack Obama and most other "controversial" articles. In short, figure it out for yourselves - I've had it. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 08:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Grundle2600
Whoa! I did nothing wrong. The Political positions of Barack Obama article said that Obama promised to stop the DEA raids on medical marijuana. I posted evidence that Obama did not keep his promise. If the article cites Obama's promise, then for balance, the article should also cite that Obama did not keep his promise. As for the Public image of Barack Obama article, since the article already cited conservative support of Obama, I added that he also had communist support too. On my talk page, Scjessey has falsely accused me of making "poorly-sourced" entries, of doing "original research," of "inserting unpublished information," and of putting my "personal analysis" into articles. Scjessey keeps making one false accusation after another. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (11/0/0/0)

 * Accept to look at the behavior of all involved parties and probably beyond that if need be. --  FayssalF   - Wiki me up® 11:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - Could we please define the scope of this case before moving any further? So far, it seems that most of the statements concern behavior at a few Obama-related articles while user:Slrubenstein's statement refers to user:Stevertigo in another area. --  FayssalF   - Wiki me up® 16:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Accept per Fayssal. &mdash; Roger Davies  talk 11:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The topic area (Obama and his presidency) is currently a powder keg sitting atop a campfire. Because of the very strong political convictions aggravated by other sociocultural aspects, the tendency to POV war over those articles and to misuse Wikipedia as a soapbox is very great, and decisive action sooner rather than later may help.  Accept to look at POV in the topic area, as well as the general behavior of involved editors (in particular, ferreting out biased single purpose accounts does require evaluation of general editing patterns).Note: I've changed the name of the request to better match the scope.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 17:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept due to turbulence and possible conduct issues. Casliber (talk · contribs) 18:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept. Conduct on all sides really needs looking into here. Wizardman  19:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept to look at all users and issues that warrant it. — Rlevse • Talk  • 20:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept. Rootology: wouldn't we have to examine the behavior of people not named in the dispute as well? I would support looking at the named parties generally and the topic generally. Cool Hand Luke 21:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept. Per previous comments. --Vassyana (talk) 22:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept. Durova is right that the links provided are not dispute resolution (they are mostly ANI threads), but things have escalated and spread so much here that coming to RFAR does look justified on the face of it. Some really poor editing behaviour and possibly some admin behaviour here as well regarding speedy deletions, AfD closures, admin noticeboard conduct, and the like. All those involved need take a long hard look at how this was handled, and work out a way forward, and hopefully we can help arbitrate that process and identify who has been doing what. Having said that, some way of limiting the scope to the worst-affected areas and the most-involved editors would be best here. Carcharoth (talk) 01:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept per many comments above, particularly Carcharoth's. Focus should include Barack Obama-related articles and Stevertigo's behavior, as well as related matters. Editors are requested to post evidence as soon as possible, and I will urge that the committee give priority attention to the case, which should not be allowed to remain pending for weeks or months. To all participants: Appropriate decorum should please be maintained on the case pages; disruption or offensive comments on the arbitration pages will not be acceptable. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Accept. John Vandenberg (chat) 05:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision = All numbering based on /Proposed decision, where vote counts and comments are also available.

Purpose of Wikipedia
1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the encyclopedia to advance personal agendas – such as advocacy or propaganda and philosophical, ideological or political dispute – or to publish or promote original research is prohibited.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality and conflicts of interest
2) Wikipedia adopts a neutral point of view, and advocacy for any particular view is prohibited. In particular, Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines strongly discourage editors from contributing "in order to promote their own interests." Neutrality is non-negotiable and requires that, whatever their personal feelings, all editors must strive to (i) ensure that articles accurately reflect all significant viewpoints published by reliable sources and (ii) give prominence to such viewpoints in proportion to the weight of the sources. Editors may contribute to Wikipedia only if they comply with Wikipedia's key policies.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Decorum
3) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Making unsupported accusations of such misconduct by other editors, particularly where this is done in repeatedly or in a bad-faith attempt to gain an advantage in a content dispute, is also unacceptable.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality and sources
4) All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view. Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarized sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view. Articles should always verifiably use the best and most reputable sources, with prevalence in reliable sources determining proper weight. Relying on synthesized claims, or other "original research", is therefore contrary to the neutral point of view. The neutral point of view is the guiding editorial principle of Wikipedia, and is not optional.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Single purpose accounts
5) Single purpose accounts are expected to contribute neutrally instead of following their own agenda and, in particular, should take care to avoid creating the impression that their focus on one topic is non-neutral, which could strongly suggest that their editing is not compatible with the goals of this project.


 * Passed 12 to 1 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Biographies of living people
6) Editors must take particular care when adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to all our content policies, especially: neutral point of view, verifiability and no original research. Articles must use high quality references. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Clean-up tags
7.1) Depending on the discretion of editors, it is permissible to place a clean-up maintenance tag on an article in order to call attention to problems with the article in instances where those editors are unable to fix them themselves. It is not, however, appropriate to place a tag on an article in order to further exacerbate a dispute.


 * Passed 9 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Good-faith participation welcome
8) Contributors to Wikipedia may benefit the project by participating in a variety of ways. Good-faith participation is welcome whether it comes in the form of editorial contributions, tagging articles for clean-up, initiating or participating in community deletion discussions, or performing of administrative tasks. Editors making any or all of these types of contributions are welcome. The project and progress toward our goals are diminished if we drive away or demoralize a good-faith editor who contributes or has the potential to contribute, while complying with Wikipedia policies, in any or all of these areas.


 * Passed 12 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Consensus
9) Wikipedia relies on a consensus model. When there is a good-faith dispute, editors are expected to participate in the consensus-building process, in lieu of soapboxing, edit warring, or other inappropriate behavior. Abuse of the consensus model and process, such as misrepresenting consensus or poisoning the well, is disruptive.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Consensus can change
10) Consensus is not immutable. It is reasonable, and sometimes necessary, for both individual editors and particularly the community as a whole to change its mind. Long-held consensus cannot be used as an excuse against a change that follows Wikipedia's policies. However, the idea that consensus can change does not allow for the same point being brought up repeatedly over the course of months or years in an attempt to shift consensus.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring
11) Edit-warring is harmful. When disagreements arise, users are expected to discuss their differences rationally rather than reverting ad infinitum. Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Tendentious editing
12) Users who disrupt the editing of articles by engaging in sustained aggressive point-of-view editing may be banned from the affected articles. In extreme cases they may be banned from the site.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk pages
13) The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk page FAQs
14) The purpose of a FAQ for more active talk pages is to answer often-asked questions about the article, so as not to weigh down the talk page with answering the same questions repeatedly.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Attack pages
15) An attack page is a Wikipedia article, page, template, category, redirect or image that exists primarily to disparage its subject. If the subject of the article is notable, but the existing page consists primarily of personal attacks against that subject and there is no good revision to revert to, then the attack page should be deleted and an appropriate stub article should be written in its place. This is especially important if the page contains biographical material about a living person.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Criticism articles
16) All criticism articles must follow the same guidelines as other articles and use reliable sources. They are not to be used as POV forks or attack pages.


 * Passed 11 to 0 with 2 abstentions at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Deletion process
17) The deletion process is the Wikipedia process involved in recording and executing the community's decisions to delete or keep a page. If an editor is unsatisfied with the decision made by the closing administrator in regards to a deletion discussion, it may be brought to deletion review. The deletion review closer generally has the final word on the state of the article.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Article sanctions
18) Articles may be placed on probation by the Arbitration Committee or the community. When an article is under probation, editors making disruptive edits may be subject to various administrative sanctions, depending on the terms of probation.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Fanning the flames
19) While wider community participation can help resolve disputes, participating editors are expected to remain civil and to assume good faith to avoid further inflaming the dispute.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Removing talk page comments
20) Users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages, though archiving is preferred. A user's removal of a warning on his or her talk page is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user. This specifically includes both registered and anonymous users.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Scope of case
1) The scope of this case is the Barack Obama article, all related articles, and the involved parties’ conduct in relation to these articles.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Background
2) While there has been some disruption in the past on this article, a catalyst to increased disputes occurred on March 9, 2009, when WorldNetDaily published a piece labeling Wikipedia as a pro-Obama site, leading to a spike in traffic. A proposal to include a "criticism" section or article followed the next day,, which was sent to AFD, speedily deleted, and sent to DRV.. After the DRV began, edit-warring on an a FAQ relating to Obama began as well, leading to an ANI thread and this case.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Articles placed on probation
3) The Barack Obama article and related articles were placed on article probation on July 29, 2008. Since then, a myriad of administrative actions have been logged under the probation, and several users officially put under probation.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Enforcement of prior remedies
4) Although the aforementioned probationary measure was very effective for a reasonable period of time after it was implemented, during this year, it has proved difficult to enforce. While some sanctions have been applied under it, a number of noticeboard discussions have generally been intractable and unproductive, with many descending into arguments amongst disputants. Some editors have expressed concerns that the measure has failed to address, at least, some of the underlying issues, while others have suggested that there is a reluctance to enforce the remedy in some cases.Talk:Barack Obama/Article probation


 * Passed 7 to 1 with 4 abstentions at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Page activity
5) The main Barack Obama article and Talk:Barack Obama are two of the most active wiki pages, with over 17,000 and 29,000 revisions, respectively.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Single purpose accounts
6) During the influx of traffic triggered by the WorldNetDaily report on March 9, as well as during other times, many IPs and new accounts have contributed to the main article and talk page of the Barack Obama article, often behaving disruptively.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Stevertigo
7) has engaged in edit-warring and engaged in edit summary attacks on the Obama FAQ,.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

7.1.1) proposed to mark WP:IAR historical in its talk page, asking other users to discuss his proposal.


 * Passed 6 to 2 with 3 abstentions at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Sceptre
8) has engaged in edit-warring and continued to revert Stevertigo outside of the Barack Obama FAQ. and engaged in edit summary attacks.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Grsz11
9) has engaged in incivil edit summaries during the edit warring.


 * Passed 9 to 2 with 2 abstentions at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikidemon
10) has engaged in edit-warring, teaming with Sceptre in removing comments, including adding comments back on a user talk page removed by the user.


 * Passed 12 to 1 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Tarc
11) has engaged in incivility in comments and edit summaries.


 * Passed 12 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight
12) has deleted and/or refactored comments made by other parties on the Barack Obama talk page,, and engaged in attacking the actions of other editors.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

12.1) has engaged in edit-warring, and was blocked during the case as a result.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

12.2) created the appearance of templating other parties to the case.


 * Passed 5 to 4 with 4 abstentions at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey
13) has engaged in incivility and personal attacks, templated established editors,, removed pieces of an AfD discussion, and appeared to stalk ChildofMidnight’s edits.


 * Passed 12 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

13.1.1) has engaged in edit-warring, and was blocked during the case as a result.  Scjessey then requested unblock, pledged to avoid edit-warring and to take a voluntary 24-hour wikibreak if requested of him.  As a consequence, administrator Toddst1 unblocked him. ,


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs
14) has engaged in incivility, and removed talk page discussions while using the talk page as a forum himself.


 * Passed 12 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Grundle2600
15) has engaged in edit-warring, and was blocked during the case as a result.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Article probation review
1.1) The probation on articles relating to Barack Obama will be reviewed by a group of involved and non-involved editors and administrators to see how effective it has been. The process will last two weeks. After the two weeks elapse, the working group will provide their findings to us and the community, and will outline how the article probation will run in the future (i.e. what are the terms of article probation, what constitutes being involved and therefore required to be under it, etc.)


 * Passed 11 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Clarified in a motion on 02:42, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Reminder of talk page decorum
2) The Arbitration Committee, in recognizing the traffic and difficulty of handling the Barack Obama talk page, as well as per talk page guidelines, finds the removal of soapboxing and off-topic discussion acceptable and encourages its continuation.


 * Passed 8 to 2 with 3 abstentions at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Editors encouraged
3) All involved editors in the Obama articles, parties or not, are encouraged to try to collaborate and work constructively instead of accusing others of misconduct.


 * Passed 13 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Stevertigo admonished and restricted
4) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Stevertigo is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Stevertigo is limited to one revert per page per week (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Stevertigo exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 10 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

4) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Stevertigo is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Stevertigo is limited to one revert per page per week on Obama-related articles (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Stevertigo exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 6 to 1 to 3 at 03:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Sceptre admonished and restricted
5) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Sceptre is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Sceptre is limited to one revert per page per week (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Sceptre exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 10 to 1 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

5) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Sceptre is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Sceptre is limited to one revert per page per week on Obama-related articles (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Sceptre exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 6 to 1 to 3 at 03:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Grsz11 reminded
6) is reminded to be civil when dealing with hot-button and controversial situations.
 * Passed 10 to 1 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikidemon admonished
7) is admonished for his part in the edit warring.


 * Passed 10 to 1 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Tarc reminded
8) is reminded to be civil when dealing with hot button and controversial situations.


 * Passed 10 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight topic banned
9) is topic-banned from Obama-related articles for six months, including talk pages.


 * Passed 10 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

9) is topic-banned from Obama-related articles for six months, and any related discussions, broadly construed across all namespaces.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 12:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC) by motion.

ChildofMidnight admonished and restricted
9.2) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, ChildofMidnight is subject to an editing restriction for one year. ChildofMidnight is limited to one revert per page per week (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should ChildofMidnight exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 10 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

9.2) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, ChildofMidnight is subject to an editing restriction for one year. ChildofMidnight is limited to one revert per page per week on Obama-related articles (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should ChildofMidnight exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 6 to 1 to 3 at 03:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey topic banned
10) is topic-banned from Obama-related articles for six months, including talk pages.


 * Passed 8 to 1 with 2 abstentions at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Scjessey admonished and restricted
10.2) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Scjessey is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Scjessey is limited to one revert per page per week (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Scjessey exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 10 to 1 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

10.2) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Scjessey is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Scjessey is limited to one revert per page per week on Obama-related articles (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Scjessey exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 6 to 1 to 3 at 03:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight and Scjessey restricted
11) and  are not to interact with each other, including replying or reverting of each other’s actions. Doing so is grounds for blocking for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 10 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight and Wikidemon restricted
11.1) and  are not to interact with each other, including replying or reverting of each other’s actions. Doing so is grounds for blocking for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 10 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs reminded
12) is reminded to be more civil when dealing with users and to not use talk pages as a forum.


 * Passed 10 to 0 with 1 abstention at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Grundle2600 admonished and restricted
13) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Grundle2600 is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Grundle2600 is limited to one revert per page per week (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Grundle2600 exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 10 to 1 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

13) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, Grundle2600 is subject to an editing restriction for one year. Grundle2600 is limited to one revert per page per week on Obama-related articles (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Grundle2600 exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.


 * Passed 6 to 1 to 3 at 03:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles semi-protected
14.3) All editor and administrators are reminded that lengthy and liberal use of semi-protection for managing all articles relating directly to Barack Obama and their talk pages is within policy. The use of page protection is subject to review and discretion by administrators based on comments from the Community.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 14:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Rescinded by motion on 02:42, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions
Log any block, restriction, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.


 * (1 rev/week as per above remedy) was blocked by William M. Connolley at 18:17 on 21 June 2009 for 48 hours for edit warring at Hugo Chávez.  Block was made based on information reported at WP:AN3 as linked here (old page rev -do not edit).  R. Baley (talk) 13:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * is subject to a community ban from editing articles related to US politics and politicians, for a period of three months. He may make suggestions and participate in discussion on talk pages provided he is civil and respectful to others. The ban will be enforced by escalating blocks. notice of ban, community discussion Thatcher 14:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * blocked by Aitias per Requests_for_arbitration/Obama_articles at 23:55, 28 July 2009 for 24 hours due to a violation of topic ban. Block was issued following a report on WP:AN/I. — Aitias // discussion  00:05, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * blocked by SarekOfVulcan per Requests_for_arbitration/Obama_articles at 06:10, 7 August 2009 for 48 hours due to a . --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 06:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * blocked for a month for a violation of his Obama topic ban and interaction restriction, per AE request.  Sandstein   02:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification requested 27 June 2009 (see discussion)

 * A clarification of Article 11.1 was requested. No specific action resulted.

Amendment requested 9 July 2009: (see discussion)

 * An amendment to multiple remedies was proposed. This resulted in the following motion:
 * 1) The remedies 4, 5, 9.2, 10.2, and 13 are rewritten as follows: (User) is admonished for his edit-warring. Furthermore, User is subject to an editing restriction for one year. User is limited to one revert per page per week on Obama-related articles (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should User exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.
 * This motion was passed 6 to 1 (with 3 abstentions) on July 26 2009. The relevant individual remedies in the case have been modified.

Clarification requested 6 August 2009: (see discussion)

 * A clarification of Article 9.2 was requested, specifically as to whether the sanction ran sequentially or concurrently with other sanctions. Arbcom replied that the sanctions were concurrent.

Clarification requested 9 August 2009: (see discussion)

 * A clarification of the extent of editor restrictions was requested. This resulted in the following motion:
 * Remedy 9 in the Obama articles case is replaced by the following (timed to run from the date the case closed): ChildofMidnight is topic-banned from Obama-related articles for six months, and any related discussions, broadly construed across all namespaces.
 * This motion was passed 7 to 0 on 29 August 2009. The relevant individual remedy in the case has been modified.

Clarification requested 21 September 2009: (see discussion)

 * A clarification of Article 11.1 was requested. No specific action resulted.

Amendment requested 15 October 2009: (see discussion)

 * An amendment to Article 13 was requested. However a separate community ban of Grundle2600 was implemented, rendering the amendment request moot.

Article probation revocation (February 2022)

 * 1) Remedy 14.3 of the Obama articles case ("Articles semi-protected") is rescinded.
 * 2) The Arbitration Committee clarifies that the article probation referenced in Finding of Fact 3 of the Obama articles case ("Articles placed on probation") and subject to review in Remedy 1.1 of the Obama articles case ("Article probation review") is no longer in effect pursuant to a March 2015 community discussion, but related articles may be covered by remedies in the American politics 2 case.
 * Passed 11 to 0 by motion on 02:42, 3 February 2022 (UTC)