Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tango/Evidence

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Evidence presented by Thomas Basboll
I encourage ArbCom to look both at the full cause and the lasting effects of Tango's actions. In my view, Tango accomplished exactly what ArbCom's decision had been to designed to achieve: the civil discussion of a now familiar dispute.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Tango's block was not retaliatory or punitive
Tango did not block MONGO only for telling him to "get lost". Nor did MONGO merely call me a troll (for asking him to participate in the discussion of a POV tag that he had added to article four months ago). He also accused me of being a conspiracy theory POV-pusher on an article talk page. Tango warned him to stop. In response, MONGO accused Tango of sympathizing with conspiracy theorists and, back on the article's talk page, suggested that we delete the whole article because it reads like it was written by a conspiracy theorist. So, justified in thinking that MONGO would continue (he was in fact continuing) to derail the discussion with his familiar incivility, Tango applied the next step in the discretionary sanctions. As he said to MONGO, he was doing it "by the book". ArbCom, to my mind wisely, wrote that book.

Tango's block allowed the discussion on the article talk page to proceed civily to a resolution
The content dispute that MONGO was participating in immediately de-escalated after his departure. The name calling stopped and the issues could be dealt with one by one. The ArbCom decision about the 9/11 articles was invoked to nip the usual crank vs. shill invective in the bud and the disputed tag (a POV tag) was removed. It is true that a new dispute about the same section has arisen, this time on the question whether it is WP:SYN. But it should be noted that this dicussion is proceeding civily towards a resolution.

MONGO's actions were not confined to his talk page
I've already mentioned this above in the arguing that Tango's block was not punitive. But an anonymous editor (below) has suggested that "Two days previous to the initial edit in this sequence, Thomas Basboll filed an AN/I complaint against MONGO." It is a bit unclear what "this sequence" means but it is surely important to start the chronology on the right page. At 09:69 on 10 April, MONGO makes the following accusation and threat: "continued POV pushing by Basboll will be dealt with. We've had enough of tenacious editing on this subject." (The threat was of course merely administative but, as it turns out, not empty. I'm currently banned.) Only then did I file an ANI report, and (as anyone who reads it will see) I did so on behalf of the both of us. I asked an adminstrator to "nip" this conflict "in the bud". And that, as I say above, is exactly what Tango did.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 19:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Reply to DHeyward (below)
My aim was to make sure the chronology starts at the right place. In my view, Tango's actions helped to resolve the situation at the article. MONGO's comments on the talk page may not have been directly uncivil, but they did violate the stricter rules for decorum imposed by ArbCom. Was his talk page edit part of the violation? I think a case for that can be made. If MONGO had just removed my invitation as "SPA trolling" and left the article alone, I would not have gone to ANI and this episode would not have happened. But he did it after reacting to the invitation by participating in the discussion. That's a bit like sending an invitation to a party back to the sender with a note saying "Don't send me junk mail again!" and then showing up at the party anyway. If my remark really had been trolling, MONGO would have had no reason to respond to the poll. When MONGO says he "felt" I was trolling him, therefore, I think he is being disingenuous. I think he knew I sincerely wanted him to participate in the discussion, if also that we would probably disagree on its substance. I also think he knew that I would take "trolling" as an insult.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 05:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Tango's block was punitive
MONGO was warned at 14:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC). He responded with "get lost", a comment which is not incivil, at 04:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)—over 24 hours later. Tango then blocked him at 13:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC), 9 hours and 16 minutes after the supposed incivil comment. MONGO had stopped being incivil, there was no way this block was preventing further damage to the encyclopedia. It was punitive. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for evidence, from AGK
Something of an unorthodox move here, but I'd like to post a "request for evidence" here. Various claims have been made, regarding Tango having a serious history of making incorrect, poorly-thought-out blocks on various established contributors. It is essential that such claims are reinforced with solid evidence. Further to said allegations of a serious pattern of poor administrator conduct, I would like to request that such evidence be presented.

Although I hold no opinion either way, regarding the allegations of poor blocks, et cetera. I do, however, as a matter of principle, believe that having these statements hanging over Tango's head is unfair, and that, should no evidence be presented to reinforce them, I plan to propose a finding, suggesting that the Committee has seen no such evidence. It's time to back up all the talk with solid evidence. Anthøny 16:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Tango's blocks
This is a copy of the report presented by link in my statement. As I had previously noted, I will develop this into a more in-depth report with further links and discussion now that this case has been opened; please bear with me as the information to be provided must be organized in a readable form that is compatible with MediaWiki software, a talent it seems I am about to develop.

I have reviewed Tango's block log quite thoroughly; it didn't take long, as he has only issued 77 blocks since becoming an administrator on 19 November 2006. Tango appears to make appropriate routine blocks of IPs and accounts created for vandalism purposes, and that encompasses the majority of blocks made. When dealing with registered users, however, Tango seems to have genuine difficulty; these blocks are small in number, but almost consistently questionable. There is questionable use of tools in 14 of 16 blocks Tango has issued to regular editors.
 * 20 Nov 2006 (one day after being sysopped) - Block of User:Fys, as described in the RFAR. Tango warned by Mackensen that this was not an appropriate block.
 * 16 Dec 2006 - Block of two users for 3RR on Goa Inquisition, followed by page protection and admin rollback to a previous version of the article. Discussed on AN/I and advised this was inappropriate by User:Dmcdevit, but Tango's responses appear to be antagonistic.
 * 22 Feb 2007 - Block of User:Smeelgova (3 hours) for 3RR on Cult apologist. Smeelgova made 4 edits, none of them reverts; three were to add varying descriptions to a weblink, and one to add "scare quotes" to a phrase. This is one of only two blocks involving a regular editor that does not cause me concern.
 * 26 Jul 2007 - Four regular editors blocked for edit warring on Atanas Badev. No apparent consideration of protecting the page and forcing the dispute to the talk pages. Blocks ranged from 3 hours to 1 week.
 * 22 Aug 2007 - Blocked two regular editors for 3RR/edit-warring over an image in Mulatto, although other editors had been involved in inserting/removing the image as well. After the two editors were blocked, another editor returned to remove the image. No apparent consideration of protecting the page and forcing all of the involved editors to the talk page.
 * 27 Aug 2007 - Blocked two regular editors for edit warring on Stargate Atlantis. Neither editor had edited the page on that date. There was discussion between the editors taking place on the talk page, attempting to resolve their content dispute. Tango also was a regular editor of this article, although his last edit was a few months before, although he edited several related articles in the interim.
 * 1-2 Sep 2007 - Block of User:AlexCovarrubias, subsequently extended considerably because the editor used an IP to place a politely worded unblock request on her userpage.
 * 30 Jan 2008 - Block of User:Justpassinby for "vandalism." While the edits were not purely vandalism (the core information being deleted has subsequently been revised), there was a 3RR violation that would have justified blocking regardless.
 * 21 Mar 2008 - Block of new (less than 1 month) User:Tubesship and an IP for 3RR violation on List of countries and outlying territories by total area. Four editors over 24 hours had been inserting and removing the same information from the article, two IPs removing sourced info and Tubesship and another regular editor returning it to the article; no apparent consideration that the IPs were vandalising the article, or of protecting the page and forcing discussion on the talk page. Neither of the blocked editors received 3RR warnings, and there had been no report to the 3RR noticeboard.
 * 12 Apr 2008 - Block of User:Mongo. No further comment is required.

Total blocks by month
Nov 2006 - 14 (one of a regular editor, and one unblock of same editor) Dec 2006 - 21 (two of regular editors) Jan 2007 - 8 Feb 2007 - 3 (one of regular editor, appears appropriate) Mar 2007 - 2 Apr 2007 - 2 Jul 2007 - 4 (all of regular users, related to a single article) Aug 2007 - 5 (4 of regular users, 2 each from two separate incidents. The fifth was a new user, apparent SPA.) Sep 2007 - 4 (2 of the same regular user and one of his IP, all stemming from same edit war; one unblock of same editor to extend original block) Jan 2008 - 9 (1 of regular user, appears appropriate) Mar 2008 - 4 (1 of regular user and IP involved in edit war, other IP and regular user not blocked) Apr 2008 - 1 (1 of a regular editor)

Prepared by Risker (talk) 01:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Added to evidence Risker (talk) 18:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Indepth review
I have completed the review of the blocks mentioned above, compiled into a readable format here. I will work tomorrow to get them into tables, but wanted to make the information available if required by others.

I have given a cursory review to any of the IP blocks carried out by Tango; the ones done in 2008 all appeared to be appropriate and thus do not require this level of detailed analysis. I am unable to review any deletions or similar administrative actions, so cannot provide information to the Committee on Tango's judgment in those areas. Risker (talk) 22:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Log of recent blocks and unblocks
The following summarizes MONGO's recent blocks and unblocks:
 * 2008-04-12T13:14:19 Tango blocked MONGO with an expiry time of 1 week. Reason: "Incivility following warninging under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikpedia:Requests_for_arbitration/September_11_conspiracy_theories#Discretionary_sanctions"
 * 2008-04-12T15:00:56 Orderinchaos unblocked MONGO. Reason: "unblock as time served per AN/I discussion"
 * 2008-04-12T15:21:07 Orderinchaos blocked MONGO with an expiry time of 29 hours. Reason: "my previous action was regarded as too lenient by some in the discussion - padding out to 31 hours."
 * 2008-04-13T05:50:01 SlimVirgin unblocked MONGO. Reason: "Unblocking with the consent of the most recent blocking admin; 16 hours seems to be long enough, and it's not clear the block was needed to begin with"

MONGO's second RFA had high participation
247 editors expressed an opinion at MONGO's second RFA, which closed on 2008-1-28. Of the admins mentioned in the log above, Tango and Orderinchaos each opposed the nomination, while SlimVirgin supported it.

MONGO did not act with decorum
MONGO was a party to the arbitration case September 11 conspiracy theories, which included an arbcom finding urging all editors to act with decorum.. MONGO's comment "get lost...if you support conspiracy theorist misusing this website, then you should be deadminned" can be reasonably viewed as failing to meet the committee's description of expected decorum.

Criterion for enforcement
When it authorized discretionary sanctions in the Sep. 11 case, the committee explicitly laid out the criterion for an administrator to be sufficiently uninvolved to enforce them.. Tango expressed a good faith belief that, per this criterion, he was not an "involved" administrator. 

Tango followed community norms for block review
After blocking MONGO, Tango immediately posted on ANI asking for review.. Tango presented a plausible rationale for the length of the block. When others argued the length was excessive, Tango agreed to a shorter block. Tango showed further willingness to compromise in order to resolve disagreements about the unblock. 

Five sections added. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

There was no consensus about the appropriateness of the block
The block was reviewed on ANI. The following editors spoke in support of the block (although some favored a shorter duration, as seen in the diffs).


 * LessHeard vanU "Since Tango's notice was properly given MONGO had no excuse for the language of his edit summary."
 * Black Kite "A short block was reasonable under the ArbCom ruling, but (a) a week was too long, and (b) an uninvolved admin should've done it."
 * Until 1==2 "Considering this users history of civility, and choice not to change, this is reasonable."
 * Relata Refero  "Simply put, this is enforcement of arbitration of the most basic kind. "
 * John "Civility isn't optional, and if you have a history of incivility then delete a warning with an uncivil comment, well, you should not expect still to be editing."
 * Moreschi2 "A week's block is clearly excessive: reduce it to 31 hours, says I, and slap a civility supervision on top"
 * Mackan79 "If an admin gives a civility warning and the response is "get lost," I'd think you either block them or give up the civility policy."
 * Rocksanddirt "I have read this over and have come to the conclusion that Tango may have made a block to long, but that a block was appropriate."
 * AlasdairGreen27 "Every admin should back Tango because otherwise the whole system falls down and we can forget Wiki's civility rules and then the whole project falls down."

Added, &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by anonymous editor

 * The following has been sent to the clerk, from a user who wishes to remain anonymous. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The Original Arbitration only addresses articles
Here is the sole remedy from the 9/11 arbitration (link):

Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to the events of September 11, broadly interpreted) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.

Even by expanding this to include the associated article talk pages, there is no way to interpret this decision to include discussions on MONGO's talk page.

A little background
Two days previous to the initial edit in this sequence, Thomas Basboll filed an AN/I complaint against MONGO in this thread. After his comment notifying MONGO of the complaint was removed from MONGO's talk page, he added that to his AN/I complaint and started another thread at in this thread demanding that the arbcom remedy needed to be applied "sooner rather than later".

Removal of comments from one's talk page
The Wikipedia guideline on user talk pages clearly states that users may remove comments from their page at any time. Mongo removed a comment from self-admitted single purpose account Thomas Basboll with the edit summary "revert SPA trolling". Note that MONGO did not describe Basboll as a troll, but rather as an SPA, something that Basboll himself has acknowledged. The "trolling" refers to Basboll's post on his talk page; while it is debatable whether MONGO's edit summary is incivil or not, it doesn't rise to the level of a personal attack. When Tango posted a civility warning on MONGO's talk page, MONGO removed it with the edit summary "get lost...if you support conspiracy theorist misusing this website, then you should be deadminned", which is uncivil to Tango, but again has nothing to do with the 9/11 pages under arbcom restriction. Eight hours after MONGO had stopped editing, Tango blocked him for incivility. Since he was not online at the time, the block was clearly punitive rather than preventative in nature.

Indefinite civility restriction
Using the "Discretionary sanctions" ruling from the arbitration case, Tango blocked Mongo for one week. After a great deal of discussion at AN/I at this thread, the block was undone, reinstated for 31 hours, and then undone again. While this discussion was taking place, Tango not only refused to accept any criticism for his actions, but he compounded it with a remarkable new restriction upon MONGO&#151;an INDEFINITE incivility restriction. While the arbcom (not a single administrator) has handed out such restrictions in the past, they have always had a very specific cutoff date, usually no more than one year in the most extreme cases. Tango had absolutely no authority for imposing such a restriction, yet he stubbornly refused to admit that his judgment was anything other than flawless.

Evidence presented by User:MONGO
In support of the recent banning of  from all 9/11 related articles I want to present the following:

Thomas Basboll is a SPA who promotes conspiracy theories
is a single-purpose account (SPA) (self admitted here), whose edits are concentrated almost exclusively to articles related to the events centering on the September 11, 2001 attacks. Articles in relation to this event that Thomas has edited include September 11, 2001 attacks, but more commonly at Collapse of the World Trade Center, Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center, 9/11 conspiracy theories, Steven E. Jones and 7 World Trade Center. Virtually all of Basbolls edits have been directly related to the mainspace areas of those articles or to Afd's regarding those articles.(slowish link). Basboll tried to alter the page discussing single-purpose accounts, which is one of the few areas outside his normal realm he seems to have edited, , , "edit summary:revert to more SPA-friendly wording", , retagging the SPA page as an essay. Being an SPA isn't a bad thing...one editor I have worked with who is a SPA is User:Peltoms (Mauri Pelto ), and Peltoms edits (infrequently) only articles related to glaciers...well, Peltoms is an expert glaciologist, having written numerous peer reviewed and published articles about glacial retreat and he has studied the North Cascades glaciers for 25 years. Basboll is self taught as far as 9/11 goes...he has never once stated that he has a background in engineering, controlled demolition or investigations...he is no more an expert on 9/11 than most people. Of course we can only add what we can reference anyway, but I do find it troubling when a self admitted non-expert SPA is interested in adding fringe evidence to our articles.

Basboll has repeatedly stated he wants to see more conspiracy theory (CT) coverage in the articles related to 9/11, citing the need to do so based on WP:NPOV,. My view is that there is no reason to broaden CT coverage in these articles since our efforts need to be focused on sticking to facts and to not minimize these facts with unproven and biased sources....and I have stated that adding more CT to these articles violates the undue weight clause of NPOV. Basboll seems to think that we are unable to work together constructively and in fact, I have stated that I left two articles he worked on to avoid him and to avoid disputes, so maybe he's right. I guess I am a man of a particular kind of science anyway, at least according to Basboll.

Basboll violates WP:SOAP

 * "But don't you see the problem? We are offering a CDH-favourable slant on this exchange in the CDH article and a sanitized version of the same exchange in the 7 WTC article, even though they are talking about exactly the same issue. That looks like POV-forking" (CDH=Controlled demolition hypothesis), and more on the matter..Basboll is saying that one aspect of the controlled demolition argument is better covered in the Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center article and yet the article in 7 World Trade Center seeems to minimize it. Of course it does...it is a conspiracy theory and going into it in more detail in an article which looks at the facts surrounding 7 WTC instead of the conspiracy theories surrounding what happened would be a violation of undue weight.


 * Here...Basboll argues for inclusion of material which has been presented by G.P. Cherepanov in which Cherepanov argues that fracture waves may have had something to do with the collapse of the WTC...Cherepanov's work on this matter is not recognized by any other engineering group and has been discredited:...furthermore, Cherepanov has a history of simpathy for other 9/11 conspiracy theorist such as David Ray Griffin and has stated that reknown engineer Zdenek P. Bazant (who has published several articles regarding the collapse of the WTC) "Dr. Bazant who is a renowned scientist well-known by his work in creep and fracture of concrete was, probably, used to mislead and misdirect the engineering community." and Cherepanov continues to state that Bazant's work on the matter had "evident blunders and miscalculations indicated in Sections that follow his theory has never been criticized in scientific press. Moreover, Dr. Sunder from NIST using a numerous research team and unlimited resources invented a numerical model supporting all basic points of the theory"....(The NIST is the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Dr. Sunder was the lead engineer/investigator on the WTC collapse.) Cherepanov is accusing the NIST team of inventing(!) a numerical model to jive with the presentation written by Bazant. Basboll is subtle, and it takes a keen eye to see some of his antics, however these are but a few of many examples where he tries to weaken the encyclopedic integrity of our articles with less than reliable opinions and sources.
 * Wikipedia is not an external links repository,

Basboll misuses the dispute resolution process to try and gain an advantage in a content dispute
Basboll has been engaged in hounding and forum shopping to get sanctions brought against me for a protracted period. I believe he sees me as the primary obstacle in his efforts to incorporate more conspiracy theories in our 9/11 articles. A complaint was filed after I commented to what I percieved as an insult from Basboll and comments where mixed, but I was blocked and that block was quickly overturned. Basboll subsequently filed a Rfc here where I apologized. Unsatisfied with the results of that Rfc, Basboll took the issue to arbitration were it was soundly rejected and Basboll withdrew his request a day after filing it...still dissatisfied, Basboll filed a request with the Association of Members Advocates on May 14,2007 here, where it remains. When the Rfc was closed, he was apparently very disappointed and asked it to remain open, despite a consensus to close it as not being further productive. He commented to the closing admin about it and not getting the response he wanted, reported it to AN/I. He then withdrew from editing for a period of almost four months but upon his return, resumed editing articles related to 9/11. Interestingly, during Basboll's hiatus from editing, User:Aude was able to get the disruption free period she needed to get 7 World Trade Center to featured level. I was able to help her with some copywriting issues. It remains the only 9/11 related article to achieve FA status. Basboll made numerous comments regarding the article upon his return to editing here and next several threads. Aude was also able to get Construction of the World Trade Center (a peripheral article) to FA status as well during Basboll's hiatus. Upon his return, Basboll was apparently still seeking some sanction against me. In a matter that had nothing to do with him, and has subsequently stated we need to return to arbcom to get resolution to our ongoing dispute. I have little doubt that this has much less to do with his perception of me being less than cordial than he wishes and a lot more to do with his efforts to get me sanctioned so that he won't have to deal with me on 9/11 related articles. Basboll has long misused the dispute resolution process to try and gain an advantage in a content dispute.

In regards to User:Tango
Yes, Tango did oppose my recent attempt to regain admin tools and we have had a minor disagreement in the past. I do not consider him to have been in a current conflict with me when he blocked me. However, his block was a surprise, both it's length and the rationale. No doubt, even when I am dealing with self admitted SPA's who do have a history of "bugging" me on my talkpage I need to remain civil...and Tango may not have known much about the history between Mr. Basboll and myself...so taken on face value of the neverending complaints from Mr. Basboll regarding me, Tango may have felt that a longish block was justified. I certainly don't concur that any block was needed...that I have a right to express myself liberally, especially when faced with more "bugging" from Basboll and a somewhat authoritative warning to me on my talkpage from Tango. Yes, the block was not preventative, but punitive in my eyes. However, I do not support, based on my personal experiences with Tango, any deadminning. Lastly, I do urge admins to note that people get upset and some, such as myself and User:Giano, are somewhat passionate in our rhetoric...perhaps more so than we should be...and to recognize that not all human reactions will be the same.

Tango issued me a warning that I felt was overtly condescending at on April 10, 2008. The warning was in response to yet another frivilous complaint by Thomas Basboll at AN/I full thread...as mentioned above, just another attempt for Basboll to see sanction against me for my writing bluntly, someone I see as being here to promote fringe theories. On April 11, 2008 (27 hours later) I removed the warning from my usertalkpage with the edit summary "get lost...if you support conspiracy theorist misusing this website, then you should be deadminned" Tango then, more than 9 hours later, blocked me for an entire week and posted at AN/I his initial rationale for the block, full thread...citing my "get lost" comment as the block rationale at AN/I and at my usertalkpage...this was punitive, not preventative. In the AN/I thread, Tango proceeded to defend his actions even though the majority of editors believed the block was harsh and even a misuse of his tools and position. After I was initially unblocked by User:Orderinchaos, I posted on my userpage that I was still autoblocked....Tango then placed me under a civility restriction, stating that he based this in "accordance with suggestions in the AN/I discussion"...when there was no such "accordance" at all, much less a consensus....he quickly altered that to "indefinite". Not surprisingly I was not pleased, Tango then unilaterally and condescendingly denied my request to be unblocked ...and of course, I posted my response to his ongoing abusiveness. In response to the unilateral indefinite civility restriction imposed by Tango, Orderinchaos responded that he didn't "believe Tango has the authority to make such a ruling, nor was such indicated by consensus at AN/I." yet Tango argued that no consensus existed to revoke the indefinite civility restriction he had placed me under....after that, I essentially retired... and aside from this arbcom, have edited nowhere else since 4/12/2008. Tango continued to use my talkpage in ways I felt were insulting and after he made yet another snide comment, I then bluntly told him what I thought his ongoing chatter was harassment.. So, what is more incivil, or a bigger violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA...my bluntly worded edit summary in response to Tango's warning or Tango's ridiculous week block in retaliation, his subsequent unilateral indefinite civility parole restriction, his ongoing denial that he did anything in any way wrong and his arrogant stance on this entire matter?

As far as Tango's comment on the original AN/I complaint by Basboll, yes, I did feel that Basboll was trolling me...Basboll knows I have those pages watchlisted and he has long tried to bait me for like, well forever....,, , , , , , , , , , , ...Perhaps had Tango done what he said he didn't do , which would have been to check and see if indeed Basboll had a history of trolling my talkpage and other areas trying to get me sanctioned, he might have been able to make a better judgement call...but maybe he might not have cared...seems in Tango's mind no one dare challenge him or his warnings.

Evidence presented by Travb/Inclusionist
Oh my, yet another arbcom. I said Mongo would be back in no more than a week. Exactly one week later. Surprise, surprise.

I hope that the arbitration can resolve the lose ends that have spilled over from the 9/11 arbitration.

I find it ironic that Tango is being called an "involved" editor by those who want to delete all alternative views of 9/11, and he has never edited a 9/11 article. And yet Raul564, who actively edits 9/11 articles and has expressed his strong POV against alternative 9/11 views, indefinitely bans Thomas from 9/11 articles, and no one makes a sound.

Hypocrisy? Hell yes.

Surprising? Unfortunately not.

The 9/11 arbitration is currently being utilized to suppress unpopular but common views about 9/11.

MONGO is at the forefront of deleting every single article that mentions alternative views of 9/11. MONGO has worked in tandem allegedly off wiki with several editors for years to push his view of wikipedia. Those that oppose MONGOs these deletions are called vicious names and harassed. MONGO has been involved with countless AfDs and edit wars to remove material he personally disagrees with. The majority of the Arbcoms that MONGO has been involved with was involving him pushing editors he personally disagrees with about 9/11 out of wikipedia.

I suggest that the 9/11 arbitration be scraped and a solution like the Great Irish Famine arbcom be put in place on key 9/11 articles:


 * Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine: Remedies: The article Great Irish Famine is placed under the mentorship of three to five administrators to be named later. All content reversions on this page must be discussed on the article talk page. Further terms of the mentorship are contained in the decision and will be amplified on the article talkpage.

Inclusionist (talk) 01:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by DHeyward
Tango overstepped his authority by blocking Mongo. There was nothing enforceable. The block was excessive. Tango has refused to acknowledge his mistake. These are serious misuse of the tools.

First Warning
The first warning was only for a comment in an edit summary on MONGO's own talk page. MONGO removed a comment on his own talk page with a comment "removing SPA trolling". The SPA is particularly sensitive to the term "trolling" and filed an ANI. It was for this User Talk Page edit summary that Tango issued his "official warning" as some stretch to the ArbCom ruling. This user talk page edit mentioning trolling generated this ANI whcih generated this warning. No edits on the article talk page were incivil and there were no edit warring.

Not uninvolved
Tango presented himself on MONGO's talk page as an uninvolved admin. However, three months ago he tried to derail MONGO's RfA because of the ArbCom ruling that deadminned Mongo on the same topics that Tango claims uninvolvement in. Tango's RFA comment and is particularly troubling given Tango's present action. Here Tango tries to convince a neutral participant that MONGO hasn't changed and is another indication of his involvement with MONGO. Tango tries to convince another editor that MONGO needs more evidence to prove he has changed. And here he assigns the cause of all previous issues with the 9/11 article disputes to MONGO as he opposes his RfA. Earlier Tango made incivil comments directed toward MONGO (much worse than saying "get lost". Tango was not blocked for these incivilites, let alone for a week.  And here MONGO warns Tango to be civil.  Again without a block.  And here Tango actually says that calling someone a fool is not incivil and suggests that an admin stop warning people so much.  Tango has had some very strong feeling about MONGO for a long time.

The Block
The block was again for an edit on MONGO's talk page. Tango made the block for a comment directed at him. His is previously involved and has already made public his disdain for MONGO. He should not have made the block for this comment. It wasn;t related to the 9/11 articles. It wasn't on any 9/11 article talk pages and neither was the comment that Tango based his warning. He grossly exceeded the scope of the ArbCom to satisfy his personal desire to block MONGO.

The Rationale
originally intervened under the pretense of an ArbCom ruling. However his rationale for the block seemed to be that MONGO had a long history of incivility that therefore warranted an extraordinary block. Considering that Arbcom had the opportunity to block MONGO, it seems presumptuous and prima facie evidence that Tango exceeded the scope of the original Arbcom case. It also points to evidence that Tango was familiar with MONGO despite claims of being uninvolved. Here are some of Tango's comments that support this. Here Tango argues that "MONGO has been doing this for years" and the blcok is tapparently to address this long term behavior rather than an arbcom enforcement. Here he backtracks back to the original Arbcom ruling in a tortured definition of repeated. Tango's next justification is that "here is a massive and long-standing problem" and "it's time something was done about it." And Tango goes on to say here that his intolerance is what generated the block. I'm not sure how Tango claims he's uninvolved, at his tolerance limit for MONGO, complaining about years of incivility and then using a recent Arbcom topic decision to justify Great Justice. As far as I know Tango has never participated or called an RfC into MONGO's civility yet he seems to think he is qualified to speak for the community when he complains about long standing incivility.

Conclusion
The entire incident is about MONGO's talk page and is simply not about any ArbCom ruling. Tango didn't point to any 9/11 pages or edits that justified either his warning or block under the 9/11 pages arbcom. He didn't do this because those violations don't exist. This is just an angry admin who lashed out because he didn't like being told to get lost. He is stretching the bounds to get this covered by ArbCom rulings and his actions should not be rewarded. We lost one of the most prolific mainspace article editor and creator because of the overzealousness and self-rightous attitude of an admin that has arguably made no substantial contributions to building the encyclopedia.

Other abuses
Other editors have pointed out more abuses. points out that here Tango extended a 3RR violation from one month to two months because the editor left a politely worded unblock request on Tango's talk page with an ip address. Tango was apparently offended that someone might question his blcok and ask politely for a review. Tango dismissvely reverts the request for review. [http:/  /en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=Tango&page=User%3AAlexCovarrubias And extends the block when the user, who identified himself openly on the talk page, asked for review].

And this is not the first time Tango's abuse of admin tools has been brought up, nor is it the first time that he professes rightousness in the face of overwhelming community consensus on his behavior.. Archived here.

In short, he should simply have the tools removed so he isn't tempted to misuse them like he has. He simply can't be trusted with power to block editors. --DHeyward (talk) 04:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Reply to User:Thomas Basboll
You have stated that the incivil comments were not limited to his talk page. That is your interpretation. However, said that the edits to article space were not incivil. He explictly stated such at your ANI request since the word "trolling" only appeared on MONGO's talk page. Tango obviously didn't find anything wrong with MONGO's comments at the article (which did not containg the word "troll" or "trolling"), only at MONGO's [talk page edit summary]. In conclusion, your complaint about article edits had no merit and only MONGO's edits to his own talk page were considered problematic by User:Tango. --DHeyward (talk) 04:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * User:Thomas Basboll "I think a case for that can be made. If MONGO had just removed my invitation as "SPA trolling" and left the article alone, I would not have gone to ANI and this episode would not have happened." is not supported by the facts. Basboll first reported MONGO's Article edit as uncivil (which he now says were not directly incivil).   Basboll did not report MONGO's talk page edit until even after MONGO replied to the original meritless ANI.  MONGO's response to ANI followed by Basbolls second complaint about MONGO's talk page reversion here.  It is disengenuous for Basboll to claim he wouldnt have filed it if the talk page edit didn't happen since 1) he complained about the article first on ANI 2) he complained about more than MONGO's edits (mine as well) and 3) he didn't add the talk page complaint until after MONGO had replied on the ANI board.  --DHeyward (talk) 19:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by CharonX
Even during the entire Arbitration process Tango has shown disregard for his action and the consequences, alongside with unwillingness to even consider having acted wrongly, culiminating in the following reply, which does not need further comment: User:DHeyward asked: Doesn't it concern you that he retired and he is no longer contributing and that it was a direct result of your actions? To which Tango replied: ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Tango/Proposed_decision&diff=next&oldid=211276796 Not really. Someone else will take up the slack, they always do, and they will probably do it without violating policy every five seconds.]''

Evidence presented by {your user name}
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