Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wik2/Decided

The following matters have been decided by a majority vote of the arbitrators either for or against. The remedies which have been decided upon will be enacted now. Note that some issues relating to the case are still under consideration - any further remedies will be enacted at a future date.


 * I'm going to try to provide some rationale at Requests for arbitration/Wik2/FAQ. Personal, but perhaps useful. Martin 00:03, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Revocation of editing privileges: a summary
Details of revocation of editing privileges in this case can be found at. In summary:


 * User:Wik is to have their editing privileges revoked for seven days
 * User:Cantus is to have their editing privileges revoked for one day
 * User:Nico is to have their editing privileges revoked for one day

Please note that these bans have not actually been implemented by any member of the arbitration committee - I would rather they were implemented by another sysop, not an arbitrator. If you implement them, please note that here so we know. --Camembert 00:13, 21 May 2004 (UTC)


 * All three blocked as of 06:45 UTC, May 21, 2004. -- Cyrius|&#9998 06:46, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

Avoid personal attacks

 * Personal attacks damage the community and deter users, see No personal attacks
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 12:34, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:03, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Sock puppets
Possibly amongst other things, Sock puppets should not be used to evade legitimate bans or arbitration committee rulings.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * the Epopt 13:53, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:03, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Discuss reverts
Although it is not made explicit on revert, a review of Wikipedia policies such as staying cool and dispute resolution, together with common practice and community expectations, strongly suggests that "When reverting, explain your reasons for doing so" is a longstanding de facto Wikipdia policy.

The arbitration committee requests that the community clarify that this is the case (if indeed it is), and explain if there are situations where it is not the case. This will aid us in future arbitrations.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * the Epopt 13:54, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:03, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Threat of retaliatory reversions

 * As a tactic employed during an edit war on the article West Papuan Genocide Wik posted "If you continue to revert random edits of mine (and vandalize my talk page) without explanation, I will revert random edits of yours." on the talk page of User:Dmn . Wik on his user page User:Wik describes User:Dmn as a "(moron/vandal)". We find that this is a violation of Wikiquette.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * the Epopt 13:55, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Further theats on wikien-l
Wik sent the following message to Jimbo:

"From: wik1234@fastmail.fm Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 21:47:21 UT Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 13:47:21 -0800 To: "Jimmy Wales"  Subject: Quagga's vandalism

The vandalism goes on and on:

06:09, 14 Jun 2004 Isomorphic deleted "User talk:Wik/Talk/Wik" (trolling by some anon) 06:09, 14 Jun 2004 Isomorphic deleted "User:Wik/temp" (trolling by some anon) 06:09, 14 Jun 2004 Secretlondon deleted "User talk:User talk:Wik" (content was: 'I have sucked hairy balls for most of my life. i enjoy wathing elephants have sex because incase you didnt know, the elephant penis is the size of my ...')

I made the mistake of trusting your word; you gave a supposedly final warning to Quagga, but didn't follow up on it. Therefore I'll now give you the final warning: if Quagga isn't banned within 24 hours, I'll start a script which does everything automatically including changing proxies as needed, so don't hope that I will tire of it; nor is there anything else you can do against it. It will run until Quagga is banned. Too bad you don't understand any other language.


 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 02:02, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Oppose:


 * Abstain or other:

Vandalism script
Following Wik's threat a vandalism script has been loosed on Wikipedia which affects the Village pump and other pages, see.


 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 02:07, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Oppose:


 * Abstain or other:

Revert wars

 * In many instances provided on the /Evidence page, either neither side has been willing to discuss, or Wik has not discussed significantly less than the other party. However, Wik has, in some instances, reverted pages with little or no attempt at discussion, where the other party(s) to the dispute have been willing to discuss and attempt to reach an agreement. Examples of such pages include:
 * Papua (disambiguation) (see Talk:Papua (disambiguation) for comments by (eg) Daeron, no comment by Wik, continued reverts, no edit summaries beyond "rv" - a simple link to Talk:Papua (Indonesian province) by either party would likely have been sufficient)
 * Recentchanges - notable because, as a very high visibility page, discussion is typically favoured before adding notices, etc, let alone re-adding something that has already been reverted, and only belatedly (and half-heartedly) discussing after being reverted three times.
 * Ken Saro-Wiwa - reverted addition of much new content only because it missed out a birth date. Edit summary "rv". No reason given until asked on user talk page. Better would have been a summary such as "rv - missing birth date". Better still would have been reinstating the missing date.
 * Decimal calendar - Wik made no comment at all on talk, despite the other party commenting there.
 * East Germany - Though making a number of reversions to the article, Wik made only two brief comments on talk despite a very active discussion taking place there.
 * Central Asia See Refuses to discuss matter with Cantus, the other edit warrior or with Mark Richards, a third party. He makes the following statements: "Given that an edit war is going on, if you ( Mark Richards) don't want to take part, just stay out of the article. Normal edits are not advisable as long as the edit war is on. Otherwise I don't know what you want."; "I already said I'm not dealing with Cantus, neither directly nor by proxy"; "I am just reverting Cantus. If you make edits on top of his version, they will of course be reverted too. I can't be expected to correct Cantus' nonsense again and again by hand - I will just revert to my version"; etc.


 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Delirium 11:36, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 13:13, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Camembert 22:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Sockpuppets

 * We find that Wik has tried to subvert the previous ruling by this committee by creating the user:Augustin and user:Augustine accounts.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 18:54, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:


 * We find that Cantus attempted to evade a quickpoll ban by creating multiple sock puppet accounts, and to harass Wik by means of the User:Wik is Banned sock puppet.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 18:54, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:


 * We find that Nico created the user:Augusta account to provoke a revert war and harass Wik.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 18:54, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Remedies

 * The previous ruling of the Arbitration Committee limiting the number of reverts Wik can perform in a 24 hour period shall be extended indefinitely, and may be enforced by temp-bans at sysop discretion as previously.
 * Support:
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Martin 19:00, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Fred Bauder 19:39, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Camembert 22:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * the Epopt (assumed from above)
 * Other:


 * Each time Wik reverts an article he must give his reasons for doing so in the edit summary. Example explanations include "rv page blanking", "rv - remove biased material", "rv introduction of spelling errors", etc. For reverts of edits that are not vandalism (as defined at dealing with vandalism), Wik must back up that reason on a talk page and point to this in any reverts. Examples of this include: "rv, biased - see Talk" or "rv - see Talk:blah" . Wik must respond to any substantive objections by those who disagree with his reasons. If Wik reverts a new compromise or proposed solution, he must explain on the Talk page why the reverted version still fails to address his objections.
 * Support:
 * Martin 18:33, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC) Suggest adding "for continually failing to adequately explain his edits, Wik is sentenced to a one-week ban, to be served concurrently with other bans."
 * Fred Bauder (assumed from earlier vote - wording changed since vote)
 * the Epopt I think everyone should be required to explain reverts, if only by "erase vandalism." (assumed from earlier vote - wording changed since vote)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Camembert 22:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Enforcement
Note that the below may be superseded by points being voted upon at Requests for arbitration/Wik2


 * If Wik consistently fails to abide by any of these rulings of the arbitration committee or tries to evade them, that Wik shall be banned for 30 days, at arbitration committee's discretion.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * the Epopt 14:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC) I'd prefer three months, below.
 * Nohat 15:58, 2004 May 5 (UTC) after 3 month ban
 * Martin 18:33, 5 May 2004 (UTC) (I'd prefer one of the below two alternatives)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC) I'm wiling to go along with this, but this seems more like just a warning than an actual ruling, since we'd have to rule again on the 30-day ban anyway. Is this actually saying anything?
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Camembert 22:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC) (though I'd prefer one of the below two alternatives)
 * Oppose:
 * Other:

Revocation of editing priviledges

 * For using sock puppets to evade the previous arbitration ruling, Wik shall be banned from editing for a period of one week.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * the Epopt 14:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC) I would prefer something longer. Evading a ruling is malice, prima facie.
 * Nohat 15:58, 2004 May 5 (UTC) suggest adding "to be served concurrently with other bans"
 * Martin 18:45, 5 May 2004 (UTC) (would also support alternate introductory wording given below)
 * Camembert 03:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC) Don't really see this as constructive---What good does him not being here for a week do? I'd rather work for more structural solutions like the revert limits or the requirement for revert explanations.
 * Other:

Matter of Cantus
It has been demonstrated and he has confessed to using sock puppets to evade a short ban and harass Wik. Cantus shall be banned for 1 day.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Camembert 22:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC) (I'd probably support a slightly longer ban as well)
 * Oppose:
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC) Don't really see how a 24-hour ban quite a bit after the fact would be constructive. Why not just give a warning and take it up again if he does it again?
 * Other:

Matter of Nico
Banned for one day for using sock puppets to provoke a revert war and harass Wik.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * Martin 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Camembert 22:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC) Don't really see how a 24-hour ban quite a bit after the fact would be constructive. Why not just give a warning and take it up again if he does it again?
 * Other:

Points which have a majority against or have been superseded
The below point is superseded by the point at 


 * We find that Wik continues to engage in a pattern of reverting articles - albeit at a slower pace. He also does not "calmly discuss matters on the talk page and seek compromises."
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Martin 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC) (as noted below)
 * Nohat 19:33, 2004 May 5 (UTC)
 * Other:
 * Camembert 22:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC) (I'm probably supportive, but the below seems preferable)

No, I don't think it's reasonable to criticise Wik for "a pattern of reverting articles" - lots of folks revert on occasion - a fair few on a regular basis. Reverting alone is not the issue at stake here.

I'm also dubious about using the advice to "seek compromises" as a prohibition of stubbornness, or a requirement to follow a (say) 70% majority opinion. This would seem to me to water down the higher principle of NPOV and wiki-style editing. Instead, I propose something like the below instead. Martin 00:19, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The below point has a majority of arbitrators against


 * That Wik shall be banned from reverting any article for a period of one month. If Wik violates this, he will be banned from editing for the remainder of that month.
 * Support:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC) I think we need to get his attention.
 * Oppose:
 * the Epopt 14:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC) So if he reverts an article on the next-to-last day of that month, he'll be banned for only the remainder of the month; ie, one day?
 * Nohat 15:58, 2004 May 5 (UTC) prefer 3 revert limitation, below, to go into effect after 3 month ban
 * Martin 18:13, 5 May 2004 (UTC) (this would likely be equivalent to a straight one month ban, so I'd prefer a straight one month ban as simpler. Basically prefer alternatives)
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC) (The "indefinitely" option below is better)
 * Delirium 11:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC) Prefer a "no reverts without discussion, and even then only one of them" requirement, similar to below.
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Camembert 22:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Other:

''The below appears to be superseded by the point at


 * The previous ruling of the Arbitration Committee limiting the number of reverts Wik can perform in a 24 hour period shall be extended. Three additional months shall be added to this previous ruling.
 * Support:
 * Nohat 15:58, 2004 May 5 (UTC) to go into effect after 3 month ban, as part of "parole"
 * mav 08:01, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose:
 * Fred Bauder 13:00, May 5, 2004 (UTC)Just continues the game playing. We need to find another approach. If he can't shape up we need to eventually go to a lengthy ban.
 * the Epopt 14:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC) What he said.
 * James F. (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC) Agree with Fred.
 * Other:
 * Camembert 22:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC) (presumably the below trumps this)