Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Asmahan

Statement by Al Ameer son
It's unfortunate that the conflict between AC and SD has come to this. I hoped that they would be able to collaborate eventually, but that seems unlikely (not impossible) now. I think anyone who reads the talkpage discussions that the two users have taken part in involving the above-mentioned entertainers will see there's some sort of Egyptian-Syrian rivalry involved. It came to the point where they argued about which specific synonym to use for the word "return" as in "Asmahan returned to Cairo" or "Asmahan moved back to Syria"; apparently usage of the words "return" and "moved back" signified Asmahan's true country. I ended up suggesting we use the bland and less descriptive "went to" instead and then arguments arose concerning which sentences to use it in and not to use it.

I haven't looked too deep into their contributions outside Asmahan, but I know there was some similar issues with those other articles. I still don't think they should be banned or topic banned because after all, it was their contributions that made Asmahan a much larger and referenced article. It's really the edit wars and the frustrating discussions (which could be uncivil at times) that seem to be the problem. Therefore, I think the best thing to do in this situation is enforce the 1R rule with both Arab Cowboy and Supreme Deliciousness. If either of them violate the rule, it will become very clear that they are only interested in pushing their POVs in those articles and then some form of a ban should be put in place. --Al Ameer son (talk) 20:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification
I know its a bit early to ask for a formal clarification, but the Discretionary probation sanctions section is a bit unclear. Do these discretionary sanctions extend to: It is unclear from the text which correctly describes the "scope" of admins to place an article on probation and to sanction editors accordingly. Could we get some clarification? -- Jayron  32  02:21, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) All biography disputes over the national/ethnic identity of an individual?
 * 2) Only those persons of Middle Eastern decent?
 * 3) Only Asmahan?

Request to amend prior case: Asmahan
Initiated by  Supreme Deliciousness (talk) at 19:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedies


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment


 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
 * Nefer Tweety is aware:

Amendment 1

 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Asmahan
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Asmahan

Statement by Supreme Deliciousness
The scope of case as posted above show that Nefer Tweety has been involved in this conflict but no remedy was suggested against him, I had previously posted evidence showing that almost the only thing the Nefer Tweety account is used for is to back up Arab Cowboys edits, do the exact same edits as Arab Cowboy and revert to his edits, now after the case has been closed it has happened again, Nefer Tweety reverted the article back 4 months to Arab Cowboys last edit, not caring about edits made by several people Some of the edits he reverted:

In this reversion he amongst other things reinserted copyrighted material, I had made a copyright violation report and a copyright admin removed the copyrighted material here, the exact same copy righted text was re added by Nefer tweety, personal life, section: I had also corrected the sections according to previous collaborations and it was reverted:

Nefer Tweety disrespect to other peoples edits and inputs in the article, only caring about reverting to Arab Cowboys edit, not about improving the article, I am therefore requesting that Nefer Tweety gets topic banned from the articles involved in this case or banned from wikipedia altogether for being an agenda account with only one purpose.
 * Initial editing of above section finished at 20:07, 23 December 2009


 * response below was by Supreme Deliciousness to Vassyana, moved here by Carcharoth (talk) 18:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The case was about the disruption at the Asmahan article and related articles, the disruption continues with no remedy against Nefer Tweety. I have already used efforts to resolve the matter at the community level several times, I have already pointed out the 3O, rfc, mediations and interfering of admin al ameer son at the case, I filed an official plagiarism report and the CV was removed by admin and now Nefer Tweety has re added it, the article is on probation and no admin has interfered against the edit made by Nefer Tweety although I have pointed this out at the talkpage. It is this, the constant destruction of the Asmahan article, the constant going against collaborations by Arab Cowboy and Nefer Tweety.  --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Nefer Tweety
SD and AC have been warring over this article for a long time and SD took it to arbitration. As a result, on 15 Dec, SD was “prohibited from making changes to any article (specifically this one) about a person with respect to their ethnicity or nationality.” SD’s edits of 20 Dec. are the same as those he had made prior to his prohibition. SD’s latest edits, exactly as before his prohibition, are intended to dilute Asmahan's Egyptian nationality in favor of a Syrian one, which is a violation of his prohibition. He's inviting more edit wars and he should therefore be blocked at least for the remaining period of his prohibition as stated. He has been advised by the admins to leave this article alone and focus on others, but he is not complying. He's also changing his input on the Discussion page after people have responded to it! Nefer Tweety (talk) 06:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Statement by John Vandenberg
I agree with the arbitrators that issues relating to other editors should be taken to Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement first. The case was written in such a way that administrators can impose sanctions on other users, such as and, if they cause problems after a warning.

CactusWriter has cautioned Nefer Tweety at User_talk:Nefer_Tweety, but there is not yet a "warning" noted on the Arbcom case log. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion

 * Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Just because ArbCom has reviewed an area or examined specific editors in the past does not mean that all related matters are ArbCom business. Even where we have previously intervened, efforts to resolve the matter at the community level are usually required before we will step in. Have you tried utilizing the available dispute resolution options, including requesting admin intervention? Is there any particular reason this cannot be resolved at the community level? Vassyana (talk) 20:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not clear what change you want other than you want some sort of sanction. Besides, WP:SPI may be a more suitable venue, if you have the evidence to support a filing there.  — Rlevse • Talk  • 12:51, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you need arbitration enforcement here. There appear to be enough remedies in the case decision to help resolve this. Carcharoth (talk) 08:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Since the remedies in this case included discretionary sanctions, you should bring a case to arbitration enforcement. Shell  babelfish 13:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Concur with all of the above. Steve Smith (talk) 14:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Also concur. Please take this to Arbitration Enforcement.  Risker (talk) 03:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Aye, take this to Arbitration Enforcement. - Mailer Diablo 02:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Request to amend prior case: Asmahan (2)
Initiated by  Supreme Deliciousness at 18:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedy


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)


 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
 * Arab Cowboy is aware.

Amendment 1

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Asmahan#Remedies
 * Remedy on Arab Cowboy - requesting that Arab Cowboys becomes permanently banned from Asmahan.

Statement by Supreme Deliciousness
Arab Cowboy has been caught using a sockpuppet. He created this puppet on the 17th november while the arbitration case was processing, 3 days after the admins posted proposed remedys that would ban the both of us from changing the nationality or ethnicity of persons:  He used it during the case while choosing not to answer the remaining questions. He has used this sockpuppet to repeatedly violate his topic ban and restriction (look at all the edits he has done) and he has also used it at Asmahan. This shows his true intentions. It shows what kind of respect he has to wikipedia, what kind of respect he has to the arbitration case, and what he planned to do (and also did) at the Asmahan article.

I am now requesting that Arab Cowboy becomes permanently banned from editing the Asmahan article. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 18:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Response to Steve Smith: The arbitror John Vandenberg said: "I've read all of the Evidence page a few times, and reviewed all of the contribs of both the main parties. I have chosen to not incorporate all of the past problems into these proposals because I think you are both new users who are learning quickly, and will be good users if you both avoid identity disputes." Arab Cowboy created his sockpuppet two days later. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 11:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Response to Vassyana: the enforcement says that a user can be blocked to one year after 5 violations of restrictions and blocks. Arab Cowboy not only violated his restriction and ban more then 5 times, but created a sockpuppet do do it with. This is a greater violation, and therefor the topic ban for 5 months is not sufficient. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 12:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Response to John Vandenberg: Arab Cowboy first attempted to deny the connection: It wasn't until after he admitted it. Arab Cowboy made posts with the Medjool account at the Asmahan talkpage without saying it was him, making it look like it was another user supporting the edits he had edit warred over with his Arab Cowboy account. See for example his reply to number 2 when he says with his Medjool account "P. 36 is not viewable online (at least I could not see it), so how could your claim be verified?", while at the workshop Arab Cowboy talked about what it "said" on page 36: and he has talked about p36 before at the talkpage 1c:... this alone shows that he was pretending to be someone else with the Medjool account. A WP:CLEANSTART attempt is "create a new one that becomes the only account you use." which is not what he did. After he created the Medjool account he simultaneously continued to use the Arab Cowboy account editing articles and making posts at talkpages with both accounts. WP:CLEANSTART also says: "This is permitted only if there are no bans or blocks in place against your old account, and so long as no active deception is involved, particularly on pages that the old account used to edit." Arab Cowboy had a ban on him which he violated  repeatedly with the Medjool account, and he used it in the same article that the old account edited. Arab Cowboy got restricted and topic banned on the 14th december:  He used the Medjool account to repeatedly violate his topic ban and restriction after 14th december. So how can you say "there was no problematic edits in the first place" ?? This involves more then 1 revert per page per week  and changes with the respect to the ethnicity or nationality of people which he is not allowed to do. So how can you even suggest that the discretionary sanction should be lifted?


 * Here are some of the diffs Arab Cowboy made with his Medjool account after 14th december when he was topic banned and restricted:


 * Changes with respect to the ethnicity or nationality:


 * More then 1 revert per page per week: and  --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply to Carcharoth: Why are you even mentioning WP:CLEANSTART? If it was a WP:CLEANSTART, why did he edit articles and make posts at talkpages with both accounts at the same time?--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 22:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by John Vandenberg
There is a bit more to this. I'll provide a statement as soon as I can. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay.

has admitted on their talk page that they were . It was an attempt at a WP:CLEANSTART.

Medjool's edits to Talk:Asmahan were definitely not a violation of the arbcom restrictions.

Medjool's edits were not a clear violation of WP:SOCK. If anything, there is an element of "avoiding scrutiny" to the edits to Talk:Asmahan. The main problem here was that the edits to Talk:Asmahan resulted in the CLEANSTART hitting the rocks. Please read and understand those edits in order to understand why Arab Cowboy made those edits.

"Medjool" was a violation of Arbcom's motion requiring that they are informed of changes of account name by restricted users, however WP:SOCK does not mention that! Also, at the time that Medjool was created, Arab Cowboy was not a restricted user.

As such, it is a long stretch to use these edits as justification for discretionary sanctions; that wasn't their purpose, and there was no warning (because there was no problematic edits in the first place). And now that Medjool's prior account is disclosed, this discretionary sanction should be lifted.

At the SPI case, action was taken before Arab Cowboy/Medjool could reasonably respond. From start to finish, it was done in 7 hours, on new years eve. And it was only 2.5 hours from the time that SD had finished presenting the case to the time that Medjool was blocked.

Arab Cowboy has indicated that they would like to continue editing as Medjool.

I ask you all to consider the JohnWBarber case, which has similar issues wrt CLEANSTART and that user was allowed to continue editing under their new username, despite the fact that their CLEANSTART had failed.

John Vandenberg (chat) 02:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by NuclearWarfare
I forwarded an email to the Arbitration Committee (on what gmail says is 1 Jan 2010 13:04:56 -0500; I am assuming that is either 13:04 or 18:04 UTC) that is of relevance to this discussion. Any arbitrators looking over this request for amendment probably should look over that email first. Best wishes, NW ( Talk ) 17:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I note that John believes that my actions were not warranted under the terms of the discretionary sanctions that were voted upon in this case. However, I believe that violating the clean start policy (invoking it while you are in an active ArbCom dispute is a violation of the spirit, if not the wording, of the rule) by editing the same article you were restricted on, would count as disruptive editing, which the article probation is meant to prevent. It does not matter what the edits were, but the fact that he was trying to influence content by posting in response to SD on the talk page without revealing his old account was troubling. I believe that merited a formal topic ban at the very least. However, I would have no problem with the Arbitration Committee or a group of editors on a WP:AN or WP:AE reversing my action if they feel that it was excessive. NW ( Talk ) 10:57, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by other editor
{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Further discussion

 * Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * has topic-banned Arab Cowboy from all articles under the scope of the case until June 15. I see no reason to turn that long-term topic ban into an indefinite ban as requested; a lot can happen in five and a half months. Steve Smith (talk) 00:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Awaiting more statements as promised above. Can the clerks please ensure everyone who needs to be notified has been. Carcharoth (talk) 04:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Do we really need to tell editors at arbitration that WP:CLEANSTART doesn't apply to them? Agree with Vassyana that there are problems here. Suggest that one account is selected, and that account used to negotiate an unblock with conditions (such as a lengthy topic ban), but a straight unblock is not warranted here, and any action can be taken by administrators if any are willing to take action. Carcharoth (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Awaiting further statements, but I note NuclearWarfare's actions and wonder what further action is needed from ArbCom. Vassyana (talk) 21:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Analysis. Upon review, this is not simply a failed clean start inhibited by innocent mistakes, but rather a clear violation of our sockpuppetry principles. There are edits regarding ethnicity and cultural identity that display a strong, clear POV. This is highly relevant since Arab Cowboy's conflicts have been over cultural identity and ethnicity. The edits to Talk:Asmahan are clearly problematic as it is a return to conflict with an editor that has had extensive conflict with Arab Cowboy. The very first talk page edit is a bad faith accusation. Using the Medjool account, he defends his own edits made as Arab Cowboy. Both are clearly over the line. The account was used at least twice to circumvent the 1RR restriction imposed on Arab Cowboy. (1, 2, 3 within 5 days. Another 1, 2, 3 within 5 days.) In total, I see an account that was used to promote a strong point of view, continue disputes under a new guise, and circumvent editing restrictions. Vassyana (talk) 19:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. The sock block and extended topic ban seem perfectly warranted in the above context. Contrary to concerns about excessive or punitive measures, I see the results as rather lenient given the circumstances. I do not think ArbCom needs to be involved further at this juncture. If uninvolved administrators and/or the community still feel stronger measures are needed or that this matter needs further review in some way, I am confident that it can be resolved at that level. Vassyana (talk) 19:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm going with Vassyana's viewpoint here. WP:CLEANSTART does not allow you to come back in and have another go, which is what Arab Cowboy/Medjool did here. SirFozzie (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)