Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories

Statements by uninvolved parties
The following statements were posted to this case's section on Requests for Arbitration, when the case was first presented to the Arbitration Committee for consideration. The case has now been accepted, and the statements by non-parties moved to the talk page, per procedure. Please do not amend the statements by the editors below, and place any discussion threads below all the statements, rather than above or in-between.

Thank you, AGK § 19:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Statement by ChrisO
I'm uninvolved in this case - like JzG I've never edited anything to do with 9/11 - but having seen this sort of problem recurring many times I fully agree that there are significant issues here that need to be addressed. One of Wikipedia's most persistent problems is our inability to deal with single-purpose editors (many whom are cranks and obsessives, to put it bluntly). Their main if not sole purpose here is to raise the profile of their favourite fringe theory, dilute the mainstream view or achieve both ends at once. The problems described above with 9/11 conspiracy theories are just the tip of the iceberg. We've seen the same thing with issues as varied as Terri Schiavo, intelligent design and vaccines. The problem has got so bad, in fact, that a number of our scientist editors are discussing withdrawing en masse from Wikipedia and letting the articles they're "defending" collapse into a pile of fringe gibberish (see discussion at User:Raymond arritt/Expert withdrawal). Unfortunately, we have a systemic problem in dealing with fringe POV-pushers. Because of their obsessiveness and tenaciousness, they can simply wear down the non-fringe editors, which by the look of it is what is happening in this particular case.

This is a collective failure on our part. We need to recognise that these people are not here to improve Wikipedia - JzG is absolutely right in the way he characterises the problem - and we need to act accordingly. Note that this isn't like nationalist disputes (Israel-Palestine, Balkans, Gdanzig etc) where disputes involve two or more widely held conflicting POVs that need to be balanced. Fringe theory controversies invariably involve supporters of a small or tiny-minority POV seeking to acquire undue weight for their views or displace the largely or overwhelmingly dominant POV through the use of persistent tendentious editing over very long periods of time (compare the case of the banned User:GordonWatts for a textbook example of this sort of crankery, relating to the Terri Schiavo case). Those of us who are admins need to be much tougher with such tendentious editors, and there needs to be a lot less tolerance for bogus "free speech" arguments. We're here to build a reliable mainstream encyclopedia, not to run a bulletin board. Ultimately we as a community need to kick out the worst of the tendentious fringe POV-pushers. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Selmo
I have left Wikipedia partly because of this issue, in addition to spending more time on my schoolwork, and I do not want to get involved in this case. I have, however looked at the talk pages of the articles relating to the topic, and I have made some observations.

Stephen Colbert's "wikiality" best describe the psychology of 9/11 debunkers of the Wikipedia community; The official story is correct because we all say so. This can be illustrated using Aude's reference to WP:CON. CON has been the root as to why this has become a major issue - Wikipedia administrators for whatever reason (they all had relatives who died during that attack or they have an emotional attachment to the 9/11 commission report or they're CIA spooks, or whatever) have all agreed that the relative articles are free of bias.

Dozens of individuates have pointed out that the articles have a huge right wing spin. Those who mention this are quickly labelled "conspiracy theorists". The debate about 9/11 quickly drifts to a debate about the contributors' intentions. They are called "POV Pushers", "Vandals" and debunkers seemingly ignore their clarifications regarding good faith vs bad faith edits. It is essentially Ad hominem. Attempting to debate the issues anyway are considered "trolling" and their comments are censored.

Other methods of changing the topic include criticizing the editor for making a link to a (at least according to consensus) "attack site" or weather the source is reliable, even though it is clearly a primary source of one of the major figureheads of the 9/11 truth movement. Despite proper attribution (Mr. Smith claims...) and counterclaims (Popular Mechanics says...) editors are accused of POV pushing.

If Wikipedia does not wish to act on the feedback it has received then that is fine, but it just goes to show how it can become easily controlled.

Comparisons
I read people comparing this case with intelligent design or vaccines. I think it's a completely inappropriate comparison: in those cases we have scientific theories versus theories which are not accepted by the scientific community. In the case of 9/11 we have no scientific theory and the scientific community has no position on the possible accounts of the events. More legitimate comparisons for 9/11 are the Kennedy assassination theories or the 2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities or the Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge debate.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 19:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * A lot of the claims with regards to the tower collapses are actually scientific in nature, and for those we do have scientific explanations for what happened. It's not the whole case, certainly, but there are a few scientific aspects to consider. --Infophile (Talk) (Contribs) 20:19, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes you are right, there are single limited facts for which science is relevant but they are linked to the more extreme and more fringe conspiracy claims and not, for example, to the LIHOP hypothesis.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That's fair enough. In a broader sense, though, we can characterize this as a conflict between mainstream and fringe theories, which certainly fits with what's going on with ID, vaccines, etc. Remember here that it isn't just the US government which supports the mainstream theory here, but numerous experts who've studied various aspects of it. Of course, none of this means that comparisons to other cases of conspiracy theories are invalid; they also exhibit this conflict. --Infophile (Talk) (Contribs) 20:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Who would be the experts according to whom the LIHOP hypotesy is likely to be false or there is no conver up? Nobody. This is not a "field" where experts are relevant. It's just a case like Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge debate. The "mainstream" here is not something authoritative like in the case of vaccines science is. "Mainstream" here are just the mainstream news services which as we know are almost always linked to political and economical interests and cannot pretend to have any special authority in their selection of the facts or the narrative.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 10:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * When comparing cases, it is, in my view, important not only to look at the general topic of the article, but on the precise formulation of the title of the article. In this regard, there is a huge difference between an article aboout a subject and an article about specific theories or viewpoints on a subject.
 * For example, with regard to the article World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories, any theory that suggests that nuclear bombs would have been used would very likely be considered a fringe theory, but not the thermitic explosives theory, which is the most prominent theory within the scope of the article.
 * This also applies to sources. In this particular context, there is no need to provide evidence that the conclusions reached in any conspiracy theory would likely be true. The sources must be judged according to whether they reliably and verifiably support a statement on what the theory, as described by the title of the article, is about (even if every Wikipedia editor would agree that the theory itself is false).
 * We need to establish a more clearly defined policy with regard to fringe theories and minority views in the context of articles explicitly devoted to them, or we run the risk that editors will continue to have very different and conflicting perception on those policies, leading, at best, to misunderstanding, but also allowing editors of both side to continue gaming the system.
 * "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" (see WP:V). Yet, a recurring theme on the pages, leading to unpleasant discussions and destructive behaviour, is that people who present verifiable source are accused of presenting sources that contain claims that are themselves untrue. Attempts to prove that these claims were true, which are themselves misguided because they do not follow WP:V, are met with accusations that editors would push their POV, soapboxing etc.
 * These accusations, seen in isolation, are of course, often correct. However, the whole sequence of events leads to an objective lack of possibilities for constructive resolution, and a subjective unwillingness to cooperate in a constructive way, unless the underlying policy issues are being resolved. --Cs32en (talk) 16:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for appeal: Topic ban of Thomas Basboll
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)
 * notified

Status as of May 9, 2008
On April 21, 2008, Raul654 topic banned me without warning, referring to the Arbitration Committee's discretionary sanctions in the 9/11 area, and describing this edit as "horrendous POV-pushing" in the face of an alleged consensus that this version is the only one supported by policy (discussion at AE). I immediately appealed the ban. I believe that this is a content issue, not simply a question of implementing the NPOV policy (which I of course support). I also believe that the dispute is essentially about the style of the article (both versions make the same claims with slightly different emphasis). I had in any case discussed the edit in a civil fashion in advance, had conducted a straw poll (which supported my edit), and had indicated that I would not oppose a revert in the short term. Almost three weeks later, I am still waiting to hear the Committee's position, and Raul has not yet made a statement.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Thomas Basboll
Raul654 has imposed a topic ban as sanctioned by ArbCom's recent ruling in the case on 9/11 conspiracy theories (see discussion at at AE). I do not consider myself a POV pusher (nor, it should go without saying, a conspiracy theorist or "truther"). I have devoted my time here (increasingly narrowly) as a good-faith single-purpose editor to articles related the collapse of the WTC, which interests me both from a technical, engineering point of view and as an episode in the philosophy, history and sociology of knowledge. I consider the WTC collapse article to be mainly an article on an engineering topic, and the controlled demolition hypothesis article to be mainly an article about a fringe hypothesis (comparable to, say, memory of water and, until recently, ball lightning, a phenomenon whose status is changing). I have edited them as such, in accordance with what I know, and based on (to my mind) reasonable interpretations of reliable sources.

I have behaved civily in all discussions, and was in this case implementing what I saw as an emerging consensus (from a week-long poll) in good faith, and explicitly noted that anyone could revert it if they thought I was jumping the gun. Taking a longer view, my editing on these articles has been overwhelmingly accepted by consensus. The difference between the two versions being discussed in this particular case is very small. (This, for example, gives an indication of the difference between my proposal and Jehochman's; note that the bulk of my allegedly POV-pushing edit, namely, the merger of the overview section with the lead, has been preserved.) It is certainly a far cry from the sorts of claims that are normally associated with 9/11 CT POV-pushers. Moreover, I am willing to accept either of the two possible solutions. The purpose of the poll was to clearly identify the consensus in order to make it easier to maintain the page in the face of predictable edits.

Somewhat ironically, I had already explained this to Jehochman before he lodged his complaint against my "horrendous POV pushing". I now, of course, understand why he didn't contribute to the poll. He seems to believe none of this, i.e., patient, civil ongoing discussion about the scientific status of the hypothesis, should be necessary. I look forward to hearing ArbCom's view on this matter.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Addendum
Mongo has added a number of charges to the Tango Arbitration that are probably better dealt with here. It includes a characteristically false allegation [insinuation]: "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. Aude was also able to get Construction of the World Trade Center (a peripheral article) to FA status as well during Basboll's hiatus ." Clearly this statement can only begin to make sense if I had actually worked on the articles that he rightly praises Aude's work on. Well, until my departure in May 2007, I had not edited them. I've actually checked back through my contributions. As far as I can tell I had not made a single edit to those articles before my break. It can hardly be in my absence that Aude was able to bring the 7 WTC article up to FA; there is simply no basis for identifying my hiatus with a "disruption free period" in this case. MONGO next suggests that, upon my return, I began to disrupt her work. He cites discussion threads that begin here. Notice that these threads conclude with agreement reached between Aude and I. The article was simply improved. By contrast, during my most recent absence, MONGO had four months to deal with a POV tag issue he insisted on leaving in, thereby ensuring that the article would fail a GA review after I had fixed a series shortcomings not related to CTs that had been identified by the sweeps reviewer. Nothing was done until, upon my return, I raised that as obviously the most pressing issue to deal with. I was immediately called a POV pusher and troll (the cause of what is now the Tango arbitration) and it was suggested that the section, after sitting quietly in the article for four months with a "neutrality disputed" tag, should just be deleted. Here, too, the situation has been resolved after lengthy discussions ... this time in MONGO's absence (block and retirement).--Thomas Basboll (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for clarification of the difference that made the difference
Regardless of how AC judges my appeal, it will be useful to clarify the extent to which it is against policy to edit on the wrong side of this difference.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 11:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by JzG
I didn't see the debate, but there is no doubt that Thomas Basboll's presence in those articles, while generally not egregiously uncivil, has had the effect of inflaming disputes and extending debate on matters where there is clearly a strong agreement with a few prominent holdouts, Basboll being one of same. His opinions on 9/11 are definitely not mainstream, and tireless advocacy of non-mainstream positions is one of the things I consider to be a serious problem in Wikipedia right now, so I would be inclined to support Raul's call here. Guy (Help!) 08:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting that he is "incivil" in a non-egregious way? On what grounds?
 * If there is "no doubt" that he inflames disputes please provide proofs about this.
 * Provide proofs also of "clearly strong agreement" where debates have been extended.
 * Personal opinions are completely irrelevant (and you would have to prove them too).
 * If "advocacy" is so big a problem why don't you provide proofs of advocacy in this case?
 * According to which policy your (unproved) description of the user would be enough for a ban?
 * Unless you will provide any supporting material yours is just a groundless personal attack.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 18:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * See WP:SOUP. Guy (Help!) 19:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * How is someone challenging your view of something you "consider to be a serious problem" and asking for concrete examples to support some fairly broad statements in any way comparable to a distraction tactic? I really don't see a problem with "extending debate" - no article is ever finished and available information always changes. Debate is necessary, and from what I've seen of this user (admittedly not a huge amount), he appears to debate in a relatively constructive manner. I know a lot of people don't agree with this, but I feel firmly that is important in any kind of collaborative project for exclusion to be the resort only when there is absolutely no other option. I have seen no evidence to suggest that this is the case. 78.86.18.55 (talk) 00:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thomas is a supporter of certain fringe theories. His continued advocacy of those fringe theories in the face of multiple rejections, constitutes disruptive behaviour.  Thomas is a perfectly nice fellow, he simply has this fringe view which he cannot bring himself to drop voluntarily. That does not make him evil, but it does make for a problem. Guy (Help!) 20:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * at the risk of being presumptuous, I'll reword this. I don't think Thomas holds the fringe view, or rather I presume he doesn't.  However, he advocates its inclusion to the articles as if it were not a fringe view.  This is very difficult to deal with.  He is perfectly civil.  There are others that advocate the fringe view that support him and make him feel as if inclusion is consensus.  This is the problem in that continuous battles to include this material is not conducive to building the encyclopedia with high quality content.  --DHeyward (talk) 01:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Whether Thomas rather than you is right about the correct application of WP:UNDUE in the specific cases is a matter to be discussed in the talk page of the articles as required by the Wikipedia editorial process. You can't say that people are "a problem" just because you disagree with their opinions about content issues unless they don't follow the Wikipedia editorial process, which is not the case.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 10:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What you DHeyward and others are overlooking is that the edit that led to this ban was not a fringe view. What you are in effect saying here is that because he supports a fringe view then any edit he makes regardless of legitimacy is automatically rejected. This goes to the unanswered question I posed earlier. Was it the intention of Arbcom to stabilise the article by restricting editing to the “official” mainstream viewpoint to the exclusion of other minor but significant viewpoints as well as fringe viewpoints?. Wayne (talk) 13:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You are incorrect on all accounts. Firstly, I don't view the topic ban as the result of one edit, rather a collection of a body of work that culminated in a final edit, i.e. the "last straw".  This was after the arbcom ruling.  Secondly, the whole article "Controlled Demilition Hypothesis..." is an article on a notable fringe theory.  NPOV does not require that Wikipedia write the article as if this theory were accepted or that it must be written as if it were possible.  Rather, the overwhelming scientific consensus view is taht this is a fringe conspriacy theory that has no merit in science or engineering and that it should be treated as such.  The NPOV challenge is to present these facts about the hypothesis and not get confused with neutrally advocating the position.  The facts are that it's 1) fringe 2) conspiracy theory and 3) overwhelmingly refuted.  That's a neutral assessment of the hypothesis.  The challenge for editors is to present those facts without advocating the theory and also to present it without disparaging the holders of this view.  It is not NPOV to treat it as a legitmate theory.  --DHeyward (talk) 16:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Lets clarify a few points. It was not a "final edit, i.e. the "last straw" but the first edit he made after the Arbcom. The edit did not support any fringe theory but in fact added a sentence which reduced the weight of fringe theories. This sentence was later replaced in the article the day after Thomas' edit was reverted and is still there. This means that the only part of his edit disputed was removing the words "911 conspiracy" from the first sentence and moving it to the second sentence where he expanded it by explaining it is fringe and not accepted. In his edit summary he even said that if you didn't agree with the edit, revert it. Basically a single minor edit of no real importance that had general support got an editor banned. Wayne (talk) 04:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman
I filed the arbitration enforcement request. Truthers have been trying to whitewash Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center for quite some time, and a variety of editors have been attempting to restore neutral point of view. Id est:      At some point people need to understand that Wikipedia is not a soapbox for advancing fringe theories. The community has been put on notice. Enough is enough. Let the administrators do their work. User:Thomas Basboll's long contribution history shows three main types of contributions to Wikipedia: 1/ pushing a Truther POV, 2/ attacking MONGO, and 3/ engaging in various processes to support those agendas. We simply do not need single purpose policy violation accounts, no matter how polite they may be. Jehochman Talk 08:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Pokipsy76
We don't determine whether Bigfoot exists by polling Bigfoot believers. We follow what the preponderance of reliable sources say. Jehochman Talk 08:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Why do you speak abouth "truthers": can you prove anyone here is a truther?
 * Your opinion about what is the due weight to give to allegedly "fringe" theories is not relevant here, it must be decided by means of consensus.
 * Administrators have not the right to unilaterally decide what is the due weight and who did violate it. It's up to the wikipedia community by means of consensus. --Pokipsy76 (talk) 18:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Uninvolved Ncmvocalist
It appears that the editor who has been sanctioned has made good-faith attempts to try to find common ground among two sides - one side who feels that a certain hypothesis is labelled as a conspiracy theory, and another who doesn't. It is irrespective that I am of the opinion that it should be labelled as a conspiracy theory, because this editor in conducting a straw poll, has identified it as a conspiracy theory - whether it is in the first sentence, or the second of the article - although, the second sentence did not give enough emphasis on this I feel.

Although straw polls do not determine consensus, there was some discussion. The editor who filed the Arb-enforcement request made no attempts to participate in the discussion until earlier today, despite being invited to by the editor over 5 days ago, and editing on the article during those 5 days. In his editing, he has in fact on several occasions quoted 'consensus', but because the very policy clearly outlines that consensus can change, he should have engaged in the current discussion.

I find that there is insufficient evidence (of the sanctioned user failing to adhere to the Wikipedia principles outlined) for a sanction to be imposed in this case. However, the editor should've "been counselled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines" as per the the remedy imposed by the ArbCom - I see none being given by the admin who imposed this sanction.

I am therefore of the opinion that there appear to be grounds for an appeal here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Xiutwel
It seems to me an emotional decision, blocking an editor, citing one edit.

Raul654 first neglected to give any specific reasons, and later added one edit as "the reason". onetwothree

I think Raul misunderstands the ArbCom decision, and also misunderstands NPOV policy. &mdash; Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 19:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * at User:Raul654/Civil POV pushing he explaines why involved editors should engage in POV disputes to make sure that the commendable POV (the government does not lie) triumphs over the evil POV's. It is clear that Raul fails to understand how policy, by following its process, leads to good articles. In stead, he starts with "the truth" and sees editors who disagree with him as "the Problem".  &mdash; Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 19:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by semi-involved Wayne
I do not edit the article and do not personally believe the CD theory. I do however participate in talk occasionally as I believe the CD theory should be treated fairly. Comparing the current version with Thomas' version shows a difference of less than half a sentence which is not particularly controversial and was made in good faith after discussion. If we compare Thomas' edit with the original version we see that the current version is now closer to his edit than was the original and in fact his is more critical of the theory than the original was. There was no warning before banning and no reason given for the ban. The reasons eventually given were confusing and lacked substance. Jehochman says "We don't determine whether Bigfoot exists by polling Bigfoot believers." but this is a gross misrepresentation. The poll was of both supporters and opposition and was primarily a grammatical edit that implied no preference for any conclusion. If Jehochman equates his refusal to take part in the discussion as bias to Thomas' viewpoint then he has no one to blame but himself and Thomas should not be punished for his failure. Given what I see I have to ask, why is Arbcom enforcement so strictly enforced that it equates to either a.) almost total control of the article by supporters of the official theory or b.) discourages neutral editors from participating? Was it the intention of Arbcom to stabilise the article by restricting editing to the “official” mainstream viewpoint to the exclusion of other minor but significant viewpoints as well as fringe viewpoints? Wayne (talk) 05:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Raul654 is NOT an "uninvolved" administrator
The arbitration remedy states:
 * "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)"

Raul654 is NOT an "uninvolved" administrator.


 * Raul654 has edited 7 World Trade Center‎, one of the 9/11 articles. Raul654 edits show that he supports the Jehochman's position.
 * Raul654 deletes a fact tag on the sentence:
 * "The original 7 World Trade Center collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on September 11 due to the combined effect of structural and fire damage." stating "rv - well known fact"


 * Raul654's talk page comments on 7 World Trade Center‎ where he argues against those who support a controlled demolition.
 * Raul654 reverts 7 World Trade Center‎ then protects the page, in violation of Admin

Raul654 blocks editors he edit wars with

 * This involved block is not a single incident either, Raul654 has a history of blocking editors he is edit warring with, in violation of BLOCK. See also this ANI.

Raul654's did not follow the arbcom guidelines
Raul654's did not follow the arbcom guidelines, the arbitration remedy states:
 * "...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...Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines. Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to...amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators"

Raul654 did not warn Thomas before the block: "Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision".

The arbitration remedy states also:


 * "Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to edit carefully, to adopt Wikipedia's communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, dispute resolution, neutral point of view, no original research and verifiability) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators"

Thomas Basboll used a "communal approach" in a straw poll. Jehochman lost the straw poll, which meant a majority of editors agreed with Thomas's POV. Instead of attempting to build consensus, Jehochman filed this Arbitration enforcement.

Jehochman's evidence
The seven edits which Jehochman uses as evidence to topic ban Thomas are as follows:
 * Thomas "boldly" implementing the results of the straw poll.
 * Jehochman reverting Thomas, in an argument over one sentence. In both Jehochman and Thomas's revisions 9/11 conspiracy theories remains in the sentence. Jehochman is reverted by Pokipsy76.
 * Jehochman reverts anon 67.164.76.73, which has nothing to do with Thomas.
 * Jehochman reverts WillOakland, and then is reverted by 67.168.160.59.
 * MONGO reverts Apostle12.
 * Jehochman reverts Wowest who is reverted by Dscotese
 * Jehochman reverts Dscotese

Only the first involves Thomas.

Raul based his ban on one Thomas edit which Jehochman complained about

Jehochman's language shows that he is just as much a POV warrior as Thomas is:
 * "Truthers"
 * "tendentious group of editors"
 * "horrendous POV pushing"
 * "Truthers have been trying to whitewash the article for quite some time"
 * "The community has been put on notice. Enough is enough."

POV warriors often:
 * 1) label their opponents ("Truthers"),
 * 2) use vivid adjectives ("horrendous") to describe their opponents,
 * 3) make absolute statements ("Enough is enough").

User:Ikip 23:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by DHeyward
I can only say that the Collapse of the World Trade Center article is vastly superior since the edits of April 22. Because of the vast amount of progress in the short amount of time, I have to support the article ban. This is now a proper article without huge WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE and other problems. I have tried to edit this article prior to the enforcement action and endless discussion about non-reliable, fringe theories was counterproductive. --DHeyward (talk) 07:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * After comparing the differences you claim make the article "vastly superior" I notice that apart from cosmetic edits the only real changes are the deletion of a NIST reference and a reference to the engineer Cherepanov that I am disputing. This dispute is exactly what I just said in my reply to you above....Because Cherepanov supports a fringe theory you deleted a claim he made that is not fringe and tacitly supported by other reliable sources. I also notice that the current version still contains almost all of the edits Thomas Basboll made before April 22. The more I see the more I feel Thomas is being penalised for his views rather than his editing. Wayne (talk) 14:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Amen to that. Probably it's worth being underlined that Thomas' views, expressed here on Wikipedia, are strictly on wiki-editing matters, like the one that editors should look carefully into what scientific and reliable sources say and report it accordingly, without WP:OR, or locking our heads onto mainstream media ("so that Internet not suck").
 * Why is this case so mostly ignored by admins? Please voice your opinions. salVNaut (talk) 02:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I have seen the tactics of User:DHeyward and the other deletionists for 3 years. They only one view on wikipedia: their own. The mask their POV attacks in acronyms and wikirules, but when all of their highbrow and lowbrow tactics are stripped away, you simply have a POV agenda, in which these users will do anything, and have done anything, to silence those who oppose their deletions. Inclusionist (talk) 04:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you almost done bandying about that 'D' word, Travis? Name-calling is name-calling, whether the words of choice are taken from an editorial in The Economist or not. Seriously. It's getting old. ~ S0CO  ( talk 04:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Pokipsy76
Before making the edit which motivated the ban Thomas discussed it and apparently had an unanimous consensus involving people having usually different views. If a good faith editor can be banned without any previous warning for an edit discussed and having unanimous consensus then nobody will ever feel free to make any edit whatsoever.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 16:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Junglecat
There are certain areas I don't contribute to, or no longer contribute to on this project. The key reasons are based on several issues that I can elaborate on later if need be. To be brief, I believe I "hit the nail on the head" in regards to my response to one editor: ''This project was meant to be the "sum of all human knowledge." It was never meant to be a place where it becomes a soapbox for theories and ideas that someone decided use as a propaganda tool. Here's a good example that might help explain - You know, we have a Moon landing hoax article. Shall we ramrod this into the Apollo program and Moon landing articles to where we look like a website full of garbage? This is an encyclopedia. Everything has its place, and in a nutshell, that must be maintained. Anything beyond that becomes soapboxing, etc.''  JungleCat    Shiny! / Oohhh!  02:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It's worth looking at the whole exchange and the article talk page discussion it was about . Notice that the noble sentiment JungleCat quotes himself for was originally expressed to support an editor who had exclaimed his wonderment that someone might "believe such crap" when the editor it was directed at had politely suggested he withdraw it. While calling someone's (alleged) beliefs "crap" may not directly violate the purpose of Wikipedia, it is surely a bit off the mark to quote the founding idea of Wikipedia to justify such insults?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 23:10, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I made it clear that I did not endorse any insult. I am familiar with Thomas' editing habits from this RfC.  Toward the conclusion of that RfC, Thomas was asked very politely (with additional input also from myself) to consider looking into other areas of the project that might appeal to him.  . As an SPA, he was topic banned from a specific area, and this was not a mistake.    JungleCat    Shiny! / Oohhh!  01:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Morton attributed a belief to me that I do not hold. He also called it crap. I approached him on his talk page to ask him to withdraw the insult, which did not add anything constructive to the discussion about the article. He refused to withdraw it. You agreed with his position, and I noted that Morton was letting the insult stand. You said that your support for Morton "was not meant to add to any insult", then added some futher speculation about my beliefs, and suggested I might be soapboxing and violating policy. Morton rounds the whole thing off as follows: "You shovel it in, we muck it out." That was the end of it. To say that you "made it clear that you did not endorse any insult" is a bit peculiar. What you made clear is that you did not think I had grounds to take offense at having my ideas called "crap" since they actually are crap. To repeat: I do not hold the views Morton attributes to me. Those views, moreover, were not relevant since the source we were discussing also does not hold those views. "Your beliefs are crap" is certainly an insult in most real intellectual communities. To "not endorse" it would have been to agree with me in the situation we are discussing, not Morton.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You are dodging the statement that is the relevant one. And quote: You seem determined to evangelize on behalf of these theories, so yes, it is relevant. We're supposed to be editing a neutral encyclopedia here, not one bent on promoting pseudo-scientific ideas. - MortonDevonshire 20:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC). Morton's other wording I would have not used myself. I'll let the arbitration committee decide this whole issue if they choose to accept. JungleCat    Shiny! / Oohhh!  15:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Then you should not have agreed with Morton. The thread in question was only about Morton's "other wording". I was asking him to strike it out if he didn't really mean it. He really meant it. In any case, I am not dodging that statement of his at all; I am denying it. I do not evangelize. Very little of what I "shovel in" ever gets "mucked out" because I do good work and it wins consensus. My editing seeks the neutral point of view, etc.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 17:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, apparently you have crossed the line pertaining to a previous arbcom decision. I’ll let you have the last word as I am not going to respond to you anymore here. JungleCat    Shiny! / Oohhh!  18:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that appearance is what this appeal is about.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tachyonbursts
I'll state it as broad as one can. We've been watching this evolving for years, at this point in time we have European and Japanese parliaments discussing the severity and disturbing background of the issue, yet we fail to recognize such facts? Why is that? Why do we let these outrageous conspiracy theories thrive in here, posed by Aude and Mongo and these new-old accounts we have today? Thomas and Peter and then PTR and Morton and then others are all allowed to sock puppet on the issue while literary hundreds of free minded editors are kept out of the discussion without valid reason whatsoever. Do say, what do we see here in cycle after cycle? We see one group of editors with a very strong POV imposing hegemony on the article which is located on free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I don't see how this is acceptable. Take what's going on at this moment, we have utterly phony, even ridiculous, completely one sided one minded discussion about good article there, we have POV pushers pushing their POV while the rest of community is watching with dismay, locked away as we are locked away from Universe itself. I'll ask you, is this pattern recognizable in our reality? That event abolished some very basic freedoms and we are about to recognize it as such, thus (whether you're willing to accept it or not) leaving ourselves without some very basic tools. Those folks said: We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. Well I don't like this war and terror reality they've failed to make, and I for one will never ever forgive the mass murder of American citizens which was made for self gain. That said, imo, and as far as I've seen in past time, Thomas repeatedly endured personal attacks; he stood firmly and didn't loose his temper even at times when he faced full barrages of Mongo's and Morton's incivility. I don't see how he deserved this ban, if he deserved anything it would be a star for dealing with vandals, who are, at last, recognized as such by a community much wider than Wikipedia. Finally, I'll point out something what should be clear to anyone by now. When it comes to 9/11 discussions, what recent years showed is the fact that so called mainstream account failed to enter mainstream some time ago, whether in here, or out there, we're facing with censorship of tremendous magnitude. Whether we recognize it or not, we are now living in 1984. You can take our own experience and you'll understand why there is no RS for whole plethora of undeniable and undeniably disturbing facts. In the end, and regardless of the decision on this particular issue, I'd like to ask the administrators one question, so we may know where will we go, Jimbo may chip in as well.

Whose project is this? Who owns the 9/11 Article? Is it the government or its people? Thanks. Tachyonbursts (talk) 13:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: User:Tachyonbursts is an editor with less than 500 edits. Inclusionist (talk) 04:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Further note: User:Tachyonbursts has been indef blocked since 4 May 2008. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion
* Recuse per my statements in Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories and Requests for arbitration/Tango. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I see Raul654's actions here as being in line with the AC's decision, and support them. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 01:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

on this archiving, see arb stmt here:, and here. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 10:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for clarifications: Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)

Statement by User:Pokipsy76
I would ask the Arbcom to clarify this points:
 * 1) Area of conflict: According to the arbcom remedies the "discretionary sanctions" can be delivered to any editor "working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to the events of September 11, broadly interpreted)". I think that the expression "which relates" leave the door open to some interpretations, so I will make two questions to have a clearer understanding:
 * 2) What if an editor is not working in any article but makes a comment about other admins/users actions (made within the the area of conflict) on a user talk page or on the AN pages? Do "discretionary sanctions" can still be made if an admin (on his or her own discretion) decide for example that the criticism is "disruptive"?
 * 3) Suppose that someone is editing possibly related articles like George W Bush or Conspiracy theory but is adding or discussing informations about events unrelated to 9/11. Can he/her be "discretionarily sanctioned" or just standard wikipedia rules hold?
 * 4) Topic bans: What if a person who is "topic banned" make the first or the second kind of edit described above? Would it be a violation of the "topic ban"?
 * 5) Retroactivity?: Can the discretionary sanctions be "retroactive" and be delivered if an admin think that a user has been "disruptive" in any time prior to the arbcom decision? If it is so how can this be reconciled with the statement "Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision"?
 * 6) Terror: Considering:
 * 7) *the fact that the motivations given to justify the "discretionary" bans include
 * 8) **edits reflecting a consensus on the talk pages but nevertheless alleged to be "tendentious" by admins:
 * 9) **possibly good faith arguments on the talk pages alleged to be "tendentious stonewalling" by admins
 * 10) *the lack of any prior warning before heavy sanctions like topic bans
 * 11) *threats to people accused of being "tendentious" or "wikilawyering" because they are questioning the decision of the admins
 * These elements all together contribute to create an atmosphere when apparently anyone can legitimately be afraid of being suddenly punished for whatever he does and whatever he says: it seems indeed that almost any action or statement could be in principle be viewed as "tendentious" according to the opinion of this or that admin (even when supported by the consensus). Personally I don't even feel free to express my opinion in talk pages devoted to discussing these sanctions. Given this situation I ask the arbcom if they consider this atmosphere to be the desired result of their remedy. If it is not the case I ask the arbcom which kind of solution can be found.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 08:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Notes regarding the response by Sam Blacketer:
 * Probably I need to be more clear about point 4: I am not actually disputing any procedure or any decision. I am asking a completely different kind of question: assuming that everything I listed above is formally correct (and therefore this atmosphere of constant danger for whatever one does/says is formally legitimated) do the arbitrators consider this atmosphere to be the desired result of the proposed remedy?
 * Thank you for your reply.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 14:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Further comments are here.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 11:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment to the reply by User:Thebainer:
 * I have already pointed out and stressed how my question on point 4 was not considered by Sam (and possibly misinterpreted whence the clarification above) and this other reply seems to still deliberately ignore this issue. I'll try to ask this even more explicitely: dear arbitrator
 * Do you see that nobody can feel free to make any edit because even edits supported by consensus resulted in a ban just for disagreement about the content?
 * Do you like this situation?
 * Is this exactly what you wanted to achieve?
 * Thank you very mych for your replies (assuming there will ever be any!).--Pokipsy76 (talk) 13:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment [to JzG] - It's not honest to reply "yes" to my question and to continue describing something different from what my question was asking. If you don't want to address my question you don't have to, but please don't try to make it say what it is not saying.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 15:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC) [moved here by Jehochman Talk]

Statement by User:Xiutwel

 * I would like to know if quoting the 9/11 Commission is to be seen as tenditious editing.

(I believe it is important to include some quotes of that Commission's work into the article. I feel that omitting these quotations is biasing the article to a pro-government viewpoint. I had thought the WP:NPOV policy was very clear on representing viewpoints, and actually, I can hardly believe we are still having these discussions. An uninvolved admin never saw why the A-gang admins were blocking such edits, but ofcourse he did not want to upset his peers.)

Yours faithfully,

&mdash; Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 17:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman
Must every remedy imposed over 9/11 Truth Movement lobbying be appealed to this board? Jehochman Talk 11:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by JzG
This request appears to be compelling evidence that the remedies of the arbitration case are sound and are being applied to good effect. The only clarification required, is to clarify that yes, the intention was indeed to control disruptive and tendentious editing of the kinds that it appears are being restricted here. Good job by the admins involved. Guy (Help!) 17:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * My individual views rather than a response on behalf of the committee:
 * 1.1: If comments on admin actions extend to discussions of whether individual admins or groups of them are trying to affect article content rather than acting neutrally, then those editors who make them are included within the definition of 'working in the area of conflict'. Admins should not however judge whether criticisms of their own actions are disruptive.
 * 1.2: If the edits do not relate to 11 September 2001 then they are not covered by discretionary sanctions. Advice can be sought on the talk page, or on the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, to get a consensus about whether this is the case.
 * 2: As above, the topic bans are limited to edits relating to 11 September 2001, but advice should be sought if there is a possible dispute about it.
 * 3: Editing behaviour prior to the final decision in the case is relevant in determining whether an editor has been disruptive, but the warning admin should allow the user a chance to demonstrate that their behaviour has changed.
 * 4: The key phrase in the decision is that it applies to those who fail "to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia", which is to provide a high-quality encyclopaedia which is neutral point of view and based on reliable sources. Consensus on talk pages cannot overrule the purpose of Wikipedia. The notification requirements were complied with in all three cases you link to. Instead of trying to dispute the procedure lying behind decisions, or attacking the admins who have imposed them, editors unhappy with restrictions should look at the aspects of their own behaviour which have provoked them, and see if they can change it. Sam Blacketer (talk) 13:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with what Sam has said, though I would add that administrators working in this area should seek advice from their fellow administrators liberally, and should work through the arbitration enforcement page as much as possible. Reviewing briefly the list of sanctions applied, there seems to be good use of the arbitration enforcement page so far. --bainer (talk) 01:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Sam and Bainer here; the Arbitration enforcement system seems to be working as intended. James F. (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Request to amend: September 11 conspiracy theories
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by Raymond Arritt
Recent discussion at WP:AE has brought up the possibility of sockpuppetry on 9/11 related articles. In order to make enforcement more straightforward, and to improve the editing atmosphere at those articles, I propose amending the discretionary sanctions such that users would be restricted to the use of a single account when editing that general topic area. I believe that such a restriction has been applied in other arbcom decisions and think it would be useful here. One might argue that an admin already is permitted to impose such a restriction under the broad provision in the sanctions regarding "behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators," but an explicit amendment of the sanctions would be clearer and more even-handed. Admins should of course make allowance for new editors unfamiliar with the situation, simple errors (such as forgetting to log in), and so on. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * The provisions of the discretionary sanctions remedy allow admins to impose this, or any other, restriction as they feel appropriate. There is no need to amend the wording of the case to explicitly mention every possible restriction that might be imposed, since the whole point of the remedy was to allow the use of any restriction without the need to consult the Committee. Kirill (prof) 03:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Kirill, and also note that this is does not sound like it is a legitimate use of multiple accounts anyway. Sam Blacketer (talk) 13:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Civility restriction
Is the civility restriction by Tango placed on Mongo still in effect? Not really my concern, but it didn't seem to be resolved in the Tango case. Andjam (talk) 07:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Proportion of 9/11 defenders restricted compared to 9/11 conspiracy theorists
RE: Log_of_blocks.2C_bans.2C_and_restrictions

As I exhaustively documented above at least one administrator, Raul654, is clearly not an "uninvolved" administrator, which is in direct conflict with the ruling of the arbitration, and Wikipedia policies.

My documented concerns were attacked by other veteran editors who support the administrator's own POV, and nothing happened.

Today I see the people who are banned, or restricted: Log_of_blocks.2C_bans.2C_and_restrictions, the only editor who got their restrictions removed was MONGO (a 9/11 defender), it appears, when those same like mind veteran editors appealed his case.

I am wondering how many of those restrictions are by 9/11 defenders banned compared to 9/11 conspiracy theorists? I venture to guess that MONGO was the only defender who was banned, and all the rest are conspiracy theorist?

Which leads to the question, why? Are conspiracy theorist just naturally more nasty and rude?

I think the reason why more conspiracy theorists are blocked is because:
 * 1) veteran editors, and especially administrators, tend to be conservative, so they share the same bias and are more sympathetic to defenders. Also, as mentioned above, Administrators like Raul654, who are not uninvolved, are blocking editors they disagree with
 * 2) there has been a coordinated campaign by 9/11 defenders to ban conspiracy theorists, so there are few that are here. This means that 9/11 defenders can wikilawyer and manipulate wikipolicy more effectively than 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Please correct me if I am wrong about who has been banned, and who has not. travb (talk) 11:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Request to review: September 11 conspiracy theories
I'd like to clarify that I do not seek a revision of the specific sanction that was initiated against me recently (24 hour block).

My intent is to clarify how editors would be able to initiate the evolution of a consensus on any proposed change of the article if other editors are simply removing proposals from the talk page, however well they are defined and explained with regard to their relevance for the article according to the established policies of Wikipedia.

An example might be more helpful than a lengthy text, in order to illustrate the problem at hand.

A few hours ago, I have proposed to include a piece of information into the article on World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories. This information is now part of the article on the attacks on Sept. 11 in the German Wikipedia for more than a month. (differential edit of the talk page, no changes have been made to the article page itself). This piece of information is about a point of view expressed by Michael J. Heimbach, Head of the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI.

I have proposed this text along with specific reasons for including it, all focused on why the paragraph is relevant for the Wikipedia article, and why it is verifiable. I did not make any statement on whether the views expressed by the sources I provided were true or not.

However, instead of commenting on the substance of the proposal or informing me of any objections he might have with regard to my edit, this editor simply deleted my proposal on the talk page.

As an aside, the same editor has also reverted a large edit on my talk page on April 10, 23:55, accusing me of soapboxing. He reverted his revert two minutes later, realizing that he was editing my talk page.

You can find the log of my contributions to articles on the German Wikipedia here, this is definitely not a single purpose account (the editor also accuses me of this, the German account can easily be found on my user page). The question of soapboxing can be discussed on the basis of the text of the proposal that I have submitted to the talk page (see the differential edit above). --Cs32en (talk) 15:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have looked again at the history page of the talk page of the article. The user I mentioned in my previous edit has collapsed six edits, including the edit of a user that has been blocked indefinitely. He deleted my edit. This does not seem to follow any established or coherent policy, but, in my view, rather indicates that this editor is pushing his own point of view by using those particular adminstrative measures that best serve his interests or his opinion with regard to the subject of the article. --Cs32en (talk) 15:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Dear Cs32, once upon a time there were people editing and discussing in those pages with several conflicting views. Then someone decided to request an arbitration and the arbitrators decided that the "solution" to the problem was to allow administrators to deliver "discretionary sanctions" to any user editing these pages. Consequences: several users without a pro-government bias were discretionarily banned from the topic (with motivations like "stonewalling", "bias", "POV pushing"...) or threatened by a gruop of 3 admins. There was no possibility to appeal the "discretionary" decisions. So it was clear that nobody could really even express his own opinion in the talk pages without risking some severe sanction (for alleged "bias"). And so the other editors lived happily ever after.--pokipsy76 (talk) 09:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * If either of you think this is about pro-government/anti-government views you've completely missed the point. RxS (talk) 14:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course other people would say that it is about pro-conspiracists/anti-conspiracists or pro-truthers/anti-truthers but I would like to avoid loaded language.--pokipsy76 (talk) 15:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The criticisms of this arbitration have been largerly ignored, which speaks volumes to how effective we have been in criticizing this arbritation thus far. If these criticisms were threatening the status quo of this arbitration there would be more comments.
 * Veteran editors know that "edits begat edits", and making comments on something that is going nowhere may ironically have the reverse effect and give new life to the comments.
 * I am not sure what the next step is in an arbitration review, do we hold a RfC, do we !vote? What usually happens? Ikip (talk) 17:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe not a vote in a formal sense, but a section where editors can just put their usernames in subsections named "in favor" or "against" a change of current administrative practices. I doubt there are actual policies, given how arbitrary and incoherent the actual practices are. --Cs32en (talk) 21:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This request for arbitration is closed. Further comments should not be posted here. You appear to be shopping around to find different answers after you do not like the ones you have already heard. Please go to WP:RFAR and request a clarification if you need one. Thank you.Jehochman Talk 06:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems a conpiracy theory is not really justifiable merely suggested, so any possible theory should be accepted. To censor a conspiracy theory seems to justify it ?

Then again to state a conspiracy theory, does not suggest that it cannot be criticized as well...

They deserve mention, even under the title of the most ridiculous. Take for example the conspiracy by the Church to censor Galileo, the again he did receive an apology.....some 400 years later.--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 03:45, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems the one case where the prohibitions in a arbitration have been lifted that I am aware of, was only done by another arbitration. I will let you know what else I find out. Ikip (talk) 07:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Requests to amend prior cases are made at Requests_for_arbitration. This is not the forum to discuss requests to change the case or to change article content. Thank you.  MBisanz  talk 07:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.  No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request by Jehochman
The sanctions in this case are being gamed. Editors who are banned start new accounts, which then must receive the mandatory warnings before they can be sanctioned. Please modify the warning requirement so that administrators may place sanctions without warnings on disruptive single purpose accounts that edit within the locus of dispute. For further reading see Sockpuppet investigations/Huntdowntheconspiracists and Sockpuppet investigations/Bov, particularly the checkuser clerk's note on the latter case. Note that I am involved in editing these articles and have been responsible for filing the above two sockpuppet cases as well as a large number of WP:AE requests that have resulted in topic bans. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 13:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Rlevse, t's often unclear who the puppetmaster is; there are so many alternatives. It's also somewhat time consuming and difficult to make a case for meat puppetry.  We have to dig around and find some sort of off site solicitation.  I expect that after we found the most recent incident of meat puppetry, those who use that strategy will be more careful not to leave tracks.  It is much easier to say here is a single purpose account, repeating the same tired arguments, please ban it from these articles.  Good faith editors are getting worn down trying to repel these accounts.  Jehochman Talk 20:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * A. I'm involved so I'm not blocking anybody. I rely on other administrators, many whom have doubts about blocking somebody unless there is an airtight reason.  B.  WP:SPA is an essay.  In the current climate, any block issued on that basis would have people up in arms.  See the Abd and JzG case I filed above as an example of what most admins are fearful of.  Jehochman Talk 21:17, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Stephen, has Wikipedia descended so far that Arbitrators feel comfortable making rude (or unprofessional) comments on this page? A checkuser clerk, who seems to be tired of the endless sock cases related to 9/11 asked me to come here for help. So I did.  Please address the problem.  We have a passel of tendentious sockpuppeteers who can spend 60 seconds to create a new account, while it takes me at least an hour to shut them down via our bureaucratic processes.  That's a very unfavorable tradeoff.  If you don't like my idea, would you at least investigate what's going on and see if you can propose something helpful or constructive.  Blowing me off with a "suck it up" comment is not an option available to you. Jehochman Talk 03:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Carcharoth, it's not in the cards for me to analyze a week of edits. (The economy is bad; my time for editing is limited.) Perhaps User:MONGO could give some stats. This page, Sockpuppet investigations/Huntdowntheconspiracists/Archive, shows about 7 days worth of disruptive editors. Notice that at least seven or eight accounts got blocked as a result of that report.  Thank you for suggesting more editors to help watch the articles. I posted a request for help to WP:AN a week or two ago. It's easy for arbitrators sitting here to say hypothetically what's the right, and quite another to get your hands dirty and see that the reality is not so neat.  People are getting really, really frustrated and need more help.  Few reasonable editors are willing to tolerate an endless stream of socks and SPAs attempting to add bogus content to WP.  Most get burned out and leave, which is exactly what the troublemakers want.  Jehochman Talk 05:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Jayvdb, a large number of topic bans have been implemented, and even more accounts have been blocked as socks. I've done a considerable portion of the work myself (filing complaints; others process them and yes, logging is not perfect).  Warnings definitely do not work.  I cannot think of even one example of an editor who was warned and then said, Oh right, I see what I was doing has been wrong, and I'll change my ways.  Jehochman Talk 05:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * VirtualSteve, I disagree with picking a friend to do my bidding when I am too involved. Instead, I post to the boards and work with whomever takes up the case. This is less convenient than summoning a minion by Gchat or IRC, but better for Wikipedia. Jehochman Talk 12:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * VirtualSteve, I do not beat around the bush. If I want to accuse somebody, I do.  I am aware that some administrators do use Gchat or IRC to summon others to do their bidding when they are too involved or have a conflict of interest.  I reject that, and am concerned that your suggestion is a step on that slippery slope.  When I need administrative help, I've learned that the best course of action is to post publicly and then work with whoever responds. Obviously, if somebody is familiar with a matter from previous administrative intervention, it may make sense to go to them first. Jehochman Talk 15:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * FloNight, your suggestion is useful, though I've already posted in a few placed and asked for help. This page is the latest stop on my tour.  There aren't many admins who feel comfortable working on sock puppetry cases.  We've seen examples in the past where one mistake lead to the admin being run out of town.  How about a slight change to the wording of discretionary sanctions:  New editors whose editing is indistinguishable from previously sanctioned editors may be subject to the same sanctions without warning. All I'm asking you to do is encapsulate existing policy, WP:TEAMWORK, in the decision.  This will provide a little courage for uninvolved admins to do what's necessary.  I'd like something I can point to so they won't be fearful of getting sanctioned themselves in case an apparent meat puppet turns out to be a legitimate editor who had the misfortune of repeating the arguments of somebody who was previously topic banned. Jehochman Talk 13:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Flo, thank you for requesting additional help. That's what we need.  The comments of all arbitrators have been useful.  I may point to this thread in the future if any administrators hesitate to block SPA disrupting in this venue. VirtualSteve, if you'd like to help, please watchlist some of these articles. Jehochman Talk 15:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Mastcell, User:Raul654 has at times camped on particularly troublesome articles to clear out sock puppets. I'd appreciate that sort of service here.  I've asked around but there don't seem to be enough checkusers available to provide expedited service in this high-volume sockpuppetry arena. It seems like all the forms need to filed in triplicate, punched, folded, and stamped before anybody can take action.  The slowness of processing checkuser requests causes great pain to those of us who must entertain the sock puppets until they are blocked.  Jehochman Talk 19:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)



Tony0937 has been here for 18 months and virtually 100% of his editing is related to promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories. Could one of our intrepid arbitrators please look at their contributions and tell us why this account is allowed to continue stoking this dispute? Jehochman Talk 23:57, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * (replying to Cs32en)
 * That's called removing cruft, per WP:V and WP:NOR. I think it is way, way premature to discuss this at arbitration. Use the article talk page instead. "Rampage"?  See also assume good faith.  I've written a few good and featured articles.  The content I removed would never pass review. Jehochman Talk 18:48, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * (replying to Rlevse 20:55, 22 April) See statements by VirtualSteve and Cs32en. They apparently don't agree that disruptive SPA's can be blocked. Sorry for the threading, but I fear you won't see this otherwise. Jehochman Talk 23:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * (replying to Stephen Bain 07:44, 25 April) Suck it up yourself. That's not what I'm advocating. I am requesting help with WP:SPAs, WP:MEATs and WP:SOCKs violating WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NOT.  You're playing WP:ICANTHEARYOU, and I'm violating WP:WOTTA. Jehochman Talk 10:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggested Motion
''Numerous users have been blocked or banned for espousing unverifiable September 11 conspiracy theories. Any new user who appears on Wikipedia suggesting, in earnest, that the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives planted by "conspiracists", may be reasonably viewed as a meat puppet of one of those blocked or banned editors. As such, they may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator.''

Wikipedia is not for publishing counter-factual 9/11 conspiracy theories. We really should say enough is enough. I am tired of all the socks and POV pushers, and the enablers who want to hear them out. Therefore, I have proposed the above common sense approach. Please indicate whether you support this or not. Thank you! Jehochman Talk 20:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Status update
The most problematic article has had its semi-protection restored. This seems to have reduced the flow of disruptive WP:SPA single purpose accounts to the point that we can get back to work. Jehochman Talk 12:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I spoke too soon
The accounts have regrouped and are now launching an effort to rename the article to their preferred version. I have commented here that we need administrative help to block disruptive WP:SPA accounts, per the fine advice I have been given below. Could you fine arbitrators please have a look at that discussion and see if you know of any administrators willing to close down the SPA/SOCK party that's going on there? Jehochman Talk 22:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by VirtualSteve
Comment I do not read the comment made by Stephen of "suck it up" (below) as being intentionally or otherwise rude but rather as another way of saying "take it on the chin". As admins we all know that dealing with SPAs and block evaders is part of the joy of the job. Blocking as per the evasion rules remains open to all admins (as detailed by Rlevse and others below), and semi-protection is also a suitable resort at times. Further if an admin is involved to the point s/he can't block, those admins have normally developed trusted behavioural collegial links to other admins whom they can ask to look objectively at a particular situation, and have the appropriate action taken.-- VS talk 07:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Response to Jehochman - When posting your responses to my comments Jehochman I expect a little better from you please. I have never used GChat or IRC in my life and I do not summon a minion (indeed I do have the ego to think of any of my fellow admins as my minions) - hence my use of the words look objectively at a particular situation and my clear indication that I am not asking for a favour but rather for someone else with sufficient tools and knowledge to interpret the situation I find myself in.  Whilst I appreciate you do not actually accuse me of summonsing minions your linking of the sentences in your response makes it difficult to see that you are assuming good faith at my suggestion.-- VS  talk 13:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose Cs32en has encapsulated well the inherent problems with Jehochman's suggested motion. I also believe that accepting that motion would upgrade the rights of administrators beyond an acceptable level and I oppose the motion.-- VS  talk 22:19, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment So as to provide clarity to Rlevse - Jehochman's comment here and since moved to the appropriate section by Daniel, does not in anyway reflect my thoughts on dealing with SPAs. I do not definitely know the reason behind why he makes this error - but I note again that my words above detail my belief that blocking as per the evasion rules remains open to all admins. That is certainly the approach I have taken and would suggest any admin take in the circumstances described in the request posed by this discussion.-- VS  talk 11:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Tom Harrison
"We have a passel of tendentious sockpuppeteers who can spend 60 seconds to create a new account, while it takes me at least an hour to shut them down via our bureaucratic processes. That's a very unfavorable tradeoff." This is exactly right. Facile suggestions to follow dispute resolution, ask for an ininvolved admin, or get a buddy to do the block for you (seriously?) don't address the problem. That's why this is again before the committee. I invite bainer to model the behavior he prescribes. Tom Harrison Talk 12:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Question by MastCell
Would it be possible to identify a "go-to" checkuser who would be willing to look at questions of sockpuppetry on this topic on an expedited basis? This would be someone willing to field relatively informal checkuser requests from admins active on the topic, evaluate their merit, and act on them (if appropriate) rapidly. In the past I've found this approach hugely useful in dealing with high-volume sockpuppetry, and it might help here. MastCell Talk 19:04, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Cs32en
I have edited on various subjects on the German Wikipedia, but my edits on the English Wikipedia are, up to this time, primarily on 9/11-related topics. So I am probably an involved editor here. In my opinion, we seriously need to consider the possibility that flawed judgment and inconsistent reasoning on the part of some established editors have significantly contributed to the situation that we now face. People will not identify with Wikipedia, and thus will more likely tend to use distractive methods, when confronted with unconvincing arguments, or with a situation in which they perceive that policy is being misconstrued to support reverting their edits or blocking their contributions.

One example has been the recent discussion on the deletion of the word "box-cutters" from the article on the attacks of Sept. 11. While numerous mainstream media have reported this, is has since become apparent that all these reports are based on a single source (Ted Olson). Evidence such as a trial exhibit mentioned in the discussion now strongly indicates that the information from this source has been incorrect. As being published in a reliable source is an indication that a piece of information is WP:V, but not a sufficient condition in itself, the word "box-cutters" was eventually changed to "weapons", along with some other changes in the text. While this discussion led to a result consistent with Wikipedia policy, there were a number of arguments put forward by established editors that clearly are not supported by policy, such as:
 * "the reports at the time indicated box cutters" (note that the article did not attribute the claim to the source or used language such as "at the time, it was reported that")
 * "Accepting for the sake of argument that it says what you say it does, I don't think we can reasonably use Prosecution Trial Exhibit P200054, a primary source, to over-ride the secondary sources." (i.e. even if we agree that a secondary source - in this case, CNN - is proven wrong, we still need to use it)

Other such arguments, expressed in other circumstances, have been:
 * "We really should avoid foreign sources." (in a case where no useful English source was available)
 * "Pretty speculative research...how surprising...lets see them get it published in a real journal. I got a bridge to sell ya. [...] Jones and co can maybe see if any of these are interested" (It turned out that this list actually includes Bentham Science Publishers, the publisher of the journal that is being discussed.)
 * This was followed by the remark: "rather than arguing with single purpose accounts, why don't you go request some more topic bans over at WP:AE?"
 * "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources." (in relation to a claim that a known and self-identified adherent to a fringe theory has published a paper that supposedly supports this theory -- if anything, notability was the issue here, because nobody doubts that the paper exists, and WP:UNDUE had to be interpreted in the context of the fact that the article's subject, as defined by its title, is the fringe theory itself, not the subject of this theory.
 * This discussion is a typical example of the editing process on these articles.

If these failures in the editorial process of the articles are being corrected, then all editors could be held to a higher standard with regard to their behavior, and genuine vandalism and trolling would be much easier to isolate, whether by community interaction or by appropriate administrative measures. --Cs32en (talk) 20:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment on the motion proposed by Jehochman
Oppose Jehochman has suggested that the policy with regard to 9/11-related articles should be changed as follows:


 * "Any new user who appears on Wikipedia suggesting, in earnest, that the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives planted by "conspiracists", may be reasonably viewed as a meat puppet of one of those blocked or banned editors." (proposed motion)


 * "New editors whose editing is indistinguishable from previously sanctioned editors may be subject to the same sanctions without warning." (reply to FloNight)

Both proposals imply that administrative actions would no longer be based on the behavior of editors (i.e. whether they engage in constructive discussion, support their suggestions by arguments related to Wikipedia policies, etc.) but on what they think or what they believe in. Calling everybody who shares a certain belief or supports a certain argument a "meat puppet" is not only a misinterpretation of WP:MEAT, but also a thin veil to disguise this approach. --Cs32en (talk) 20:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment on Jehochman's section "status update"
Jehochman's statement that the semi-protection of the article has significantly reduced editing by non-autoconfirmed users is misleading. There have been two edits by non-autoconfirmed users during the time the article was not semi-protected. During the same period of time, there have been approximately fifty edits by Jehochman and three other editors, with very little explanation or discussion of these changes on the talk page. --Cs32en (talk) 14:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment on Jehochman's section "I spoke too soon"
One of the editors involved in the discussion has now been blocked for what are, as far as I can see, valid reasons. It would, however, be very helpful to clearly indicate the specific reasons for which a sanction is being requested. Any controversial discussion is even more difficult if people who take part in it are at the same time unsure as to whether any requested sanctions could be applied to them.

My view of the discussion on the renaming of the article is as follows:
 * A recent discussion, resulting in the change of the article's name, lasted for only 24 hours.
 * As the discussion was rather short and possible terminated without actually seeking broad consensus, it is legitimate that editors are continuing to discuss the name of the article. (No edit-warring is happening.)
 * The current discussion is taking place on the WP:NPOV noticeboard. Given that there is not a broad consensus among the involved editors, and that there are concerns about the correct application of established policies and guidelines on the part of some editors, I consider it appropriate took seek the opinions of uninvolved editors on a community noticeboard and to present the arguments there. — Cs32en (talk) 17:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * New developments

In less than 40 minutes, Jehochman has deleted 6790 bytes, or more than 12% of the text, from the article World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories (15:31, 15:33, 15:34, 15:36, 15:52, 15:56, 15:58, 15:58, 15:59, 16:01, 16:03, 16:07, 16:08, 16:09). This happened without any attempt to discuss the changes on the talk page, and numerous parts of the article that have been there for weeks, if not months or years, have been deleted. Jehochman has requested a semi-protection of the article at 13:00 today, and has received a reply to his request at 14:35. This may have triggered the ensuing rampage. --Cs32en (talk) 16:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman has filed an A/E request against me on 24 April, at 20:32, and has withdrawn that request on 25 April, at 00:23. I'm collapsing this subsection as it is of less relevance to the present request from Jehochman regarding the prior arbitration case on 9/11-related articles. --Cs32en (talk) 20:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Tony0937
I think that I am an involved party here and Jehohman's proposal makes me feel very uneasy. He has suggested by that I could be banned for talking about a peer reviewed paper. I suppose I am a SPA and I think that I have heeded the advise posted there. I have read the policy on Verifiability and the Guide Line on Reliable sources and I cannot see the problem. I do not believe I have broken any rules that would constitute a reason for a ban and yet I feel intimidated. Tony0937 (talk) 23:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Protonk
First things first. The requested motion is flawed on face. It doesn't make any sense to treat new editors with a certain POV as meatpuppets of some ur-conspiracist. It is far more likely that there are several sockmasters, dozens of people unrelated to those sockmasters who intend to disrupt wikipedia, and yet more people who geniunely hold these views and don't have a connection to either of the two previous groups. Applying MEAT to all three groups under the assumption that they are all puppets of the first group will generate bad will, unpleasant but valid unblock requests and consternation over admin overreach.

So we should reject Jehochman's motion to ammend (whatever) the case.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty frustrated with the response he is getting from some members of the committee here. The 9/11 conspiracy articles are under an arbcom ruling because they are the locus of dispute between our editors and editors who have disrupted the encyclopedia, wasted time and don't have any real interest in contributing to Wikipedia broadly. It is the poster child for requiring arbcom actions. Because of the nature of the conspiracy and its adherents, online advocacy of conspiracy theories will almost always outstrip reliable sourcing on the theories themselves. the number of editors involved makes it difficult if not impossible to reach a consensus on the talk page which reflects reliable sourcing on the issue and hold-outs (either SPAs or not) make it difficult to commit an edit to those pages which has less than unanimous support. The nature of the theories themselves cause their exponents to disbelieve reliable reporting on the subject and misconstrue or misrepresent sources which may provide limited support for some facet of the conspiracy.

We know all this. What you are hearing now is an editor who claims that these sanctions are insufficient or at least burden responding administrators too much for the effort required to trigger them. Instead of telling him to "suck it up", why don't you draw up an alternative motion which doesn't BITE the newbies as much? Protonk (talk)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Comment Why can't you just block a sock as a block-evading sock? No warning needed.  — Rlevse • Talk  • 20:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * @Jehochman: If you can warn based on SPA criteria, why not block on SPA criteria?  — Rlevse • Talk  • 20:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Suck it up. If you allege sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry, then of course you have to provide evidence to support your assertion. If it can be established that someone is evading a block, a ban, or a sanction by way of puppetry, then they can be dealt with in the normal fashion under the sockpuppetry and blocking policies, there is no need for special remedies. --bainer (talk) 23:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Jonathan, if it is unprofessional to defend the fundamental values of the project in response to someone who appears to be genuinely advocating that the criterion for banning should be "that they disagree with my POV", then I welcome the label. --bainer (talk) 07:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Community norms already provide for the blocking of block evading sockpuppets and disruptive single-purpose accounts. The arbitration remedy does not alter those standard practices. Arbitration rememdies must be interpreted within the framework of community norms and with a dose of common sense. All the remedy does is explicitly direct administrators to utilize a full range of sanctions to bring the topic area under control, with basic advice about good admin practices. Generally speaking, giving someone fair warning and some explicit guidance about what to avoid, or how to improve, is hardly controversial as common good pratice before heavy sanctions or blocks. In other words, just follow the usual means of dealing with such potential sockpuppets and SPAs. I have some extended thoughts in a broader context at: User:Vassyana/Splitting Hairs. --Vassyana (talk) 03:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Protonk, with all due respect, you're asking us to do the impossible (unless I am completely misunderstanding you). There is no possible way for us to expand the remdedy while being less BITEy. The remedy already provides completely open-ended authorization to impose sanctions with but a single warning. We could direct administrators to provide new editors with more guidance and more opportunity to prove themselves, but that obviously would increase the burden of enforcing administrators. Alternatively, we could remove the requirement for warnings as suggested by Jehochman, but that obviously would be a good deal more BITEy. However, there is no possible way for us to grant administrators greater leeway to act while simultaneously reducing "bitten" newbies. A significant part of the problem being faced has a great deal more to do with broader community issues than with the arbitration decision. As examples: a) An administrator corps that is not keeping up with the growth of the project. b) A shortage of administrators intervening in difficult areas. c) An increasing tolerance of wikilawyering (and an accompanying slavish dependence on procedure). d) A growing dependence on checkuser in sockpuppet investigations. These are but a few examples of serious issues that have been growing over a long period of time. Unfortunately, there is little to nothing that ArbCom can do about these problems (except perhaps to point them out). For better or worse, solutions to these broader problems will have to come from the community. --Vassyana (talk) 13:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a perennial problem - how to distinguish good-faith SPAs (that need education and pointing to FAQs, and that might become productive editors) from disruptive ones (that need blocking), and how to avoid burnout for those watching an article. The only suggestion I can make is to ask for more assistance in dealing with the topic area, provide the evidence (as bainer says), and to make sure that those appealing blocks are told that this is a contentious area and that they should edit other areas for a set amount of time (probationary topic ban?) before returning to the topic in question (if at all). This might seem like reducing the barrier for new editors to edit, but for contentious topics, this might be needed. Have topic bans restricting editing to the talk page been tried? Carcharoth (talk) 03:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Jehochman, could you (or someone else) analyse a week's worth of editing and gets some stats for the scale of the problem? Or failing that, give a rough estimate of numbers of (in your opinion) disruptive accounts? Carcharoth (talk) 03:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment, It takes far more than 60 seconds to edit in a way that requires this case to come into play, and the log indicates this decision hasnt been invoked often, which suggests the warnings are doing their job, or people arnt updating the log. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Largely agree with Vassyana. The Committee does not have any additional ways to stop people from using socking or tendentious editing. We are aware that many controversial topics have similar problems. The fresh blood of more uninvolved admins helping in these all these areas is always needed. Placing announcements on AN or AN/I and the wiki-en-l mailing list might help attract some additional assistance. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 12:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Jehochman, I sent an email to the Functionaries-en mailing list highlighting this thread. Hopefully raising awareness will prompt more uninvolved admins to get involved. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 13:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: This doesn't seem to need ArbCom involvement.  Roger Davies  talk 14:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Per Vassyana, the remedies in the case are additional to those available to administrators generally and do not supersede them. Administrators are empowered to block disruptive single-purpose accounts if they are harming the project. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment, agree with Vassyana et al. Wizardman  19:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment; I'm not sure I agree with my colleagues here. I wouldn't blink if SPA that jumped immediately in the fray of an active, controversial dispute be blocked liberally with a good explanation provided they are unblocked if they acknowledge the problem area and agree to steer clear of it.  Basically, it's a balancing act between newbie love and preventing disruption to the encyclopedia&mdash; and some areas (9/11, I-P, and a few others) are so volatile that the putative benefit gained from a new agenda-wielding editor is entirely offset by the added instability. That being said, I don't think ArbCom can do much about it directly.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 03:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Recuse. I live and work in New York City about 4 miles from the World Trade Center site. I will adhere to my practice established last year of recusing myself from any disputes arising from the events of September 11, 2001, in part because I was profoundly personally affected by those events and in part because giving any sustained attention to the so-called, but fantastic and worthless, "controlled demolition hypothesis" as a purported explanation for what occurred on that date invariably leaves me enraged. I will remind all concerned that any suggestion that any identified or identifiable individual played any role in a "controlled demolition" of the World Trade Center buildings represents a BLP violation of the gravest nature. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for clarification: User:Thomas Basboll
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)
 * (acknowledged --Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC))

Statement by Tom harrison
Last April, User:Thomas Basboll was banned from articles and talk pages related to the September 11 attack. Since then he's hardly done anything else, limiting his work to user pages. He's always civil and articulate; individual edits can seem reasonable. But his goal here has been and remains to get the truth out about the collapse of the World Trade Center. Whatever his motivation, no matter how he describes or intends his edits, their invariable result has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'. He has shown no interest in contributing in any other area; he's banned from that area; he continues his work in a sandbox, and invites others to edit on his behalf. If encouraging others to apply edits he can't make himself doesn't violate the letter of his topic ban it's at least contrary to its purpose, and continually beating the drum for the 9/11 conspiracy theories is a continuing disruption. Tom Harrison Talk 14:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Thomas Basboll
Update: I have decided withdraw my opposition to this request, shut down the sandbox experiment, and stop interacting with editors.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 04:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure an all out arbitration is necessary. If the topic-ban applies to user talk pages and my own sandbox then I am in the wrong and will stop immediately. If it does not, I think Tom Harrison needs to provide a bit more evidence that, on balance, the "invariable result [of my edits] has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'". In the one case where a user has objected to my use of his talk page, I have respected that wish, but otherwise my suggestions have been met with understanding and have been implemented (or not) as the user I contacted chose. I have not asked users to edit "on my behalf"; I have pointed out errors in articles to them and sometimes suggested prose that I believed could express an idea they were defending in talk discussions. I'm really am just trying to help.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Reply to John Vandenberg (below): Since I am not site-banned, I have not considered contacting ArbCom by email. Those two public appeals are the only attempts I have made to have the ban overturned.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 04:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments on MONGO's evidence (below): The puzzling thing about the examples is that the changes I have suggested by (arguably) "proxy" remain in the articles, often made by editors on the "other side". I think the policy is clear here, and since I have not recruited new users, meat-puppetry is not at all involved. I have only contacted people who are already interested in the articles, and I have provided information that they could themselves verify. Most puzzling: in the exchange that led to MONGO asking me not to post on his talk, I actually managed to convince him that I was right, and the article has been correct ever since. MONGO himself corrected the error I was indicating . So even though he himself has confirmed my suggestions (as the rules on proxying require) and implemented them, he is now suggesting that my inquiries constitute a violation of the proxy rules, i.e., rules that he himself, by implication, would have been violating by implementing my suggestion.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 04:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * PS. As Mongo notes below, his edit involved more than the change I was proposing. But I had not raised any other issues in my exchange with him. So he implemented my suggestion among others. My point still stands: Mongo introduced an error and I pointed his mistake out to him. He then fixed it. The article was improved by my action. Though I don't think I actually broke a rule here, I think this might at least have been an occasion to WP:IGNORE it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Reply to John Vandenberg 2 (below): Something like what you propose (editing other parts of WP to establish credibility in the community) has been suggested to me many times before, as Mongo also does on this occasion. I have never understood the argument. My editorial judgment has been rejected at the highest level (when ArbCom rejected my appeal). If that rejection stands in this topic area, why do you assume that I would do a fine job elsewhere? Assuming that my topic ban is justified (i.e., that my judgment is defective), then, the current solution of having my suggestions vetted through editors whose judgment has not been similarly impugned seems quite reasonable. But you will have to forgive me for not finding the place I have been assigned in the community especially motivating in regard to contributing to the larger project.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Reply to John Vandenberg 3 (below): Okay, it makes sense when understood as pragmatism. But that's why I have stopped editing: the pragmatic reality of Wikipedia is too far from the principled ideal that originally got me interested in the project. I could spend hours, days and weeks trying to prove people wrong by working in other areas or at Wikisource. But, just as you economize with your time, I economize with mine. In any case, please keep in mind that Tom Harrison is asking whether my current actions (my sandbox page and inquiries on user pages) is a violation of the current pragmatic solution, i.e. the topic-ban. While it would be great of you (generous, actually) to use the opportunity to look into the original ban, my view is that even if the ban had been justified what I am doing now is within the spirit, and well within the letter, of the sanctions. Like I say, if that's not the case, I will delete the page and withdraw altogether.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 04:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Reply to Vassyana and Carcharoth (below): I may as well be clear that I am not interested in any further demonstration of my worth to this project. Two other editors are asking that stricter limits to my contribution to this project be imposed. If they get their wish, you will simply not hear any more from me. Otherwise, I will continue, in my limited way, to assist those editors who want my help in identifying errors, assessing sources, and representing them in prose on a topic that (for reasons that need not concern anyone here) happens to interest me. I will use my account, so long as it is not site-banned, to query editors about their editing decisions so that I may better understand how Wikipedia works. Some editors do want my help; it is their work, not mine, that any further sanctions against me will affect. Those that don't want my input will not notice my presence. My interpretation of being banned "from the September 11 attack article and talk page, and the articles and talk pages of all related articles" as not covering user-talk pages and my own sandbox was made in good faith and I have made no effort to conceal my topic-ban. Indeed, I have made a point of informing all users that I have contacted of the fact that I am banned. I take very serious exception to the idea that I am "gaming" this site. Thank you very much.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * NOTE: While I have withdrawn from this dispute, I would like to add a quick comment on Vassyana's answer to this issue. As I undertand the concept of WP:GAMING there is no such thing as doing it unintentionally. So I take it that granting that it may have been done in good faith is a retraction of the charge. If so, I appreciate it. I did not intentionally violate the spirit of my topic ban in order to subvert the project; I made an attempt to improve the encyclopedia within what I believe was a reasonable interpretation on the constraints of the ban. Many of my suggestions have been implemented in full view of the editors who supported my banning. My actions did not cause disruption. If they were unwise it is only because they have, predictably, been used to cast further aspersions on my motives.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Question to Carcharoth (below): Are you really suggesting that I can do a bunch of work to write nice clear sentences that might be used in the article but that I am not allowed to discuss that work with people who freely choose to engage in such discussion?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Cs32en
The ban against Thomas Basboll had been based on reasons "described by Jehochman". However, Jehochman has advised Thomas Basboll as follows: "I think it might be worthwhile to write a crisp version of the article in your sandbox ..." . So this is, in my opinion, best left to the community to sort out, at this point of time. --Cs32en (talk) 14:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by MONGO
More of the same...Basboll has been topic banned from editing all pages related to the events surrounding 9/11...this includes conspiracy pages, where he has been an advocate. Arbcom may not be familiar with this issue, but I surely am, and our server space is not to be used to sidestep topic bans using personal sandboxes or others usertalk to rally a cause for which one has been topic banned...topic bans should mean just that...one is banned from the topic, regardless of the location. I have stated repeatedly that AFTER Basboll was topic banned that, based on his obvious articulateness, that he must be educated and surely...surely, he could and should help out with other areas that are not related to those he is topic banned from. I tried to encourage him to do so...but instead, he continues his fixation on this subject matter...though of course, outside main article space. WP:MEAT applies in this case...a topic banned editor, especially one who has been known to advocate fringe theories, shouldn't be encouraging others of similar POV and discouraging those that base their work on known evidence...as Basboll did to me here...which resulted in my asking him to avoid my usertalk if he was going to use it for his 9/11 issues. Furthermore, major collaborative pieces should be worked on in article space in my opinion...creating sandboxes pages when we already have working long standing pages that can be improved only allows topic banned people a way to avoid sanction from being topic banned...

So can arbcom help clarify for Mr. Basboll what a topic ban implies and maybe succeed where I failed and encourage him to find some other topic to edit? I'm hoping that this is the case...--MONGO 00:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

In response to Jehochman below...though I surely appreciate that we don't want to suppress beliefs, Basboll is topic banned...that means banned from editing on that topic...as far as I can see, that means we don't allow them to use likewise thinking fellow editor's usertalks to rally support for their POV, especially a POV that is based on fringe theories that undermine the factual encyclopedic integrity of our articles. Furthermore, setting up sandboxes to update sections, write new articles or alter existing ones related to what the editor is topic banned from seems to be a breach of the purpose of the topic ban...so we have millions of other articles...Wikipedia exists for Mr. Basboll as a platform to advocate his fringe beliefs regarding 9/11...he has had almost zero other interest in any other area...if he can't find another area to edit and repeatedly violates his topic ban...why is he here anymore?--MONGO 03:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Examples where he has been approaching others to alter edits and or comment in articles he is topic banned from...to be fair, some of these are from those he does not share a POV with...,, , , , , [ here he comments at arbcom enforcement regarding the same topic he is topic banned for, here he tells one of his fellow (to put it nicely) alternative theorists all about me..., here he tries to defend a fellow 9/11 conspiracy theorist that is blocked ...I can easily produce more examples of Mr. Basboll violating his topic ban. More needs to be done to tell these single purpose accounts to go find another playground.--MONGO 03:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

In response to Basboll above..the link he provides where he claims I changed wording to reflect, as he puts it, the correct wording, only applies to the word "adjacent"..the remaining red changed text was added by me after great arguments and is reflected in the references provided. Regardless, this was part of the exchange that led me to ask him to cease using my talkpage to violate his topic banning.--MONGO 05:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman (b)
Thomas seems polite and I have been polite in return. If he's not banned from editing is his sandbox, then he is allowed to do so. As I understand, he is free to edit there. Everybody has some sort of POV. We don't ban editors for what they believe; we ban them by how they act. If Thomas supports WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V, I see no problems. If however he's playing me the fool, well, that would be a poor idea. Jehochman Talk 02:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Ikip
The arbitration remedy clearly states:
 * "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)"

Thomas's topic ban was a bad ban by an involved administrator: Raul654. Raul654 edited 7 World Trade Center‎ (16 times), argued against editors who support a controlled demolition (at least 8 times), and reverted 7 World Trade Center‎ then protected the page, in violation of Admin.

This text has never been posted before:

What is an "uninvolved administrator"?:
 * Requests_for_arbitration/September_11_conspiracy_theories/Proposed_decision under "uninvolved administrator" "For the purpose of imposing sanctions under the provisions of this case, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict."

As my edit diffs clearly show, Raul has previously participated in "content disputes on articles in the area of conflict."

Therefore I ask that the topic ban be immediatly lifted, as a highly involved administrator made it.

Raul654 have you ever had a dispute on 7 World Trade Center? The edit diffs above show clear content disputes on 7 World Trade Center. Ikip (talk) 04:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Raul654
Ikip is rehashing - verbatim - the same argument he put forth the last time around - the very same argument that was explicitly rejected by the one and only arbitrator to comment on them ("I see Raul654's actions here as being in line with the AC's decision, and support them." -Morven) To wit - I have edited the 9/11 articles on occasion, and I make sure that they remain free of conspiracy theories and other gibberish, which is fully in line with our policies about verification and neutrality. (That is to say, conspiracy theories do not produce reliable sources - they mostly rely on cutting away context and ignoring all dissenting evidence.) Thomas is an editor whose sole purpose on Wikipedia is to introduce conspiracy theories into our 9/11 articles. While he is polite, his editing on those articles is singularly counterproductive, as Mongo above attests to. I was never particularly active on those articles, and my participation predates Thomas - I mostly stopped editing them by the time he started here. Which means I am uninvolved both in the sense of (a) editing on those articles, and (b) interacting with Thomas. (The arbitration committee, I believe, intended the ban to apply to the latter case). In either case, I am not involved, and fully capable of assessing the utility of a ban application. Raul654 (talk) 05:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * And for the record, to answer Ikip's question above, my involvement on 9/11 articles has been almost entirely related to 7 World Trade Center. This article is a featured article, and I'm the FA director, which is the reason it's on my watchlist -- I want to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't decay. Most 9/11 conspiracy theories center around the destruction of this building, so it's a perpetual favorite target for conspiracy theory SPAs. The consensus on the talk page, predating its FA status and my involvement there, was that because we already have articles on 9/11 conspiracy theories and World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories, the article would briefly mention the existence of conspiracy theories and link to the relevant articles, but not go beyond that to avoid giving them undo weight. (To avoid mentioning them elsewhere in the article so that readers do not get the false impression that they are credible or have evidence to support them.) My edits there have been about enforcing this consensus. Enforcing a reasonable consensus formulated by others before I got there hardly makes me an involved admin. Raul654 (talk) 06:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Given that Ikip's citations of "involvement" include reverting trivia and fixing typos on the talk page, I hope it's clear to anyone reading this that his "evidence" consists of a list of all edits I've made to any 9/11 articles (and talk pages) in the last 5 years, regardless of whether or not they actually involve conspiracy theories and regardless of whether or not they relate to Thomas in any way (which they don't). And given this extraordinarily low bar for "involvement", the fact that he could only come up with about two dozen edits in the last 5 years shows that he really is grasping at straws. Raul654 (talk) 07:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Pokipsy76
1) The historical recostruction by Vandelberg is incomplete: Actually only one arbitrator replied to the request of appeal (and btw this arbitrator was asked two times to explain his position here and here but he didn't reply). Later, when the request was archieved, another arbitrator said that this kind of requests have to be asked to AN/I (so the appeal was not "rejected" but just ignored). Therefore there was a request for a review at WP/ANI where other 3 uninvolved administrators said that: Positions against Thomas Basboll or against the review of the ban had been expressed only by involved administrators who contributed to the ban. "Unfortunately" this request for a review was deleted by the bot after a period of 24 hours without new messages. And so Thomas couldn't have a review for bourocratic reasons - even if there was a consensus on the necessity of it since the arbotrators didn't express.
 * there had been "insuffient review and stonewalling of requests for review"
 * "a review of the ban decision is probably appropriate"
 * "The edit does seem to reduce the overall weight provided to the conspiracy theorists in the article, in addition to moving the detailed statement of the theory out of the lead"
 * "there are legitimate questions to be asked about the fairness and propriety of this topic ban"

1bis) It is very paradoxical that we follow mechanically the rules when the bot delete the request and so leave Thomas banned without appeal and we now instead pretend to apply the "spirit" of the rules - not the letter - when Thomas talk with other users. It looks very much as a persecutory behavior.

2) To say (as Tom Harrison does) that
 * the invariable result [of his edits] has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'.

is a personal and disputable point of view of Tom who as far as I can see has never had a "neutral" perception of this matter when he contributed to the pages. Even if the arbitrators would share the same point of view of Tom Harrison about 9/11 it shouldn't be relevant in their decisions: arbitration is not for disputes about article content.

3) To say (as Tom Harrison does) that
 * continually beating the drum for the 9/11 conspiracy theories is a continuing disruption.

is meaningless because a) nobody has even proved that thomas have been disruptive, the sanction he received was *discretionary* so it was just the personal opinion of the admin which didn't receive any support or even a review by the community, b) it is entirely possible that the suggestions of Thomas are indeed conctructive, you cannot judge them "a priori" just on the ground of your personal POV.

4) Coren says:
 * ''As a further note, I don't believe there is any reasonable interpretation of Raul's handful of edits that could lead to count him as "involved" by any sane meaning of the term.

The problem is that the arbcom has explicitely defined the meaning to be given to the term "involved" ( "For the purpose of imposing sanctions under the provisions of this case, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict." ) and it makes Raul "involved" without a doubt. If this meaning is considered to be "insane" by somebody it is not relevant here.

--Pokipsy76 (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * Ikip, could you please notify Raul654 since your statement concerns him? Thank you.  MBisanz  talk 04:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Tossing up some background discussions for everyone; no comment yet. At Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement/Archive20 the thread is closed as "Thomas Basboll banned from 9/11 articles, appealing to ArbCom."  Thomas, did you appeal to arbcom via email?  We can find the email if you can tell us when you sent it.  There was a public appeal at WP:RFAR in May 2008, and a later one at WP:AE in October 2008. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thomas, your article contributions over the last 12 months are extremely light on, your userpage says you are retired, and you're doing a lot of chatting. I am seeing more noise than signal.  How about you come out of retirement, focus on some supplementary topics, and then appeal the topic ban in a few months.  As an example of how you could remain engaged in this topic productively, despite the topic ban, you could work on Operation Northwoods, World Trade Center (PATH station), Minoru Yamasaki, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, etc; or, for something different you could expand the archives over Wikisource (see s:Template:911). John Vandenberg (chat) 04:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thomas, your editorial judgment has been questioned by editors in the 9/11 topical area, a few admins, and two previous arbitrators (Raul654 and Morven) have found it appropriate to ban you from that topic. The review by arbcom in April 2008 only obtained a single opinion, that of Morven.  Morven's motivations may have simply been pragmatic, as the same set of editors opined that they found it advantageous to have you topic banned.  Your response to this has been to stop editing; my recommendation is that you prove everyone wrong by editing other areas.  If you have problems in another topical area, that would be telling.  If you dont have problems in another topical area, that would give us a damn fine reason to re-evaluate your topic ban. That said, it is not unusual for a person to have a problem editing in only a limited range of topics; their edits to other topical area's are fine.  Even if you did (previously) have a problem editing 9/11 articles, we might decide that we can lift the topic ban because we trust that you are now capable of managing your own POV issues.  Note that I am not saying that you do have a problem editing 9/11 topics; I've only spent an hour reading all the comments and looking at a few of your edits.  Your lack of edits in other area's mean I have no option but to either a) trust the other editors opining here, or b) invest a day (or more) reviewing your edits.  Perhaps you can see that pragmatism makes me want to create a third option: you demonstrate that you are able to edit productively in other areas and I will invest the time to review your edits.  I do appreciate that you may not want to take this third path; but you cant blame me for trying, right?  I also suggested that you come on over to Wikisource for a while, and build our collection of related primary sources.  This will give you good reason to collaborate with 9/11 editors here on Wikipedia, and then the comments at the next topic ban appeal will be more favourable to yourself. Could someone please notify Raul654 and Morven, as they may wish to comment. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A topic ban is a topic ban as far as I'm concerned. Using a sandbox and other users as a proxy for engaging in discussion is pretty clearly gaming the system in my eyes. Circumventing, or even dancing around the edges of, a ban is a terrible idea. At the absolute best, it shows an inability to walk away from the topic. Under such circumstances, I would strongly discourage the community and administrators from granting any allowances. Additionally, I would be opposed to any ban relief in the absence of complete separation from the topic and positive contributions in other areas. --Vassyana (talk) 04:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The system gaming may not have been intentional and I can accept that the actions were taken in good faith. However, utilizing a sandbox and other users to continue contributing (and advancing one's views) where topic-banned does amount to circumventing the topic ban, following the letter but certainly not the spirit of such a restriction. (This mechanical interpretation approach has been a rising concern in the community, of which cases like this are but a symptom. 3RR is the most common example, with many editors claiming that a failure to exceed three reverts either does not constitute disruptive edit-warring or is not a blockable offense, contrary to the explicit instructions of WP:3RR.) I would encourage the community to be more explicitly broad when instituting such bans at the community level and (as an individual arbitrator) I will support more clearly broad bans where topic bans are used in arbitration cases. Obviously, a topic ban is of greatly reduced value as an enforcement tool if the targeted editor is still permitted to maintain a POV fork in userspace, use other editors to proxy, and/or still otherwise engage in various discussions about the topic on-wiki. --Vassyana (talk) 05:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If I recall correctly, I was one of those suggesting (at some point last year) that Thomas Basboll edit in other areas to demonstrate he is interested in building an encyclopedia, and not just a narrow set of articles. Failing that (and it is Thomas's choice alone), I would endorse John's other suggestions. This is not, however, to endorse making SPAs second-class citizens (that opens the door to experts working on single articles being driven off by opponents who have a more diverse editing history). What matters is, as always, the quality of the sources and arguments any editor brings to the table, their editorial judgment, and their ability to work collaboratively with others. That last one is particularly important for all editors working in any topic area. Carcharoth (talk) 04:15, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Following up on what Vassyana said above, I would say that proxying is bad, but a sandbox can be helpful as long as the editor in question doesn't use the talk page as a forum to discuss things with others (who then proxy edit). Carcharoth (talk) 04:15, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * In general, I would tend to encourage attempts at building consensus about a set of articles where an editor has had previous problems and from which they have been banned. However, the current attempts look more like attempts to seek out and coax possibly sympathetic editors in order to continue the POV campaign by proxy (in particular, I see no attempt to understand the importance of undue weight but only dedication to "get the truth out").  This sort of gaming is not appropriate, and may lead to further sanctions or the extension of the current ones. &mdash; Coren (talk) 04:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * As a further note, I don't believe there is any reasonable interpretation of Raul's handful of edits that could lead to count him as "involved" by any sane meaning of the term. &mdash; Coren (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Recuse. I live and work in New York City about 4 miles from the World Trade Center site. I will adhere to my practice established last year of recusing myself from any disputes arising from the events of September 11, 2001, in part because I was profoundly personally affected by those events and in part because giving any sustained attention to the so-called, but fantastic and worthless, "controlled demolition hypothesis" as a purported explanation for what occurred on that date invariably leaves me enraged. I will remind all concerned that any suggestion that any identified or identifiable individual played any role in a "controlled demolition" of the World Trade Center buildings represents a BLP violation of the gravest nature. (I do not suggest that Thomas Basboll or any other specific editor is guilty of this offense.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment, Noting that my opinion of the situation mirrors Vassyana's. Wizardman  20:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Request to amend prior case: ARB9/11 (Thomas Basboll's topic ban)
Initiated by  Thomas B (talk) at 09:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Case affected :

Blocks, bans, and restrictions
 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested


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

--Thomas B (talk) 09:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request.

Modification of topic ban

 * Link to log of sanctions
 * My request is that the indefinite topic-ban I am currently under be changed into a two-year topic ban, to expire on April 21, 2010.

Statement by Thomas Basboll
On December 8, a topic-ban against me that had been implemented under the 9/11 ArbCom ruling was suspended for a trial period of one-month. (See discussion archived here.) My original request, however, had not been to lift the ban immediately, but simply to define an end date. AE decided on a trial period which is now coming to a close. I hadn't expected to return to editing so quickly, but I've tried to do some work that might indicate what sorts of thing I'd like to do if I returned. On that basis, then, I am simply restating my original request to let the ban run out in April.--Thomas B (talk) 09:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Answering Roger and Shell's questions and concerns would open a very long discussion. If you really want to have that discussion we can, but my solution seems simpler and more forward looking. Acknowledging that the ban is in hindsight difficult to explain, and that my trial period has not seen gross violations of WP policy, just convert the indefinite topic ban to one that has a fixed period. Then let me return under the already tight editing restrictions that the articles are subject to. I promise to edit in the spirit of what you have seen over the last few weeks. Also, Henrik is right about my conflict with MONGO, which is actually the most worrying thing about letting me return. For my part, I am committed to settling our differences of opinion about content in a civil manner. Again, the ArbCom restrictions in this area don't really allow us to do it any other way.
 * But to attempt a short answer: this is a time-consuming area and I am one of the few people who has committed to working in it in a civil and (I'd insist) moderate way. In addition to my basic interest in (i.e., curiosity about) the controversy, it is precisely because I have narrowed my focus that I don't lose my patience and can remain civil in the face of the usual suggestions to include OR of various kinds. If I had to double my time commitment (as Roger seems to suggest), I'd probably get as frazzled as everyone else.--Thomas B (talk) 17:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * With Risker and Hersfold's comments, I think I'm getting the gist. Last time I appealed this ban I had decided to try to get it overturned, i.e., to clear my name of the charge of POV-pushing. I presented this as a condition that might get me to return to editing. I was, understandably, told that this wasn't a constructive approach, but my pride and stubbornness demanded that I try. Well, time has a mellowing effect, and I have now returned without that demand. That is, I am now proposing to return without reassessing the wisdom of the original ban. The arbitrators, however, seem to be as stubborn as I was. They will not let me return without first re-affirming that the topic-ban was justified. If they hold to that uncompromising position, which is their right, then I will not edit any more. Lift the ban or don't. If you want me to edit here (John and Henrik seem to see that there is some value to be derived from it), let me do so with a modicum of dignity, friends. This time, a modicum is all I ask.--Thomas B (talk) 08:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what Vassyana has in mind, but it was my understanding that Roger wanted this to be decided by the committee, not the community. That's why I brought it here. If AE, not ArbCom, lifts the ban, there is the danger that other members of the community will simply return here with the arguments you are already hearing. Carcharoth's proposal has the virtue of being unequivocal. And if I am to remain banned on that principle, then I would suggest amending the ARB9/11 ruling accordingly. That is, it could be stipulated that SPAs and new users are not allowed to edit the articles. As I said to Carcharoth, the benefit of this approach will be that one source of controversy will likely be removed. In my view, the trouble stems from the clash of newbie (or at least anonymous SPA) conspiracy theorists with vested debunkers. If the first group did not show up (or were simply topic-banned when they did on formal, quantitative grounds), neither would the second. I think this would greatly reduce frustrations among editors like Tom Harrison. I certainly think that such editors, if spared the usual drama, could produce very good articles in this area. Such an amendment would also formalize the conditions under which I might return, which there seems to be consensus about among the arbs: if I want to edit these articles I simply have to make some substantial (but uncontroversial) edits to other parts of Wikipedia. Once I have done so I could presumably request that the topic-ban be lifted at AE. That suggestion is not new, of course, and I have always acknowledged that I might, one day, do exactly that. But the immediate consequence of putting this restriction on my return is that WP will have to do without my contributions for the time being.--Thomas B (talk) 11:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This might be informative. It has been suggested that my overall effect is to "slant" the articles in the direction of conspiracy theories. Here is the article on the Collapse of the World Trade Center  immediately before I made my first edit in July of 2006, after my last edit before being topic-banned in April of 2008, and at the close of the suspension of the topic ban in January of 2010. It is of course possible that it would have been even less conspiriatorial and very much better without my involvement. But I am pretty confident that my presence will not be found to have been disasterous.--Thomas B (talk) 12:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Henrik
I was involved in the AE process which instituted a one month trial period as an admin who happened to patrol the page at that time. During the trial period, I continued to watch this user's editing and found it unproblematic and in line with our content policies (npov, fringe, and so on). He has been unfailingly polite and communicated well.

The main cause for concern is Thomas Basboll's insistence on only editing articles very closely related to 9/11 controlled demolition conspiracy theories, despite repeated suggestions by multiple arbs, admins and users that he by broadening his scope, even slightly, would demonstrate that any concerns were unfounded. Instead he chose to stop editing when the ban was imposed.

Naturally, while being interested in only a single topic is not in itself a problem, we have bad experiences with single purpose users in problematic areas and letting an unyieldingly polite POV pusher (which his critics claim is a fair description) into his area of interest could potentially cause much unnecessary work and slant towards fringe views in one of our traditional problem areas.

I tried looking into the original reasons for the topic ban (imposed by Raul) but didn't uncover any obvious smoking guns, nor did I find obvious evidence of the type of problematic POV pushing that has been attributed to him. Perhaps I missed it, or it was too subtle to detect for someone not an expert in the subject area. The worst I found was a relatively unpleasant conflict with MONGO.

In the end, I would advocate something in between continuing a total topic ban and a complete lifting of restrictions, perhaps a longer probationary period. I don't see any reason why waiting until April would improve matters however. henrik • talk  12:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by John Vandenberg
Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive52 is the discussion where Henrik un-topic-banned Thomas for a month. (The people who commented there should be notified of this amendment request.)

The resulting contribs are 25 content edits and 30 talk edits, all to Collapse of the World Trade Center except for one recent comment to 7 World Trade Center.

Thomas appears to be working towards pushing Collapse of the World Trade Center to GA status*, and his involvement appears beneficial. If the other editors currently involved in that article do not mind his involvement, I think the topic ban should remain suspended wrt this article at least.

However, I think the general topic ban should remain in place until Thomas has worked on articles besides these very high importance/significance articles in the 9/11 topical area. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tznkai
If I recall correctly, the trial suspension was my suggestion, so I should probably speak as to my thinking:

Unblock and unban discussions tend to be speculative and irritating, and its often impossible to separate the baggage from the actual predictive evidence. This seemed a good opportunity to short circuit the existing norm (a lot of declarations and haranguing between supporters and opponents) and do something more useful. A suspension, in addition to moving an editor back towards their natural state (anyone can edit) more importantly functions as a diagnostic tool - in this case a month of recent editing patterns to give good facts for decision making.

This is not to say that a month of good behavior is necessarily sufficient however, and we are best served by multiple persons from the affected topic areas giving us their own impressions and reactions. If there is not enough reason to give confidence of an absence of problems indefinitely, another, longer, trial period is the natural next step.

As a final thought, the ban appears to have been logged as a discretionary sanction - and thus is subject to discretionary review. ArbCom has been invited to decide, but it need not accept that invitation.

Statement by JzG
Why can't Thomas just leave these articles alone? We have millions of articles he could edit, and a handful where his interaction has caused massive stress. There's no evidence that his strong opinions have changed, so I think it's highly unlikely that allowing a return to unrestricted editing of these articles is going to produce anything other than the same old problems. Guy (Help!) 14:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tom Harrison
Are there diffs or evidence that, during the trial un-ban, Thomas Basboll has tried to slant the article? No, of course not. Given the arbcom's scrutiny, anyone but a raving loon would be on his best behavior, and Thomas certainly isn't a loon. But then his individual edits were almost never problematic. The problem was that over time they slanted the presentation in favor of 'controlled demolition'.

Along with the natural state in which anyone can edit, is the actual state, in which people don't want to edit, at least in that area. Because of the constant pov pushing, endless demands to assume good faith and compromise with conspiracy theorists, repetitive talk-page discussions, et cetera, I've chosen to spend my time elsewhere. I no longer follow those articles, and won't be working with Thomas Basboll, so take this for what it's worth. Tom Harrison Talk 18:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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


 * The previous discussion on this matter wasn't on the case talk page where I expected to find it. I've dug back into the page histories and archived it at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories. Side-note to any arbitrators reading this, I incorrectly said (by e-mail) that Basboll filed that request, when it was Tom harrison who filed it. Could a clerk please notify all those who were involved in the previous discussion, and anyone else who needs to be notified. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 04:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Could a clerk notify members of the AE thread, if this has not been done already?--Tznkai (talk) 22:47, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Comment: This is little point in deferring this until April. The POV aspects can be resolved by suspending the topic ban and authorising any uninvolved administrator to reinstate it, after giving due warning. However, I also share Henrick's concerns about Thomas Basboll's exclusive focus on 9/11. Perhaps the solution here would an editing throttle, where Thomas Basboll can make one edit to 9/11 in exchange for one comparable edit in an unrelated topic. What does Mr Basboll feel about this?  Roger Davies  talk 12:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'd like to hear from editors you've been working with during this trial and I share Roger Davies's concern about such a narrow focus, but I do see a lot of excellent, thoughtful and non-heated talk page discuss from during the trial. I think that's a good sign.  Echoing Roger, what are the chances of branching out from this topic area?  In my experience, editors who are too focused on a particular subject tend to unconsciously spiral in on themselves and I'd hate to see you end up back on a topic ban. Shell   babelfish 13:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Nobody is asking you to double your time commitment; we're all volunteers here. The purpose of an editing throttle of the type Roger suggests is to encourage a branching out of your editing abilities, because as noted by Shell single-purpose users do often have difficulty pulling themselves away from controversial situations and are more likely to be subject to editing sanctions. It may reduce the amount of time you're able to spend on 9/11 topics, but it's likely to be beneficial to your return. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 23:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd also like to hear other comments, although I am not pleased with Thomas's refusal to step away from this area, nor his apparent refusal to understand why we're asking him to step away. This is not indicating to me that removing the topic ban will be a good thing. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 03:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: I am very much disappointed in Thomas Basboll's unwillingness to step away from the same place he's haunted since first registering. Being polite isn't enough; being politely tendentious and repetitive can be as bad as being rude and tendentious. I'd like to ask editors who worked with Thomas Basboll before to review the recent edits to see if he has returned to put forward the same proposals as he had in the past, those which were considered fringe, or POV, or inappropriate for the article into which he wished to insert them. Risker (talk) 03:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Risker, I'd like to hear from other editors about the course of the trial period before making any further determinations. Vassyana (talk) 16:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I see no reason for ArbCom to step in here. Community review got us here and I see no reason why it cannot continue to move this matter forward. I see no indication that this is beyond the reach of reviewing administrators and the community to resolve. Vassyana (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I apologize to Thomas Basboll and others involved for any miscommunication that may have led to this amendment request. However, this is a community imposed sanction that was undergoing community review and should continue undergoing community review. I am opposed to ArbCom short-circuiting or circumventing that process and will oppose any motions or measures as an individual arbitrator on that basis. Vassyana (talk) 16:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Per Risker and Vassyana regarding the desire to hear from, for want of a better term, "adversaries". Would also welcome comment on why this ban, imposed as an arbitration enforcement measure rather than as an ArbCom remedy, merits a request for amendment.  Thomas has kindly pointed out that this latter point was blitheringly idiotic, though he was more diplomatic. Steve Smith (talk) 22:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment As Roger has pointed out, I (and possibly other arbs) would be more sympathetic to the request if the editor actually has made broader content contributions outside of this scope. - Mailer Diablo 03:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - I remain of the opinion that those focused totally or almost exclusively on a single topic should diversify their editing to come to a broader understanding of how Wikipedia works. This applies to both non-expert editors and experts as well (here, by experts I am referring to topics such as climate science and medical topics such as homeopathy, or science in general, where some science or medical experts feel no need to edit outside their areas of expertise). Self-taught or actual experts won't be able to be as deeply involved or authoritative on other areas, but that is a good thing, as it gives a taste of what it is like at different levels. When editors first arrive at Wikipedia, I think they should be allowed to be "single-purpose accounts" up to a point, but beyond that point, they need to diversify. I think Basboll reached that point long ago, and his refusal to edit in other areas is not helpful, so I would not lift the topic ban. In effect, this approach is what I would advocate for any new account that arrived at a controversial article: "this is not a good article to learn how Wikipedia works - you need to build up a track record elsewhere in uncontroversial areas of Wikipedia" (and then topic ban that new editor). Unfortunately, one type of response to new editors turning up on controversial articles and making controversial edits is to indefinitely block them as disruption accounts or "obvious" socks. I favour the "topic ban" approach as one that avoids collateral damage. When the editor has built up a track record elsewhere, they can apply to have the topic ban lifted. Carcharoth (talk) 04:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Recuse per my practice on disputes relating to the events of September 11, 2001. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

A proposed amendment to a sanctions remedy
A motion has been proposed that would amend a sanctions remedy in this case. It would replace the remedy in this case that allows administrators to unilaterally apply sanctions to editors within the designated topic area with a standardized remedy that essentially allows for the same thing. Any extant sanctions or warnings made according to the older wording found in those decisions (as applicable) remain unaffected. To comment on this proposal, please go to Arbitration/Requests/Motions. NW ( Talk ) 20:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Request for clarification: WP:ARB911
Initiated by  The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) at 17:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)

Statement by The Blade of the Northern Lights
I've been involved at AE recently as an administrator, and I was looking over the current request concerning MONGO because no one seemed to want to touch it. The Devil's Advocate left me a message here indicating I may be considered involved in this dispute. I have occasionally popped in at the September 11th attacks and 9/11 conspiracy theories articles to help tamp down some of the trolling that inevitably goes on there, but I haven't been really involved in the content there (although I did help with one very minor content addition in September 2010 which has nothing to do with conspiracy theories). The edit in question is this, which (as I stated on my talkpage) I remember making because having "conspiracy theories" and "alternative theories" in the same sentence there seemed redundant and unnecessarily verbose. However, I would like to be certain about what, if any, involvement this constitutes; given there's an active AE thread now, I would like to hear back as soon as possible. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 17:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My goodness, I had completely forgotten about those. If those were August 2011, I might feel more inclined to consider myself involved, but 1 1/2 years (that didn't really involve anyone who's at AE now) is a bit vaguer (as is evidenced by not even remembering those, it's safe to say they didn't influence my comments, and they wouldn't now because I was still a fairly new user at the time), so other input would be nice.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 18:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I've gotten the feedback I need. Sorry for creating a mess of things, I'm still learning to navigate the labyrinth of arbitration pages.  Anyone can shut this down as they desire.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 23:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate
Given Blade's comment about September 2010 I looked at the revision history of the talk page around that time and found this additional diff suggesting involvement. I think that one is a little more clearly pointing to involvement. Also, I should note the current AE case concerns edits on the 9/11 article in general, so the various disputes Blade got involved with on the article talk page at that time would have relevance to the question of involvement.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 17:51, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * To Blade's response the wording from WP:INVOLVED says: "Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include . . . disputes on topics, regardless of the . . . age . . . of the dispute." My understanding is that the general idea is that admins should not get involved in cases where they may have a bias towards one position or another. How, when, and where someone edits is just the simplest gauge, though I think it is generally expected that an admin not get involved in a dispute where they have a strong opinion about the subject even if there is no history of editing in the area of the dispute.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Statement by DHeyward
(Redacted) --DHeyward (talk) 20:15, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your views, but I removed your statement: the issue in question here is the involvement of an administrator, not the subject of the enforcement request. If you have a complaint about TDA you should pursue it in the proper venues - and not by derailing a tangentially-related thread. AGK  [•] 23:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * I don't think questions of involvement need necessarily come to the committee first, even on AE-related matters. I think arbitration is a good alternative if a first approximation by the community is inconclusive, although in such cases the simpler alternative is to pass the torch on to another admin if a substantial minority agree with the person complaining of involvement. Jclemens (talk) 17:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jclemens. We do not usually make a binding decision about administrator involvement in the first instance, and these comments should certainly not be construed as such, but it would be less problematic if TBOTNL would allow another administrator to make a decision - in this request, at least. For future reference, if I were pressed, I would probably say you are involved for the purposes of arbitration enforcement, not least because the threshold for such "involvement" is very low. AGK  [•] 23:07, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Motion: Removal of Unused Contentious Topics, September 11 conspiracy theories (October 2023)

 * Original discussion


 * Enacted - &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 01:34, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Support:
 * 1) Has only been used twice since 2017. Fully covered by AMPOL --Guerillero Parlez Moi 19:47, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 2) Primefac (talk) 19:54, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 3) Izno (talk) 20:24, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 4) I actually thought we'd already merged this into AMPOL. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:51, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 5) KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 23:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 6) AMPOL will suffice. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:41, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 7) So long as we're explicitly stating that September 11 conspiracy theories are a post-1992 American Politics contentious topic, and not leaving it open for someone to argue it's a cultural history thing, sure. Cabayi (talk) 10:48, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 8) As the motion more or less says, this is redundant. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:24, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Oppose:

Abstain:
 * 1) SilkTork (talk) 22:36, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Community discussion (September 11 conspiracy theories)
Since this was heavily used before AP2 closed, I'm not going to count how frequently it was brought up at AE overall. But it's only been used once in the past five years (Archive 277, thread "Roy McCoy") and even then that was invoked alongside AP2. I agree that the 9-11 sanctions are redundant with AP2. —Jéské Couriano v^&lowbar;^v  Source assessment notes 16:08, 15 October 2023 (UTC)