Hi,

You had asked if Im affiliated with Brett Salisbury. NO, I bought his book and read his story. He has changed my life and my families by the diet he recommends. Every source I gave was seperate from his own. Not sure what you need to prove he is the real deal. You can hear live radio interviews, read book reviews, and read his bio from sources not related to his website. Does he need to make the NY Times bestseller list to convince wikipedia he is noteworthy?

He is changing lives, thats all I know... Thank you Mr.Dunbar 2129 Rickler Ave Seattle Washington Certified Dietician

Since the ArbCom decision encouraged mediation [1] I would like to participate in this [2].Momento (talk) 00:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, and why are you telling me this?  Sandstein  05:17, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because some ArbCom judgements and Request for arbitration enforcement decisions are made at the whim of the decision maker with no reference to facts or Wiki policy.Momento (talk) 21:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, what would you like me to do? What is the problem?  Sandstein  22:02, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since I cannot rely on decisions to be based on fact or logic, I thought I should check that you will not infinitely ban me if I agree to the mediation.Momento (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(sigh) Why do you think I would ban you?  Sandstein  22:11, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Based on your response to my complaint about Will Beback anything is possible. But you've answered my question so I'll go ahead in good faith. Thanks.Momento (talk) 22:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have made no assurances whatsoever. Could you please provide the link to the decision or discussion based on which you believe you could be banned for agreeing to mediation?  Sandstein  22:26, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well at least you've proved my point, twice. Firstly, since you banned me "from initiating or otherwise participating in any discussions related to Prem Rawat in all Wikipedia discussion pages and other fora, including article and user talk pages, WP:AE, WP:AN, WP:ANI and their talk pages", I thought I'd better check if I could "participate in this mediation" [3], you replied "OK". That's an affirmation. And now you're asking me to provide a link I've already provided.Momento (talk) 22:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, you see, I forgot that I issued such a ban. All right, the ban is suspended exclusively with respects to edits made in official mediation fora.  Sandstein  06:05, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Perhaps you can explain to me why my complaint about Will Beback is "frivolous" and warrants an eight month ban when you took no action about these two fraudulent complaints by Francis Schonken.[4][5]Momento (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide a link to this complaint about Will Beback.  Sandstein  05:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the link but please read every word and follow every diff. Thanks.[6]Momento (talk) 00:26, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have already explained the reasons for the action I took in the relevant AE thread. I have nothing to add.  Sandstein  05:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the technical meaning of the presumption of innocence refer to the burden of proof being on the prosecutor. For this reason, the principle does not apply to the media, the police or, for that matter, wikipedia. There was no need for anyone outside of judiciary to presume the innocence and people is free to presume guilty on the basis of available information. Moreover, I would appreciate if you can enlighten this but procedural basis of the burden of proof on the civil law doesn't quite work in the way of common law. I believe Inquisitive system could request the defence to prove certain aspect of claim for example. Vapour (talk)

It appear that "presumption of innocence" has very specific legal meaning in the common law while in the civil law, it is more a matter of principle. It appear that I was correct in deleting that part but not for the correct reason.

Sir, I justed wanted to express my appreciation for your willingness to hear me out in addressing the issues raised against me. I also am thankful for the thoughtful consideration of fellow admins Lifebaka, Luna_Santin, Anthony.bradbury and jpgordon. Thanks! Highspeed (talk) 06:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, you left this on Momento's talkpage, he has now suddenly added himself to the Prem Rawat mediation, here. Would the ban imposed on him not automatically dis-allow this? -- Maelefique ^(talk) 15:31, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please see a few sections further up.  Sandstein  16:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In an attempt to turn a divisive RfC into something productive I have created a new page. I hope you will come and do what you can to help make it work: Wikipedia: Areas for Reform Slrubenstein | Talk 00:21, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good close and good job explaining why you saw it that way. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 14:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. This is exactly how it should be done. One of the top two closures I've ever seen. Nick Graves (talk) 14:34, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!  Sandstein  14:35, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried to edit Hussein Salem Mohammed, only to be confounded by the "View Source" link instead; turns out you protected the page over BLP concerns - but forgot to add a "Protected" tag to the article; can you just slap one on, it's there for a reason...very helpful in instantly informing me there's an ongoing spat, rather than "That's odd...this article can't be edited..." Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 15:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done, thanks.  Sandstein  15:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sandstein. Over at the arbitration noticeboard talk page, you mentioned the edit warring at the Utgard Loki page. I noticed that as well, over the past couple of days. I've commented here. Would you be able to follow that up, or ask someone else to look into that slow-motion edit warring and the editors involved? Carcharoth (talk) 21:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. I believe no action is needed now that the warring has stopped, and the only person reverting more than once was Bishonen, who as admin needs no warning.  Sandstein  22:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I think you may have misread the timeline though. The edit warring took place before any announcemnt. Carcharoth (talk) 23:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for posting such a clear explanation about the nc decision. Regards, Springnuts (talk) 17:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...is intended in the current discussion at AN/I. I bow to your superior abilities as regards knowledge and interpretation of policy. I am striving to avoid any tone of hostility or sarcasm and express my honest doubts about the situation as I see it. Thanks again for the time and consideration you have given this issue. In the real world I am working (at an honest job!) right now and my responses to discussion may be delayed. Sincerely, Doc Tropics 18:46, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No disrespect was assumed. Whether my interpretation of the applicable rules is found to be correct will remain to be seen...  Sandstein  20:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for all your time and effort regarding the various aspects of the Matt Sanchez article, its subject, and the editors involved. While I have no idea what the outcome(s) might be, I'm thoroughly satisfied that it is now getting the attention it needs. I'm interested in the issue of BLPs in general, and this has certainly been a learning experience. Thanks again for all your help, Doc Tropics 18:00, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

		The Socratic Barnstar
		In recognition of your exceptional insight and firm even-handedness in resolving complex issues. Doc Tropics 20:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I admire your tenacity, dedication, and impartiality. I also wonder how many aspirin you needed to take by the time you finished wading through that? Doc Tropics 20:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate them, because approval by anybody is rare in arbitration enforcement.  Sandstein  21:00, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and no aspirin. I'm doing this as a hobby, and will stop as soon as it gives me a headache...  Sandstein  21:02, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sandstin. The source used in the article describes flight from police as a "variant on the 'contempt of cop' theme." So presenting it as an example isn't quite accurate. Also, it's probably best to be cautious about making sweeping assertions based on a single source. I have already posted to on the talk page noting my concern that the article offers a particular point of view that borders on legal advice without fairly representing other points of view and interpretations of the law. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:13, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein you seem to be playing it very fast and loose with the way statements in the article reflect the sources. A source stating that fleeing the police is a variant of contempt of cop, does not mean it is an example of contempt of cop. This kind of thing can lead to misunderstandings. Also, a source stating that: given the relationship of some young black men to the police, it may be more likely that they are involved in these situations does not mean that a blanket statement about young black people is appropriate. Opinions should be attributed and unless something is well established in sources it shouldn't be stated as fact. I haven't seen it stated anywhere that an arrest for yelling or cursing out cops is inappropriate let alone police misconduct. That may be your point of view, but we're an encyclopedia, so we have to go with what the laws and the history, and the sources say. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:18, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I'm seeing this post only now. Could we continue this on the article talk apge, please? I'd be interested to hear what others think.  Sandstein  21:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Please be advised that I have reviewed the unblock request for User:Bluemarine and that I have agreed to unblock that account. I have spelled out my reason for the unblock on Mr. Sanchez's talk page. However, I have also requested that Mr. Sanchez consult with his mentor, Durova, prior to any further editing until his murky status is resolved. Thank you. Pastor Theo (talk) 01:18, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to note that Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#scuro has been recently very active. The argument is that the Arb final decision was that both Scuro and Jmh649 were restricted, with the wording (with my emphasis) "Scuro is limited to one revert per page per week and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should Scuro exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, Scuro may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below". The argument that seems carry some water is that during the edit war Scuro had reverted "generally" from the article without discussion. Could you please look over the recent submissions and either take action or close the thread as it's turning into another sling match, just as the other thread calling for a restriction on Jmh649 had done. Cheers, Nja²⁴⁷ 09:32, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Sandstein. I am puzzled by your recent removal of the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Swiss municipalities/Article title conventions, and wonder if you may have fallen into a trap.

The page has been in existence for some four years, linked from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names), without any problems. That is, until Pmanderson, on 31 May 2009, whilst sulking over the move of Bern from Berne, noted it as historic. His argument on Talk:Bern was that the page had not been amended in that time and was therefore redundant. The usual way of seeing this on Wikipedia would be that it was stable and had gained consensus.

The current notation that "This page has been superseded by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names), which applies to all Wikipedia articles on places." could equally replace any of the conventions on individual countries. However, as with the other sub-pages, this convention covered much more that the name of Bern, and was largely about how to disambiguate Swiss geographic articles, something which is not adequately covered at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names).

If Pmanderson took such objection to the page being cited as a reason to move Bern, then the correct thing to have done would have been to seek to change the policy set out on the page or, as he did, to discuss at Talk:Bern, but also to have added a notation to the page that a discussion was ongoing at Talk:Bern.

His addition of the historic tag should be seen in the same vein as his placing of a neutrality tag on the Bern article. He has failed to gain any support for his arguments on that page and has failed to win any support for his campaign against the administrator who closed the discussion. Indeed, he appears to have alienated more editors by his actions.

In view of this, can I ask that you reconsider your action in deleting the page's contents. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. As you may know, I disagree with Pmanderson about the Berne/Bern naming issue. But my move was not triggered by this and I believe that it should be considered independently from his strange actions with regard to "Berne". I believe that a naming guideline that directly contradicts the main guideline should have broader project-wide consensus, and I can't see this here. The main guideline tells us to use the most common form in English, while Docu's guideline would have us use the local official form. That's a rather big difference (in theory; in practice they generally match), and though a Swiss myself I am unconvinced that our geographic names warrant any special treatment. That said, if you believe there might be consensus for such special treatment, I am not opposed to you undoing my actions if you start a discussion in an appropriate forum about whether these rules are sustained by consensus.  Sandstein 

Thanks for your speedy reply. Can I suggest you read what you deleted again. It did not "have us use the local official form" instead of the most common form in English.

The opening paragraph, titled Naming of articles, stated "The article is placed at the title with municipality's official name in the local language, if there is no other article with the same name and if there is no usual English name" Skinsmoke (talk) 07:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True. But in that case, what need is there for a special guideline for Switzerland? I'm not in principle opposed to one if there's both such a need and consensus behind it. So far I see neither, just one page written in one edit in 2005 (when I presume there was no clear general naming guideline) and never changed since.  Sandstein  20:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Sandstein, I have constantly noted my willingness to abide by my 1RR restrictions and to discuss any and all edits and I honestly didn't believe that removing that tag constituted a revert when I introduced the sources to backup its conclusion. Administrator Nishkid, who immediately made an edit after mine, had no qualms in it and simply corrected my own grammatical error. My response on the AE page may have sounded like I was attacking other editors but I have no interest in doing so and was simply explaining the chronology of how and what happened. I ask you to please reconsider your decision as this was a very simple confusion on my part of what constituted as a revert at that moment and I had no desire to make edits that would have violated my parole. Regards, --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 20:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why and how exactly were you confused that this edit is a revert of this edit made half an hour earlier?  Sandstein  20:57, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know that by removing that tag and simultaneously pointing to him the sources to support the wording would have constituted a revert; I felt that it would simply count as a new edit, since the dubious tag is no longer be need when the multiple authors cited on the talk page make mention of the wording. Nishkid's follow up edit only served to confirm what I felt, as he did not add the tag back but merely corrected a grammar mistake I made. It was only a little later that it dawned to me that my edit might be construed as revert, and I was going to immediately follow up my edit by citing the four or five sources listed on the talk page to support the phrasing had not time considerations prevented me from doing so. There was a lapse of reasoning on my part in all this, absolutely, but I didn't expect that someone would say I was committing a revert by removing a tag that was no longer needed. Thank you for hearing me out.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 21:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will ask Nishkid64 and YellowMonkey, who have experience with your conduct, to comment.  Sandstein  22:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sandstein, just let you know that the DiamondApex was not exactly a sockpuppery case and that once he leaves California he will request an unblocking. Consult Nishkid64 for further info. Also, I find the rationale of a topic ban for the only user who wrote FAs (from scratch) on those heated topics pretty weak. I can understand a topic ban against Brand since he mostly reverted in those articles, but a topic ban against the only user who has several FA's under his wing and also happens to be the most proliferant article creator in Armenian subjects is a little too harsh. May I suggest reducing the scope of the topic ban to the article in question where most of his recent activity was concentrated? After all his second revert was essentially a result of the user incorrectly assuming that a removal of the tag wont count as a revert.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 23:07, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whose this user with multiple FAs? Also in addition, I know some guys with FA credits who are extreme racial POV-pushers but since none of the people from the "opposite" race exist on wikipedia and neutrals either don't know or can't be stuffed spending 3 hours a day on something they don't have a natural interest in, they can do what they want :( YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I don't think that an experienced user such as MarshallBagramyan would not know that removing the tags added by another user would constitute a revert. He has been involved in this controversial topic area for years, and been a party to 2 arbitration cases. And the tags were added for a good reason, discussed on talk in much detail. As for the article in question, MarshallBagramyan has been extremely disruptive there, edit warring and preventing other editors from adding any info to the article. He was blocked twice before for edit warring on that article, first because of 1RR violation, second time for sock/meatpuppetry. I was even forced to file an arbitration request, naming MarshallBagramyan as a party, but arbitrators decided that the DR opportunities were not exhausted yet. However considering the behavior of MarshallBagramyan on this article, DR is unlikely to give any result, since he refuses from any mediation. Note that the editors he opposes to in this article (except for me) are not even regular contributors to AA topics, they are third party people who have nothing to do with either Armenia or Azerbaijan. Yet they are unable to edit the article, as every edit they make and which contradicts the POV popular in Armenia gets instantly reverted. I don't think that such approach to editing the controversial topics is acceptable, and MarshallBagramyan has been given enough chances. Also, I don't think that Nishkid64's edit fixing a typo could be construed in any way as an endorsement of MarshallBagramyan's actions. Grandmaster 05:10, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Topic ban reduced

Because of the possibility that the 1RR violation might have been a honest mistake, and acting on the advice of other administrators, I reduce the duration of the topic ban from indefinite to one month, to run concurrently with the 1RR restriction, which (like any other applicable sanctions) remains in effect unchanged.  Sandstein  07:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]