Requests for amendment

Initiated by Per Honor et Gloria ✍

Case affected

• Franco-Mongol alliance arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
• PHG arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
• Amendment

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

"PHG's topic ban is renewed"

2. ArbCom renews the topic ban from the PHG arbitration. Per Honor et Gloria (talk · contribs) is prohibited from editing articles relating to the Mongol Empire, the Crusades, intersections between Crusader states and the Mongol Empire, and Hellenistic India—all broadly defined. This topic ban will last for a period of one year. He is permitted to make suggestions on talk pages, provided that he interacts with other editors in a civil fashion.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Per Honor et Gloria (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Elonka (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Angusmclellan (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (ArbCom-assigned mentor of Per Honor et Gloria)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• [1]
• [2]

Amendment 1

• Lifting of restrictions or some sort of probation regarding editing in the "Crusades and Mongols" area.

Amendment 2

• Lifting of editing restrictions on "Hellenism and India", which have absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand.

Statement by Per Honor et Gloria

In my previous Amendment Request, I documented the fact that the Franco-Mongol alliance is not a "novel theory" nor a "pet theory" of mine as claimed by Elonka and some others [3][4], but on contrary something which is described as fact by a vast quantity, and even possibly the majority, of historians (See: 50 historians describing the existence of a Franco-Mongol alliance). This request was rejected on the ground that content disputes are outside ArbCom’s jurisdiction [5]. Well, in that case I believe most of Elonka’s claims against me [6], as well as several votes and comments in the last Amendment Request [7][8] clearly become irrelevant.

I would like to know then upon what ground the current ban extension (for a 3rd year!) would be legitimate. In the time period since my previous ban ended and Elonka again asked for editing restrictions against me (2 weeks, from February 2nd to February 16th) I believe my editorial behavior has been exemplary:

Qualitative edits, no edit-warring

Altogether, I must have done about 20 edits to the Franco-Mongol alliance page and its Talk page in that time period. I have been taking pains to make extremely well-sourced statements with mainstream academic online references so that all I write can be checked by anybody. No disputes, respect of the content of other contributors: Wikipedia editing at its best [9][10][11].

Best possible civility

To use Elonka's own words, I tend to remain "very civil" [12]. As a gesture of goodwill, I have even made small presents to Elonka [13], explaining her several times that I wanted to please her and be her friend [14].

Well-sourced contributions

I remained highly factual in my contributions, and also systematically sourced them to scholarly online Google Book references so that everybody can check for themselves, and, if desired, can correct the Wikipedia content accordingly. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].

I believe it is an injustice to extend a topic ban under such inadequate conditions. Please put me under some sort of probation if you wish, but don’t extend this topic ban without a good reason. I am asking for:
1) Either the lifting of restrictions or some sort of probation regarding editing in the "Crusades and Mongols" area.
2) The lifting of my editing restrictions on "Hellenism and India", which have absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand.
Best regards to all and thank you for your understanding. Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 12:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Shell Kinney

Didn't we just do this? Further repetitions of "I'm right, it's all Elonka's fault" are starting to make me think the ban should have been from talk pages as well.[27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] Shell ^babelfish 21:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by other editor

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

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Nope. Maybe we need to extend this to talk pages too or a total ban. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• PHG, enough please. There is no persecution, and your repeated appeals are playing against you. — Coren ^(talk) 15:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Per Rlevse and Coren. The reason talk page editing was left open to you was to be constructive, not disruptive. If you are running into problems on talk pages, please talk to your mentor. Regardless of whether you are right or wrong, you are going about this the wrong way. Work with others to see what you agree on, not what you disagree on, and then work forward from there. Carcharoth (talk) 10:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agreed, PHG needs to take a step back here. SirFozzie (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

---

Initiated by Cla68 (talk) at 01:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Derek Smart arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedies

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Cla68 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Bill Huffman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Atama (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Bill Huffman
• Atama

Amendment 1

Bill Huffman (the account by that name and the person behind it) is prohibited from editing the Derek Smart article, including the talk page.

Statement by Cla68

Finding #5 from the Derek Smart case found that Bill Huffman was operating an off-wiki attack site on Derek Smart and editing the talk page of the Smart article under a Wikipedia account of the same name. On the Derek Smart talk page, the Huffman account has made, as recently as a few days ago, suggestions on article content which has been discussed by other editors.

It came to light a few weeks ago that this same editor was operating an undisclosed alternate account, TallMagic. Both accounts have edited the same article. TallMagic disputed (and here) the attempts at finding fault with his use of two accounts. Administrator Atama asked TallMagic to stop using the Huffman account, which TallMagic refused to do, instead, announcing that he was "retiring" both accounts. The Bill Huffman account, however, began editing again on 18 April, specifically targetting the Derek Smart article. He has been evasive when asked to explain why he is doing so.

I'm not sure why the Committee did not enact a remedy in the case with regards to this editor. It seems to me that someone who is operating an harrassment campaign off-wiki against someone should not be allowed to edit that person's Wikipedia BLP, including the talk page. I suspect that the person wants Derek Smart to know that he is messing with his Wikipedia bio, as he has the same name prominently displayed on the front page of the off-wiki attack site [33]. The fact that the editor "retired" the TallMagic account yet kept the original account which is now used solely for the Derek Smart article shows that this person is really only here for one purpose, to use Wikipedia as part of his personal campaign against Derek Smart. I request that ArbCom consider adding a remedy to this case to resolve this issue.

27 Apr 2010 followup: Based on a suggestion by Huffman on the Derek Smart talk page, someone just implemented a change in the article text. So, Mr. Huffman, who runs an off-wiki attack site on Smart under the same name, is influencing the content of the Wikipedia article on the target of his campaign. Cla68 (talk) 23:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 72.192.46.9

I've started editing Wikipedia some time ago, simply because I knew of Derek Smart, was surprised there was an article on him, and got interested in watching the article grow. I am not terribly Wikipedia savvy, and let it be known though I have been trying to acquaint myself with policy properly enough to weigh in on things, my opinion should be taken as that of an inexperienced editor.

The original arbitration did mention Bill Huffman, and as I recall found no reason to remedy. It is perfectly within reason and within WP:COI for someone who is directly involved with a subject to post strictly on the talk page, so long as they are careful as per 'close relationships'. To this end, Bill Huffman has never edited the article, has always seemed to give helpful edits, and remained calm in an extremely checkered history of vicious personal attacks by various editors. He is not a troubling force on that page, and anyone examining the history of the page is likely to see that for themselves.

I find myself bothered that this remedy is even being proposed, and I would like to note that conflict of interest was spoken to here[34], and seemed to find nothing in this regard. Editing a talk page with content suggestions does not seem to be something to discourage. Certainly not something that should be punished. These suggestions, it should be said, were not done disruptively to any measure that I can detect. His suggestions on the talk page were often for additions that, as someone who has had an extensive history with the BLP article's subject, he considered to be useful. Not all of his suggestions were taken, but a rejected idea never even seemed to cause him the slightest distress.

I feel bad in that I've been speaking with Atama, with regards to Bill Huffman, and now it seems even after he finished conversing with me (he banned what I thought to be a legitimate sock of Huffman and I made a case on the sock's talk page and on Atama's page, later inviting JzG to review if he ever had time), and now Atama's been called in anyway. My sympathies for your being drawn back in, Atama.

In summation, I don't see a case to be made, here. But though I am an inexperienced editor, I am also likely one of the few around that knows of the article subject, and some of the long-standing conversations throughout the history of the article. OH, no, there is one thing more. Is it possible to add another amendment that the article in question be reviewed by uninvolved editors? It's hard to get interest, but there has been a NPOV tag up for quite some time, there are also some simple errors, and if this article is truly non-neutral (this figure, from what I have seen, is often negatively regarded, however I'm loathe to judge in on WP:Weight) then some help to bring it up to speed would be ideal. 72.192.46.9 (talk) 05:46, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum - In reading the 'evasive' link Cla68 posted, the final post in there seems to be from TallMagic as of this posting and it seems to be a clear explanation and not an evasion. A study of the history of the article will cause one to note that Derek Smart does indeed know that Bill Huffman edits the article, without any speculation required. After the ArbCom remedy, Derek Smart entered the page with his personal name, and in part of a long comment, was banned owing to legal threats[35]. Prior to that, his surrogates, IP editors with close personal knowledge and singular interest in the article, were causing disruption on the page by removing all material critical of the article's subject. [36] Through all of this, even while conflict of interest concerns were raised, Bill Huffman's editing patterns were often praised.[37]. 72.192.46.9 (talk) 07:33, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum 2 - Something I'd forgotten. Cla68 also requested a personal review of Bill Huffman's activities with Atama. This request seems to have come the day before the final deletion of a sockpuppet investigation in which Bill Huffman was found with no case to answer. In the same day as Cla68's aforementioned request to Atama, he also requested BLP noticeboard assistance which found no action to be required. Hopefully this might speak to the level of light that has been shining here, as this was also a topic of the original arbcom. I would invite that this is certainly not an unknown situation, nor one that has not been thoroughly considered, in my estimation. 72.192.46.9 (talk) 09:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Atama

I have to admit that this is the first time since I've become an administrator that I've been so conflicted. I've reviewed my feelings, opinions, and behavior throughout the entire incident that Cla68 referred to above, and while I don't feel that I've made any drastic mistakes, I believe that from here on out I would like to avoid any and all use of the tools against Bill Huffman or any of his alternate accounts. I'll try to recap what I've done and my point of view.

My involvement with this began at the conflict of interest noticeboard, where I responded to a complaint made by Cla68 regarding the involvement of TallMagic and others in articles related to "diploma mills". I didn't feel that there was a COI (see my opinion here), and I still don't feel that there was one. My biggest concern at the time was what I thought was outing of another editor in an attempt to prove a COI, which is an all-too-common problem at that noticeboard. I redacted the personal info and warned Cla68) that outing an editor in pursuit of a COI case is not acceptable. At the time, I had thought that Bill had abandoned his old account and created a new one to preserve his real identity, and had only outed himself by accident. The discussion then moved to my talk page, which I thought was appropriate due to the privacy concerns in this case.

On my talk page, I defended TallMagic against sockpuppet accusations, insisting that the Bill Huffman account had been retired, the TallMagic account took over, and there was no other violation of WP:SOCK. I truly believed that at the time, but Cla68 insisted that the Bill Huffman account was still active, and TallMagic threatened to bring the issue to ANI to complain about harassment. That didn't seem like a good idea at the time, especially for an editor concerned about his privacy, and tried to propose a compromise, that the old Bill Huffman account be completely abandoned, and perhaps Cla68 would leave him alone. That was very poorly-received, and I was accused of trying to "broker a deal for him". After that, I was more insistent with TallMagic and pleaded with him to not escalate this too much because issues of privacy can only properly be handled in private locations, and taking everything to ANI would be counter-productive. Despite my requests, it did spill over into the noticeboard.

I reluctantly participated in the ANI discussion, you can see my first comment here where I tried to be circumspect for privacy reasons, as I still had concerns about outing, despite the fact that TallMagic seemed to be voluntarily disclosing the identity by posting such a report. But by the time I posted my next comment I felt that such a concern was moot, since the connection was clearly made by other editors already, in such a public place, as I was afraid would happen. That was the point at which I questioned whether TallMagic really cared about privacy, and asked why he needed to keep his old account. TallMagic refused to explain why he needed the other account, and continued his outing complaint (while outing himself). That was the point in which I said that I'd given up trying to defend him, since he was uncooperative, and also pointed out that he'd used his two accounts to edit the same article (on almost the same day) in clear violation of WP:ILLEGIT, and in my next comment declared that I just didn't believe him anymore.

At TallMagic's talk page I've left a number of messages, but the specifics don't matter, except that I continued to declare that I no longer thought that TallMagic/Bill's appeal that he needed multiple accounts for privacy reasons were sincere, and that I had no interest in interacting with him any longer (either in favor or against him). I did make one exception to that, however. TallMagic had declared that he had left Wikipedia, but then Cla68 informed me that Bill was continuing to edit Wikipedia. At that point I blocked TallMagic, since I could no longer trust what he said, and felt that it would prevent future sockpuppetry. That may or may not have been wise, I've questioned myself on that move and if anyone reverses the block I won't object. If nothing else, if the TallMagic account is specifically retired, it is probably moot.

I apologize for rambling. I'd really rather forget any of this, but I thought it would only be responsible to make a comment here and provide some background from my perspective. I'm not proud about anything that happened, as I feel like I made sincere attempts to help two editors and failed miserably. I don't have a lot of opinion with Bill's editing of the Derek Smart page specifically, and don't want to get involved with that personally considering the history I have with the editor. -- Atama頭 19:25, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Orlady

Background: I have (or, i should say, had) a longstanding and positive "relationship" with TallMagic, as we have interacted extensively on articles about diploma mills, educational accreditation, and related topics. I don't know much of anything about Derek Smart, but I see no indication that the user's editing of Talk:Derek Smart violated either Wikipedia policy or the remedy in this arbitration case.

Considering (1) the large sums of money that some unscrupulous people make from diploma mills and (2) the fact that most diploma mill business comes via the internet, it's hardly surprising to me if diploma mill operators are determined to control the content of Wikipedia articles about their operations. I've seen evidence that diploma mill operators can successfully intimidate governments and publishers into retracting negative statements about them, and I fully expect that they could make life very miserable for Wikipedians who are brave enough to edit diploma mill articles under their real names. With that background, I find it entirely logical that after some bad experiences as a result of editing diploma mill articles under his real name, the user created the TallMagic account as a main account to protect his privacy -- a legitimate application of WP:SOCK#LEGIT -- while continuing to use the real-name account solely to interact with Wikipedians regarding topics strongly associated with his real name (mainly the topic of Derek Smart). It appeared to me that -- Atama's efforts at "sanitization" notwithstanding -- Cla68's initial "outing" efforts permanently damaged the privacy of the "TallMagic" account, giving him sound reasons to abandon that account. Keeping the TallMagic account and abandoning the real name account (as was suggested) would have made no sense, since the TallMagic account could no longer protect his privacy. It pains me to see the continued "piling on" that the user has experienced after he announced the retirement of the TallMagic account. I believe that his use of two accounts was entirely legitimate (within the scope of WP:SOCK#LEGIT), that his decision to abandon the TallMagic account instead of the real-name account was entirely understandable, and that the labeling of the TallMagic account as a "Blocked Sockpuppet" added a major insult to the injury already suffered by a good and reliable Wikipedia contributor. I don't see any good reason for slapping an additional ban on the real-name account, as Cla68 now proposes. --Orlady (talk) 04:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bill Huffman

Accusation of operating a SOCK account: I started editing Wikipedia using this account, user:Bill Huffman. After getting some threats in my home email from some apparently unhappy diploma mill owners I decided to create another account so that I would be able to safely continue editing Wikipedia articles like diploma mills, educational accreditation, and related topics as mentioned by Orlady. I decided that it would be best to continue editing the Timothy Baymon article with this account because a wp:SPA account that was likely Timothy Baymon or a meatpuppet threatened this Bill Huffman account. I thought it could be interpreted as deceitful if I started editing that article with my new account. I thought that trying to edit talk:Derek Smart with another account would be completely unreasonable from the point of view that I wouldn't be able to disclose my potential biases to other editors on the talk page without outing my new account. I was also concerned about keeping my TallMagic account separate from other people that might be watching the article that had participated in the Derek Smart Flame Wars on Usenet. So anyway, I posted on the BLP notice board and got another editor to fix the Timothy Baymon article so that I would no longer be a focus of Timothy Baymon or his meat puppet. My research of wp:SOCK seemed to indicate to me that this was all perfectly within Wikipedia policy and guidelines. In particular, the Privacy paragraph at wp:SOCK#LEGIT seemed to allow this kind of use. Regarding the accusation of editing the same article with two accounts, on February 21, 2009 I made my last edit on Timothy Baymon or the talk page using User:Bill Huffman[38]. On February 22, 2009 I accidentally edited the article with my TallMagic account instead of the Bill Huffman account[39]. The next edit by anyone in the article was in June. This February edit was the first edit to Timothy Baymon with the TallMagic account and I never edited the article again with the Bill Huffman account after that. I assert that it should be obvious that I was not trying to be deceitful or disruptive regarding this incident on Timothy Baymon. I also believe that the continued use of this old Bill Huffman account was legitimate and if I've misunderstood the policy and it was not legitimate then there was no attempt on my part to be deceptive, deceitful, disruptive, or dishonest.

Accusation that I said I would retire both accounts: This is just not true. Exactly what I said was, "I will retire my TallMagic account after this ANI. It is no longer usable thanks to Cla68 anyway. I will no longer edit Wikipedia except perhaps the rare addition to one talk page."[40]

Accusation by implication that I have ever pushed an anti-Derek Smart point of view on talk:Derek Smart: My goal when editing on talk:Derek Smart (or any article) has always been making the best article possible and strictly following Wikipedia Guidelines. To support this assertion I first point out that Cla68 has neglected to point out any of my edits to try to support his false accusation. Second I point out that Thatcher in January 2007 said, "I checked Bill Huffman's main space contribs (none to Derek Smart) and some of his Talk:Derek Smart edits, and didn't see anything to be concerned about. He may be one of the few advocates who can put it aside here. (Unlike some folks in the other disputes I mentioned.)".[41] Third, I point out that I let editors know on talk:Derek Smart when anything notable positive or negative is made public. The most recent example of positive information being on March 13, 2010 I posted this suggestion to add positive information [42]. Fourth, just look at the talk page and make up your own mind.

My requests to the admins who read this:

1. I request that the User:TallMagic account be unblocked. Not because I wish to use it to edit article space, that will never happen. I make this request because I believe that this is a case of wp:SOCK#LEGIT. I also feel that it is insulting to my past contributions to Wikipedia and to me personally to block the account. If certain fans of certain diploma mills finds out about this then it will likely be used as a jumping off point for spreading more insults and lies against me. For example see an example of such an attack against me[43].
2. I also request that Cla68 be told that he has to leave me alone. I cannot imagine ever being tempted to edit Wikipedia articles again as long as I have to worry about Cla68 renewing his harassment. I do not know why Cla68 started what I consider a harassment campaign. Here's an abbreviated history in chronological order
   1. Outing and a COI[44]
   2. When Cla68 was told outing was not allowed, he said he was allowed to out me because this was a COI and also because my original account was a real name account.[45] Does Cla68 not understand the outing policy? Perhaps, but he failed an RfA because of an outing incident he was apparently involved with[46] and so it seems more likely to me that he really was more familiar with the outing policy than he pretended. The COI was closed with consensus in my favor.
   3. Cla68 filed a SPI against me[47] Which is fine but it is closed and Cla68 can't seem to accept the consensus, just like he can't seem to accept the COI consensus. He continues lobbying with various admins that I be punished. It seems in large part because he was still determined to further out my TallMagic account. The SPI was closed with consensus in my favor.
   4. Cla68 continued claiming that he was allowed to out me even after multiple warnings from multiple admins. He then posted this on user_talk:TallMagic page to apparently indirectly associate the real name Bill Huffman with TallMagic.
      1. (To TallMagic) Your accusation of "harrassment" on my talk page cheapens the term and experiences of those who have been real victims of harrassment, like this guy. This attack website on Derek Smart lists "Bill Huffman" as the site's owner. An account by that same name has been trying to control or heavily influence that article's content for some time. Also, I have serious concerns about the use of the archived version of the Oregon database in order to add negative information to the WIU article. I will continue to notify you so that you can give your side as I continue to look into this using Wikipedia's various administrative forums. Cla68 (talk) 22:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[48][reply]
         1. addendum: Note that in Cla68's quote above, the word "This" is a Webcitiation link to the Wikipedia page that contains User:CRedit_1234's outing that he was subsequently indefinitely blocked for.
   5. Cla68 posts incidents on a few noticeboards (BLP and Reliable Sources) in an attempt to find fault with my edits. These too were settled with a consensus in my favor, yet Cla68 continues what seems obvious to me to be harassment.
   6. Cla68 makes a request to ArbCom[49] Where he also attempts another outing that Hipocrite redacts[50]
   7. Finally I feel that this current action is another attempt at harassment. As far as I know, this campaign of Cla68's is the first time there has been absolutely any interaction at all between us. I would really appreciate it if Cla68 was told to stop harassing me as Cla68 seems to pledge he will continue when he says, "as I continue to look into this using Wikipedia's various administrative forums". from above[51]
      1. addendum2: Of course if part of Cla68's motivation has to do with an off-Wikipedia encounter then I'd have no way of knowing that for sure, although I am suspicious.

• Bill Huffman (talk) 05:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SirFozzie: I don't have time to respond to what I believe are Cla68's misleading accusations at this time. I just wanted to say here that I'm happy not to edit Talk:Derek Smart (I've never editted the article.) until this is settled. Regards, Bill Huffman (talk) 18:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment 2

• Link to principle, finding of fact, or remedy to which this amendment is requested
• Details of desired modification

Statement by your username (2)

{Statement by editor filing request for amendment. Contained herein should be an explanation and evidence detailing why the amendment is necessary.}

Statement by other editor (2)

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

Further discussion

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

Statement by yet another editor

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting further statements. On an initial review, I find this situation to be troubling. I urge Bill Huffman to refrain from posting to Talk:Derek Smart until this matter is resolved. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I have to admit that people claiming that Cla68 was outing a user by linking him to a real name alternate account that the person was using. to be.. slightly puzzling, to say the least. I second Brad's suggestion above that the posting on the Derek Smart page(s) should cease until this can be further reviewed. SirFozzie (talk) 15:12, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Recused. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:55, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

---

Initiated by — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk at 21:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected

Eastern European mailing list arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy 3: Piotrus is topic banned from articles about Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about same, widely construed, for one year.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Piotrus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Piotrus

Amendment 1

• Remedy 3: Piotrus is topic banned from articles about Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about same, widely construed, for one year.
• See below for proposed modification and alternative proposal.

Statement by Malik Shabazz

User:Piotrus used to perform a number of uncontroversial housekeeping tasks for WikiProject Poland that did not involve content editing of articles related to Poland. For example, he monitored newly-created Poland-related articles and, where appropriate, added applicable clean-up tags (including nominating them for deletion when necessary), nominated them for DYK, and invited their creators to the WikiProject. (A fairly complete list of his former responsibilities can be found here.)

When Piotrus was blocked, User:Jniech volunteered to take on some of those responsibilities. Jniech made a good faith effort, but for a variety of reasons Jniech has not been able to keep up with the necessary tasks. Both Jniech and I have asked for assistance, but none of the other WikiProject Poland members have volunteered to step in. Consequently, these tasks have not been performed for several months.

I hereby request an amendment to Piotrus's topic ban in order that he may once again perform these housekeeping tasks and post messages to WikiProject Poland to inform other editors about such tasks. Piotrus would be strictly prohibited from editing the content of any Poland-related articles except for the types of uncontroversial maintenance edits mentioned above.

In the alternative, I request an amendment to Piotrus's topic ban in order that he may inform me of any new Poland-related articles that, in his opinion, should be tagged for clean-up (including deletion), or of any other WikiProject-related tasks.

Statement by Nihil novi

To the best of my knowledge, all that Malik Shabazz says above is true. Piotrus has played an essential role in the production and maintenance of articles pertaining to Poland and Poland's broader geographic and historic milieu. Had Piotrus never written an article himself — and he has doubtless been one of the most productive editors on these and other subjects — his role in the cleaning-up of existing articles would still have made him one of the most productive editors on the English Wikipedia. Malik Shabazz's proposal, if adopted, will strengthen the project in a very substantial and noticeable way. Nihil novi (talk) 06:36, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Darwinek

As stated above, User:Piotrus was of great help for WikiProject Poland. It would be extremely beneficial for the project if he would be able to perform easy non-controversial tasks for the project. His cleanup abilities are needed. - Darwinek (talk) 19:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Skäpperöd

• Projects are one way to coordinate maintenance, but most editors maintain wikipedia articles without being enlisted by any project. They do so either regularily, by chance or by bot.
• WPPoland has 30+ active and 30+ semi-active members [52], including experienced users like Malik Shabazz, Nihil novi and Darwinek who commented above, but also other people with a high edit count.

If an editor feels some article needs an additional tag, banner, cat etc pp, WP:SOFIXIT applies.

Malik Shabazz based this request on his co-project member Jniech's mid-February request. Angus McLellan promptly offered advise on how to properly deal with the issues Jniech was uncertain about, while MS proposed to go to this board, and prepared this request in his user space afterwards. MS's assumtion that "A fairly complete list of his [Piotrus'] former responsibilities can be found here" is false. As any editor, Piotrus does not have any responsibilities here, except for playing by the (few) rules. The list MS linked are not Piotrus' responsibilities, but a list of optional, volunteer maintenance tasks that may be performed by anyone. MS's assumption that "these tasks have not been performed for several months" remains unproven, and it is neither shown that there is anything that really needs to be done and is not done. Skäpperöd (talk) 08:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Visor

As it has been said above, Piotrus took significant role to create and improve hundreds of Poland and European related articles. Many of them became articles with the highest Wikipedia standards what can be seen by numerous of DYKs, Featured, A-Class and Good articles. I totally agree with Malik Shabazz and I believe (I know) Piotrus' work on WP:Poland will be beneficial for Wikipedia. Visor (talk) 19:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jniech

WikiProject Poland has a number of members but it is the number willing to do the work that is important. A few of us tried to cover for Piotrus. It is our failure that resulted in this request as without Piotrus help the backlog of outstanding tasks is only going to increase.

Further in my mind adding a template or recommending an article for DYK is not really breaking Piotrus ban on editing article on central and eastern European topics.

Members of Wikipedia can help with many issues but there is the issue of maintaining consistency. Only someone with years of knowledge on Polish related articles can help with this.

It only hurts Wikipedia by not considering this request. Piotrus appears to have broken the rules and some form of punishment was warranted. Stopping Piotrus adding content and discussing articles on central and eastern European issues maybe fair but taking part in “uncontroversial housekeeping tasks” seems unnecessary. In olden days, prisons were for punishment. In these more enlighten days rehabilitation is the goal. Why not consider this? If Piotrus breaks the rules then increase the length of ban but stopping him doing house keeping others can’t be bothered doing seems wrong.

Those who doubt that there is a need only has to monitor the WikiProject Poland page to see increasing numbers of Poland-related articles by quality and importance which are not assessed and that is including those we are failing to tag Jniech (talk) 09:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by M.K.

Given the long history of off-wiki games, disruptive coordination to circumvent Wikipedia policies, tag-teaming, stealth canvassing etc. any attempt to ease any sanctions should begin with a full acknowledgement of guilt by the sanctioned party. And by full acknowledgement I mean not "non-apology apologies" that we did have before, not wikilawering or beating around the bushes, but straightforward admition by the sanctioned party that it understands why it was sanctioned, and admits that its actions such as 'tag team' edit-warring, abuse of dispute resolution processes, proxying for blocked user and encouraging and advising other Wikipedia editors to circumvent Wikipedia policies were disruptive, harmed Wikipedia’s integrity and will never be repeated again. Without such statement any motion to ease these sanctions should not even be considered.

Finally, none of those “tasks” listed above are vital to the project and easily can be carried out by other members of the project. If Piotrus has too much free time, he can work in dozen other WP projects. Saying that, I perfectly understand that we will see countless other typical “amendments”, “calcifications” and “requests“ in the near future. M.K. (talk) 06:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lysy

I can only confirm that Piotrus housekeeping tasks related Poland-related articles are missed now. Besides, Piotrus used to do an outstanding job indirectly motivating other editors to improve the quality of the project articles, and this is missed too. It seems that the proposed amendment can only do good and I can see no harm in it. --Lysy^talk 19:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Poeticbent

Time flies. The month of April is already getting close to an end. Piotrus is going to return to full time editing in several months, regardless of any amendments to EEML. I ask. Why not allow him to return to his area of expertise one step at a time, and, take on noncontroversial tasks in the process of recovery. The Project Poland has been virtually dormant since the New Years, with only rudimentary maintenance and peripheral activities taking place. Poland–related DYKs have all but vanished from the front page of Wikipedia since last year. Naturally, Piotrus is not going to make up for all the loses endured by the Project, but his own prior devotion to this portal would be a good place to gradually start rebuilding. -- Poeticbent talk 20:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jan eissfeldt

well, i can`t write a lot about the eeml-stuff because i haven`t followed the progress in detail and i`m sure that the arbcom was as carefully as always. i want to provide an other point: Piotrus is an experienced university outreach user - especially as main contributor of WP:SUP, where he runs his own sociology project every term - and expanded the perspectives of this part of the wikipedia. he is trusted there as well as on the real life aspects of this matter and so i would be pleased if it would be possible to give him the chance to run a SUP-project of his own again, best regards --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 20:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Piotrus

I did not want to comment earlier as I wanted to avoid influencing the discussion. I feel that the experienced members of the WikiProject Poland who commented above summed the situation quite clearly and that they are aware of my past and present commitment to the project. To sum it up, shortly, I am fully prepared to resume my uncontroversial wikignoming activities by working within the WikiProject namespace as outlined in the proposed motion. Despite good faithed efforts by some editors, there are many tasks that have not been carried out, with the detrimental effect for the project (and Wikipedia in general - from low recruitment of new members to low levels of copyediting activity). I feel I can resume doing them uncontroversially as I have been doing for the past several years (for that WikiProject, and as I've been doing for others, such as WikiProject Sociology and the Schools and Universities WikiProject).

To Risker: regarding six months, please note note that there have been no issues involving my editing since the case was opened in September last year.

Thank you for your consideration, and I want once again to thank the WikiProject members for their continued faith in me. I will not let you down, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To Rlevse: please let me know if the following elaboration does not address your question.

Shortly: as I noted during the arbitration, I understand that asking for edits on a private foras or responding to such requests should be avoided. As you can see from my edits during the case and this year (that adds up to about half a year of active editing now), I edit in a peaceful manner that isn't raising any issues. I am not sure how I can give you something other than words, since the intended edits have not been done yet, for obvious reasons (and it is a bit hard to demonstrate the lack of controversial edits/issues, see, my proof of that is here: [? lack of complains]). Perhaps the best proof of this is that no editor commenting on this motion so far has been able to present a single problematic post-artbitration start diff. You are welcome to review my recent edits in other en Wiki areas (or projects); I can also list some of the edits I'd like to propose for project member consideration here (but I want to make sure that would be ok with you, I don't want it to be seen as an attempt to evade the restriction). Also, as Malik noted, a list of things that should be done, isn't and that I intend to do is here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:39, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To Carcharoth: there are no (more) floaters on my userpage. The ones on my talk page should allow access to the toolbox - just scroll down a little bit (and let me know if you still cannot access it). Re 1) yes, they were transwikid by User:Graham87 upon my request last week or so (it is my understanding transwiki is the proper way to preserve edit history for copyright and attribution) from my Polish Wikipedia sandbox (the link to which I send to ArbCom months ago, and this is the same place I developed my Lech Wałesa article from the previous passed motion). 2) I was cleaning my sandbox, which involved moving some content to new pages. The content on the page you are referring to is not new but quite old and was moved from here. 3) Yes, but ON POLISH WIKIPEDIA, on the aforementioned page. It was and is my understanding that this is acceptable, see also my following reply. 4) It is my understanding that the original motion included my en Wikipedia userspace, but not any space on projects other than en Wikipedia. I believe that Coren's motion makes it clear that this motions concerns only the WT:POLAND page.

Seeing as I am answering all of those questions, I do have a quick question of my own. Am I allowed / will I be after this motion to do the following: 1) invite editors by posting on their user talk pages to join the WP:POLAND project 2) answer editors asking me questions like this one that they should direct their questions to WT:POLAND and 3) (after the motion passes) tell them that I've replied to their question there? (As all of those involve edits in a different namespace than this motions concerns, i.e. user talk namespace) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Varsovian

I entirely agree with M.K. There are at least a dozen other WP projects which those who were very deservingly banned as a result of the EEML affair can engage themselves. I’d ask why we see this constant stream of ‘can I just do this thing? It’s completely uncontroversial’ requests but we know why: these people are expert at gaming the system. Banned means banned. Varsovian (talk) 08:05, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Can Varsovian provide a single instance where these amendments were used to "game the system"? No? Then don't make empty and false accusations." No I can not. But I can provide examples of using a host of techniques to degrade the project which were used by the members of EEML. Which one would Radek like me to point out first? It would be highly amusing to be lectured by Radek about things which one should not do with WP, if it wasn't so sad that he clearly has learned nothing from the EEML experience. Varsovian (talk) 11:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Radeksz

I've tried to avoid controversy and refrain from commenting but sometimes enough is enough. In response to Varsovian and M.K I'd like to point out that

1) Wikipedia is no place for personal vendettas. Actually, that kind of thing reflects badly on a person in general, here or elsewhere.

2) The existence of other projects is irrelevant. Other people involved with WP:Poland made this request - hence they must think Piotrus' work would be very helpful. I'm sure Piotrus could involve himself in WikiProject Small Purple Rodents or whatever but he'd probably be pretty bad at it. He has lots of experience in this area and that is where his help is needed.

3) If other projects need help, then perhaps some users could expand their time and energies there, in a constructive manner, rather than wiki stalking editors and wasting people's time.

4) These previous "can I just do this thing" amendments - I believe this is a reference to my two amendments. I would like to point out that both of these amendments passed off without a hitch, without controversy, without any harm to anyone, without breaking of any rules. At the same time they resulted in the sourcing of 150+ unsourced BLPs, a clear benefit to the encyclopedia. Can Varsovian provide a single instance where these amendments were used to "game the system"? No? Then don't make empty and false accusations. That kind of thing reflects badly on a person, on Wikipedia and in general.

5) To add to 4) above, the only controversy is the empty controversy and battlegrounds that some editors are trying to foster here.

Statement by Russavia

Because of the heinous nature of Piotrus' violations of the spirit of Wikipedia policies and practices, and because of the non-existence of any acknowledgement of wrong-doing, I would prefer to see that he serve at least 6 months of his topic ban before any such requests are considered. And even when they are, they should most certainly not have anything to do with process discussion, or even nominating articles for AfD. There would also need to be a narrow section of articles that he would be allowed to edit for maintenance - e.g. anything relating to Poland and it's interactions with other countries should definitely be off limits for the full twelve months. --Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 11:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Further discussion

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

Statement by yet another editor

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting further statements before commenting. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I'll repeat the essence of what I had discussed on my own talk page with Piotrus: I am receptive to allowing him to post to some well defined location about articles that currently fall under his topic ban, and see this as an opportunity for him to return gradually to contribution in that area. The suggestion of using the Wikiproject talk page seems sound to me as well.

  That said, I admit I'm very hesitant to allow even seemingly uncontroversial edits to the articles themselves at this time. Too often, "uncontroversial" is anything but and lies in the eyes of the beholder. Accordingly, I wouldn't support that level of relaxation this soon. — Coren ^(talk) 19:08, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'll post a proposed motion in that direction sometime today. — Coren ^(talk) 10:44, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Continue to be recused. Shell ^babelfish 06:26, 22 April 2010 UTC)
• Generally agree with Coren here. SirFozzie (talk) 16:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree with Coren as well. KnightLago (talk) 19:44, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• For Piotrus: You were banned totally 3 months (ending a month ago) and topic banned 1 year; only 1/3 of that time has passed. I also recalled how hard you lobbied for those things not to happen. Bans aren't ended early because no one has filled on what the banned person used to do. Bans are ended early because the banned person has shown they've truly learned from what got them banned, realizes what caused it in the first place, and has shown they won't repeat those behaviors. All too often some banned person lobbies for an unban, gets it, and goes right back to their old ways. While I appreciate that some things in the Poland topic aren't getting done, I can also appreciate Risker's concerns. I'm read your statement above, but I need to see more, not just words. Can you elaborate? — Rlevse • Talk • 12:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Piotrus, your user page needs fixing so people can click on your contributions link. I had to access that log a different way because of the floating thing obscuring the sides of the page. Like Risker, I think waiting for the 6-month mark would have been better, but I will support the motion because I see the logic of a gradual return in some areas. Please be crystal-clear as to what you can and can't do, and if you request a further review at the 6-month mark, your activities between now and then will be taken into account. It is entirely possible that some restrictions will remain in place for the whole year of the initial topic ban. Before I support, I have a few questions arising from a brief look-through I did for your contributions over the past 4 months. (1) Can you confirm that the article space edits during the period of the 3-month ban were due to content edited elsewhere and imported here? (examples) - this appears to be some sort of glitch that needs fixing. (2) Could you explain the purpose of this page created on 26 April 2010? I'm not one to get picky about userspace edits, and this is clearly housekeeping, but can you understand that creating a page that looks like draft notes touching on Eastern European topics (it looks like that from what I've read of the page) might be considered borderline activity in the topic area? (3) Would you intend to continue article draft/notes activity in your userspace in the Eastern European or Polish topic area if this motion passes? (4) On the same subject, which other pages, other than the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland do you see this motion covering (e.g. subpages of the WikiProject?), and do you think the original motion from the case (here) included your userspace? (This is not a trick question, it is genuinely open to interpretation and better settled now rather than later.) Carcharoth (talk) 20:23, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the reply and explanations, Piotrus. The floating stuff on your user talk page (I meant user talk, not user page) does give me a small window to access the sidebar (where your contribs link is), but it is still not ideal. It's not strictly to do with arbitration, but if you could try and see whether that can be fixed it would be good - people shouldn't really have to scroll around and having floating stuff killing other links is not good, though whether it is my set up or the floating thing, I don't know. About this and other stuff to do with the imports, I've reviewed the proxy authorisation and I think it would be best if you asked the three editors listed there to deal with things like this for you, rather than you doing it yourself or making requests yourself (or you could ask for Graham87 to be added to those listed at the motion). It may seem like unneeded layers of communication, but it is important to keep matters like that at arm's length and to work through the three editors named in the motion. On the same topic, moving edit history between namespace and projects is technically correct, but it can cause confusion when people try and work out later what happened (when edits are moved from userspace or other projects to mainspace, it can give the impression that material was present in mainspace on a particular date, when in fact it wasn't - and the transwiki logs don't really seem to be very visible). About the sandbox edits, I see now that it was all housekeeping and moving stuff around - thanks for clearing that up. Carcharoth (talk) 23:53, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • To answer your questions, I would say limited posting in user talk space may be OK, but I had envisaged you being more able to do administrative tasks for WikiProject Poland, rather than extensively discussing things. For example, if a deletion discussion was mentioned, you taking part in a thread at WT:POLAND discussing the article would be similar to taking part in the actual deletion discussion. And if people start !voting in deletion discussions saying "per Piotrus on WT:POLAND" that would be bad. I'm going to have to think about this some more. I'm also not happy with the "raise issues and discuss improvements to articles" bit of the motion - such discussions can take place on wikiproject talk pages if the discussion is general and about a group of article, but specific discussions about improving an article should really take place on the article talk page (so others can see it in future). It might be simpler to amend the topic ban to allow editing in all namespaces except article space, and possibly to include a prohibition from participation at AfD, and to trust you to avoid contentious discussions. Either that, or to strictly limit it to the WikiProject pages only (though this doesn't avoid the problem that sometimes discussions take place on WikiProject pages that should really be located somewhere else). I'll wait for more input before voting. Carcharoth (talk) 23:53, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Carc, the reason this was proposed for WT:POLAND as opposed to the talk page is twofold: (a) it makes it centralized, and therefore easily monitorable, and (b) raising issues about an article needing attention on its talkpage is rather futile since it would not be seen by new editors. — Coren ^(talk) 11:13, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sure, but do you see Piotrus's role following this loosening of the topic ban as simply flagging up issues and then sitting back and letting others deal with them, or do you see his role as including "discuss improvements", which is technically what would happen on the talk page once people had been alerted at the WikiProject? In practice, such discussions tend to overlap between WikiProject talk pages and article talk pages. There may, for instance, be editors who would prefer to post at the article talk page rather than participate in a discussion at WT:POLAND. We shouldn't encourage long discussions about improvements to specific articles when there are other venues better suited to that (article talk pages and deletion discussions, to name just two). I have no objection to WT:POLAND being used to flag up articles that need attention, or for general discussions there about groups of articles within that WikiProject's scope, and I have no objection to Piotrus carrying out administrative tasks on all and any WP:POLAND pages and subpages (including initial postings pointing out problems for others to fix), but I'm wary of discussions getting out of hand and also wary of allowing user talk page postings as if would be better for Piotrus to get others involved in that side of things (delivery notices and welcome notices and invitations to join, etc). For now, I will support, and trust Piotrus to back off in certain areas if things appear to be getting out of hand. We do also need to answer his questions about other namespaces, and be more explicit about other pages and subpages of WP:POLAND. Carcharoth (talk) 07:09, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• To answer one of Piotrus's specific questions: my view is that if someone posts to your user talk about something in this topic area, you should avoid initiating a discussion there, and instead direct them to the talk page of WikiProject Poland where you should raise the issue for them if necessary and answer briefly if you have an answer for them. Again, this will encourage others to get involved, so the WikiProject is less reliant on you and others can step in to help out. Carcharoth (talk) 07:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Motion

The current editing restriction affecting Piotrus (talk · contribs) is to be amended to allow Piotrus to raise issues and discuss improvements to articles otherwise under the ban on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland talk page.

There being 16 arbitrators, 6 of whom are inactive, one recused, the majority is 5.

Enacted ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:35, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support

1. As a first step towards gradual return to editing. — Coren ^(talk) 18:40, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
2. Given Piotrus' second stmt and the large swell of community support he has, I'm going along with Coren here and am willing to see how this first step goes. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
3. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
4. Provisional support, pending discussions above regarding other namespaces and other pages and subpages of WikiProject Poland, and urging Piotrus to be wary of engaging in long discussions on the WikiProject talk page that should properly take place elsewhere. If the discussion venue moves, he will have to show restraint and allow the discussions to continue on other pages without him, rather than allowing parallel discussions to develop. Carcharoth (talk) 07:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
5. Willing to give it a shot. KnightLago (talk) 15:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
6. Willing to give this a shot and see how it goes forward. SirFozzie (talk) 15:24, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. I'd like to see at least six months pass before moving toward the gradual return to editing (mid-June at earliest), and I note that Piotrus has not commented or made this request, despite being notified of this request for amendment. I am not comfortable approving this change without hearing from him, or his plans for editing and contributing in this area. Risker (talk) 20:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

   Noting that I have read Piotrus' comments above. My general rule of thumb is that half the sanction period should be served before major changes; that would occur in June. I'm not seeing any reason that would compel me to believe that Piotrus is the only person who is capable to carry out the processes that are the basis of this request; they are tasks that any editor could carry out if s/he felt it was worthwhile. Without a compelling reason to make an exception in this case, I continue to oppose. Nonetheless, as this motion is passing, I will take this opportunity to note that this is a very limiting restriction and that Piotrus may make comments only on the Wikiproject page; it does not lift sanctions in other areas where he has professed an interest. Risker (talk) 15:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recuse

1. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:56, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

• Moved to abstain. I completely missed that Piotrus hasn't commented here. What's up with that? KnightLago (talk) 20:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

• See my stmt in the arb section. Holding for now. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Supporting now. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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