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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Current requests

Waterboarding

Initiated by henrik•talk at 11:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • (All of these are from December 26 to today, I did not include earlier discussions)

Statement by Henrik

The battle that has been going on is growing beyond the ability of the community to handle. Several admins, myself included, have attempted to bring order to the discussion only to be dragged into the maelstrom. The basic content dispute the question of whether there is a significant dispute that Waterboarding is/is not torture, and what weight that should be given to the various positions. There has has been an unwillingess for the parties to make compromises and talk to each other, and as a result the page has been protected, almost since the begining of november. Multiple warnings and blocks, an RFC, and an attempt at community article probation have failed. There have been cases of sock puppetry, disruptive argumentation, the atmosphere is generally unproductive, and a group of students at Harvard attempting to participate in a Wikipedia debate got bitten. I would welcome ArbCom input on how to move forward, to get this article back to constructive editing.

A followup: Some have suggested mediation should be tried first. If we are dealing with sock puppets of banned users as some have suggested, I believe mediation is unlikely to be successful. Mediation is a voluntary process and requires the good faith of everybody involved. Some posts on the page seem designed to drive other editors apart and provoke confrontation and endless argument, almost in the style of HeadleyDown. This, combined with sockpuppetry, wireless Sprint addresses, strange connections between some of the users (and Free Republic somehow lurking in the shadows). Had I believed we simply had a breakdown in communications, mediation what I would have suggested. henrik•talk 17:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Neutral Good

I am one of the so-called "SPAs" on this account. I openly admit that I have a single purpose: it's called NPOV. The Waterboarding article represents one of the great moral dilemmas of the early 21st Century and it's "In The News," so it is attracting a lot of attention from observers at all points of the political spectrum. The first six words of the article pretend that "waterboarding is torture" is not disputed by anyone, despite the fact that such prominent legal experts as Rudolph Giuliani (former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, possibly the next president of the United States) and Andrew C. McCarthy (former assistant US attorney for SDNY, now director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism) have said that in some cases, waterboarding may not be torture. The "waterboarding is torture" advocates have gone so far as to extend this pretension to a section header for the section of the article that focuses on the very real dispute, expunging the word "dispute" from that section header. Administrative process has been persistently abused by one side in an attempt to WP:OWN the article; for every sockpuppet accusation that was accurate, there have been at least three resulting in findings of Red X Unrelated or no Declined, my User Talk page has been blanketed by warnings, and there have been no less than three separate threads started at WP:ANI by the same person. They have violated WP:TE and WP:DE during brief periods of semi-protection, they have an SPA of their own created at the end of October that mysteriously agrees with everything they say, and there have been absolutely zero consequences for them. Someone needs to take action to make the first six words of the article NPOV.

Initial statement by admin Black Kite

I came to this article as uninvolved; whilst there are undoubtedly good-faith editors involved in the "not torture" side of the dispute, the majority of the problems are almost certainly caused by an organised campaign of POV-pushing by numerous accounts and IPs (see Talk:Waterboarding#Protection).

Results of my initial investigations are as follows.

Shibumi2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

  • Recently confirmed as a sockmaster warring on this article by CU (Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/GooseCreek) and blocked for 2 weeks.
  • Account was created on 7 January 2007, one day after User:BryanFromPalatine was blocked for two weeks (and later indefinitely). Note that BryanFromPalatine, as the name suggests, hailed from Palatine, Illinois.
  • Both Shibumi2 and BryanFromPalatine share an major interest in the article Free Republic.

209.221.240.193 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Neutral Good (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

  • SPA account created 22/12/2007, This diff [16] after he forgot to log in, reveals an IP address which resolves to Illinois as well.
  • Nominated Shibumi2 for adminship (Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Shibumi2, deleted and thus only viewable by admins).

Other IPs which supported the "not torture" side of the dispute
68.29.174.61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

  • Supported "not torture" proposal on talk page. Resolves to Sprint, as does Shibumi2.

70.9.150.106 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

  • Supported "not torture" proposal on talk page. Resolves to Sprint.

68.31.220.221 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) "Bob"

  • accused other editors of being POV warriors. Only other edit was related to Free Republic. Resolves to Sprint.

I will expand this section after further investigation.

Statement by semi-uninvolved Nescio

Although not named I have been part of the discussion presented above, but have not edited the article AFAIK, and would like to share my thoughts on this. Coming to ArbCom seems premature at this point, as formal mediation would be the logical next step. However, should the case be accepted I think a summary of what has happened is helpful. So, here we go.

There is certainly something amiss on this article, where editors want to state waterboarding is a form of torture. (Clearly, some guidance as to how to interpret and apply WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:CON seems to be in order) Opposing that sentence, claiming a widespread dispute, there have been numerous incidents involving sockpuppetry, SPA's, sudden influx of outside contributors, that apparently discussed the matter and reached a position prior to getting involved. (These incidents would be one of the mysteriously coincidental parts of the debate that needs attention clarfying possible sinister motives.) During the debate I noticed that some editors have missed the numerous rebuttals of the there is a dispute-fallacy. Unfortunately they are also unable to find them on the talk-page and the RFC. Still trying to abide by WP:AGF I repost a summary of that discussion here.

  1. A 140+ legal experts say it is torture, 4 experts say it is not, 8 are unable/unwilling to make any determination. AFAIK nobody disagrees with this, see RFC for details.
  2. The following logic has been advanced as argument for the existence of a "controversy:" confronted with a dissenting expert voice, even if it is just only one lone wolf, we effectively have a dispute. This, of course, is nonsens. If the existence of any opposition could negate consensus among experts they would still be debating the way our earth is shaped, what causes AIDS, is evolution real, did the Holocaust happen, are aliens experimenting on us, et cetera. Clearly that is not the case. Therefore, opposition by a very small group of experts does not a dispute make.
  3. Within the US 1/3 think it nis not torture and 2/3 think it is. AFAIK nobody disputes this, see RFC for details.
  4. The following logic has been advanced as argument for the existence of a "controversy:" since US public opinion is split 2:1 this evidently constitutes a dispute. Although very interesting and certainly notable public opinion is irrelevant to what experts think on this. Public opinion has brought us such notable and successful concepts as antisemitism, facism, McCarthyism, superstition, quackery, witchhunt, mucoid plaque, holocaust denial, scam, et cetera. Confronted with the evident unreliability the world developed a new concept in an attempt to better explain the world in a more unbiased and unlikely to be manipulated manner. Soon it was discovered this new way of explaining things was far superior than the frequently incorrect gut feeling that was used before. With that knowledge relying on public opinion became a logical fallacy. So, using public opinion as argument is not a valid rebuttal but people keep refusing to answer why public opinion, in determining the legalities involved, is more important than expert opinion.
  5. Some argue that determining whether waterboarding meets the legal definition of torture, i.e. UNCAT, is a socio-political question.Clearly somebody does not understand that whenever we have to establish whether an individual violated the law, i.e. tax fraud, rape, murder, torture, et cetera, we do not go out in the street and ask the general public. What I think editors attempt to say is that the possibility of allowing torture under certain circumstances is a socio-political debate. Thinking on it, it is self-evident that a legal determination the US engaged in war crimes, factually correct or not, has political consequences. Hence the lack of international zeal to take up cases invoking universal jurisdiction. Possibly this is what is meant with the socio-political part of the argument.added afterthought Nomen NescioGnothi seauton 18:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Then people argue that the sources themselves are wrong, i.e. conflating definitions. Surely everybody is aware that it is not up to us to evaluate and correct sources. Please remember, it is not whether information is correct but can we verify it?
  7. Others claim that even if waterboarding is torture the technique used by the CIA is entirely different.Unless we can substantiate this with outside sources it is inadmissable as speculation by a WP-editor.

Hope this clarifies the reasons why any opposition to it is torture is insufficiently substantiated with WP:RS, WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT, WP:V and common sense in mind. Nomen NescioGnothi seauton 13:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved HiDrNick

I think that this case is premature, and hope that the committee will choose to not hear it at this time. There are some community-based remedies being discussed that, if adopted, would certainly reduce the amount of tendentious editing on the page. Failing that, mediation as a next step would be reasonable.

Statement by Walton One

This is a content dispute, so I expect the ArbCom will turn it down.

I am also not sure why I have been named as a party. I have been involved in a couple of discussions on the talk page in the last two days, but I have not edit-warred. Indeed I have made a grand total of one edit to the article itself - namely this one, which consisted of adding a closing square bracket. Hardly wildly controversial.

I happen to have a viewpoint on the content issue in question which largely coincides with that of Neutral Good, but I have no idea whether he's behaved inappropriately, and I have no further comment to make on this matter. WaltonOne 13:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding to my statement. Having discussed the matter with Henrik, I understand that there are no allegations against me.
I recognise that editors such as Lawrence Cohen, Black Kite, Jehochman et al. are acting in good faith (although I disagree with them about the content issue) and I understand the reasons for bringing this RfArb. However, I think it would be a mistake to view this as primarily a user conduct issue - although I don't doubt that there has been misconduct and disruptive editing involved in this dispute (which can be dealt with using blocks, as per normal procedure) there is still a bona fide content issue here (i.e. whether it is appropriate to say in the lead section "waterboarding is a form of torture"). Blocking the more aggressive editors won't make that issue go away. WaltonOne 15:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

Not merely a content dispute, this is also a case about behavior problems: tendentious editing, frustration of consensus, pushing original research in the form of synthesis and fringe theories, and sock puppetry. The locus of dispute is waterboarding, a contentious political topic.

Unfortunately, I have not yet had any opportunity to edit the article, because it has been constantly protected. I had hope to advance this one to good article or featured article standards. That's why I have stated that I would not use admin powers in this dispute, though I hoped that uninvolved administrators would. [17][18] Many attempts at dispute resolution have failed, and not for lack of effort. Perhaps ArbCom can resolve this problem. Jehochman Talk 19:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lawrence Cohen

Thanks to Henrik for filing. Jehochman is correct, this is only superficially viewable as a content matter. It's a complete breakdown in understanding of NPOV, and what that means, which has led to intractable arguments, incivility, sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, vote stacking, external inadvertant disruption of Wikipedia by Harvard law students, multiple attempts by editors and admins to try everything in resolution from handing out flowers with hugs and cookies to practically beating editors with bricks now. Nothing has worked to calm this situation since the time frame of Archive 5, begining November 2007 (please read, to watch the downward beginning with the infamous "Foreign opinion is irrelevant" comment), and the closer it has moved to the beginnings of the American 2008 election cycle. Waterboarding is one of the major political hot potatoes here, along with the Iraq War. I posted this summary (please read it, if possible) last night on ANI. I noted that in the past 24-48 hours, or so, that all Hell finally did break loose on the article, article RFC, and related pages after constantly boiling. Proof that this will probably only get worse without a mandatory, enforced Arbitration article probation is the timing of this all Hell, that I just realized when I sat down to write this statement: this final outbreak of insanity and everyone apparently upping the stakes happened right after and during the Iowa and New Hampshire election primaries here. This article will only get worse between now and November and disrupt Wikipedia unless it's locked down. If the case is not taken, I'm begging you to at the least state you reject the case, but support here standard article probation, and give admins undisputed leeway to take a firm hand with this article and related for at least the next year to guard against disruption.

Further note: Black Kite's summary about the fact that a lot of these SPAs look, smell, geolocate and in fact the same same IP address as User:BryanFromPalatine/User:DeanHinnen (plus have edited on Free Republic, his focus), a notorious AC-banned right wing zealot, puppetmaster, and troll, is compelling. I had made that point several times after I first noticed the notes on the 209 IP talk page, and looked into it, but various people had dismissed my concerns under AGF. I don't know if AGF holds up anymore there, seeing now that Illinois is the home of these characters. Please consider this as well. Lawrence Cohen 14:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by OtterSmith (htom)

Not an administrator; I think that this may be premature, as the RfC cited above has not been closed (and discussion continues there) and we have not tried either formal mediation or the new rules proposed. However, there is a problem and it may be possible that the ArbCom may be able to help.

There are several many things going on there.

A POV dispute
whether the statement "Waterboarding is torture" is NPOV or POV.
A POV dispute
whether the statement "Waterboarding is a form of torture" is NPOV or POV.
An ownership dispute
those who support the two statements above as NPOV owning the article, or not.
A bullying dispute
people are being "threatened" with CheckUser, ArbCon, blocking, ... and reacting badly to this. (Hint to all -- the way to build trust and good faith is not to issue threats, whether or not deserved.)
A content dispute
what the physical process of waterboarding is. (This is what drew me into the article, I thought the process was poorly described.)
A sources dispute
To my eye, some of the usually reliable sources are confounding waterboarding (whatever that is, it's agreed -- well, it seems to be agreed -- by all that it's not water cure) with water cure. As a result, these sources (to me) cease to be reliable about this topic. This is not about the sources being right or wrong, but that particular citation in the source is confounding two different things, and it would be SYN to claim the confounded citation supported either thing.
A political dispute
Politicians of all stripes have been making claims about waterboarding, hoping for political advantage; within the article, how relevant are their opinions and judgments.
A popular dispute
whether the USA's population's opinion, as polled, is relevant.

Doubtless there are more. There's a huge echo chamber there of "Buzzword is Baaaad!"; to me, it's unencyclopedic.

I fear there will be more, here, as well. htom (talk) 16:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WAS 4.250

The article as it stands is quite good, and we easily could do worse than simply freezing the article til hell freezes over. Both evidence and logic indicate some people are pushing a non-neutral non-evidence-based POV. Everyone agrees waterboarding is part of an interrogation technique. What part? Is it the question? the answer? the reward for cooperating? No, it is obviously a punishment, a threat of pain, an actual pain. How much pain, how big a punishment? How do you measure that? Maybe by how fast it works? 14 seconds is how fast. How much punishment, how severe a punishment needs to be to qualify as torture seems a less relevant a question to some than who is doing what to who. If George Bush authorized something to be done to a terrorist, it obviously is not torture - too good for them if they lived is what it was - can't be torture. Writing neutral encyclopedia articles requires a certain level of emotional distancing. Contributors who show difficulty with doing that need to be told their emotional COI is not helpful to the goals of this WikiMedia project regarding the content of this article, but thanks for trying. WAS 4.250 (talk) 16:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Neon White

I was originally drawn to the article from a debate at the Reliable sources noticeboard.Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#.22Foreign_opinion_is_irrelevant.22 On entering and reading the already much discussed subject, it seemed clear that there was a handful of editors, one a simgle purpose account, trying to centre this article around the recent US controversy and to give it, in my opinion, undue weight in the article in the historical and worldwide context of waterboarding. I believe this is the core issue and some of the other disputes have been used to confuse this point. The consensus has been continually disrupted by editors continual hammering the same personal view points, misrepresenting or misunderstanding policy on NPOV refusing to verify that the dispute represents any more than a small minority of current political views, many of which are vague and non-committal and deserve any more proportion of the weight in the article. It became clear from comments that these were biased editors basing their objections on their own political views to the point of ignoring the balance of sources and the consensus. --neonwhite user page talk 17:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Blue Tie

Comments are on three issues:
1). Article Problems
2). Are all the parties actually here?
3). Do we need arbitration yet? I am not the least bit interested in commenting on editor behaviors at this time. We could all probably behave better but I do not presently consider the behaviors to be so horrific that they demand arbitration. But more about that later.
Issue 1: Article Problems
I consider the article problems to be of two kinds; 1) NPOV violations and 2) Potentially ignorant or incorrect information that nevertheless comes from verifiable and "apparently" reliable sources. This sounds like OR but I will explain it in detail to show that it is something different.
I identified the first problem very quickly after getting to the page. The page asserts "Waterboarding is torture", which I originally read uncritically and with acceptance. However, upon review, I noticed that there is a substantial dispute in a wide variety of venues over whether it really is or should be classified as torture. Most people think it is torture, but I discovered that it is far more than just a tiny minority and that some of the folk who dispute that it is torture are very notable.
I turned to policy.
I read wikipedia policy at WP:WEIGHT and based upon Jimbo Wales criteria, the minority should be classified as "significant".
I read WP:ASF and based upon the fact that there is a dispute from a significant minority as described above, I determined that the statement "Waterboarding is torture" "seriously disputed".
Again, per WP:ASF something that is seriously disputed is an opinion, not a fact and so, the statement "Waterboarding is torture" is not a fact.
As it is currently worded, the first words of the article assert in the voice of wikipedia that "Waterboarding is torture" without any suggestion or hint that this is not a fact but an opinion. Though later in the article the dispute is discussed, the lead, which should be a good summary of the article content does not mention this dispute. And, as I said, it asserts an opinion as though it were a fact. For these reasons, the lead to the article is in violation of WP:NPOV.
The second issue has only just entered into my conciousness in the last few days and I frankly think the problem is extremely challenging. Even if the article were written by me alone, I would have to seriously research things because it appears that is confusion or conflation in the popular media over what exactly waterboarding is. And this confusion may not be just incidental. Some of the people who object that waterboarding is not *SOMETIMES* torture say that it depends upon what waterboarding actually is and how it is done. So this is not exactly trivial. Because an ever widening selection of "treatments" are being subsumed under the lable "Waterboarding" the debaters may not actually be talking about the same things. And the press may not be reliably reporting what waterboarding is. I am led to wonder: "When did we first use the term 'Waterboarding' and what exactly was the technique that this label applied to?" "Is Waterboarding a species of treatment -- and thus a specific process, or is it a class of treatments that may encompass a variety of treatments?" "If it is a variety of treatements what are the conditions that distinguish it from, say Water Cure?" (I can suggest one main difference but this is OR). This is a definitional issue and the description of what waterboarding is, has become so fuzzy that that certainly the article's lead does not encompass the full extent of all the possibilities -- and perhaps it may not be able to do so. Without any desire to argue with any other editors but just as an exercise in my mind, I have asked "What is Waterboarding?" and I do not have a good answer even though I have studied the sources. But the sources also may not know. They may be assuming things (as our article frequently does). I want to reference a recent article that I read, but I will have to come back some time to do it. But the article described how an editor of a scholarly magazine had published the "fact" that some person was the first in a certain area. However, a week or two later he took that back and said something like "Here I sit in one of the largest research libraries in the world, on the campus where these things happened, and if I had just got off my butt to do some research I would have found out that there was someone much earlier. But instead I just repeated what I had already heard so many times." I think that in the current media frenzy, a great deal of "repeating" is going on and sources are tainted -- causing substantial confusion. there may also be issues of Advocacy Journalism involed as well... all of which taint the reliability of the information. Best sources need to be used. This is all just swirling around in my head right now, and I am not interested in editing based upon this problem, but I think the problem is real and I think it is affecting the disputes as well.


Issue 2: Participants
I am not sure how this selection of participants was chosen but some other people have weighed in and they are not included here. Some names come to mind as follows: Chris Bainbridge, Lciaccio, Shamulou, Theokrat, Akhilleus and Vhettinger. Nomen Nescio was not mentioned but described himself as somewhat involved. Actually he is pretty involved. Another editor has left the page. I am not sure if that means he is not part of this issue but he might be since he left because he felt he was driven from the page by other editors. His name is Randy2063. There may be more who ought to be in this case (if it is a case); thats just the few that I am aware of off the top of my head. I also point out that Raymond Arritt is not really involved except to protect the page. That seems like simple mop handling and not really involvement. --Blue Tie (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Issue 3: Do we need Arbitration
Maybe we do need it, but perhaps not just yet. There still remains an unclosed RfC. Shouldn't that be handled first? We have not tried mediation, both informal and formal. Shouldn't that be tried second? Wouldn't Arbcom be the last thing to do? I personally am not excited to have to deal with all the evidence stuff and especially "he said she said" finger pointing in Arbcom, so I am hoping that this is not accepted .... yet. But I accept that when all else fails this is the venue.

NOTE: I reserve the right to return and refactor these comments into something more concise or that more correctly conveys my thought. If I change meaning I will probably strike thru. If I make it more concise I will probably just edit and leave it that way. Please do not criticize if I do that to make things easier to read later on. --Blue Tie (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hypnosadist

Please just let this POV-war end so that the article can be edited to make it better. If that is not possible then protect the article until the end of the US presidential election. (Hypnosadist) 18:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Remember

There has been a long-term ongoing debate about whether to include the words "waterboarding is torture" in some form in the lead of the article for several months now. There are people that are firmly for this statement and people that are firmly against this statement. Both sides claim to be on the side of NPOV and there seems to be no way that consensus can be reached. People positions have become inflexible,intractable, and adamantine. This has resulted in the article being completely locked for long periods of time. In addition, there has been various sketchy activity by other editors that has confounded the whole process of reaching consensus. I don't know if arbitration is the right place for this, but all other attempts at moving discussion forward between all parties has broken down. Remember (talk) 18:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Badagnani

I ask only one thing: that any editor or admin weighing in here first read *all* the discussion archives of the Waterboarding article. This will be a significant investment of time but without doing so the necessary context will not be sufficient to make any substantive decision about the article. I have nothing further to add, as all of what is needed is contained in the discussion archives. I respectfully ask that any editors or admins eventually making any decision regarding this article affirm that they have done so. Badagnani (talk) 19:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/0/0/0)

  • Accept. Content dispute? Yes. However, the circumstances surrounding this dispute seem a bit of concern to the smooth running of Wikipedia. There are clear signs of a battleground that need to be addressed. There are other issues of sockpuppetry that need to be verified as well. The involvment of a large number of users has made this dispute too hard to be solved via regular channels. Therefore, I see no reason to reject this case. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

David Howe (claimant to King of Mann)

Initiated by Kingofmann (talk) at 03:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

In an attempt to resolve this issue with user Newguy34 and having researched for several hours his edits as well as many others, based on the discussions of several editors on my biography's talk page at Talk:David_Howe_(claimant_to_King_of_Mann) with those attempting to edit to Wikipedia's policies, I do not feel that this issue is easily resolved and it does suggest that there is a group effort to edit to the negative with three of the parties involved as well as other anonymous editors not cited using various USENET groups as a base for orchestrating their efforts. See MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal citing user Wjhonson involvement. See Talk:David_Howe_(claimant_to_King_of_Mann)/Archive_2#Celebrity_Friends_and_Royal_Cousins illustrating user Hearldic's participation in a USENET group with a long list of libelous claims against me.

Statement by Kingofmann

I am David Howe, the subject of a Wikipedia Biography.

My initial dispute had to do with the inclusion of a business that I own, that has nothing to do with my notability, on a biography page about me. I requested to Admin Hu12 that he aid me with the removal on his talk page and I cited WP:Blp#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy as the reason why. I eventually deleted the material I felt violated my privacy and stated why on my talk page. User Newguy34 reverted it twice and that is when I requested page protection which was issued.

In response to what seemed like several editors of my biography page, namely Newguy34, Heraldic, Wjhonson and some anonymous users involvement in what seems to be an orchestrated effort to circumvent WP:BLP and present a negative point of view see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal, Admin Hu12 on his talk page as well as my biography's talk page stated, "The Media bias is evident in many of the sources, which are attributable and doesn't surprise me since its rooted in forms of Cultural biass. The subject of David Howe is no doubt a Political one to many, however lets keep these biases out of the article space." His request has had no effect.

There are numerous examples on the biography's talk page that show the well telegraphed intent of some editors. Just a few are as follows: December 27, 2007, editor Newguy34 was an advocate for the Wikipedia blacklisted site that has since be revised several times to appear less libelous. Talk:David_Howe_(claimant_to_King_of_Mann)/Archive_2#Celebrity_Friends_and_Royal_Cousins Despite the fact the site isn't a reliable third-party source, addressing another editor's objection to the site he stated, "Your bias appears clear, namely to advance Howe's claims. The author of the website is well respected in genealogy circles and has fully cited and referenced his "opinions."" In fact none of these things are true. The author of the site at the bottom of the first page describes himself, as of January 9, 2008, "an accountant with a keen amateur interest in history and genealogy."

Heraldic and Wjhonson advocating for including libelous blacklisted site see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#unrealroyal.com and then attempting to get it removed from the blacklist See MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal. Here it was also revealed that Wjhonson had conspired with the author of the blacklisted site to misuse Wikipedia.

Statement by Wjhonson

When a person has achieved that level of notability that a biography is acceptable, all known facts about the person have an equal chance of being represented. The person, short of pointing out libelous statements, has no special prerogative to exclude certain details. We do not allow this priviledge to Ann Coulter, we do not allow it to Jimmy Wales, we allow it to nobody. It is a red-herring argument that only issues *related* to notability are included. We include a biography based on notability, but once included, each statement does not need to pass notability to be included.

Contrary to the claim that I was involved in "...circumvent[ing] WP:BLP and present[ing] a negative point of view see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal...." I submit that all of my edits have quite plainly adhered to WP:BLP. The issue regarding what I perceive as an out-of-process blacklisting is a seperate issue to this article. That the http: //www.unrealroyal.com site was blacklisted as an "attack site", when IMHO it is a "criticism" site of a *public figure* as the King of Man is most clearly. If the King of Man were not himself a public figure, than pointed criticism might be a valid reason for blacklisting a site which criticizes a Wikipedian. The fact that he is a *public figure* puts him outside that purview and he is then fair-game just as surely as George Bush is himself. We do not blacklist sites critical of Bush, and if Bush became a Wikipedian we would not blacklist sites critical of Bush.

Contary to the assertion that "The author of the website is well respected in genealogy circles and has fully cited and referenced his "opinions."" In fact none of these things are true.", I submit that indeed the author is well-respected in genealogy circles, and his fair-and-even criticism of David Howe is fully cited and referenced.

Contary to the assertion that the site is "...libelous..." is my assertion that it in fact engages in well-reasoned and pointed criticism of a public figure.

Contrary to the assertion that "...Wjhonson had conspired with the author of the blacklisted site to misuse Wikipedia." is my assertion that outside Wikipedia, in particular on the soc.genealogy.medieval newsgroup, I know the author of the website. My agreeing with his perception that his website was unfairly blacklisted, is not a conspiracy.

Statement by Newguy34

I am disappointed that this has reached the ArbCom, and am not sure quite where to start in this unfortunate episode.

First, either Mr. Howe is notable as an individual (for which information such as his primary business venture is relevant) or he is notable for only a single event (namely his claim) and the BLP should be merged with another article. I think a BLP of Mr. Howe is unwarranted. As it relates to WP guidelines, a person is generally notable if a) the person has received significant recognized awards or honors, or b) the person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field.

Further, when a person is associated with only one event, such as an unsubstantiated claim to be related to ancient royalty, consideration should be given to the need to create a standalone article on the person. If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography may be unwarranted.

And from BLP, if reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted. Marginal biographies on people with no independent notability can give undue weight to the events in the context of the individual, create redundancy and additional maintenance overhead, and cause problems for our neutral point of view policy, which is exactly the situation we are facing in this matter. I fail to see how Mr. Howe has achieved any notability other than through this singular claim, and the recent coverage of it. In spite of this, a single user Lazydown has made the majority of edits in support of Mr. Howe's claim, while several editors (including those involved in this arbitration matter) have been consistent in attempting to achieve a balance and neutrality to the article, Lazydown's (and now Howe's) protestations that we are somehow violating NPOV aside. The support for this assertion is contained on the article's talk page and the edit history, and is clear for anyone to read.

As to the information I seek to have included, I believe the inclusion of Mr. Howe's business is relevant information, which is entirely permissible and standard for a BLP. I cited the information from a verifiable, reliable source in accordance with WP policies. The fact that he owns a Glass Doctor franchise in Frederick is a matter of public record and comes from press releases penned by (or authorized by) him. I can not see how it now should be excluded (in its present form) from a biographical article [emphasis added] on claimed grounds of privacy, especially given that it was Mr. Howe who first put this information in the public domain. That Mr. Howe does not like the relevant information he has placed in the public domain being used in a BLP article about himself is insufficient support for its exclusion under privacy concerns.

I attempted to reach consensus with Mr. Howe on the issue (as evidenced on his talk page), but he refuses to discuss the matter further and instead has made a very serious threat of legal action against me (and possibly Wikipedia) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kingofmann. A threat which I take very seriously, and for which I believe he should be admonished. He has not engaged in dispute resolution. These are indisputable facts, evidenced in various talk pages.

Mr. Howe's assertion that there are several editors involved in "an orchestrated effort to circumvent BLP and present a negative point of view" is a gross misrepresentation of the facts and represents libel. I have never met any of the other editors. My edits have been to retain NPOV after numerous attempts by Lazydown to edit the article in a light most advantageous to Mr. Howe and his claim. Lazydown's edits are typically accompanied by accusations that the editors involved in this arbitration are violating NPOV and other WP policies. I have posted that I believe we are involved in a content dispute. I have attempted to reach consensus on the issue with Lazydown, but he too refuses to discuss the matter. Instead, he posts accusations of a number of us on the talk pages of several administrators, namely Hu12. As such, I believe that Lazydown has not been exhibiting good faith, and am curious why Lazydown is not also a subject of this arbitration action given the inordinate number of edits he has made.

I also take strong personal offense to Mr. Howe's implication that the edits of myself and others amount to a "well telegraphed intent" on our part. Again, I have never met the other editors in question, and there is no evidence or factual basis to support this latest assertion. Contrary to Mr. Howe's assertion, I was not an advocate for the now-blacklisted site, but rather sought to understand the objections of Lazydown in that matter. It is important to note that at the time of my posts on the matter, the website in question was not blacklisted. It is also important to note that the criticism of Mr. Howe on the website in question is fully cited and is fully referenced. The occupation of the website author is not relevant to his recognized expertise in the matters the website discusses. I, too, believe the blacklisting of the website is inappropriate and uncalled for.

In summary, I believe this is a very disturbing series of events, filled with red herring arguments, selective adherence to WP policies, inappropriate COI on the part of Howe, and an exercise of bad faith on the part of Howe and user Lazydown. I welcome the consideration of these matters by ArbCom, but as one who believes in the Wikipedia project, I am disappointed that it has come to this. Newguy34 (talk) 06:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Heraldic

Firstly, I should say that I have been on steep learning curve when it comes to the Wikipedia way of doing things. Hopefully I am not repeating any of my earlier procedural errors.

Given the nature of Mr Howe’s claims it is understandable that they would come under considerable scrutiny. I do not think that it is in Wikipedia’s interest to allow the Howe article to be perceived in any way as an endorsement of his claims. To that end I have attempted to provide a balance to the Howe article, clarifying certain broad statements or citing references that reflect that all is not as clear cut as Howe may wish.

With regard to the unrealroyal site; whilst the observations of the author may not meet Wikipedia guidelines (as I now understand), I do believe the factual content is worthy of note. It was for the latter reason I questioned its blacklisting. As for its reinstatement, you will see that I stated that if it was to remain blacklisted it should be for its content not because Wjhonson chose to query the blacklisting. I do not believe that simply disagreeing with an admin is a misuse of Wikipedia.

As part of this arbitration process, I hope that the administrators will also look into the relevant issue of sockpuppets. The dedication shown by users Theisles and Lazydown in the editing the article to reflect Howe’s case and the rigid application of Wiki procedures when it comes to the exclusion of any material that is critical of Howe has given rise to the suspicion that they are either Howe himself or a close associate. The most recent example can be found at Talk:David_Howe_(claimant_to_King_of_Mann)#The_Viscount_Howe_claim .Clarification of their status will go along way to calming things down.

For the record, I am not the owner, author or webmaster of the unrealroyal website. Nor have I had contact with any of the editors here to listed other than through Wikipedia public talk pages.--Heraldic 09:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)



Clerk notes

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Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0)

User:R. fiend

Initiated by SirFozzie (talk) at 22:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

  • SirFozzie (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (Initiating Party)
  • Alison (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
  • R. fiend (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Two threads at ANI, as well as current RfC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/R. fiend‎

Statement by SirFozzie

R. fiend has been accused of using his administrator powers in numerous inappropriate ways. Among the incidents of questionable adminstrator rights brought up in the RfC:

A) Reverting to a preferred version in the Black Irish page, and then immediately semi-protecting the page to prevent the IP addresses that he was edit-warring against from editing the page. Then, having "won" the edit war, left the page semi-protected indefinitely for almost six months. Revert Protection, Protection Log

B) Continual insertion of questionably-sourced information about a person' (that would violate WP:BLP if the person in question was living). R. fiend again semi-protected the page (without any message as to reason) to "lock out" the anonymous IP editor from editing the page. Link to diff of protection. When the anonymous editor in question requested the page unprotection, two administrators asked R. fiend for the rationale for the protection. He stated that his edits were per the talk page's consensus On the administrator's talk page], but when asked for a link to show this consensus, he did not reply.

C) R. fiend blocked User:Ed Poor in an apparent error in October, leaving no block summary. User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson unblocked Ed nine hours later in the absence of any communication. When questioned on it on his talk page by a three other admins,[19], he replied, "Hmmm. Looks like a mistake. Oh well. No harm done.".[20] When it was suggested by User:WJBscribe that he apologize, R. fiend just walked away and never approached User:Ed Poor on the matter again. (Block log). When this matter was brought up as part of the RfC, he apologized stating that he must have been drunk or high while he edited, which he stated he did infrequently. Link to R. fiend statement about block of Ed Poor. Ed Poor has asked that the block be expunged from his record.

D)R. fiend has been involved in a content dispute with User:Domer48 over the Segi article.[21][22][23]. He then went on to block Domer48 for WP:3RR violation on the same article, even though he was in dispute and editing there. Nor had R. fiend approached Domer48 at any time before the block. While it is fairly well understood that Domer48 was at least at 3 Reverts (and may have broken 3RR), R. fiend, as a participant in the dispute should NOT have been the one to carry out the block. After Domer48 was blocked, uninvolved admins, User:Luna Santin and User:Metros and other editors voiced their concerns.[24][25] R. fiend replied that he didn't see any problem with being a participant in the dispute and blocking Domer, stating "If I didn't block him, someone else would have" [26] Luna Santin questioned that comment, saying that it could be considered an abuse of admin privileges, that besides the obvious conflict of interest in the block, it could have a chilling effect on future editors who found themselves in dispute with R. fiend.'[27]. R. fiend chose not to reply, instead refused to unblock and got more irate[28] when questioned by myself .[29]

In the interests of brevity, I will not list several other incidents that R. fiend was involved in, however, should ArbCom wish to review this additional information, I invite them to review the evidence posted at theRfC on R.fiend‎ Throughout, R. fiend has refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong in most of the incidents above, stating that he thought folks were whining, and that most of his actions were fundamentally correct. He also says that he is a self-admitted "Snide Bastard" and that folks knew what they were getting when they passed his RfA, therefore this allows his behavior. [30]

ArbCom should accept this case, review the incivility and use of his administrator rights and privileges, and determine if at least a temporary suspension of these rights, if not a permanent revocation of his administrator rights, is called for.

Statement by Alison

... to follow later today.

Statement by R. fiend

First off, I want to say that the recent spate of free time I've recently had that has allowed to me spent large amounts of time to editing and discussions at Wikipedia is drawing to a close, so I won't be able to devote as much time to this as I have to other things recently, nor will I be editing as regularly in general, for reasons not associated with AN/I, RfC or Arbcom.

Basically, I just want to say this. At the RfC, I clearly stated that I would refrain from obnoxious comments, show more restraint in article protection, and be more careful when blocking people. Other editors seem to have decided ahead of time that I am not going to do theses things. I just think it would make sense to put off an Arbcom until we see if they are right.

Thank you. That is all. -R. fiend (talk) 00:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I have a little more time now, I'll say a couple more things here, because, again, there are some misrepresentations. First of all, the information in the Patrick Pearse article was sourced (dispute B in SirFozzies's statement). Someone just didn't like the source, thinking it was biased, so removed all information directly attributed to that source (which, incidentally, is the only available biography of the subject) as well as the source itself from the bibliography. This sort of thing has happened a couple times in the past, and I have spent hours dealing with the matter on the talk page. Some people don't like seeing any criticism of their heroes. They need to read Wikipedia guidelines on NPOV. (The article would pass WP:BLP fine, by the way.)
About Segi (D): there was an edit war going on, but I was not part of it. In the course of constant reversions, essential information (the very defining facts about Segi) was being removed. I assume it was unintentional, and that Domer was not deliberately sabotaging the article to make a point. I put it back in, but as others edit warred it was again reverted to an earlier uncorrected version. Therefore I did not consider myself a party to the dispute, just the clean up as it progressed. In any case, as I said, I intend to be more careful about blocking people in th future.
Also this sentence by SirFozzie is also quite the misrepresentation: "Throughout, R. fiend has refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong in most of the incidents above, stating that he thought folks were whining, and that most of his actions were fundamentally correct. He also says that he is a self-admitted 'Snide Bastard' and that folks knew what they were getting when they passed his RfA, therefore this allows his behavior."
The only incident I referred to as "whining" was the minor one that brought the original AN/I (and which SirFozzie seems to have thought to minor to even mention here). I also didn't say I was a "snide bastard", merely that I could be one at times (which is different), nor did I say anything about it allowing my behavior. I only noted that others had made that observation, and that it in and of itself was apparently not seen by the community to be worth declining an RfA.
I also think SirFozzie should question his use of the term "irate."
Again, despite multiple assertions that nothing has been accomplished, and given the fact I've stated improvements that I will make, and the fact that I have made no objectionable actions (as far as I know) since the AN/I, I have to wonder if this is the best use of everyone's time. I'm sure if I am seen to be abusing admin powers in the future there will be no hesitation on the part of several people to bring it to Arbcom then. -R. fiend (talk) 18:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Aatomic1

Item C Above

At least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this sysop and have failed. I cannot see evidence of this at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/R. fiend. Indeed I can also see evidence that no one noticed.

Aatomic1 (talk) 23:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there are three users who certified the RFC, and 24 more who agreed with the summation. Horologium (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Padraig

I'am disappointed that this has reached Arbcom, but giving R. fiend attitude in the RfC, I see no other way that this can now be resolved.--Padraig (talk) 23:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by Rjd0060

I'd just like to mention that it really is unfortunate that Arbitration has been requested, as we (myself and several others) have tried to resolve these matters elsewhere (ANI and RFC/U as mentioned above), however the lack of consideration and effort by R. fiend to resolve these issues leaves no other alternative. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jj137

I'm sure this has mainly already been said; this matter has gone from talk page → AN/I → RfC → and now ArbCom. I really didn't see any progress whatsoever until the RfC, and even so I don't think there was much. I think it is unfortunate it had to go this far, but it is probably the best way to go if this matter will ever be resolved. In the RfC, Brownhairgirl made a statement proposing R. fiend voluntarily remove his admin status and go back to RfA if he chooses; 16 users accepted the statement. I do not know whether that is the best course of action, but I think it is an option.   jj137 ♠ 01:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Domer48

A number of Administrators have gone out of their way on the RfC to advise and encourage R. fiend to engage constructively to prevent this escalation. With such support being offered, R. fiend’s attitude unfortunately left no other alternative open other than this final step. --Domer48 (talk) 10:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/0/0/0)

Principality of Sealand

Initiated by Onecanadasquarebishopsgate (talk) at 19:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Gene Poole

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Onecanadasquarebishopsgate

What began as a simple debate eventually became an argumentative dispute that eventually led to the dispute resolution process. I used Third opinion and Request for Comment - but Gene Poole would not cooperate, as can be seen here. After progress was made with the Request for Comment (which Gene Poole did not take part in), Gene Poole returned arguing that Sealand is a micronation. Other editors within the discussion page of Principality of Sealand consider Sealand a micronation, but Gene Poole is the only one that does not cooperate with dispute resolution.

It was clear now that because Gene Poole considers Sealand a micronation and I consider Sealand a sovereign state, there was, and still is, a dispute. But Gene poole became less and less cooperative. After the Third Opinion and Request for Comment, I decided to write on his discussion page (after he thought that I was a sockpuppet):

"On the same day as the above was posted I suggested using a solution that has been used for the past week with success (Note: this solution is to have a similar first pargraph to Empire of Atlantium). Maybe this could solve the problem?"

Gene Poole would not reply and after reminding him of the statement I wrote he deleted the reminders and called them trolling. He then wrote on Legal status of Sealand:

"There is no dispute about Sealand's legal status. A single-purpose editor is currently attempting to insinuate an unreferenced, strong pro-sovereignty position into a range of Sealand-related articles, and this appears to be one of them."

After that the dispute continued here, where he questioned my comprehension of the subject and my linguistic ability. I then decided to use Request for Mediation and placed this notice on his discussion page:

"Rather than continue with this absurd to-and-fro, perhaps you would agree to mediation.

I would like to see this dispute resolved, why not in a NPOV way?"

Gene Poole replied with this on my discussion page:

"The matter has only one possible resolution: you must comply fully and immediately with WP content policies by ceasing to promote a POV that is unsupported by either reliable third party sources or consensus. There is nothing to mediate, and nothing further to discuss."

He has refused to cooperate with dispute resolution, and another user (Cheeser1) is not pleased:

"I am not pleased that this person is not cooperating in dispute resolution."

This dispute needs to be resolved, but the purpose of this statement is for the following to happen:

  • Gene Poole needs to cooperate with the dispute resolution process so that a solution can be found.
  • Gene Poole needs to stop attacking user's opinions in an argument (particularly the Sealand is a sovereign state opinion), and instead support his own opinions in a debate.
  • Gene Poole needs to stop commenting on the contributor.

His history of sockpuppetry and attacking rather than discussing opinions have caused enough problems and this dispute needs to be resolved. Onecanadasquarebishopsgate (talk) 19:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Warlordjohncarter

I remember when the above editor was attempting to demand that Sealand falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:WikiProject European Microstates, despite the fact that that project was never contacted by him to request inclusion in its scope and it does not fall within the project's currently stated scope. He did however demand that it be included as per here. He made similar comments at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Sealand discussion, stating that Sealand falls within the scope of the above project, despite not being mentioned there. He has also made similar categorical statements that Sealand must be at least considered a microstate at Talk:Sealand#Micronation/Microstate. Unfortunately, I have never seen any evidence to support that contention, barring a few passport stamps and a few news articles, and the apparent formal lack of recognition by any countries clearly mitigates against that. I regret to say that the originator of this request seems to me to be a rather absolutist POV pusher. I believe it could reasonably be stated that attempting to introduce statements that Sealand is a microstate based on the scanty evidence available, none of which seems to come from sources which would be considered reliable for these purposes, could be at least possibly reasonably be thought of as vandalism. John Carter (talk) 17:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved DrKiernan

Sam is correct that Gene has accused Onecanadasquare of vandalism,[31] but seems to have missed Onecanadasquare calling Gene a troll[32].

Fault on both sides, perhaps? Onecanadasquare's insistence that the Principality of Sealand is a sovereign state, when it quite clearly is not, could count as POV OR fringe theory, and, if the committee accepts this case, you may wish to examine this aspect of the dispute. DrKiernan (talk) 13:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/1)

  • I'm wavering on this at the moment because it's clearly a longrunning problem with editor misbehaviour, but Gene Poole's labelling good faith communications as vandalism or trolling and rejection of mediation is edging him close to the point at which it becomes obvious that he is unable to work with others. In other words, if Gene Poole makes further disruptive edits, an uninvolved admin should consider warning him, and restrict his editing so as to prevent future disruption, with no need to open an arbitration case. Gene Poole may be able to convince me that there is more to be considered but I'm inclined to reject at the moment. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Extraordinary rendition by the United States

Ccson Ccson (talk) at 20:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Swatjester

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Ccson

I have inserted text within the article and cited the World Policy Council as the source for the statements and their opinion. User Swatjester continues to remove the text because he feels the source is unreliable. I have shown the WPC is associated with a university, the WPC seek the advice of experts when needed, and I have consensus from other editors that the source is reliable for their opinion. I attempted cabal mediation, however, the user declined mediation and reverted again.

The opinion presented is the agreement of 9 persons whose background include a Senator, U.S. Ambassadors, U.S. Congressmen, College Presidents, Leaders of Churches and Foundations, and a professor at Ivy league universities.

Each person is highly regarded for their individual opinions and an agreement of the nine should be regarded more highly as a reliable source within wikipedia.

I hope the committee will accept this case and determine that the World Policy Council is a reliable source to cite within Wikipedia.

I wasn't aware that I was "forum shopping". I was following the suggested steps for dispute resolution. I'm surprised that Swatjester says that no time was given to develop this since he refused mediation so I interpreted this action that he didn't want to reach a truce even with the help of a neutral party. His response on the RSN board seems more like a scolding for the editors who decided the WPC was a reliable source. Becauuse Swatjester is an admin, I thought he woud respect the Wikipedia:BRD policy, however, the diffs shows that he restates his objections then reverts. I would also like to note that Swatjester has provided no reliable source for his continuing to revert other than his own personal knowledge of Alpha Phi Alpha and that he lives 3 blocks from Howard University where the World Policy Council was founded and based. I will wait to see if other users post on the RSN and seek the other options suggested such as 3rd opinion and RFC. thanks for your response.--Ccson (talk) 03:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kendrick7

Current use of this source fails WP:SOAP because no third party source is given which attests to the WP:Notability of this group's opinion.

This is a content dispute, and premature prior to filing a WP:RFC

Statement by Swatjester

Content dispute. Excessively rapid escalation with no time to develop. Mountain. Molehill. ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 01:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/0/0)

  • Decline. Arbitration is the last step in dispute resolution. The Arbitration Committee focuses primarily on user conduct disputes and generally does not decide article-content issues, such as whether a given organization's work-product is sufficiently reliable to be used as a source. The filing party acted responsibly by seeking assistance from the Mediation Cabal, but there are other dispute resolution avenues that can be pursued, including seeking a third opinion or filing an article-content request for comment. Please pursue these avenues toward obtaining consensus on the issue raised. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. This is a fairly routine content dispute and the debate on the reliable sources noticeboard has barely begun. I would advise the filer that, in order to avoid charges of 'forum-shopping', he may want to concentrate on that avenue for the moment. There appears to be no associated editor misconduct. Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline as it is very premature. Newyorkbrad and Sam clearly explain what should be done, and how. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 03:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject as well stated by Newyorkbrad and Sam Blacketer. FloNight (talk) 16:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline; premature. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Palestine-Israel articles

Initiated by Ryan Postlethwaite at 17:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Jaakobou, PalestineRemembered, Tiamut, Eleland, Pedro Gonnet, ThuranX, Sulanda, CJCurrie, RolandR, Chesdovi, Armon, G-Dett, Itzse, Tewfik. Jayjg [33]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

The battles that are going on at Palestine/Israel articles are now getting out of hand and the community is no longer able to handle them. The history of Saeb Erekat is an ideal example of the problems we’re faced with here. Despite there being discussion on talk pages, the parties insist on edit warring with Jaakobou continually changing the article to his version – despite it being arguably a BLP violation (Jaakobou has basically been trying to label Erekat a liar). Other articles paint a similar picture (Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian, Palestinian Fedayeen, Second Intifada, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Allegations of Israeili apartheid, Islam: What the West Needs to Know, Media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, Arab citizens of Israel, Pallywood (Note:This is not an exhaustive list)). What it boils down to is severe ownership issues from certain members of the dispute, and an unwillingness for parties to make compromises and stick with consensus. I realise there are no user RfC’s in this dispute, the problem is, who to create an RfC for? We’ve had many previous threads on AN/I about this, a previous arbitration case which was closed without action and now all parties seem resigned to getting their point across through edit warring and other disruption. A quick look at the block logs of a number of the participants show that they have no respect for some of our editing policies and guidelines. Any further efforts at attempting to stop the dispute other than arbitration are simply going to add gasoline to the fire and will act solely as a stepping stone to arbitration at a later date. I hope the arbitrators will accept this case to look at remedies including editing restrictions and/or article/topic probations. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PalestineRemembered

  • Nobody need be intimidated by this case, because it's not really so complex. In my humble opinon, all the problems come down to just two three factors:
  1. One or two semi-literate editors, who cannot process the information in front of them properly.
  2. Occasional cases of straight-forward cheating, deliberate insertion of falsehoods - or removing good material on frivolous grounds, to the severe aggravation of scholarly editors.
  3. "Disciplinary cases" that have been poisoned by malice aimed at witnesses, and evidence been interfered with. A severe chill has been induced by an expectation of victimising.
  • These problems will not be difficult to identify and score/judge. Unless we need barristers to demand answers for straightforward questions like this:
  • Question to Jaakobou - have you ever operated any sock-puppet accounts, and, if so, have you operated them abusively? PRtalk 19:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sm8900

Hi. this is Sm8900. I would like to add my input. i have contributed to discussions in these articles. sorry , but i do somewhat question the need for this arbitration. this request makes no specific statements as to what actually needs to be done or addressed. it's my understanding that Arbcom proceedings exist mainly to sanction other users. I have a concern about the wholesale nature of this proceeding. I would like to see more details about what needs to be addressed here.

I am concerned that starting a case like this might actually create greater conflict than the discussions which it would supposedly address. Sorry, I disagree with statements in the request; I feel that this community has been manifestly able to frequently have positive discussions. There are some articles (and some editors, according to some allegations here), where that has not been the case, but I feel that those articles and those editors can and should be addressed individually, not wholesale in a manner which invites the most minute problems and individual flaws to end up taking up most of the time and energy. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to PR

(please note, everyone; we are permitted to make customary subheadings like this for readability within our OWN text sections here. )
Hi PR. sorry if my text was incovenient. everything is fine with me in regard to this case, so please feel free to remove my comments if you wish. thanks very much for the helpful sentiment which you expressed. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, if anyone wishes to discuss this case informally, they may do so by going to this page. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

General comment.

I am greatly disturbed by the tone which is already emerging here. Since no specific article is the focus here, editors are already piling on allegations and counter-allegations of various misconduct. this is sort of inevitable, since ArbCom does not address content disputes, and can only address user conduct.

i would suggest that a slightly better route might be to focus on disputed articles and on questionable editors individually, on a case by case basis. It is possible to start Arbcom cases for individual editors, as you may know. I truly don't have anyone particular in mind here. My only point is that if some here do feel that certain editors need attention, there are ways to do that, in a manner which would keep the focus much more steady, and would not result in a whole slew of counter-allegations to confuse the matter.

Going on this current route will only lead us into fuirther acrimony, and furthermore we may also find that nobody ends up with a useful resolution, because everybody is so involved in making allegations and counter-allegations. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GRBerry

I strongly encourage the committee to review editing patterns across a broad spectrum of articles here. We have factionalized editing occurring, and also individually problematic editors from both factions. I haven't been interested enough, nor willing enough to suffer the inevitable personal attacks consequent upon acting, to take a wholistic view and determine which editors Wikipedia would be better off without, if any, nor what other solutions would work. I believe there is a pattern of "edit war, page protected, change page to war over, don't discuss the original edit war" occurring. Some of this is a natural consequence of attending to a watchlist, some seems to reflect users who don't want to collaborate and/or create a NPOV article. As an example of the sorts of problems that are encountered routinely consider the following sets of protections on Nov 29 and Dec 5.

At the time I made the comments here, the named parties ended with Chesdovi
November 29, 2007
December 5, 2007

Statement by Kendrick7

I don't edit in this topic area as much as I used to; I hardly recognize the names of half the listed parties. But, I agree with Sm8900 that this could quickly devolve into a witch hunt which won't be good for anyone involved.

Insomuch as I can answer Kirill's question, the situation in Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more or less the same as every other part of the Wikipedia trying to cover an ongoing civil war. There is always a slow influx of zealous new editors on both sides, and either they learn the ropes in a few months or they don't. If they remain problematic -- and I admit to cringing a little when I saw Jaakobou had installed Twinkle -- then an RFC is a better first step. Meanwhile, occasionally an article gets enough neutral editors going on it at once, as I recall occurring lately with Palestinian exodus for example, and the quality of the category does slowly improve.

Update: Ah, I am now caught up per the AN/I thread and User:Jaakobou#Detwinkled. Glad I wasn't the only one cringing.

Reply to Eleland: The thinking is correct as there are two sides to this little chess game, and instead of an RFC on the behavior of particular editors individually, bringing this to ArbCom puts all the pieces into play. The AN/I thread comments regarding WP:KETTLE forebode the likely attempt by one side to sacrifice one editor in exchange for an editor of greater value on the other side.

Reply to ThuranX: Yes, I also don't understand why you'd be a party here; Ryan seems to have listed just a lot of people who commented in the AN/I.

Reply to Durova: I concur that other dispute resolution would be a better first step; the examples Ryan give above are either rather ancient or ongoing or not even dispute resolution per se. P.S. You shouldn't get upset at G-Dett's little poke in your belly -- it just wouldn't be a cabal without you!

Statement by MastCell

This probably ought to go to ArbCom since there are real problems here, and no admin who values his residual sanity would get involved in trying to resolve them given the prevailing atmosphere and history. The only suggestion I have is that, if this goes to Arbitration, an uninvolved party (clerk or Arbitrator) seriously needs to ride shotgun over the Workshop and discussion pages to prevent them from turning into yet another front on the WP:BATTLEfield. MastCell Talk 18:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Eleland

I urge ArbCom to accept this request. While it stems primarily from good-faith content disputes, the manner in which these disputes have been conducted has been seriously disruptive across literally dozens of Wikipedia articles. Admins recognize the problem and the problem users, but generally don't go beyond brief 3RR blocks because the subject matter is so touchy, and they don't want to be seen as favouring one side. Actually, that's the problem here; we're clearly thinking in terms of sides. Normal dispute resolution has succeeded occasionally (the lists of Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada, finally removed from their politicized context as an Israeli-only List of massacres committed during the al-Aqsa Intifada, being a case in point) but more commonly failed miserably (Saeb Erekat, the never-resolved Battle of Jenin slugfest, etc, etc.) The buck has to stop somewhere, and ArbCom is it. <eleland/talkedits> 19:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, in addition, there may be some parties who ought to be named additionally. Offhand:
Armon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
G-Dett (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Itzse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Tewfik (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
And surely others. <eleland/talkedits> 20:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tariqabjotu

I also strongly urge the Arbitration Committee to examine this case. Resolving this issue, or at least issuing remedies related to it, would go a long way to defusing the minefield that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and Middle East articles in general. I have not assessed the full situation, but every time my actions intersect with these articles, I see what appears to be an attitude a lá "I'm right, everyone else is wrong; thus, my edit-warring is okay (or actually not edit-warring at all) and everyone else is a disruptive POV warrior". Not good, to say the least. -- tariqabjotu 21:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I know I'm being pedantic here, but can we please reorder the entities in the name of this case, from "Palestine-Israel conflict" to "Israeli-Palestinian conflict", if/when it gets opened? The latter arrangement seems more customary both here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and the former sounds awkward. -- tariqabjotu 21:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.P.S. I don't believe ThuranX (talk · contribs) and Chesdovi (talk · contribs) should be involved in this case. I'm also unsure about the involvement of G-Dett (talk · contribs), Itzse (talk · contribs), Suladna (talk · contribs), and Tewfik (talk · contribs). -- tariqabjotu 21:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to remind everyone that this is an RfArb on just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles. Please be cautious about adding new editors; ensure that their involvement is specifically in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and not primarily in regard to disruption on other Middle Eastern articles (or elsewhere). Also, I do not believe every single person that has edited an article related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be dragged into this arbitration case. Please use some discretion. -- tariqabjotu 12:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ThuranX

Not really sure why I'm considered an involved party. I watch AN/I and I like reading through some of the cases and chiming in when I think that wider community input is useful, or the opinion of a third party editor can help. I've got all of three article space edits to any of the relevant articles (two to The Palestinian Fedayeen, one to the definitions of Palestinian). I'm not particularly into edit warring about these articles, but I have acted in these few instances when I think I can help. One was corrected (the Def. of Palest-ine/ian), and the other two probably got lost in the edit warring there fast. For me, wider involvement in Wikipedia, via AN/I, has just been a way of expanding my awareness here, by getting me into new subject areas. Although it's possible some here think I've got a 'side' going because i happen to be Jewish, not the case. I've been reading the cases and reviewing them, and anyone who looks at my contribs to AN/I will see I kibbitz in lots of cases, sometimes to some particular help, other times, it goes silently ignored. Either way, fine by me. I've got no particular interest in this entire situation beyond being frustrated watching the project resources being squandered on the cyclical fighting, and in noting who I think has been responsible for violations of policy and creating problems. Do I have opinions about the topic? yes. I keep them out of the cited facts, because frankly, I suspect most of the editors of these articles write more from personal assumptions and POV, and I'd rather see cited facts I disagree with than not. Cited facts make me rethink my own attitudes.) Do I have opinions about who is at fault here? Yes, and they're already stated in the relevant AN/I threads about Jaakobou and Eleland. In summary, no clue why I'm here, not an edit warrior on here, just an uninvolved third party. ThuranX (talk) 21:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Durova

Jaakobou has undertaken mentorship with me. This mentorship regards Wikipedia policies only, not the related content dispute. He tells me he wishes to pursue other dispute resolution at this time. Arbitration in general is a last resort, and I ask in good faith for the other parties to consider whether a brokered solution would be feasible.

I am neutral regarding the underlying conflict and, I hope, sufficiently respectful of both sides. About two years ago I started a short article on a Judaism-related topic and at present I'm doing a little bit of editing that relates to uncontroversial parts of Palestinian social history. DurovaCharge! 21:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

G-Dett, please strikethrough that insinuation regaring me. It's very bad faith and treads on the margins of a personal attack. DurovaCharge! 23:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yikes, Durova! I'm not sure how the wires got crossed, but...that was a straight suggestion, not a sarcastic insinuation. Sure, we've clashed briefly a couple of times, but I regard you as very even-handed on ME pages and related issues. There was a mediation way back about whether Wikipedia should report with a straight face something that Juan Cole said about himself in wry self-deprecation, and two partisan editors were locked in what appeared to be mortal combat, and if I remember right you were stern and effective. I was trying to think who would be a good foil to HG on my proposed 'cabal', someone who could be bad cop if necessary but had no ideological dog in the fight, and I thought of you.--G-Dett (talk) 00:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, I misunderstood. Please bear in mind that pretty much everyone in this dispute understands the content side in much greater depth than I do. So while I'd gladly interact with anyone as a neutral party regarding wiki policies and practices, I'm also reticent to scale up my involvement more than it already is. I'm posting here to affirm that Jaakobou is taking proactive steps and endeavoring to adapt to site standards. DurovaCharge! 05:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by G-Dett

I'm glad this has been brought forward; many thanks to Ryan for doing so. Two other editors who might be included here are 6SJ7 and of course Jayjg.

I have two suggestions and will keep them both brief. One is that User:HG be included somehow. He is a very unusual editor in that he's widely trusted by both sides. I'm sure he has real-life views but they are no more detectable in his Wikipedia presence than is his body odor. He seems to be drawn to resolving intractable debates, as if they were 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzles and he some kind of savant.

Ideally we could have a mini-cabal but frankly I don't know who else would be on it (Durova?). Part of HG's success has been that he never tells anyone they're talking balderdash, even when they are; he's more of a facilitator of mildly Socratic dialogue. There are many other intelligent and non-aligned editors, who however through very occasional and understandable flashes of intellectual impatience have been branded partisan.

My second suggestion is that we have some sort of moderated ME-related forum where inter-article balance issues could be discussed as they arise, and loose working principles formulated. There are certain policy-interpretation memes that come up regularly in editing disputes, and even when they're semi-resolved there's no take-away. I know "other stuff" isn't supposed to exist on Wikipedia, but it certainly does exist on ME pages, and the fact that we're not supposed to talk about it has just forced it underground into "strategy," often of a passive-aggressive sort.--G-Dett (talk) 22:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by CJCurrie

Arbcomm intervention on this file is long overdue. The controversies on pages having to do with Israel/Palestine can no longer be described as simply "content disputes"; many of these pages have become completely dysfunctional, due in large part to the reasons identified by Ryan and others.

Further comments:

  • The list of involved participants seems to have been chosen in an arbitrary fashion. User:Jayjg strikes me the most noteworthy omission, though I'm certain that others have been left out as well.
  • I would recommend that this ArbComm case be restructured so as to encompass pages that do not specifically address the Israel/Palestine conflict, but rather address related matters and involve many of the same participants. New antisemitism strikes me as a particularly relevant example, in light of ongoing discussions on its talk page.
  • I do not accept Ryan's assertion that "all parties seem resigned to getting their point across through edit warring and other disruption". While it's undeniably true that both "sides" in this dispute are guilty of edit-warring, there are some participants who have tried to persuade "the other side" with rational arguments ... the difficulty is that this approach seldom leads to discernable results.
  • While it may prove necessary to admonish or sanction certain editors for their behaviour on these pages, this will not solve the underlying problem. It could even be counter-productive, if editors who are not sanctioned (or like-minded editors who are not named in this particular RfA) continue the larger pattern of tendentious editing once arbitration is finished. Wikipedia's articles on Israel/Palestine have been an embarrassment for some time, in no small part because meaningful debate on substantive editing issues has become almost impossible. We need is method of ensuring that future disputes can be resolved in an open and civil manner -- anything short of this will just be window dressing on one of the project's most serious problems. (The suggestion of appointing an ombudsman has its advantages, though I wonder if this task could prove too large for any one editor to take.)

CJCurrie (talk) 00:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC), with 02:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please allow me to reiterate my view that this RfA should be expanded to address relevant articles that do not specifically address the Israel/Palestine conflict, and should address the larger problem of a poisoned atmosphere on all of these pages.
If this RfA only addresses issues of behaviour on a small number of pages, I'm quite concerned that it could (i) selectively punish some participants while allowing equally culpable parties in the larger dispute to escape sanction, (ii) further poison the atmosphere on these pages by creating the appearance of selective prosecution, and (iii) do nothing to resolve the larger and more pressing problem of factionalism on these pages.
By the way, I think 6SJ7 has raised an interesting point regarding the time frame. I'm a bit concerned that this RfA could have the unintended consequence of allowing tendentious editors who've kept a low profile in recent months, but were prominently involved in past POV disputes, to re-emerge if and when restrictions are placed on their "opponents". I don't believe this (plausible, if remote) turn of events would create either the appearance or reality of fairness.
To improve the quality of these pages, this RfA must take a proactive role in establishing terms of behaviour for articles on Middle East issues. We don't need to examine every dispute, but we most certainly do need to ensure the situation on these pages improves. User:Sm8900's "general comment" was well-intentioned, but I fear it his/her remedy would take this process in entirely the wrong direction, and focus on minutiae rather than the bigger picture. CJCurrie (talk) 23:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ChrisO

I strongly support this request for arbitration. I only rarely edit Middle Eastern-related articles, for exactly the reasons that MastCell alludes to in his statement above. However, I've kept an eye on a number of editors and articles for some time, and I can confirm that there is indeed a serious and systematic problem in this topic area. I'd like to offer a few observations for the arbitrators:

  • The class of affected articles is potentially very large - essentially all Middle Eastern articles, plus those on Jewish and Muslim-related topics, though I should emphasize that the number of articles being disputed at any one time is much more limited.
  • The problem has its roots in the behaviour of a relatively small number of editors whose primary interest is in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Action against some of these editors (which will likely require topic or site bans) will help in part, but the topic areas are also likely to need placing under article probation (cf. Macedonia, Armenia-Azerbaijan). I suggest that parties should look to Wikipedia:General sanctions for relevant precedent in proposing remedies. A number of editors have been involved in straightforward violations of editing and conduct policies - for instance, episodes such as Jaakobou's recent edit warring to re-insert properly removed BLP violations, abuse of editing tools and other willful policy violations that led to this arbitration request in the first place. Such misconduct is relatively easy to identify and should result in those responsible being sanctioned.
  • The harder question is what to do about the underlying problem in this topic area - the existence of blocs of partisan editors who use Wikipedia as a battlefield to campaign for their causes. The problem with Middle Eastern articles isn't only a matter of misconduct by individual editors; it has its roots in mutual hostilities that exist off-wiki and have been transported here en masse. The result is a poisonous atmosphere characterised by antagonism, aggressive behaviour and mutual distrust. There needs to be a change in editing culture on these articles, not just conduct. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Added) In reply to Quadell's query about Jayjg being added as a party, I believe Cla68 is alluding to this accidental e-mail from Jayjg to the WikiEN-l mailing list in which he invites a number of "allies" (namely User:Avraham, User:Beit Or, User:Humus sapiens and User:PinchasC) to "watch my back" as he makes controversial edits to Messianic Judaism. It's hard evidence of exactly the kind of cliqueish behaviour that I mentioned above and it's arguably a violation of WP:CANVASS. It certainly isn't good practice to try to stitch up an article by recruiting a team of ideological allies using back channels and inviting them to fight over an article; it's particularly depressing that experienced editors (two of them administrators!) should have sunk to this. I'm sure this sort of thing is going on on both sides, but it's something that should be strongly discouraged given the amount of disruption that it causes. Other subscribers to WikiEN-l certainly weren't impressed by Jayjg's inadvertent disclosure, and I hope it's properly reviewed by the Arbitration Committee. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pedro Gonnet

I am listed as a party to the edit-war on Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My last edit to the page (here) or to the talk page (here) predate the page-protection by 12 and 14 days respectively, which makes me an unlikely candidate for that war (I am, however, involved in Gilad Shalit, where a nice solution was found, and on Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt, which went stale). The discussions on that Talk:Israeli-Palestinian conflict (the wildest one is regarding the use of the term "occupied" when referring to the Israeli-occupied territories) are symptomatic of the way certain editors work: insert POV/unsourced/tendentious material or delete sourced material, start a revert war, call for an RfC, flame anybody who participates in it, drop out of the discussion and when a compromise is reached between other editors, block and/or ignore it.

As I have mentioned on the WP:AN/I thread, this is not about a content dispute, but about the willingness to start literally hundreds of content disputes based on bogus material, simply to deadlock or seriously degrade most -- if not all -- articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The main protagonists are not interested in verifiability, NPOV, avoiding undue weight and such, but in inserting their own, generally anti-Palestinian WP:POV at any cost. For these editors , there is never a compromise, never a mutually agreed solution and as such, never an end to an edit-war.

As you may have guessed, my main problem is with User:Jaakobou, with whom I have locked horns on several occasions. I have yet to see him end an edit-war, accept a compromise or back down from any of his positions or edits. This is not about tough discussions -- I have had many with User:GHcool and User:Sm8900 and in most cases reached a solution and/or compromise, of which I am somewhat proud -- but about fruitless discussions being used as a mere pretext to drag an issue on an wear out all participants. This kind of behaviour is extremely disruptive, time-consuming and just plain annoying -- and does not contribute to the encyclopaedia.

Please, accept this RfA so that we can all get back to normal editing. pedro gonnet - talk - 09.01.2008 08:02

Statement by Uninvolved CarolMooreDC

While happily I'm not named above! - and this is NOT my primary area of editing interest (except last couple days!) - I have observed the problems on some of the pages mentioned above, as well as on Carlos Latuff (where there is an absurd on going editing war I don't much get involved in); on Samson Option (where any attempt to mention the controversial things said about the Samson Option by Israel leaders and supporters was repeatedly deleted, no matter how well sourced, even when placed in a "controversies" section); and on Jewish Lobby (refusal to allow there to be ANY mention of NON-antisemitic use of the phrase Jewish Lobby, even though many prominent uses of the phrase are by Jews and/or mainstream publications and/or are NOT antisemitic).

Having just started intensely editing in last 6-8 months, I confess I have sometimes lost my temper and ranted and even made a couple personal attacks, but I'm learning how to use to the process instead! :-) Yes, it has taken me longer than it should to really read and re-read and understand the Wiki Pillars, but the more I understand them, the more outraged I become at the behavior of these editors. See my most recent complaining entry attempting to get NPOV version of page. At the end of it I list multiple violations of WP:NPOV from the tutorial.

Besides whatever steps Arbitrators might take, I really think wikipedia needs a neutral AND courageous Ombudsman just for the Israel-Palestine and related issues to keep people in line with the wikipedia process.

An additional idea: I noticed that Wikipedia:Naming_convention has manuals of styles for several nations. Maybe there should be a "Israel-Palestine" manual of style, or maybe one on Arab/Muslim/Jewish issues, to set up some guidelines -though there'd be a massive debate on creating that!

Also, I agree that User_talk:Jayjg should be added to the list of problematic editors on this topic. Carol Moore 02:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk[reply]

Statement by RomaC

I am relieved to see that this issue is being addressed. I was happily contributing in many areas of Wiki until I tried to edit a picture caption at Media Coverage of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and came across a stubbornly persistent Jaakabou. I am currently working to add recently-released casualty figures to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict article, and again I see what seems a coordinated effort by some editors to control content, with open talk about "sides," referring not to the subjects of the article, but to the editors themselves. This is a serious threat to Wiki. I would suggest interested parties also consider looking at some of the activity in our little edit war, I know Timeshifter for one has already studied the problem and made an interesting exposition on his user page. Good luck! RomaC (talk) 03:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by CasualObserver'48

Sigh of relief, I am happy, ecstatic, naively optimistic and very much appreciate the decision to accept. You will need the wisdom of Solomon and I wish you luck. It is long overdue; much longer that I have been around Wikipedia or on the Internet (Sept07). That said, I have already been labled as being on one of the ‘sides’, but only on the talkpages, not on edits (largely because I’m still learning to Be Bold. My POV is Pro-MidEast Peace, although a good friend of mine termed it the ultimate oxymoron, and even I consider that it is pushing the limits of the Serenity Prayer. I look at the I-P conflict situation from a civil/human rights perspective and, therefore my bias tends to be pro-Palestinian, but my support for Israel is based on, well, Biblical proportions. The admins will decide what they decide and I hope to be helpful along the way, but that is well over my head. Most of the heavily involved users with whom I am familiar are included above, although I could name a few more, if asked.

As pointed out in other’s statements above, I too feel that a broad range of topics with content disputes should be included and an ombudsman might be helpfull. I also believe for Wikipedia to gain more credibility, the systematic bias with respect to this subject must be addressed. More critically for Wikipedia viability is to address the issues noted here and to that I’ll add CAMERA and it’s multitude of talk-alikes, Hasbara and, for those computer literate types Megaphone. The import of these on NPOV should not be discounted. CasualObserver'48 (talk) 08:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC) So, why is it Red?[reply]

Statement by RolandR

I welcome the fact that ArbCom is to look at this area, and I hope that they will come up with some helpful guidelines. In particular, I support the suggestion by CarolMooreDC above for a style guide or naming convention. As Pedro Gonnet notes, there is constant dispute over the use of the term "occupied" to describe the territories which came under Israeli rule in 1967. There are also disputes over the term "guerilla"/"terrorist", over the placing of an "Antisemitism" category tag on many articles, and other similar issues. This could all usefully be addressed.

However, I question my own inclusion, and indeed that of most editors named above (including some with whom I have clashed in the past), on this list. The problem is not, in most cases, the individual editors, but the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the absence of clear guidelines here. Some of us may have been guilty of occasional tendentious editing, and there is one editor above whom I have recently accused of incivility; but these are issues which can be -- and indeed are being -- dealt with by regular procedures. They do not amount to disruptive editing, and do not in themselves require the involvement of ArbCom.

If there is to be a named list of editors to be looked at by ArbCom, then there are several more who should be included. For a start:

Amoruso (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Andyvphil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Screen stalker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Zeq (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Hertz1888 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
6SJ7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

and I'm sure there are many more. If Isarig was not currently under a one-year topic ban, he also would be included. In short, it is invidious to pick out just the editors named above, since there are countless others acting in a very similar manner.

Having said that, I do think that there should be a specific inquiry into the behaviour of Jaakobou, identified by several editors above and elsewhere as a particularly problematic and uncooperative editor. My history with him includes an ANI regarding his use of racist language and another following his posting of libellous comments about me on a talk page. On that occasion, Jaakobou so thoroughly angered other editors (not previously involved in this area) that he was extremely lucky to avoid a lengthy community block. RolandR (talk) 11:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvited Number 57

I would also strongly urge the arbitration committee to look at this case. As possibly the largest single contributor to articles on Israeli politics, I have come across almost all the editors listed in this case (hence listing myself as uninvited rather than uninvolved), and I am thoroughly sick of the endless disputes which a number of them create and prolong. Unfortunately for the project, whenever an edit by at least five of the editors listed above comes up on any of the 500+ articles on my watchlist, I know that in the vast majority of cases (for two of the editors the figure is 100%) that edit will not conform to WP:NPOV.

Unfortunately my past attempts to diffuse situations and correct POV have led to me being labelled as a POV pusher by both sides, but particularly by the pro-Israelis (possibly because I tend to stick to articles on domestic Israeli topics rather than Israeli-Palestinian ones, and pro-Palestinian editors are not common in that sphere). This has meant that despite being well-placed to do so, I am now effectively hamstrung from carrying out administrative actions against the numerous violations of policy carried out by many of the editors listed above. I hope that a thorough investigation may allow me more room to take prompt action against both sides in the future.

In addition, I would also support adding User:GHcool and User:Beit Or to this case, as they are both involved in reverting on some of the articles listed above. пﮟოьεԻ 57 11:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jaakobou

My own conduct hasn't been ideal, I realize and I took upon myself to change my editing habits since my recent block (arguing on a number of articles and 3RR breach on one of them) and have obtained mentorship to address that and help diffuse problematic cases.

I ask the committee to defer arbitration at this time in favor of some communal observation resolutions/declaration of intent.

I also believe there is a serious need for formal mediation on Second Intifada and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I believe full blown arbitration should always be a last resort and that my suggestions will help everyone involved to improve their policy understanding and conduct and will also open the door for new editors who'd be kicked out in the current state of affairs. JaakobouChalk Talk 11:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the Committee does decide to accept this case, then I request that the following names be added to the list - Nishidani, Stingray86, NSH001, Sanguinalis, Gatoclass, Timeshifter, Ian Pitchford, Nickhh, ChrisO, Abu_Ali, Paul kuiper NL, Timb0h, RomaC, Editor54321, JaapBoBo, Burgas00, Bless sins, Liftarn, and 70.109.223.188, who are certainly involved in these conflicts as much as anyone else, and some moreso than the listed or suggested parties.
My apologies if I forgot someone. JaakobouChalk Talk 18:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tiamut

First off, I would like to thank Ryan Postlewaithe for being bringing this case to the attention of Arbcomm. The problems besetting Palestine-Israel articles are chronic, long-term problems that have not received the attention required to resolve them.

I second Number 57's suggestion that Beit Or (talk · contribs) be added to the list and the suggestion of other editors above that Jayjg (talk · contribs) also be included. The former has a habit of pile-on reverting and even wikistalked me to five different articles one day, just to revert my additions. (See related discussion here, here, and here). The latter, while having taken a brief sabbatical between August and November, was (and still is) deeply involved in editing Palestine-Israel articles, and as an admin, set the example to many of us on how to approach editing at such articles (for better or worse - arbcomm can decide that). Though his involvement is recent, I would also add Eternalsleeper (talk · contribs) here as well, since he jumped into the dispute at Second Intifada to drive-by revert twice, before even engaging in any discussion.

Having learned a lot over the last year and half about Wikipedia policies, I like to think that the quality of my editing contributions and my ability to work with others with vastly differing viewpoints has greatly improved. This is of course not true across the board. There are some editors who engage in tendentious and disruptive editing with whom I have not been able to construct a satisfactory, collaborative editing relationship. I often get the sense that the goal of these editors is simply to disrupt a page where sourced edits representing a viewpoint they don't like are being added, until the page is protected and no further additions can be made.

Regarding my own block log, I have been blocked four times for 3RR. The first block was placed SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) for editing at Arab citizens of Israel, where in the midst of multi-participant edit war over how (or for some whether) to include a piece of sourced information regarding the status of Palestinians in Israel as an "indigenous people", involving many of the editors listed here, Isarig reported me for 3RR and I was blocked. Many fellow editors took issue with the block, which they believed was unfair, given my involvement in discussion in the talk page and the attempt in my edits to find alternate phraseology acceptable to everyone. The subsequent two blocks were placed after reports filed (again) by Isarig (who in all three cases was edit-warring with me at the time, but was not himself sanctioned). These two were lifted before they expired after Isarig's own history of edit-warring was brought to the attention of admins by other editors. It was around this time that I began to see how detrimental edit warring was to the project. I am certainly not making excuses for my behaviour, only outlining an evolution. The last block was placed by Tariqabjotu (talk · contribs) after I filed a report against Egyegy (talk · contribs). While I had not violated 3RR and had not lowered myself to responding to Egygey uncivil and personal attacks on me, I admit that I was edit warring, and Tariqabjotu blocked me for a lengthy period. The block was overturned by Mangojuice (talk · contribs) long before it expired after I recognized that fact. (Note that Tariqabjotu refused to lift the block when I requested that he do so by email). That was my last block (in September 2007) and I have had no blocks since.

I do try to avoid edit-warring. It is however, deeply challenging. Particularly when you spend days working to add reliable sourced and relevant scholarly material to an article, only to have someone come by and mass blank your additions, and then have someone else come and drive-by revert them away again after they are restored by you or others. I think Arbcomm needs to know that this is not about a content dispute. It's about a style of editing that centers on disruption to do away with facts that cannot argued away. It's about some editors letting WP:IDONTLIKEIT be the key determinant to whether an addition remains in an article, rather than adibing by core Wiki policies like WP:NPOV and WP:CONSENSUS. I don't think I am one of those editors. Though I do have a strong POV on the issues which no doubt influences what information I add to these articles, I do try to be self-conscious about it and I don't delete relevant reliably sourced information representing opposing viewpoints, even when I think it's a total load of crap.

I think the arbcomm should focus on identifying specific behaviours that are unhelpful here (e.g. drive-by reverting to delete sourced material without sufficient engagement in talk) and the editors who use them. Without a specific work agenda here, this arbcomm is likely to end up unfocused and end without resolving anything (as did the previous one on Allegations of Israeli apartheid). Tiamut 12:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS. Regarding Tariqabjotu's statement that Tewfik (talk · contribs) (among others) shouldn't be lsited in this case, I have to disagree (about tewfik specificially). Tewfik regularly engages in the kind of behaviour I have described above. His mass blanking of material Second Intifada after one version enjoyed stability for two weeks, prompted a series of edit wars that led to the page being protected. In my opinion and that of other editors at the page, he did not sufficiently explain these edits. Tiamut 12:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 6SJ7

I have to agree with Sm8900's "General Comment." There may be something for the ArbComm to accept in Ryan's initial "example", in which he specifies what a few specific editors did in a few specific articles. After that, Ryan identifies a few other articles, but with no specifics about what events concerning those articles might require arbitration. And in the comments of some subsequent editors, this potential arbitration case has taken on a life of its own. It would not be a particularly happy life, either for the parties, potential parties, the arbitrators or anyone else. If the committee accepts this case without specifically limiting what the case is about, the case is potentially going to be about every dispute that has occurred among dozens of editors on dozens of articles. I wouldn't be surprised if 150 or more editors are "named" before this is all over. And how far back does this go? All Israel- or Palestinian-related articles (and antisemitism-related articles? and other religion-related articles?) for the past six months? A year? Three years? Five years? And what kind of disputes are we talking about? I have already seen mentions of articles that would involve the ArbComm in content disputes, but I know that the ArbComm does not accept those. I hope that the arbitrators, if they accept this case, will tell the rest of us what it is about. Otherwise, this is going to become one big, ugly, nasty, confused and contentious scene, and it isn't going to produce anything good for anyone. 6SJ7 (talk) 20:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved EconomicsGuy

General comment. Now that the case has been accepted I urge the arbitrators to look for a broad solution to this. AN/I threads like this will keep appearing if ArbCom does not come up with some sort of centralized solution to these disputes. The number of articles and the number of participants in these disputes would otherwise make it very difficult for the arbitrators and those enforcing the remedies to keep this from reappearing here. EconomicsGuy (talk) 11:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by univolved Cla68

I added Jayjg to the case because of this thread [35] on WP:ANI. I believe that more evidence of problematic behavior by Jayjg can probably be presented on the evidence page once the case formally opens. If Jayjg is still on the ArbCom mailing list, I formally request that he be removed, at least until this case closes. Cla68 (talk) 13:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved User:Quadell

I don't understand why Cla68 added Jayjg to the case above. The thread he quotes above regards Jayjg's comment to Wayne, which Wayne regarded as a personal attack. (I don't see why that was ever on AN/I, actually, since it didn't involve Jayjg's admin abilities and was not requesting admin abilities be used to resolve it -- it just looks like a general complaint filed in an inappropriate place.) Jayjg's comment to Wayne doesn't involve the issues of "ownership", etc., in the description of this case. I don't think it's appropriate for him to be included as a party. – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also note that the comment in question was on the Khazars talk page, unrelated to this RfAr, and Wayne and Jayjg to not appear to have ever had a content dispute related to Israel/Palestine articles. Can anyone just add anyone's name to these things, based on unrelated allegations? – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Parties, please don't edit each others' sections. Dialog is usually less effective than making a clear and concise presentation of why Arbitration is needed to handle this dispute. PalestineRemembered, you may add additional parties by adding their names above, notifying them on their talk page, and putting a diff of the notification in the confirmation section. Thatcher 18:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Four votes to open noted. Will be opened late January 10 (UTC). Daniel (talk) 02:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

  • Accept, primarily to consider the overall situation in this topic area. Kirill 17:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept per Kirill. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept to look out the best way to handle heated conflicts related to this topic and examine involved parties disruptive conduct. FloNight (talk) 16:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. There's no doubt this case must be accepted but the scope needs to be kept fairly tightly defined and this case has already started to sprawl. The decision is not going to have any effect on the balance of views present in articles about the Israel/Palestine conflict. The committee will only be looking at user conduct issues. The wide number of users involved is likely either to make this case among the most protracted ever seen, or to a deliberate decision to pass enforcement to uninvolved admins. The latter is the more likely. Can I make a plea for brevity in the evidence? Generally the pithier a submission, the more impact it makes. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elvis Presley / Onefortyone

Initiated by Steve Pastor (talk) at 16:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Onefortyone[36] Rikstar [37] Northmeister [38] LaraLove [39] Maria202 [40] Jaye9 [41]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Several editors have made heroic attempts to work with OneFortyOne. All editors who have tried to do this have thrown their hands up in frustration, as can be noted by the comments of the editors who have joined in this request.

Statement by Steve Pastor

Comments by the combined editors of the Elvis Presley article should suffice to substantiate the following request

that user OneFortyOne be permanently banned from editing the Elvis Presley article, including the Discussion page. Furthermore I request that OneFortyOne be banned from editing any article with a mention of Elvis Presley, including, but not limited to, the Milton Berle Show, Steve Allen, The Steve Allen Show, Ed Sullivan, and The Ed Sullivan Show articles.

This has been a long term pernicious problem. As Rikstar has written, 141 "knows how to play the edit warring game without getting into obvious trouble, his posts beg to be answered ... and this has been as tiresome as it has been unproductive". It should be noted that 141 brings up the same previously rejected arguments and material over and over again.

OneForty One has been banned previously. You may wish to review the following pages: [42], [43], [44].

The following are remarks are from on the Discussion page of the Elvis Presley article:

Disruptive editing. 141 continues to edit this article unilaterally, making little or no effort to co-operate with others. 141 was asked to leave my last edits for others to consider and comment on. He did not. 141 was asked to justify his accusations of fan bias in later sections on these pages first. He did not, and has gone ahead and made changes. It was explained in detail above that 141's edits regarding guitar playing didn't work and that the citation was incomplete. He reverted the changes I subsequently made and it remains a poor read and poorly cited. 141 has been asked if his intention is to make this an article of GA or FA status: no comment. 141 is refusing to allow any of his precious edits to be removed, inspite of article length, and the good will of others in removing or allowing the removal of their own contributions. Rikstar 12:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

We've approached a point where regardless of efforts to include onefortyones edits within the summary style of Wikipedia, and despite concessions to him; this editor continues to spoil any effort to bring improvement to the article so that it may become among the best at Wikipedia and receive feature status. Numerous editors thus far including yourself and tireless Rikstar have improve this article substantially. I would hate to see it all ruined by one editor who is not getting the point of our efforts nor Wikipedia WP:Point. It is time this matter is resolved by outside parties. --Northmeister 01:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This article has been degraded enough. Too much time and hard work has gone to waste. This article has great potential to be an FA. Currently, it can't even keep GA. It's time to fix the issues that ail this article. Lara❤Love 17:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It pains me to see what one user, 141, has done to this article. I watched many others work very hard on getting it to FA status. Maria202 (talk) 15:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

So much of the "current controversy" occurs because one particular user (guess) keeps trying to own this article, and the Talk Page. I'm in favor of taking it to arbitration, or even having him banned for his behavior in and about this article and Talk. It's a shame that this user has made such a mess of this page with his obsessive blather that the page is sinking into a swamp of user despair. Hoserjoe (talk) 00:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC) To Steve Pastor add me to your list, please.--Jaye9 (talk) 15:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I will add my own comments:

If I thought it would make a difference to 141, I would go through the archeives and repeat the arguments that have been made by other editors as to why this material does not belong in this article. Since 141 has been unable or unwilling to understand, or accept any other viewpoints on this subject, that exercise would be pointless. Steve Pastor (talk) 20:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Rikstar has by far put the most effort into this article, and provided these additional comments.

I posted my worries about improving the Elvis article on Dec. 8, 2006 - my comment is still in the summary of FA/GA submissions. My concerns actually referred to the involvement of one user, Onefortyone, though I did not mention him by name. His history already indicated that he had an alarming and persistent preoccupation with negative and sexually biased material, something not reflected in other encyclopedic articles. I noted he had at times been banned/committed violations.

By May, 2007, I was being actively encouraged by user Northmeister to edit (he has since given up) because of other editors' concerns about the state of the article; the lack of progress seemed tied to article length, trivia, fan bias, structure and to 141's continued involvement. In the last 6 months, I have tried to improve the article but I have felt regularly frustrated by 141's talk, edits, reverts, ignoring consensus and general tactics that lead me to seriously believe he has some kind of agenda to be disruptive and/or to have his POV included at any cost. His posting of a list of miswritten lyrics implying Presley was gay was as perplexing as it was disturbing. Responding to his claims, new submissions, etc. has taken up more time and effort than with any other user, and the payback has been negligible.

141 is shrewd: he knows how to play the edit warring game without getting into obvious trouble, his posts beg to be answered if only not to give his claims undue weight, and this has been as tiresome as it has been unproductive. I hope that my own posts on the talk pages will give sufficient details about the specific objections I and others have had to 141's editing behavior, and that they will be seen as fair and as objective as possible. It should be noted however that the frustration over many hours of discussion/arguing with 141 alone has pushed me to the point where I have felt physically repelled at the thought of doing any more editing, period. I have stretched my patience to its limit trying to negotiate with/accommodate/tolerate 141, to ignore his rehashing of stale tactics/arguments. However, the evidence is there, I think, that this and other articles will never improve as they should with his continued involvement. I also believe he has scared off too many people who could help make this a featured article. And I may well be another casuality. Rikstar (talk) 21:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Additional statement by Onefortyone concerning false claims by Steve Pastor

Here are some false claims made by Steve Pastor in his statement above:

  • "141 continues to edit this article unilaterally, making little or no effort to co-operate with others."
This is not true, as the discussion page shows and my efforts in order to shorten longer versions of specific paragraphs previously written by me prove. See [45], [46]. See also [47]and [48], [49], [50]. However, if some users removed entire, well-sourced paragraphs, I did not agree, which I hope is understandable. In these cases I tried to reinclude the deleted material in the original form or, alternatively, in revised, abridged form. It should be noted that others also reverted such edits. See [51], [52], [53], [54].
  • "141 was asked to justify his accusations of fan bias in later sections on these pages first. He did not..."
I did. See [55], [56], [57], [58], etc.
  • "It was explained in detail above that 141's edits regarding guitar playing didn't work and that the citation was incomplete. He reverted the changes I subsequently made and it remains a poor read and poorly cited."
For my response, see [59], where I have demonstrated that Steve Pastor's edits regarding guitar playing "suggests that Elvis's music was accepted from the beginning by the majority of listeners. But this isn't true," as the sources I have provided show. The said passage has been reworded by me and Rikstar several weeks ago and it is now a good read.
  • "141 has been asked if his intention is to make this an article of GA or FA status: no comment."
This is also a false claim. For my statements that I am willing to help to make Elvis Presley an article of GA or FA status, see [60], [61], [62].
  • 141 is refusing to allow any of his precious edits to be removed.
This is not true. For example, when Rikstar shortened this section, I did not revert it to the previous, much longer version written by me. In many other cases, I accepted edits by others, as the contribution history of the Elvis article clearly shows.

So much for Steve Pastor's false claims.

Statement by Onefortyone

It's interesting that User:Steve Pastor requests a ban in view of his biased removals of well-sourced, critical information and inclusion of fan-oriented material in Elvis-related articles.

To my mind, the whole thing is simply a content dispute concerning Elvis-related topics. Pastor seems to be primarily interested in removing critical information and including material mentioning "that some of Elvis's greatest assets were his youth and good looks." And he adds, "I have several sources (my favorite is a BB King statement, which can be seen on dvd) that he tought Elvis would be popular whether he could sing or not." See [63].

It should be further noted that most editors who have joined in Steve Pastor's request are acknowledged fans of Elvis Presley.

  • Northmeister says on his user page, "I've been a lifelong fan of Elvis Presley even though he passed away in my very early years." See [64].
  • LaraLove says, "I am an Elvis fan, but of his music and look, not so much his life and how he lived it." See [65].
  • Jaye9 says, "Oh by the way 141, I am an Elvis Fan..." See [66]. This could suggest that they may be interested in excluding more critical material from the Elvis article.

See also these four edits by Pastor of May 2007: [67], [68], [69], [70]. Furthermore, which contributions to The Ed Sullivan Show are more encyclopedic? This one and this one by Steve Pastor or that one and that one by Onefortyone?

In the past, User:Steve Pastor repeatedly removed content he didn't like from the Elvis page. See [71], [72], [73], [74], [75], [76], [77], [78], [79], [80], [81], [82], [83], etc. etc.

What is more, Steve Pastor frequently includes references to specific fan sites and DVDs in Wikipedia articles. See [84], [85], [86], [87], [88], [89], [90], [91], [92], [93], [94], [95], [96]. Other users had also a suspicion that the hyperlinks Steve Pastor prefers seem "designed primarily to sell CDs." See [97], [98]. This inclusion of references to Elvis fan sites, DVDs etc., which is not in line with Wikipedia policies, may indicate that Pastor is part of an Elvis fan group and may therefore be an editor who has a conflict of interest.

Concerning the well-sourced material I have used for my contributions, Steve Pastor writes:

  • I think we need to keep in mind that many of the people who wrote about Elvis were writing books. Much of what they write is opinion and doesn't need to be repeated here. See [99].
  • We no longer have to rely on second hand accounts of many things. We also no longer have to rely on someone elses account of what the music sounds like with the availablity of samples. See [100]

Third-party users seem to agree with my edits:

  • "The article seems a bit too fan influenced. I wish that some of the input by Onefortyone (biased though he may or may not be) got more air time. Elvis was wonderful, but an encyclopedia article, especially a wikipedia article should be brutally honest." See [101].
  • "Elvis was a controversial figure. His sexuality, drug taking, divorce, eating disorders etc etc all attract differing points of view. To some he was a god; to others a fat bloke who died on the toilet. For many aspects of his life there is no definitive answer. ... To attempt to compromise, this article needs to show both sides with suitable references and let the reader decide." See [102].
  • "Onefortyone presents well documented information on a lot of negative aspects of Elvis` life and it gets continually edited out. Let the truth be heard, you inane fanboys." See [103].

Here are some other commentaries concerning my contributions:

  • ... If the Presley article is so POV and controlled by biased Elvis fans as you claim, then feel free to make all the edits you like. They seem to wasted just appearing on the talk page. You are obviously intelligent, erudite and can write excellent prose that is unimpeachably cited. Other people are freely editing the article, so why don't you? See [104]
  • I like your recent compromise. It shows we can work together and that you understand my concerns. I moved the later material to 1968 comeback to fit better in the article. In this way we can work towards your concerns. See [105]
  • A Resilient Barnstar for learning and improving from criticisms, and not letting mistakes or blunders impede your growth as Wikipedian. I'm really impressed. See [106]

As far as I can see, I am the only editor who frequently cites his sources, among them mainstream Elvis biographies, essays by reputed Elvis experts, books by people who knew Elvis and peer-reviewed studies published by university presses. For the many sources I have used for my contributions, see [107].

Significantly, my opponents now endeavor to remove exactly the same sourced information that my former opponents had removed, who are banned by former arbcom decisions. To my mind, Steve Pastor and some new sockpuppets of Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabbadoo are still edit warring with me, as multiple hardbanned User:Ted Wilkes alias User:DW and banned User:Lochdale did in the past. Onefortyone (talk) 22:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Jehochman

You have claimed, "Onefortyone appears to have been in persistent conflict since at least May 2007..." and "I believe Onefortyone has significantly impeded development of the article, based on the statements of involved parties." If you look at the contribution history, you will find that I didn't touch the Elvis article between May 19 and August 27, 2007. As there was a permanent edit war in the past, I didn't revert any removals by other users for months in order to show good faith. This means that there was plenty of time for my opponents to develop the article, and they changed a lot. However, there was a discussion on the talk page, as my opponents frequently removed sourced content that was not in line with their personal opinion. In August, Rikstar said on the talk page, "...feel free to make all the edits you like. They seem to wasted just appearing on the talk page. You are obviously intelligent, erudite and can write excellent prose that is unimpeachably cited. Other people are freely editing the article, so why don't you?" See [108]. So I returned. The edit war started again with this edit by Northmeister, who, as usual, removed well-sourced information from the article page. Furthermore, if you look at the Elvis article in its present state from a neutral point of view, is it really such a mess as my opponents claim? Onefortyone (talk) 01:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to LaraLove

I think I have shown on the talk page that the claims by Jaye9, perhaps a newly created sockpuppet of one of my former opponents (see his contribution history), are unjustified. Jaye9 even made false claims concerning Elvis's father, Vernon, and his stepmother, Dee Presley, on the talk page similar to the claims made by banned user Lochdale, who even added this false information to the Elvis article. See [109] and my reply here. Onefortyone (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

I direct the Committee's attention to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive249#Still an unresolved problem. I am concerned that the current remedies against Onefortyone may be entirely insufficient to deal with the level of disruption that seems to be going on. I urge the committee to accept this matter for review to help resolve a long running controversy that the community has been unable to handle. Onefortyone appears to have been in persistent conflict since at least May 2007 and probably much longer. I remain concerned about the possibility of disruptive sock puppetry, and of false allegations against other editors. Jehochman Talk 23:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not feel comfortable applying the existing probation remedy because it is too narrowly written. I believe Onefortyone has significantly impeded development of the article, based on the statements of involved parties. Additionally, Sam Blacketer has stated that he thinks Onefortyone's editing has been acceptable. It seems that there is a conflict amongst administrators how to handle this problem. The status quo since at least May 2007 has been paralysis resulting in valued contributors becoming frustrated to the point that they abandon the article. I think an expedited review of editing since the last case and a decision to remove, alter, or sustain the existing remedy would be helpful. Jehochman Talk 22:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by LaraLove

In the months I have been working on this article, I have found Onefortyone to be a consistent obstacle in article improvement. My involvement started after the article was improperly promoted to GA status in August 2007. It's my opinion that every attempt to bring this article to GA standards is halted by Onefortyone. Evidence has been shown on Talk:Elvis Presley that brings Onefortyone's sourced additions into question, as it appears as though he has selectively pulled information in order to push his preferred POV. He refuses to allow information to be removed in order to bring the article down to a manageable, readable length, which is why his latest additions remain. I created Wikipedia:WikiProject Elvis Presley in hopes of being able to get more attention on the article, however, it's no further along now than it was when it began a month and a half ago. Something has to change in this situation because no progress is being made and every other editor that consistently works on this article is ready to give up, which is not in the best interest of the project. Lara❤Love 18:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Egghead06

There is so much about the life of Elvis that is unknown. Since his death much rumour and gossip have grown-up around the man. How can anyone give a definitive view? They can't! What they can do is offer data which differs from the norm. As long as this is given with good references this can only help to provide a fuller picture. How can you ban someone who does that? There appears to be a drive here to only have one view point - put them all as long as they are referenced and let the reader decide. There also appears to be a drive to keep the article short so as to acheive some internal star or pat-on-the back. Brevity and accuracy do not always go hand-in-hand. This is not an encyclopedia for goldfish. Surely people can keep their span of attention long enough to grasp all the possibilities. This user may not toe the line but banning is too heavy handed. --Egghead06 (talk) 08:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

There appear to be two reports in the enforcement archives, see first and second and the enforcement log. Thatcher 17:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/2)

  • The situation is troubling, but I am not certain that a new case is necessary. It appears that the problem could be addressed through enforcement of the existing remedies through a report to Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement. That page is used where an editor fails to abide by a rule in a prior arbitration case(s) and enforcement of remedies under the prior ruling are sufficient to resolve the issue. Could the parties kindly address whether the problem could be addressed more efficiently in this way. If arbitration enforcement is insufficient to address the problem then I lean toward acceptance, subject to Onefortyone's statement and possibly as a Review of editing since the prior decisions rather than a whole new case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. Onefortyone is a restrained editor of the actual article on Elvis Presley and his more recent additions appear to be reliably sourced and have stayed in the article. While the talk page can get heated at times, I am very reluctant to sanction an editor merely because they happen to be in a minority. Discussion and debate is working. The current sanctions are in my view sufficient. Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline for now as per Newyorkbrad. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not want to reject a case that can not be handled by past remedies or the community, but I do not see evidence for a case now. I need to see more specific evidence that we need to be involved before I can accept. FloNight (talk) 18:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Dominicanism

Initiated by Zenwhat (talk) at 19:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[110] [111] [112] [113]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

XLR8TION (talk · contribs) was banned for a week by Nishkid64 (talk · contribs) [114] Also, see the see Wikiquette alert. [115]

Statement by Zenwhat

To begin with, I was completely outside of this dispute but happened to come across it while surfing Special:Random. User:UnclePaco has been pushing anti-Dominican and anti-black racism, including fringe theories about Dominican racial heritage. These include denying that modern Dominicans have any genetic relation to the native tribes that preceded them [116], claiming that such native tribes were wiped out entirely [117], and Dominicans today are mostly of "African roots," not of Hispanic or Native origin. [118] And he characterized a Dominican politician as supporting "reverse discrimination" by appealing to black Dominicans and that black Dominicans maintain "political supremacy." [119] Recently, he has attempted to associate the Dominican Day Parade with crime. [120] [121] And he has used homophobic epithets. [122] He posted a video critical of black Dominican basketball player, Felipe López [123] and black NBA star, Amare Stoudemire, [124] whose status as a Dominican cannot be confirmed, but he is from Florida. [125]

Aside from the above obvious POV-pushing, this is an overall pattern of behavior, where some of his edits seem to be made with the subtle intent of supporting racism, such as by uploading the mugshot of the black dominican involved in the alleged plot to attack St. John's University [126] and trying to create an article to push POV about that event. [127]

He has engaged in wikilawyering in order to push his POV. Recently, he reported XLR8TION (talk · contribs) for violating the 3RR on Dominican Day Parade [128] and for bad ettiquette. [129] by being accused of speaking English as a second language. [130]

After noting on WP:ANI that his 3RR report was unfounded, an anonymous user suddenly made baseless accusations against me, of harassment and stalking. [131] An RFCU will likely confirm this is UnclePaco, who has been making edits while not logged in, possibly in order to hide his identity. [132]

He's also engaged in edit wars over long periods of time, attempting to insert two objectionable photos of his into various articles on Dominicans. See his contributions list to see the reverts.

XLR8TION's accusation that UnclePaco speaks english as as second language was rude, however, given UnclePaco's name and the fact that he does often use broken english [133], this is a reasonable criticism. A one-week ban seems particularly extreme and XLR8TION's violation of the 3RR doesn't apply, because UnclePaco is editing in bad faith.

I request that XLR8TION be unblocked, that UnclePaco be blocked for a time determined by the arbitrator, and that he be investigated for sockpuppetry, per the edits by the anonymous user above.

Although there's been no RFCU, It's pretty much been confirmed that the anonymous IP isn't UnclePaco, UnclePaco's ban is now over, and I wasn't aware of XLR8TION'S block log, so these comments no longer apply. However, I do request that some arbitration ruling be made about the "violence section," on Dominican Day Parade, because of its contentious edit history, as admin Sam Blacketer suggests below. Zenwhat (talk) 06:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Zenwhat

XLR8TION reverted other editors over the "white nationalism" reference and claimed he was being accuse of racism. He also told B to stop making ignorant accusations. This matter could have easily been resolved, had XLR8TION asked the other editors what they were referring to. There was no need to make personal attacks or continuing the edit war. Also, XLR8TION may not have a history of being a "white nationalist troll", but he certainly has a history of violating 3RR, making personal attacks and being uncivil on Dominican-related articles. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nishkid64

UnclePaco filed a 3RR report against XLR8TION on January 1, 2008. The two users had been edit warring over this edit by UnclePaco, which highlights the incidents of crime at the Dominican Day Parade in 2007. B found that both users had violated WP:3RR on Dominican Day Parade, but they were currently engaging in discussion in the talk page, so he felt blocks were not necessary. Hours later, UnclePaco left a message at the 3RR report board about personal attacks from XLR8TION. XLR8TION's comment on Talk:Dominican Day Parade were uncivil, as he justified removing UnclePaco's additions because they brought the article to a "standard that is low and unreliable." Next, he claimed that from UnclePaco's edits, it was apparent that English was not his first language. XLR8TION states that since he is a native speaker, it is his "duty to maintain proper grammar and structure in articles." Afterwards, XLR8TION and UnclePaco continued to edit war on Dominican Day Parade, and XLR8TION began an edit war on Puerto Rican Day Parade, which included admin B (talk · contribs) and IP users. On Puerto Rican Day Parade, XLR8TION added a reference from a [www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/puerto-ricans-133236p6.html] "white nationalist" message board. 67.87.197.9 removed the reference. XLR8TION reverted the edit with the edit summary: "Revert, there is nothing mentions White power here". Another IP removed the reference, and XLR8TION reverted the editor, stating that the removal of sourced information can be labeled as vandalism. Admin B (talk · contribs) came to the article and removed the reference with the edit summary: "Completely unacceptable source (white power message board), no position on the rest of it." XLR8TION promptly reverted B, and left a threatening edit summary, in which he told B to "refrain from ignorant accusations" and that his next revert would lead to "corrective action." B reverted and left an edit summary: "You're joking, right? It's a message board (bad) with a big logo in the upper left corner that says 'white proud'" Meanwhile, on Dominican Day Parade, an IP re-inserted the material previously added by UnclePaco. XLR8TION promptly reverted. Shortly after, B went back to the 3RR board, where he requested a review of the previous 3RR report by an uninvolved administrator. Two minutes later, XLR8TION reverted B's edit on Puerto Rican Day Parade and told him to once again refrain from ignorant language.

I saw the report and evaluated XLR8TION's contributions. As I was reviewing his contributions, he made an edit at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts, in which he accused B of making racist and uncivil accusations of "white power" against him. 15 minutes later, I blocked XLR8TION for one week, due to edit warring, incivility and personal attacks. Within the hour, I received an e-mail from XLR8TION about the block. He felt the block was unfair, and claimed that he was being accused of "white power" propaganda. We sent over a dozen e-mails back and forth, in which I explained the reasons for the block. He claimed he did not know the message board he was adding as a reference was a "white nationalist" website. He stated that his firewall at blocked parts of the page, so he did not see the banners indicative of the site's purpose. He believed that this firewall should be taken into consideration. He repeatedly asked what I was going to do about UnclePaco. He advocated for a block, but I felt it was unnecessary. Finally, I told him I would look into the matter. When I went back on Wikipedia hours later, I saw UnclePaco was edit warring on St. John's University (New York City)‎ and Dominican Day Parade. I then blocked UnclePaco for 24 hours due to edit warring.

A few points of clarification from ZenWhat's statement and the entire case, itself:

  • No dispute resolution
  • I blocked, not banned XLR8TION for one week. I have been in contact via e-mail regarding his block
  • Sandstein declined the unblock request on XLR8TION's talk page
  • XLR8TION's 3RR report was not unfounded; B (talk · contribs) found both UnclePaco and XLR8TION had violated WP:3RR, but he chose not to block the users at the time
Reply to Nishkid64
I received an email from XLR8TION, where he claimed that he did not realize Stormfront.org was a "white power" site, and feels embarrassed about the matter, because his ISP has a firewall his blocks certain objectionable content (I assume he means a word filter, he could explain better than I). A copy of the email can be found here: [134] Because he does NOT have an history of contributions supporting white nationalism, per WP:Assume Good Faith, I see no reason to disbelieve him. Although I admit the edit war was a bad idea and I would like to hear more specifics about his ISP's firewall. Zenwhat (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I received e-mails from XLR8TION as well. The issue is not about "white nationalism", but about the edit warring and personal attacks he made on Puerto Rican Day Parade. A firewall is no excuse for inappropriate incivility and edit warring. Nishkid64 (talk) 18:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by UnclePaco replied on January 7, 2008

  • Amare Stoudamire isn't hispanic at all. He's black. I posted an article that spoke about him and summarized it. [135]. What you wrote is a strech of the imagination and simply trying to find things to bury me on.
  • The felipe lopez article. [136] This was his last college game. How is it critical of him? http://youtube.com/watch?v=vdmf9l6b8Bc Again, trying to find something to bury me on. Why don't you look at the video!
  • the alleged homophobia comment. In the context of the article we discussed how allegations with no substance can still make it into articles, such as [Rock Hudsons] personal life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Hudson#Personal_life[137]. We discussed the Patriot Act, Habeous Corpus, Guilty until proven innocent (i.e. Rock Hudsons personal life). [138] To which he stated Gay not being a crime, and that depends on what nation you're at. AT no point did I make homophobic remarks. If someone chooses to live a certain lifestyle that is on them. I'm indifferent.
  • Dominican Day Parade crime section. I created a section similiar to two other articles in New York about parades that had similiar sections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day_Carnival#Violence and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_Day_Parade#Controversy . I placed in verified information NY Times, NY Sun, NY Daily News, NY Post to illustrate this. Why is it ok for the Labor Day Carnival to have a violence section and the Puerto Rican Day Parade to have a controversy section, but the Dominican Day Parade not to have one? I have brought this up on talk pages. [139]
  • The black supremacy section, well I did reinsert the trivia section [140]. I simply didn't read the whole thing. It was originally inserted in Dec 2005 way before I became a member. I saw it was deleted and saw the first couple of sentences and it looked good to me. [141]
  • Dominican racial identity is simply up for debate. [142] There are numerous articles that state that DR is simply african and spaniard. Also that the native indians died off.

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/amholocaust-5.html http://pine3.info/Barbecue%20Heritage.htm http://forests.org/archive/general/columbus.htm http://forests.org/archive/general/columbus.htm http://www.websteruniv.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/precolumbian/tainospring.htm http://www.delhey.de/content-00/en/reports/domrep.htm www.dominican-rep.com/history.html http://www.icumedia.com/santodomingo/sd-history.shtml http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096409671 http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/IndianGenocide.html to easily name a few.


There does seem to be some kind of relationship between Zenwhat and XLR8TION. For a period they seem to have a similiar writing style and utilization of edits or accusation that has no true source. Look at the Felipe Lopez article and what I was accused of for example. How could that even remotely be considered to be anti-dominican or racism. Zenwhat below states that he wants us to Assume Good Faith for XlR8TION (for posting racist message boards, and stating that english isn't my first language ; which I might add is someting that individuals who are on those sites tend to do (white message boards). They tell people to speak english or mock peoples english skills), but is going for the throat with me with outlandish accusation. UnclePaco (talk) 18:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:B

I have interacted with all of these editors over the last few days on two separate occasions while patrolling WP:AN3 and I will make an effort to give some background.

UnclePaco (talk · contribs) reported XLR8TION (talk · contribs) for 3RR on Dominican Day Parade. (See [144] for the thread.) Both users were in violation, but appeared to be talking it out on the talk page. I felt it would be appropriate to simply warn them, rather than block them. After that, XLR8TION resumed edit warring and repeatedly adding a link to a thread on a white power message board [145] to Puerto Rican Day Parade. I removed it for obvious reasons and he reverted the removal twice. I realized my prior conclusion that the disruptive editing had stopped was incorrect and, though I would have been justified in making the block myself, in order to maintain transparency I posted a request at 3RR that another admin review my previous decision and consider making a block. Nishkid64 decided, based on the continued edit warring, incivility, and inappropriate external link, to block XLR8TION for one week. I concur with this block. During the interim before the block was made, XLR8TION opened a frivolous WQA alert concerning my removal of the inappropriate external link.[146]

UnclePaco has repeatedly added to Puerto Rican Day Parade the comment "with Manuel Vargas being deemed the ring leader." [147] That statement is supported by the source, although not knowing the issue, I can't see a reason why this matters - no foundation is given - who is he? He has also edit warred on Dominican Day Parade. Again, I don't know anything about the issue to conclude a right or wrong, only that it is a disruption. 67.101.248.187 (talk · contribs) seems to almost certainly be UnclePaco editing while logged out. UnclePaco says on his talk page that he isn't the IP, and it's completely moot to everything else I typed - I just assumed it was him based on seeing the same edit summary in the same article, this wasn't meant to be an accusation. --B (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I obviously feel that overturning XLR8TION's block would be a bad idea. UnclePaco's editing is somewhat tenuous and if it continues, it can be dealt with, but arbitration is premature. --B (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Having read the above, I have serious doubts about the technical likelihood of this selective firewall. "Stormfront White Nationalist Community" is the top level forum of this message board and it is printed in plain text (not an image) in the same HTML file (not overlayed by a javascript). The "White Pride World Wide" image is on the same domain (www.stormfront.org) as the rest of the site. The alt text is "Return to Stormfront White Pride World Wide Main Page". This particular sub-forum is the "América Latina White Nationalists in Latin America." There is enough racist nonsense on that message board that I feel sick in my stomach from just looking at it. I am often told that I have a poor imagination, but I have a difficult time imagining someone taking more than a cursory glance at this site and not realizing what it is. --B (talk) 22:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The blatant obviousness of Stormfront as a white nationalist site is precisely why I believe XLR8TION's claim that Stormfront's material is partially blocked. Even a legitimately white nationalist troll is probably not going to be stupid enough to cite Stormfront.org, with "White Nationalist" plastered all over it, then claim in his edit summaries that it isn't white nationalist, and engage in an edit war over it. It's not effective trolling. It's the same reason there isn't a "White Nationalist" usebox. Per WP:Assume good faith and because XLR8TION doesn't have a suspicious edit history, as all white nationalist trolls should, I think we should reserve judgment on the issue until XLR8TION can explain his claim more in detail and name his specific ISP. If he does both, we could easily confirm or deny the claim. XLR8TION seems genuinely concerned that his reputation has been severely tarnished by being branded a racist. If this matter isn't cleared up, it may affect the credibility of his future edits. It wouldn't require hardly any effort to confirm or deny and, if it turns out that I'm right, it's a particularly important detail for the arbitrators to consider. Zenwhat (talk) 23:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please move your comments to your section. If you want, you can make subsections like ===Reply to B=== or something, but you should not edit another person's section. If the site was "partially blocked", exactly what part wasn't blocked? It doesn't make any sense. There's no mindreading software that can selectively cleanse the page of the racist material and leave whatever it was being used to source. But if he is really seeing something else, he can take a screenshot of what he is seeing (alt+printscreen), paste it into Microsoft Paint, save it, and upload it to somewhere like flickr or webshots and post the link here. --B (talk) 23:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Cheeser1

As one of the primary responders to the WQA complaint, I would like to point out a few things. The block was not for this incident, but for something else that occurred. Check the block log and the WQA history:

Block Log: 21:41, 3 January 2008 Nishkid64 (Talk | contribs) blocked "XLR8TION (Talk | contribs)"
WP:WQA: 22:50, 3 January 2008 UnclePaco (Talk | contribs) (185,592 bytes) (XLR8TION) (undo)

As for the WP:SKILL issue, it doesn't matter if UnclePaco is the worst editor in history, WP:SKILL still applies. And "but he really is bad at English" is not a valid defense, nor is "but he's not a good contributor." There may be merit in considering UnclePaco's contributions, because they were certainly dubious. But XLR8TION is responsible for his actions and they can't be excused based on the quality of UnclePaco's contributions. He has a history of being warned and blocked for incivility, personal attacks, and edit warring in this exact way (read: he should know better), and his block seems to be self-evidently appropriate (several instances of totally incivility during edit wars). His appeal was declined because his defense was the same one coming up here: UnclePaco is bad at English, and he's a bad contributor. That's not relevant, especially since he's being blocked for an incident prior to it. The prior incident, by the way, was also reported at the WQA here, where you can confirm that the block is not related to the incident involving UnclePaco - not that another round of incivility doesn't support the validity of the block anyway. --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: After seeing a more thorough account, it seems that all of these incidents are loosely related. However, there is still a misunderstanding that UnclePaco reported XLR8TION at the WQA, and then he gets blocked, and then UnclePaco is the winner. There was a similar issue when XLR8TION asserted that UnclePaco had not been warned for 3RR, when he had (and has, in fact, been blocked too). Like I said, UnclePaco's POV and content issues merit examination (although perhaps not here). Unblocking XLR8TION is not related to that, and does not seem warranted. --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more consideration: As for the edit warring over the Stormfront message board "reference" - XLR8TION's explanation about some sort of partial firewall seems dubious, but I'm willing to accept that as an explanation for his having used such an obviously inappropriate source. Once. When someone says "your source is a white nationalist messageboard, and is thus inappropriate," then you just found out what all your "partial firewall" or whatever was blocking on that page (although I can't imagine it wasn't obviously some kind of forum, which should be enough). Edit warring and breaching WP:CIVIL in order to reinsert a source that he has admitted to at least being unable to assess the reliability of - that's not appropriate and is not excused by anything others might have done. I think XLR8TION even jumped to the odd conclusion that "the reference you are citing is a white power messageboard" means the same as "you are a white supremacist." --Cheeser1 (talk) 08:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by trying to be funny Kendrick7

Looks like a Jesuit plot to me. Oh, wait -- wrong anti-Dominicanism. -- Kendrick7talk 22:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/6/0/0)

  • Decline. Arbitration is the last step in dispute resolution; there is no evidence that earlier steps have been attempted. If there is serious concern about the one-week block, the matter can be raised at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for input by other admins and editors. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject, per Newyorkbrad. Kirill 23:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject, premature. I agree with Brad's comments. I would also add that this seems suitable for mediation, should other methods of dispute resolution not be productive. --bainer (talk) 10:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. Nothing in this request suggests that WP:RFC or WP:ANI would not be better venues at this point in time. Or indeed, mediation. Either content or conduct RFC would perhaps be especially valuable; conduct RFC by both parties particulary since it has a tendency to clarify conflicting claims about behavior and approaches such as described above, and users can often get good commonsense on the conflict issues and how the community and its norms see them. FT2 (Talk | email) 12:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would myself accept this case because the edit history of Dominican Republic does show a long history of disputes involving misconduct and because the accusations made in the case are serious enough to merit arbitration even though previous dispute resolution has been minimal. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject, I think that editor conduct issue exist but I am hopeful that through further community action that an arbitration case can be avoided. FloNight (talk) 17:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline as premature. Paul August ☎ 18:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Armenia-Azerbaijan 3

Initiated by White Cat at 17:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

  • Anybody that is involved that I had forgotten. This can be added by anybody.
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by White Cat

The dispute hasn't been resolved and has been continuing on as if the previous arbitration cases didn't happen. A good number of involved parties on the previous cases continue to post inflammatory comments, game the system, and other such acts of disruption. Current remedies had been ineffective in preventing the disruption nor in resolving the disputes. On some occasions the remedies had been used to game the system.

Although I believe arbcom is fully aware of it, Arbitration enforcement Archive 10, Archive 11, and etc is full of flame wars and related material.

I have been uninvolved from the most part. The parties came and started revert waring in List of attacks by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia and removing sources. Even governmental sources seem to be unacceptable. That has been the entirety of my involvement with this case.

-- Cat chi? 17:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of argument, lets just say I have been overall disruptive. Had not the contribution of Andranikpasha, Eupator, and VartanM perhaps had a hint of disruption? Why am I the only one receiving the topic-ban proposal?

Reply to Moreschi. "Requests for arbitration" is a poor place to "forum shop". Who am I shopping for? Arbitrators? That accusation is false. If Arbcom rules that the entire Azerbaijan-Armenian war had been my fault, sure. Then such a ban would be warranted.

-- Cat chi? 18:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Several people had been banned by arbcom. The fear of sockpuppetary has led to situations where bad behaviour is overlooked over sockpuppetary fears.


from this page

Inflammatory ethnic comments (such as the one above) are merely not recommended, I would hope that such is supposed to be outlawed. The example above is mild in comparaison to other nonsense.

-- Cat chi? 22:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I also am weary of the Armenia-Azerbaijan rfars. Relatively good users such as myself are given the boot on sight while behaviour of people who have been involved on both RfArs are overlooked. Moreschi's attitude on an unofficial IRC discussion was rather unpleasant for example. His treatment of me is also apparent on this very page.

I do not believe Armenia-Azerbaijan thing will be resolved with the current remedies. While I do understand that spelling out what is disruptive gives disruptive users a mean to avoid the remedies. That is why the boundaries of the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute were loosely defined. However loosely defined boundaries may be also giving admins too much power.

-- Cat chi? 22:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to John Vandenberg: Thats a big fat lie and you know it. All attacks in question with the Exception of two of them are cross sourced by MIPT which establishes the ASALA connection clearly. The two exceptions were covered by the two sources that are removed.

[148] ASALA is mentioned numerous times. On some occasions Tr.Gov didn't state who was responsible but they do agree that an attack happened. Therefore referencing them for this purpose is perfectly legitemate. The tone on the tr.gov source isn't exactly neutral. The material covered is of course partisan. As is US gov partisan on Al-Quida and etc. Partisan websites are not banned. Since the material used from the partisan source is not in dispute, their use is not an actual problem. No one raised any objections on the content in the article.

If a North Korean related organization starts shooting US employees such as ambassadors, embassy employees and such can't I use the US government as a source? Why the double standard?

[149] ASALA is mentioned numerous times. One of the attacks ASALA connection is only mentioned on ATMG.org. MIPT has nothing on that attack MIPT is rather incomplete for 1975 and prior. ATMG has more of a diplomatic tone. Presents information in a more neutral way. It does not delude into pre WW2 issues that are irrelevant to ASALA. I do not know nor care about their information on non-ASALA related matters. That has no bearing or relevance to the article on ASALA attacks.

I removed www.atmg.org as a compromise but that wasn't enough. Both links had to go. My only fault was restoring sources.

All VartanM and Andranikpasha did was revert war. Was this their first time? Hardly! Just check their recent contribution history. Many examples. Were they on revert parole when they started removing sources from the ASALA article? No. VartanM has a Christal clear block log. So does Andranikpasha despite frequently revert waring.

If I am going to be damned at least damn me for what I have done not what others have done. How the heck am I "sparking off" a dispute on an article that VartanM and Andranikpasha had no edits whatsoever prior to November 2007.

There is a very serious problem here if I am the one accused. I will edit wikipedia normally if a bunch of Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Turks, or any other group of ethnicities in dispute do not like it, though luck. No admin threatening me for hardly doing anything (I merely restored sources) will change that.

If we are in the business of banning people for adding sources, you have bigger problems in your hands than you think.

-- Cat chi? 07:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Moreschi

This is ridiculous. White Cat's just forum-shopping here (see ANI here.) Two options. Either take this case, rename it and ban White Cat from anything related to Armenia (see my comments on ANI and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Coolcat, Davenbelle and Stereotek). Or chuck it out, because the remedies from AA2 are working as much as they are able, insofar as long-term peace and harmony in this area is very unlikely. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 18:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC) )[reply]

I also endorse the statements of Folantin, Thatcher, and John Vandenburg. I've applied the ArbCom remedies piecemeal, letting the punishment fit the crime (revert-warring, even done politely, is rewarded by revert limitation only: that is, being a tad rouge), but it would be nice to have official permission to actually do so. I sent a few emails to the ArbCom mailing list on this subject recently, which I know at least a few people read. This could more usefully be handled by an open vote on this page, however, or perhaps via a review.
That's all that needs doing, and I speak as an admin who's been highly active in dealing with the Armenia-Azeri disputes. Unless, of course, you want to deal with the problem of White Cat's relentless Turk-nationalist agenda advocacy, largely consisting of Armenian Genocide denial. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 12:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Andranikpasha

Unforunately the real life, politics has its influence also to Wikipedia and I think the AA2 remedies are doing maximum (maybe more than needed due to the lack of sockpuppetry) in this situation. And surely White Cat needes an admin involvement to stop his "source" pushing to Armenia-related articles. Andranikpasha (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Folantin

I second what Moreschi says. White Cat is just forum-shopping over a content dispute. List of attacks by the ASALA is related to Armenian and Turkish issues, but not directly to Armenia-Azerbaijan. The main argument between Armenians and Azeris is only tangentially relevant to this matter (it's mostly concerned with Nagorno-Karabakh and has little or nothing to do with the ASALA) and it is currently being dealt with at Arbitration Enforcement. Admins are having some success in calming the main Armenian-Azeri dispute down. This latest move by White Cat simply inflames matters and is completely unhelpful. What's the point of dragging users into another ArbCom because White Cat wants to use a particular (unreliable) source? White Cat has a history of trouble-making on Armenian issues and I second the suggestion he be restricted from editing in this topic area. --Folantin (talk) 18:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update I completely concur with John Vandenberg's statement below. This is just another example of White Cat going forum-shopping because he can't get consensus to use a dubious source on the talk page. He went to ANI over a similar issue on the same page in March 2007 when he want to use an extremist hate site, Tallarmeniantale, as a "reliable source" for the ASALA attacks [150]. This is simply White Cat disrupting Wikipedia to get his own way. Unsurprising behaviour from a user who once put WP:CIVILITY up for deletion to make a point [151]. --Folantin (talk) 08:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Grandmaster

I don't think another arbcom case is really necessary right now. What we actually need is proper application of the existing remedies and maybe better definition of the terms of the remedies to avoid troublemakers getting away because of minor technical issues. Grandmaster (talk) 19:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Thatcher that endless arguments on WP:AE became annoying. In my opinion, reporting rules should be modified to put an end to this. I think that regular users should not be allowed to post responses to reports, except for the reported party, which should be allowed to post a brief explanation of its actions. Only admins should be allowed to post responses to the reports. That would end the mess the AE board has become. Grandmaster (talk) 14:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thatcher

Response to Newyorkbrad: In my view, the effectiveness of the prior remedy would be greatly improved by allowing uninvolved admins to place editors on restriction (probation, revert parole and civility probation) on a discretionary basis, as the current language requires incivility, making it impossible (or at least more difficult) to impose restrictions on POV edit warriors who are polite (see Kirill's comment).

The alternative is an absolute topic ban. The editors here are certainly immovable in their convictions, and seem largely unable to agree on compromise language that respects all points of view. However, enforcement so far seems to have focused on the 1RR limit, rather than topic bans (which are permitted under the probation) so it might be premature to issue broad topic bans (not to mention the problem of sockpuppetry that would likely arise).

The other problem is one of vexatious litigation, in which certain parties report each other over the most minor perceived infractions, and argue at length on WP:AE. I suspect this can be handled by more aggressive refactoring. Thatcher 19:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by VartanM

I believe arbitrators can help and a review could be helpful for clarifications and few changes, but not a new case. First, Ehud Lesar, who many are convinced is Adil Baguirov[152], second to wave the condition of incivility as a condition to include members in the revert restriction. I think every person who regularly edits articles related to the region should be required to justify their edits in the talkpage. I also believe that arbitrators should put conditions as to what is a justification in a talkpage, with conditions. Some members have been abusing it by adding a irrelevant sentence or two as a justification to their reverts.

I believe there are more things that should be done, but I'm not including those, I presented things which are general and that both parties would find it helpful to deal with. I also agree with Thatcher, on the baseless reports on the enforcement page. So, I think the review could deal with those who have abusively reported members for enforcement, and if there is evidence to such abuse they could be restricted to report others there. I think Atabek's behavior should also be reviewed, but that would be opening a can of worms and having to do with evidences and counter evidences. VartanM (talk) 21:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Atabek should be the one assuming good faith. Both Fadix and Fedayee start with an F, I had the link of the evidences on a word document and posted the wrong one. If Atabek even bothered to check the evidence he would see that it didn't have anything to do with Azerbaijani members but White Cat in 2005. It's also easy to lie about members who could not defend themselves. As when he claims that Fadix has used several socks, he is probably mistaking him with AdilBaguirov. The two socks (not several) Fadix created didn't disrupt and were self exposed by Fadix himself. VartanM (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rlevse

I am responding per User:Newyorkbrad's commment below as I have recently been active on the arb enforcement page in an admin role. It seems to me the issues here are pretty much the same as before, therefore, opening a new case would simply be a rehash and hence a waste of time. The views by Thatcher and Moreschi make the most sense to me. In summation, we need to more actively and forcefully use the tools already in hand and/or bring in more stringent enforcement methods. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Penwhale

Concur with Thatcher in that the remedies probably need reworking, but a new case isn't necessary. I recently dealt with VartanM whose only point was that he wasn't uncivil (in which his edits were quite contrary to that). - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 01:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by John Vandenberg

I agree with Thatcher and VartanM that the existing remedies could use tweaking to help prevent people who insist on being difficult while being (barely) civil, but the issue of sources on ASALA is being blown out of proportion by White Cat, who is the only one wanting to include a Turkish government source on the article. On close inspection, that Turkish government webpage was being used as a source for attacks that are not even mentioned on the webpage, and for attacks that the website doesnt attribute to ASALA. If there is a case here, it is that White Cat was edit warring and is now looking to spark off a third round of an unrelated dispute because prior attempts at gaining wider support, on user talk pages, AN/AE and AN/I, didnt have the desired result. John Vandenberg (talk) 06:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ehud Lesar

I think it would be a good idea to have stricter rules on baseless accussations, such as those above made by Vartan. If a user is proven to be not a sockpuppet after continuosly accussed of being one, it should be made clear once and for all for the accussing parties to stop harrassment campaigns. Moreover, these parties should be demanded official apologies Ehud (talk) 21:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Brief comment by EconomicsGuy

This case may not be the right place or time for this debate but it is going to need ArbCom's attention again sooner rather than later. I urge the arbitrators to read the archives of WP:AE just month back. The arbitrators only have one issue they need to consider: are these people here for the encyclopedia or not? As will be obvious to the arbitrators once they review the debates (flame wars) of the last month or so the remedies are being used as entitlements to disrupt as long as they are being civil on the surface at least. Is this the sort of disrespect for the purpose of 2 past ArbCom cases and endless waste of time that we should accept? I sincerely hope not for the sake of Wikipedia as a project and I hope that the arbitrators will look at this again with more realistic ambitions and expectations and draw the inevitable conclusion that needs to be drawn here. EconomicsGuy (talk) 08:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Lar

This m:Requests_for_CheckUser_information#Andranikpasha crosswiki CU case may or may not have some bearing. If I can answer any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. ++Lar: t/c 15:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Brief comment by Atabek

If I may ask, why is User:VartanM assuming bad faith against me again above and reciting my name, when I am not even involved in this particular case raised by White Cat? And using the evidence of a banned User:Fadix, caught with several socks, to bring more groundless accusations against another User:AdilBaguirov that he was in conflict with? And didn't the last ArbCom principle [153] prohibit contributors from doing this? And wasn't VartanM assigned to mentor Andranikpasha, on whom new evidence of violations is being presented all over various language Wikis? And what is with repeated violations of WP:AGF in regards to John Vandenberg? How many users have to be the subject of attacks by VartanM, before he is finally explained that he needs to calm down and assume good faith in his interactions with other contributors? Atabek (talk) 07:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/5/0/0)

  • Comment. We are expecting to look again at all the 'general sanctions' cases, including Armenia-Azerbaijan, once we new arbitrators have settled in. Sam Blacketer (talk) 18:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Switched to decline, because I do not think we need a new case. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I would appreciate input from the administrators active on Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement as to whether a new case would play a useful role here in potentially honing the remedies available, or whether it would only compound the disruption and bitterness that already exist. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC) Based on input above, decline as a new case, but agree that the committee should revisit the issue of remedies available. I invite the admins familiar with this matter to present a proposed motion in the "requests for clarification" section of this page, with the earnest request that editors keep responses to any such proposal as brief and non-argumentative as possible. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm going to say reject for now; we do expect to look at this again, as Sam mentions, but since this situation essentially revolves around enforcement issues, it can best be dealt with by motion in the earlier case. --bainer (talk) 11:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This series of disputes has gone on a long time. There have been persistent comments that the previous remedies are not as well drafted as they might be, echoed by comments above by experienced administrators that they are having to flex the wording somewhat and would like not to have to do so. Other administrators have commented similarly that using the remedies is a bit problematic. However no claim is being made that the principles or findings of fact were misplaced in prior cases. The sole persistent issue raised is that 4 months after AA2, enforcers are seeking better remedies for use on the same problem. I'm prepared to believe this is a reflection of a genuine (slight) mismatch of drafting to the needs of the dispute. Accept (with limited scope) at this point, or as an extension of remedy, purely to hear evidence of any disruptive behaviors where the remedies are not fully helping, and to consider whether we can provide the disputants with reworked remedies, in light of current experience. We can do that quickly without duplicating our future work on the cases themselves. FT2 (Talk | email) 13:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject I see more harm than benefit from re-examining the case in whole. Prefer to look at this in a limited manner and tweak enforcement remedies. FloNight (talk) 17:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. Paul August ☎ 17:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for clarification

Place requests for clarification on matters related to past Arbitration cases in this section. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. Place new requests at the top.


To ban or not to ban

There's been an incident following a recently closed Arb case :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#User:Tenebrae

The party received a warning, but for future considerations, would such an incident be subject to temporary banning under Remedy 3?

Disruptive editing 3) Any uninvolved administrator may ban Skyelarke or Tenebrae from editing John Buscema or any related article or page for a reasonable period of time, either before or after three months have expired, if either engages in any form of disruptive editing, edit-warring, or editing against an established consensus.

--Skyelarke (talk) 16:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An uninvolved administrator may ban either participant in the case from any article or page related to John Buscema for the reasons stated. The words "or page" were added to the remedy to make it clear that talk pages are included. Talk pages are for discussion, even for expressing disagreement with other editors, so banning someone from a talkpage normally should not be necessary, but there is disruption from either party it can be done in the discretion of the administrator handling arbitration enforcement. I will add that I am very, very disappointed to see the two of you sniping at each other again so soon after the case was resolved. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanky for reply, Newyorkbrad - Hopefully, it's an isolated impulsive reaction following case closure - things should hopefully cool down once parties have taken the time to review and integrate the arbcom case decision a little better.

Thanks also, for your double-duty efforts (clerk and arbitrator) on the case, and best of luck with your new arbitration appointment.

Cheers,

--Skyelarke (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Admin actions don't generally start with the most severe remedy, and blocks don't normally start at the longest length. It's normally the other way around; the exceptions are things like vandal only accounts. In this case there was also the issue of what the arb case applied to. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request for procedural clarificaton re: Digwuren general restriction

The Digwuren general restriction states that Any editor working on topics related to Eastern Europe, broadly defined, may be made subject to an editing restriction at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator and then goes on to describe the terms of the restriction. Some questions have been raised, however, as to whether an administrator should apply this restriction to a first-time offender who has not yet been made aware of the existence of this special clause relating to EE pages, or whether it would be more appropriate to warn the alleged offender first.

The question arose in relation to my own case whereby I have been placed under the restriction for making a single comment that one administrator, User:Thatcher, construed as "disparaging editors by their status in a group" and a "bad faith assumption" on my part (both of which charges I repudiate). Two users, User:Geogre and User:Anynobody, have also appeared to question Thatcher's judgement in this case in regards to whether the sanction should have been immediately applied to a first-time (alleged) offender like myself with no prior knowledge of the restriction.

So I think it would be appropriate for the arbcom to clarify this matter, if not in relation to my own case specifically, then at least in regards to the general case. The discussion, BTW, can be read at Thatcher's talk page under the headings Digwuren restriction notice and No. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 07:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal regarding Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3

Some of the restrictions imposed on me by the Arbitration Committee in stages between November 2005 and July 2006 expired in November 2007; however, according to former arbitrator User:Raul654, I am still subject to two of the restrictions—remedy "X" from the original November 2005 ruling, and remedy 4 from the July 2006 amended ruling—and they will remain in effect indefinitely, until lifted by the ArbCom. (I don't know if the rest of the ArbCom agrees that they are still in effect, but the only arbitrator who has spoken about it says they are in effect, and therefore I must assume they are until or unless the other arbitrators say otherwise.) I am not concerned about falling afoul of these rulings, and have no intention to ever do the things they prohibit, but by remaining in place these remedies act as a "scarlet letter" impeding my participation on Wikipedia, enabling people to ignore, dismiss or insult me because I am "not a user in good standing", and rendering it almost hopeless for me to attempt to regain my adminship through RfA, which was taken from me by the ArbCom in 2006 for an issue unrelated to the case in question. I think these remedies accomplish nothing except to marginalize me and should be lifted. Everyking (talk) 21:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The committee has seen a fairly large number of aggrieved parties to previous arbitration hearings present appeals immediately after the changeover in membership, so please accept our apologies for not responding immediately. The term "in good standing" is an imprecise one capable of being taken strictly or loosely. Could you help us by pointing to recent examples where you feel you have been suffering through the presumed continuation of these remedies? Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Raul654 announced on behalf of the committee on November 14 that one of the remedies against Everyking (parole on music articles) was being suspended for 3 months, but would automatically go back into effect 90 days later unless otherwise decided by the committee. This means that we will need to review Everyking's recent editing in early February so we can make this decision by February 12. For the sake of efficiency, I suggest that we review this request for relief from the remaining sanctions at the same time.
For those of us who were not active at the time of the prior decisions, the history of these cases (including even locating "Remedy 4" and "Remedy X") is a little bit difficult to follow. Either now or when this request is renewed in February, could either Everyking or a Clerk please provide a more complete set of links and a quick summary of the history? Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Brad's suggestion of hearing everything together in February is all right by me, although of course I would prefer if it was heard now—these sanctions have been in place for an extraordinarily long time. My editing on pop music articles has varied very little over quite a long span of time and I don't see how it could be expected to be any different in February, so I see no reason that issue could not be conclusively decided at the present time as well.
The key issue concerning the effect my arbitration sanctions have on me is that very many people simply will not vote for someone with ongoing sanctions in an RfA. Some of those opposing said that they would be willing to vote for me when the sanctions expired, which was understood to be in Nov. 2007, but as it turned out the ruling was interpreted (at least by Raul) to mean that certain aspects of it remained in place even after that point. I don't have many other clear examples, although I think there is a widespread subtle effect; because I have stayed out of disputes for so long there have been few occasions for people to blatantly batter me with reminders of my low status. In October, after some articles were deleted purely because the person who wrote them was believed to be a banned user (I believe that content should be judged on its merits and not based on its author), I requested that User:Lar provide me with copies of the articles so that I could determine if they were suitable and potentially vouch for them, or at least put them through WP:DRV, and he told me that he would not because I was not a "user in good standing". I never obtained the copies and as far as I know the articles are still deleted. Everyking (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to your last point, the circumstances surrounding the particular banned user are exceptional, as I believe you are aware. As someone who generally supports giving second chances to users, I strongly advise that you would probably be better served by not using your interchange with Lar as an example of something that the remedies have prevented you from doing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, well, if we're going to get into a discussion of strategy here: I thought about not mentioning that because some people have particular feelings about the issue, but it was the best example I could think of in recent memory, and he asked for specific examples. Everyking (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My appeal request was removed by somebody "per arbitrator request" (nobody notified me; I had to dig through the history to figure out what happened) although no arbitrators ever voted on it and the two who commented on it did so in such a way as to not indicate any clear viewpoint. The arbitrators should either accept my request or reject it, not silently sweep it under the rug. I am thus restoring it and ask that the arbitrators actually address it in some form or another. I am a Wikipedian, I have been working continuously on this project under their restrictions, and I think I deserve something more than this silent, unexplained form of rejection. Everyking (talk) 23:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I had suggested that this be archived for now because I thought you had accepted (albeit reluctantly) that we could deal with all asoects of the restrictions continuing or not next month. Sorry about any confusion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also thought that "Brad's suggestion of hearing everything together in February is all right by Everyking, although of course he would prefer if it was heard now". -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 13:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I said that was fine, but only if that's what we're really going to do. Are the arbitrators actually willing to hear the appeal at the beginning of next month? I'd be happy to withdraw this one if that was explicitly stated, but you must understand my skepticism—the ArbCom has rejected my appeals probably half a dozen times now. Everyking (talk) 16:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request for extension of restrictions at DreamGuy 2

I am requesting an extension of sanctions against DreamGuy, to add restrictions on abusive sockpuppetry and edit-warring, along with the civility restrictions from the October 2007 ArbCom case.

DreamGuy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been systematically using anon sockpuppets in an abusive manner, to avoid scrutiny and sanctions. This is a violation of WP:SOCK: It is a violation of this policy to create alternate accounts — or to edit anonymously without logging in to your account — in order to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions.

It is therefore my request that the sanctions should be extended to cover:

  • Abusive sockpuppetry, meaning that the editing restriction should be extended to state that DreamGuy is to make all of his edits under the DreamGuy account.
  • Edit-warring. During various incidents since the October 2007 ruling, there have been multiple examples of DreamGuy edit-warring (see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/DreamGuy), but a block was not issued, because the ArbCom sanctions did not specifically include edit-warring. I would therefore like to see the sanctions extended to cover this, such as to put him on a limit of one revert per article per day.

For further details, please see: User:Elonka/DreamGuy report

--Elonka 01:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given the level of IP usage by DreamGuy, I would suggest that remedies are extended, limiting DreamGuy to using only his one account and no editing through IP's - his edits often go undetected for a while and make blocks punitive. Likewise I see edit warring from the account and a motion to include edit warring looks to be a good idea. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would support this, just so long as the restrictions specifically state that he is not to edit from IPs as well. Wizardman 02:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Did something happen recently? It's difficult to tell from the above. If not, why fix what isn't broken? El_C 03:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't see how he violated his restrictions, specifically. Eloka's report suffers from inaccuracies. And isn't there a priori bad blood? El_C 03:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Yes, yet another Checkuser was filed by yet another user, which alerted me to the fact that DreamGuy is using yet another anon to avoid sanctions, despite multiple admins telling him in the past that he has to stop doing this. DreamGuy keeps repeating, "There's no rule that says you have to login." And yet, WP:SOCK says exactly that, that you do have to login if other editors have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions. DreamGuy didn't just "forget" to login once or twice, he's been avoiding his DreamGuy account, and has been systematically using an anon for weeks. See my report at User:Elonka/DreamGuy report for details. --Elonka 03:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That dosen't answer the question about bad blood, so I'll pose for the third time. As for the login-in requirement — so long as there's no troubles from those ips, I don't think that sockpuppet clause can be invoked, as much as some may take an interest in his contributions, he has a right to edit without login-in. I asked you about these troubles and you said: "bad faith and uncivil comments. Just look at his contribs." I don't really have time to review these in their totality, so again, please provide diffs. Thx. El_C 03:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He's using IP's to evade transparency in his editing. He's under arbitration restrictions, and by using IP's, he stops the possibility of having his contribs looked at. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand El C's point. Is he saying that an editor engaged in a revert war can use up his 3RR allowance in his registered identity and then be granted an extra 3 reverts unregistered (and then go back to the registered identity ad infinitum thus having a six for the price of three revert allowance). Is that legal or not? I am a complete duffer when it comes to wikilawyering and would like some clarification on that point! If the same person is using a registered and unregistered identity in tandem is that classed as one user or as two users on the 3RR rule? Colin4C (talk) 16:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is a red herring. Of course nobody can violate 3RR by signing out and using an IP address. That's not at issue here. I am not using a registered account and an IP address in tandem and am not violating any policy. There are no 3RR violations, attempts to pretend to be another party to confuse people, or anything else. DreamGuy (talk) 20:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is simply ridiculous. Elonka has been making false accusations of sockpuppeting for years as part of her longstanding grudge against me, which came to a head recently when she was up for admin (in which Ryan Postlethewaite was her biggest supporter, accusing me of lying about harassing emails Elonka sent, etc.). In fact, her history of falsely accusing me of sockpuppets to try to get her way was in discussion as part of her admin application, and, whattya know, now that she's an admin right away she's continuing on with it. Her accusations here are nothing more than a major violation of WP:AGF -- In effect, she wants me punished or restricted in some way because she assumes, without any evidence, that I am up to no good. The bottom line here is that there are no rules here that I or people in general here HAVE to edit signed on if they have an account, and considering that it's all too easy to end up not signed in anymore after you change browsers or the cookie expires or whatever, is a good thing. None of my edits on IP address has violated any sanctions or indeed any policy on Wikipedia whatsoever... This is just a desperate attempt by Elonka to find any excuse she can come up with to harass me some more. Please note also how Elonka assisted Jack1957 in filing the false sockpuppet report this time around. She really needs to demonstrate some of that good faith and letting go of personal conflicts she promised, and if she is unwilling to do that she needs to be told to stop making false accusations and trying to invent trouble.. DreamGuy (talk) 20:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, I had nothing to do with Jack1956 filing his Checkuser, he did that completely on his own. The first I heard of it, or your latest anon, was when I saw that the Checkuser page had been updated. I did advise Jack1956, after he filed that report, that he should probably inform the affected editors.[154] I have also informed him about this extension request, since his name is on my report. But that's the extent of it. So no, I'm not "behind" this latest checkuser, I'm just reporting what I'm seeing, and recommending that the sanctions be extended to prevent further evasion. --Elonka 20:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can I just confirm that no one has 'put me up' to filing a sockpuppet report concerning Dreamguy. I did it entirely myself after noticing what I recognised as Dreamguy's editing style coming out of another anon. account. As this anonymous editing had been going on for days while Dreamguy's regular account was dormant raised suspicions in my mind, valid or otherwise. I do not accept that some one 'forgets' to log in for days on end. I can accept that it happens from time to time, but not consistently in this manner. Jack1956 (talk) 21:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dreamguy consistently "forgets" to log in and continues causing problems in the editwarring/civility departments until someone notices the IP is him. He's been asked not to do it multiple times and doesn't seem to want to do so voluntarily. Since he is already under ArbCom restrictions, it seems incredibly reasonable to ask him not to avoid scrutiny in this manner. Lets get past this "you can't sanction me because Elonka and I don't get along" nonsense once and for all. Shell babelfish 22:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would point out as well, that the last time this occurred (immediately prior to his last ArbCom enforcement [complaint), he had been editing anonymously - and then supported them as DreamGuy (posting within 15 minutes as first the anon and then as DreamGuy, supporting the anon user's edits). He of course denied ever using the IP account, despite having been asked specifically by Dicklyon about it. The fact that he evaded answering the pointed inquiries as to his usage of the account clearly indicate that he is well aware of the sticky issues regarding editing anonymously. And since this isn't the first or even third time this specific problem has occurred, it might seem like the proper time to perhaps deliver a stronger message that this is not going to be tolerated by users in Wikipedia, and is certainly not going to be tolerated by users currently under behavioral restriction. editing anonymously allows DG to act as he will (and again, its indicated that this anon activity has yet again been uncivil), specifically thumbing his nose at the ArbCom restrictions. I don't care how good an editor he is - if we allow his behavior to continue, what do we say to other editors who contribute less and act as poorly when they point to the non-enforcement of behavioral restrictions? - Arcayne (cast a spell) 05:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(as per a request for clarification as to the socking and other events, I have provided diffs and links for the things I've pointed out. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 06:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]

These efforts in support of Elonka's attempt to extend DG's sanctions appear spurious and needlessly longwinded. It is also, blatantly, a punitive one, unless the ip/s can be demonstrated to have been abusive, recently. Her subpage looks dated, poorly organized, and convoluted. El_C 06:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree here, if you edit anonymously in the same way that caused you to be sanctioned by Arbcom in the first place, that's a clear case of evasion/circumvention of the penalties. Unless the policy is in dispute (or the facts are in error) it's pretty clear: "Evading sanctions will cause the timer to restart, and may lengthen the duration of the sanctions." (italics mine) policy link. R. Baley (talk) 09:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now all we need is proof that DG "edit[ed] anonymously in the same way that caused [him] to be sanctioned." Any recent diff will do. El_C 09:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Without prejudice, "recent" is an additional qualifier not found in policy. All that would need to be shown is that the violation was made during the same time period as the sanction. The point of socking is usually to avoid detection, that one does it successfully for a while does not earn exemption (or a cookie). R. Baley (talk) 10:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC) (add: lest anyone think I'm here to keep arguing this will most likely be my last post on this topic -R. Baley (talk))[reply]
If there hasn't been any violation in months, then we can, and should, assume good faith about conduct having been refomred. El_C 10:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, while I think that it has been pointed out that the behavior under the anon wasn't very civil, it seems clear that El_C thinks we should AGF with DreamGuy yet again. I think that anything else that pops up ont he radar about DG should be directed immediately to El_C or Dmcdevit, so they can act on the matter quickly enough that. As a matter of timely action repeatedly seems to be the deciding factor in this matter, let's all stay on our toes and be sure to report anything that occurs right away. Satisfactory? -
What about your behaviuor? I keep asking for evidence, you keep responding with rumor, and round & round we go. El_C 10:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If DG lost his patient due to this sort of tendentious conduct, I can't blame him. El_C 10:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • He has within the last few days twice reverted my sourced and referenced edits on Walter Dew, once as Dreamguy and once as the anon. user, putting in unsourced and unreferenced material instead. Jack1956 (talk) 11:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's not proof of a violation, or anything. He is allowed to revert "twice within a few days." It looks like he argued that you were presenting the "sourced and referenced" additions as original synthesis.[155] It's a content dispute. El_C 11:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At Walter Dew Dreamguy has appeared in three different identities (two unregistered numbers and his registered Dreamguy name) between 3rd and the 9th of Jan. of this year. As I know nothing about wikilawyering I am not saying that this is right or wrong, but, for what its worth, it's a fact. He has used each of the identities to revert one other editor's (not me) contributions. This might confuse some editors who might assume that they are dealing with a majority three editors against one editorial conflict, wheras it is just one against one. Colin4C (talk) 11:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One could always ask the two ips if they are him: assuming good faith and focusing on the contributors not the contributor/s. People are permitted to edit when from ips, and some people edit from different places. El_C 11:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I will ask him. I assume thay are the same as Dreamguy from past experience as an editor on the wikipedia: they both use the same confrontational language and both revert stuff without talking about it on the talk page. But that is not really my point. My point is that neophyte editors might assume that there is a concensus against their edit if they see three seemingly different editors reverting their stuff. Therefore swapping between registered and unregistered gives one an advantage in an edit war if the other editor doesn't know that the three are one and the same person. The neophyte editor might think: 'The concensus is against me: I will withdraw my obnoxious edit!' That seems to me unfair: but once again I must state that I'm not a wikilawyer and if it is permissable to use three different identities in the space of 6 days engaged in the same revert war then I'm fine with that! Colin4C (talk) 11:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that that incident counts as a revert war,; and wikilawyer is a very negative term here. El_C 11:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not talking about one particular case. I would just like to know in a hypothetical case on the wikipedia whether it would be acceptible in an edit war to switch between a variety of different unregistered addresses and your registered address and not indicate to the other editors that the same person is behind the the different identities. Is that acceptible or not? Also if a registered editor is asked whether the user was using an unregistered address on the same article would he be obliged to answer or not? Or is it wrong to ask in the first place? Where does the burden of proof lie? There is also the Catch 22 of either not assuming goodfaith or being duped by the same multiple identity trick for the twentieth time. In my first encounters with Dreamguy on the Jack the Ripper page I assumed that the unregistered identities and Dreamguy's were separate editors, but he uses the same tactic in many different articles and is once again using it now at this very moment at the Walter Dew article. Can unregistered identities be required to declare themselves or not? Where does the burden of proof lie? Colin4C (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Asgardian-Tenebrae

I presented lengthy evidence documenting possible sock puppetry during this case, [156]. Since a check user request has just established Asgardian has edited using an ip address in a manner violation of the arbitration ruling, does this mean new sanctions need to be considered, or should we stick to the prohibitions listed in the case outcome? Hiding T 21:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC) <edited to add link to checkuser request and clarify a point, Hiding T 21:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)>[reply]

Any uninvolved administrator can take action against an editor who sockpuppets to avoid an ArbCom restriction. Reports of infractions should be posted to Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remedy extension in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

Per the discussion regarding a new case for Armenia-Azerbaijan articles, I'd like to make a proposed remedy extension for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case. We're at the point now where it's clear the the previous remedies do not go far enough and administrators should be given greater authority to deal with the disruption in articles relating to this case. It's important that the committee make it clear that any form of disruption (not just limited to incivility with edit warring) will no longer be permitted on these articles. My proposal is as follows;

To address the disruptive editing that has taken place on Armenia-Azerbaijan related articles, any user who hereafter engages in edit-warring or disruptive editing (including, but not limited to incivility or pushing a point of view) on these or related articles may be placed on Wikipedia:Probation by any uninvolved administrator. This may include any user who was a party to either cases, or any other user after a warning has been given. The administrator shall notify the user on his or her talkpage and make an entry on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#List of users placed under probation. Users placed under probation are limited to one revert, per page, per week and any revert (except for obvious vandalism) should be accompanied by an explanation on the article talk page. They are also required to be civilised in all discussions and in edit or log summaries. Any uninvolved administrator may place an article ban on a user that breaks the terms of their probation, or block the user for a period of up to one week. After five such blocks or bans, the maximum length of a block is increased to one year. All bans and block are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Log of blocks and bans.

Ryan Postlethwaite 18:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This would be a welcome improvement to address the fact that these editors have learnt to edit war civilly, however it does not address the core of the problem: they edit war as a united front, so attempts to reform individuals result in anon edits, socks, renames and other clued up approaches to keep the admins hands tied in frustrating ways. John Vandenberg (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do appreciate all these concerns, but I'm not really sure what remedies could cover this - many of these issues are out of the scope of the ArbCom, and probably even the scope of the community. CheckUser of users couldn't be done at random, but obviously if there's clear sockpuppetry that could be dealt with via the usual channels. I've struck through, one revert, per page, per week - obviously we need to limit the disruption here, and one revert per week stops the users moving around every article uinder the scope of the decision and reverting it once. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The "no speeding" sign of one revert per week is a good idea. The wording of the rest of it is also acceptable provided it is clearly understood that this remedy is applicable to any anon or freshly minted user that steps into an existing debate or rekindles an old one. In order to avoid throw away accounts being used to do reverts, it would be advisable for the uninvolved admin to also revert when this occurs. Due to past experience, it would also be helpful if it was made clear that WP:BOLD and WP:IAR does not apply to Armenia-Azerbaijan related articles. John Vandenberg (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it would be best to stick as closely as possible to the original wording, just without the incivility clause:
Civility supervision, revert limitation, and supervised editing have been described previously in the case and at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions. This allows maximum flexibility. So far we have made little use of the supervised editing restriction (allowing an admin to ban an editor from an article or topic for a period of time or indefinitely) but I think we need to start moving away from mechanical 1RR limits that encourage vexatious litigation ("his rationale was insufficient") and toward broader more permanent sanctions. Thatcher 06:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request for increased enforcement /Brahma Kumaris

A previous request by Thatcher131 was declined declined in April however the the pattern of disruption has continued, has been experienced by non-affiliated editors, and evidence of the disruption being due to the same editor using a succession of different accounts has been built up. Yes, the article has improved substantially due the input of editors with no association with the article subject, however the disruption is something the article, and other editors, could well do without. Relevant sockpuppet reports are [157] [158] [159].

The pattern of disruption usually involves editing with contempt for consensus, edit waring, taunting other editors based on their affiliation, incivility and ranting against the article subject. Strong enforcement of WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:NOR and WP:CONS would effectively screen out the disruption.

I have tried using normal dispute resolution methods but this is getting tiring for me, other editors who have dropped by to help and also the admins that have to deal with the constant requests for help. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 13:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that there has been little to no "disruption" at all and this is just another preemptive strike by an individual that admits to be part of the organization in question, a new religious movements' called the BKWSU, own Internet PR Team; and is acting in accordance with the organization's PR aims. An individual that has invested a huge amount of time, effort and admins' energy in attempt to control the topic for his affiliated organization.
To state this for the sake of new admins coming to this issue is hardly "taunting". It is a statement of fact. I hope that eventually the Wikipedia admins will appreciate this for what it is. Simon has become incredibly skilled in his manipulation of Wikipedia admins and constructing accusations.
Let's look at the timing of this and the collusion of yet another BKWSU contributor, User:76.79.146.8. Bksimonb requests an early unprotection, User:76.79.146.8 reverts and accuses vandalism, attacks etc. Both complain to admins etc. Bksimonb puts RfA.
Putting aside the loaded and hysterical language, the seemingly endless accusations and complaints, if we look at the differences between the BKWSU's chosen version, the main differences are really;
  • the removal of weblink to an informed independent website that makes public and openly discusses the BKWSU's core teachings, the only independent website about the organization and one that the BKWSU's USA trust spent considerable amount of money attempting to recent silence via legal action and failed to do so.
  • the attempt to play down the centrality of channelling and mediumship to its practises. The channelling and mediumship of a spirit guide its followers are told is God and a centrality which illfits with its public face and political ambitions.
  • the instant removal and erasure of considerable time and effort made making neutral and beneficial formatting ... etc the 65 edits, here;[160].
Personally, I just want to get on and contribute to the Wikipedia. I am sick of being the target of these people. I know the subjects I edit on. I add form, content and provide citations. It gives me no pleasure to be continually subjected to wasting admin's time and constantly tripping over the stumbling blocks these people are persistently using in an attempt to exclude me.
I am happy to discuss this in detail and supply all the diffs that illustrate just exactly what Simon and the BKWSU are up to if required. but, frankly, the Wikipedia admins cannot see this for what it is by looking at nature and amount of complaints this individual has made, then I am afraid that I would wasting my time.
References;
--Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As a remedy I am asking for strong enforcement of Wikipedia's policies. If this causes a problem then it is clear where that problem lies. I am not asking for unilateral enforcement. I am happy for the same rules to apply to me and other editors. It is clear from the above post that there is a strong bias against the BKWSU and a rather obvious attempt to discredit me and other editors based on our affiliation and non-agreement with the the above editor's own views. In the above post alone I am being accused, as if it were some indisputable fact, of "collusion", "PR", "preemptive strike", "manipulation" and censorship. In fact, I am most grateful for the above post as it clearly illustrates the problem. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 05:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the need for enforcement of Wikipedia's policies. In particular WP:COI where it states;
" Editing in the interests of public relations is particularly frowned upon. This includes, but is not limited to, edits made by public relations departments of corporations; or of other public or private for-profit or not-for-profit organizations; or by professional editors paid to edit a Wikipedia article with the sole intent of improving that organization's image."
BK Simon B is a member, if not leader, of the BKWSU Internet PR team. In fact, I think the correct title is "core Internet PR team". The Internet PR team of the organization in question. If Simon choses to deny this, here, then I am happy to provide evidence to support this assertion. He is and has been supported by other BK followers (BK is the title followers given themselves) and they also work together to suppress other internet source, e.g. they (Simon and other BK Wikipedia editors) recently acted in a failed attempt to close down an independent website via a domain name dispute. This is the same domain that BK Simon and the other BK contributors keep removing from the article; http://www.brahmakumaris.info.
I do not think it is fair that the Wikipedia's admins have their time used up protecting the PR interests of a new religious movement but that it is only in this context can we understand what is going on here.
The BKWSU has invests a considerable amount of money on its public face and generally keeps hidden from newcomers the more extreme elements of its beliefs, e.g.
  • the practise of mediumship or channelling of a spirit they claim is God himself via their mediums at the Indian headquarters
  • the belief is a 5,000 year Cycle of time that repeats identically
  • numerous failed predictions of the End of the World in which 6 Billion are meant to die so that 900,000 of their faithful followers will inherit a Golden Age heaven on earth (all, of course, backed up by independent, academic sources).
  • their historical revision and superiority as God's chosen religion
The last year or more has been one long war of attrition in which the BK followers, with varying degrees of finesse and investment in gaming the Wikipedia system, have attempt to distort the topic to hide these core, identifying elements to bring the topic inline with the 'vanilla' version presented on their websites. This gaming continues with a barrage of complaints, accusations, unfounded vituperative depending each time on some new admin or contributor not knowing the history and not knowing the organization.
I think it is wrong that the Wikipedia allows this waste of volunteers resources. I think this individual has made a disproportionate amount of complaints underling his and his organization's single intent ... which is to break the spirit of any informed, independent contributor and push their PR agenda. Even the Scientology article includes independent websites and external links. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 08:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just an outside view from a regular user, but the article is on probation and adding unnecessarily positive or negative stuff without reference to core policy seems to be against the terms of this. The remedy reads, "Any user may request review by members of the Arbitration Committee", which both sides appear to have done in the section above. Also in Principles: "Users with a deep personal involvement with a subject who edit in a disruptive, aggressive biased manner may be banned from editing the affected article or articles, per Wikipedia:Conflict of interest." User:Bksimonb has a self-declared conflict of interest, and per WP:COI as cited in the arbitration, needs to consider whether the edits are promoting his organisation, or promoting the interests of Wikipedia. I can't tell exactly what has been added by the user, but I made a reverse diff of Lucy's revert which gives some clue as to what matters are under dispute. The article was reverted to the pre-Lucy version and immediately full-protected by User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry on 26 December 2007. I am unsure at this stage whether User:Lucyintheskywithdada also has a conflict of interest in the opposite direction - user commenced editing on 21 December 2007 and, strangely, their main edits have not been focused on this article. However, their reference to the BKWSU Internet Team in their very first edit to the page suggests they may be a historic participant in the dispute. Orderinchaos 08:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to have a go at trying to get this one on track - it does seem to have rather gone off the rails. If Wikipedia policies were strictly enforced here it would be necessary to ban everybody involved, which while resulting in peace and a complete end to edit warring on the article, would certainly not be a desirable outcome. Strict enforcement of the rules before has led to a situation where it appears the article overly favours one side, is far from encyclopaedic and needs a lot of sourcing. I'm acting purely as a content editor and negotiator with no past history and no particular views on the subject, and am quite happy to defer to arbitrators on any matter. Orderinchaos 09:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Orderinchaos. Although I obviously find some of your initial assessment challenging the important thing for me is that you are prepared to work with us, and I really appreciate that. As far as COI issues are concerned I have tried my best to act within limits and leave the most drastic edits to outside editors who have dropped by. I appreciate that it probably doesn't look that way without a detailed analysis of the article history and talk archives. I don't expect you to do that so I'll just take it all on the nose for now knowing that everything will transpire in it's own time if you stick around. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would have to disagree with you Orderinchaos, the article is, or at least has been prior to the BKs revision, very highly sourced. It lists all the major and many minor BK sources. One of the problem it has suffered is the BKs team persistently removing not just references and citations but also perfectly good copy and formatting edits. This is not bitching, the history demonstrates it and it worth studying. The purpose has surely been the same as all the admin complaints; a bad will disincentive for any informed non-BKWSU contributors.
I am sorry but although I have been cautioned to let this go, I must ask for action to be taken on the obvious WP:COI by the Internet PR team. Fine, a Christian editing a page on Christianity, that is acceptable. But the representative of the "Core Internet PR Team" of the organization warring on the organizations own topic, I am afraid that really is too much given all the illwill.
Whilst doing my laundry, I made a spreadsheet of this individual; Bksimonb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Of 1266 edits only a handful were not related to the BKWSU. Going by the summaries alone (approximately ... my attention to detail has some limits)
  • 103 were Administrator requests related to the BKWSU (including 26 "Reports" and 50 re "enforcement")
  • 76 were "Suspicions", e.g. "Suspected" complaints related to the BKWSU,
  • 76 Revision of non-BKWSU contributors
  • 88 related to Sockpuppets accusations related to the BKWSU
  • 69 Related directed to Adminstrators noticeboard related to the BKWSU protection
  • 13 checkusers complaints related to the BKWSU
  • 13 POVs related to the BKWSU
  • 3 were page delete requests related to the BKWSU
This equals approximately 428 non-constructive edits, or a third of the total. These are then mirrored by the other BKs such Appledell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). I suggest this is disproportionate to the value to the Wikipedia, the time and efforts of other volunteers. I think I can find 4 time he actually added a reference, the rest are just passing judgement on or removing other's work.
In his original arbcom statement [165] he writes, "we (BKWSU Internet PR Team have no problem with critical websites". But then in reality, he and other members of the BKWSU team both persistently remove all independent websites links from the article under a variety of guises and work together on a failed legal attack to silence the leading one. As I state before, even the Scientologists are mature enough to allow criticism and critical links on their topic.
Surely it would be naive of us not to consider that "creating a problem" is in order to achieve an end result within which even uninformed inaccuracies are better than referenced precision. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 13:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Certainly there are some pro-BK or BK-affiliated editors working here. There are also some people committed to "exposing the truth" about BK. Interestingly, brand new editor Lucyintheskywithdada (talk · contribs) is making exactly the same arguments as a number of previous editors, including the editor who used 195.82.106.244 and was banned for making personal attacks. The "truth" about BK often comes from alleged internal BK documents that are in the possession of former members, and which do not meet the reliable source guidelines, although I understand there has been improvement in this area. Ultimately, the article probation that passed had unique wording that makes it unenforceable except by the Arbitration committee. What is needed therefore is a review by the Committee to determine whether the current disputes are within the normal scope of the dispute resolution process (thus directing the parties to RFC, mediation etc.) or whether the disruption is sufficient to adopt a more muscular remedy. Thatcher 02:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to make a factual correction here.
The "internal BK documents" that have been referred to as such by the BK editors, or debate with regards to this topic, are the channeled messages believed to be God speaking through their mediums called the Murlis. It was discovered that some at least had been published with an ISBN number after all but, in principle, it is accepted that the main body are disallowed. Other early sources of literature, including Indian ones are all taken from publicly sources are equally held by the BKWSU. So there can be no controversy over these.
There is some inconsistency towards the use of BKWSU produced materials, e.g. the BK editors refusing certain publications but then using other publication or their websites to support their own claims, e.g. that charity projects are theirs, where the documentation appears to support they are not BK ventures. The debate has really be about "who" gets to use and chose them, i.e. whether they are a BK or not; what is a "contentious" citation or not and the guiding principle being whether or not it matches their current publicity or not.
We are dealing with a very specific and narrow topic here with relatively little literature. Any contributor coming forward is going to rely on the same sources and references. I would suggest that there would be no contention at all if Bksimonb and the other BKs were not pursuing their policy of total reversion over even utterly neutral edits (typos, formatting etc) ... and shooting the messenger by way of killing the message.
I think what the topic needs is a chance to develop without persistent and personalised BKWSU censorship before motives are assigned. To that end, I am asking the committee to extend some trust and allow us to do so.
I also think the article needs to be split into a number of others to allow each aspect to be covered in detail, again something the BKs keep disallowing. Part of the problem is a simple dispute caused by the artificial constraint imposed by insisting it all fits onto one page.
I am not a new editor. I joined as Lwachowski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) but forgot my password, I rejoined and immediate drew admin attention to this as AWachowski [166] attempting to recover my original account. My diffs are here if they are to be criticised [167]. Please do.
Despite making clear the change of name, these were reported by Bksimonb and disallowed with any chance of comment because they were either too similar (of course, they were meant to be!) or the name of a real person (Wachowski is a fair common name in Poland) forcing me to register another name Creationcreator (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log).
Creationcreator was then contrived to be a sockpuppet account by Bksimonb and reported again on two separate occasions using the L/AWachowski change of name despite his knowing clearly that I had lost a password and made efforts to have it official changed. No checkuser was made other alleged accounts. None of these have ever been used consecutively.
I am happy to use one account IF I can be left alone without an obvious policy of exclusion by the BKWSU PR guy Simonb ... and if it can be recognised what is going on. Please note again the collusion; [168] [169].
I am being open here in trust and good faith, with all the attendant risks. I make no effort to hide this. This not sockpuppetry. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 10:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could the parties and/or administrators with the relevant background please clarify whether this is a request for enforcement of the existing remedies from the prior arbitrator, or whether the committee is being asked to clarify the remedies or enact new ones? If the latter, please clarify exactly what is being proposed or requested. Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The existing article probation states only that the parties may ask for a review; it does not have the usual enforcement provisions such as allowing admins to issue topic bans for disruptive editing. Bksimonb appears to be asking that the article be placed on standard article probation so that admins could hand out topic bans and so forth. I have not reviewed the content or recent contribs/talk page to see whether Bksimonb is correct in his assessment that certain editors are disruptive (as opposed to merely disagreeing with him). Thatcher 16:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would appreciate input from administrators active on Arbitration Enforcement (including Thatcher) regarding whether a Review case is warranted and/or whether a motion to add the standard enforcement provisions to the decision should be adopted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I apologise for asking this but I would appreciate if the arbcom would look at enacting new remedy with regards to the "core BKWSU Internet PR team" and WP:COI. I also have posted recently on the talk page noting the involvement of Sockpuppets of Ekajati; IPSOS/Ekajati/GlassFET. I have been cautioned about persisting in the use of the above term but it is the organization's official term for the group, under the BKWSU USA leadership, which Bksimonb represents. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 15:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I request that User:Lucyintheskywithdada and all relevant incarnations he admits to above be blocked for persistent violation of WP:NPA and WP:OWN.
I am an outside editor trying to work in good faith on the article and each time I ask a question for clarification, suggest that he create a sandbox, or otherwise engage in in consensus building, he reverts to personal attacks or WP:Own. I've gone to a great deal of effort to research the articles and most recently acquired a copy of the book that Lucy suggested getting (Walliss's book) yet he continues his relentless attacks.
For example of violation of WP:NPA, scroll to the end of this entry [170].
This, this, and this are clear examples of WP:OWN.
From WP:OWN: "An editor comments on other editors' talk pages with the purpose of discouraging them from making additional contributions. The discussion can take many forms; it may be purely negative, consisting of threats and insults, often avoiding the topic of the revert altogether. At the other extreme, the owner may patronize other editors, claiming that their ideas are interesting while also claiming that they lack the deep understanding of the article necessary to edit it."
Lucy's repeated diversionary tactics (including filing checkusers, reports here, etc.) and disruptive talk page edits demonstrate his unwillingness to discuss substance and build consensus in good faith. He is violating arbcomm's ruling that current and former associates refrain from personal attacks and aggressive edits. Please block. Cleanemupnowboys (talk) 17:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There appears to be a lot of allegations, accusations etc flying around, and that's actually the main problem at present - I think the content issues have all but faded into the background while each of them accuse each other of various violations of policy and/or being sockpuppets. If the parties can set that aside and work together, there would not be a need for a review. If they are unable to, it's probably the only option. I don't think an encyclopaedic article is impossible from the people and sources available. Orderinchaos 00:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In response to NYB's request - the review request seems to have been made as part of a campaign by one side of the dispute against the other side of the dispute, a continuance of a pattern which extends back some months. Said other side has come in and made allegations/launched processes in response. Past enforcement of the ArbCom, whose decision was a broadly sensible one, by admins viewing individual / out-of-context requests (without criticising any of them, as it took me days to determine where things were at) has sadly been narrow in focus and has been gamed somewhat by involved editors, particularly those on the BK side. The response of course has been the other party turning to increasing degrees of shrillness, which we're seeing above in the bolding of paragraphs and bizarre allegations. The unfortunate reality is that this article is a mess, one needs to be something of a subject expert to wade through it and improve it (I've actually read a lot of source documents in recent days), and the few here who have that expertise are small in number and have a history of conflict with each other. Orderinchaos 03:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would appreciate a more thorough investigation. I can't really go along with some of the above assessment. Firstly the "shrillness", bolding of paragraphs, presumptions of bad faith, soapboxing and bizarre allegations are something I encountered right from the very first time I posted [171]. What you call "gaming" is just what happens when help is requested and there is no response. One naturally tries escalating the issue. I've always tried to be as reasonable as possible but when in the absence of any feedback at all when I've signaled an issue, I can't really be expected to know how to proceed or what, if anything, I was doing wrong at the time. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 17:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I should add that I have no complaint regarding arbcom and arbcom enforcement. The problem is in finding any useful feedback or response with lower forms of dispute resolution. For example, should any editor have to spend a year and a half being constantly harassed regarding their affiliation [172] ? Regards Bksimonb (talk) 18:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I should note I'm not in ArbCom, am not a clerk, etc, so my "investigation" carries the weight only of my own opinion, as much as that may be regarded or ridiculed in some quarters - I'm an admin, I've been a user for almost two years, and I'm trying to use my experience to end a dispute in a good-faith manner, however impossible a task that seems. I come from outside the dispute and until 30 December had no exposure to any of the disputants. My concern is simply that most of the action reports which have led to actions being taken have been initiated by yourself. Then you point to those actions as evidence that the community is acting on your concerns, and use your own reports as justifications for other reports. When you are in a position of an identified conflict of interest regarding the article, and all your reports are about people who disagree with you, while people who agree with you appear to have gotten off, you can understand the problem for Wikipedia and the community in trusting the soundness of these reports and actions. In addition it appears that these actions on your part may have assisted in escalating the dispute which has continued for well over a year now and shows few if any signs of ending soon. Orderinchaos 22:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your efforts to end the dispute. However I must protest that I have never reported someone simply because they disagreed with me. I report editors who blatantly ignore consensus, constantly make crazy accusations against other contributers and the article subject, use the talk page as a soapbox for propaganda, use anonymous IPs (probably proxies) and other accounts abusively and taunt editors on their talk pages and in edit comments. Is this really a normal part of the editing process we should be expected to live with? I would have thought that editors who behave in such a way have effectively forfeited any right to be a part of any editing process. It's kind of disheartening. It's like my house constantly gets burgled and when I complain to the police they say I am part of the problem because I complain so much. Nice. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 05:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Did BKSimon ever put in a complaint against BKWSU editors who did the same, e.g. Riveros [173]? Why so few citations in comparison to blocks, bans, and reversions? I am sorry but we have to see all this talk of "consensus" for what it is; media control.
The organization has considerable personal and material resources and yet throughout the history of the topic has done, basically nothing to add value (by which I mean citations and references) whilst engaging in cover up. Please allow us the chance to develop the topic without the organization's own censorship.
This is why, following the involvement of IPSOS I would like a checkuser to be allowed on Cleanemupnowboys.
I suspect they are Reneeholle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) as the edits patterns match and our experience is similar to that on the Talk:Alice Bailey and related admin complaints.
Personally, I would just like some peace of mind that it is not IPSOS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) or Riveros11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) back again under another guise. I am not asking for a punitive results, just a commitment to openness and straightforwardness. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 07:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Motions in prior cases

Motions

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&oldid=183464950

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