A request for Arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution. Before requesting Arbitration, please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom).

The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and (exceptionally) to summarily review new evidence and update the findings and decisions of a previous case. Review is likely to be appropriate if later events indicate the original ruling on scope or enforcement was too limited and does not adequately address the situation, or if new evidence suggests the findings of fact were significantly in error.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. If your case is accepted for arbitration, the arbitrator or clerk will create an evidence page that you can use to provide more detail. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person against whom you lodge a complaint.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other. Cases are usually opened at least 24 hours after four accept votes are cast. When a case is opened, a notice that includes a link to a newly created evidence page will be posted to each participant's talk page. See the Requests section of the arbitration policy page for details.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators or Clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment. Please do not open cases; only an Arbitrator or Clerk may do so.

See also

• Arbitration policy
• Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Past decisions
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How to present a case - Recommended reading: An (unofficial) guide to presenting effective Arbitration cases.
• Arbitration enforcement - Any user can request help here if it involves the violation of an ArbCom decision
• Administrator enforcement requested (shortcut WP:RFAr/AER)
• Developer help needed
• Arbitration template

Under the Current requests section below:

• Click the "[edit]" tab on the right of the screen appearing above the section break line;
• Copy the full formatting template (text will be visible in edit mode), omitting the lines which say "BEGIN" and "END TEMPLATE";
• Paste template text where it says "ADD CASE BELOW";
• Follow instructions on comments (indented), and fill out the form;
• Remove the template comments (indented).

Note: Please do not remove or alter the hidden template

82.108.12.52

Initiated by Tenebrae at 03:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Note and link to here posted at User talk:82.108.12.52

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

User:82.108.12.52 has not responded to several entreaties by multiple editors on his/her talk page.

Statement by party 1

As monitored by at least three editors — CovenantD, WinHunter, and myself — the anon-IP user 82.108.12.52 stubbornly continues to make the same factually unsupported edit, never providing a citation, and never responding to frequent requests for information and explanation at User talk:82.108.12.52. Moreover, at least two other editors on his talk page have asked him to stop vandalizing pages.

All attempts at communication have been rebuffed. He continues to simply vandalize, revert edits contrary to consensus, and wastes other editors' time. A ban might well be in order.

Statement by party 2

(Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

Statement by MacGyverMagic

An investigation of his contributions show vandalistic edits to a variety of article. I have blocked the anon in question for 48 hours. His mention of Daredevil having a photographic memory appears to have some merit, which I will discuss with Tenebrae. I think arbitration is premature. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

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

Rachel Marsden

Initiated by Art EllisArt Ellis at 18:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am Arthur Ellis but I am using a sockpuppet because I was illegally banned (in spite of policy re: bio of living people)

Involved parties (confirmation)

• Rachel_Marsden (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) [1]
• Bucketsofg (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) [2]
• Bearcat (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) [3]
• Ianking (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) [4]
• Geedubber (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) [5]
• Arthur Ellis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) [6]
• Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Mediation was turned down by user:Bearcat and user:Bucketsofg

Opening statement

The article violates Wikipedia policy re: biographies of living persons.

Statement by Arthur Ellis

Admins Bearcat (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) and Bucketsofg (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) have POV in this matter. They have protected poorly sourced, probably libelous article at Rachel Marsden despite warning from Jimbo Wales. The article relies on selective news coverage and a report by the Fraser Institute to smear a Canadian newspaper columnist. Bucketsofg has a long-running campaign on and off wikipedia against anyone connected with Germant Grewal, a former Canadian MP, and operates the Bucketsofgrewal.blogspot.com web page. Bucketsofg and Bearcat have illegally blocked me under the 3RR, forcing me to use sockpuppet craileithian (now banned) and this uder name to make my case, despite the fact wikipedia policy on bios of living persons expressly forbids blocks under 3RR for removal of salacious and potentially libelous material. The talk page also contains discussions by Bearcat and others that mock the bio subject (see the section where they discuss her "marriage". Marsden was found guilty once of criminal harassment. The rest of the article is a collection of allegations and unproven facts, strung topgether to make Marsden appear to be an habitual liar and a criminal. Bucketsofg has expanded on this by setting up spin-off articles on Liam Donnelly and John Stubbs, among others, as part of a campaign to smear Marsden. 64.26.147.246 21:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC) Other than the first line in Bucketsofg's post, there's nothing but usual fantasy regarding IPs. As usual, he does not address issues in the article, but relies on smear. For a really interesting read, go back to last March, when Mark Bourrie/Ceraurus first complained of this article and fought like hell to take out outrageous stuff like trying to link Rachel Marsden to a teacher who had lost his license (supposedly her father). Basically, Bearcat, Geedubber, Homeontherange (now RIP), and Bucketsofg, (not then a moderator) drove Bourrie, who was new to Wikipedia and who had naively registered under his own name and shared details about himself, over to the dark side of 3RR and sock puppetry. I believe that started because he tried to go anyonymous, but was constantly outed. I did not write the present article. I tried to soften, as best I could, the salacious entry, over the hue and cry of most of the listed parties. Unfortunately, this was the best I could get. Please note, too, that Bucketsofg has meddled with this page to remove evidence and arguments. He has done the same with the Rachel Marsden talk page. The article is sourced to the eyeballs, but the sources tend to be retracted stories, a selective culling of news articles, a Fraser Institute report written by a Simon Fraser faculty member (hardly a disinterested party writing to peer review or even journalistic standards), and a magazine piece written by a competitor. Keep in mind that none of the allegations, except the one regarding Morgan, ever saw the inside of a court of law. They are unproven allegations, most now more than ten years old. We need to know what Bucketsofg's obsession is, and why so many Vancouver-based Canadian admins and editors fight so hard for this terrible article and ignore criticism from Wales, among others. And talking of double standards, the Western Standard that Bucketsofg relies on for sourcing the Marsden entry is the same Western Standard he mocks on his blog: http://bouquetsofgray.blogspot.com. What you are seeing is a continuing pattern of abuse by Canadian editors. Homeontherange has been properly dealt with. It is difficult for many Wikipedia admins to understand the arcane world of Canadian politics. Bourrie/Ceraurus, who has a PhD in this stuff, was driven off by Canadian leftist editors and admins after they effectively drove him up the wall. 64.230.105.111 21:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rachel Marsden

I am the real Rachel Marsden, about whom this article has been written. I received an email today directing me to this "arbitration" link, and I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in. I contacted Jimbo Wales over a year ago regarding this article, at which point he weighed in on Wikipedia and appeared to agree that it was outlandishly slanderous. Since that time, the same parties have been obsessively altering this article to the point that it has become ridiculous. The user by the name of "Bucketsofg" has a blog called "Buckets of Grewal", and has been obsessed with a previous political client of mine (Gurmant Grewal) and everything related to Grewal. His Wikipedia account "history" page attests to this fact. The few other users who have maintained my Wikipedia "bio" in the slanderous manner to which it has become accustomed, have cited their own "original" research, or have cited news articles which have long since been retracted by those sources. This Wikipedia article relies on Fraser Institute material which was put together to make an anti-feminist, anti-sexual harassment system case, and written by an SFU prof who is connected with Liam Donnelly and has professor friends who were found guilty through the anti-harassment tribunal. The only other actual item on which the article relies is a Western Standard piece, which has a hate-on for me inspired by competitive jealousy (I am a conservative columnist in direct competition with them). I note that another Wikipedia user has posted these retractions on the article's "discussion" page. I believe that I am a fair-minded, reasonable individual, yet have been subject to this persistent libel on Wikipedia for well over a year. I have noted that fair-minded people have attempted to impart some fairness and legitimacy to this article for more than a year, but have been met with blocks from Canadian editors, many of whom live in Vancouver and may well be either SFU staff/alumni and/or political enemies of Grewal and/or friends and associates of Liam Donnelly. I appreciate the fact that someone at Wikipedia has created this "arbitration" section, as it gives people like myself an opportunity to air our concerns. Given the circumstances and the length of time this has been going on, I kindly request that this article about me be removed and, in the future, should another article be created about me, that the contributors stick to the documented facts about my career and life. While the salacious details of my personal life might be interesting to a choice few contributors, I'm afraid they're inaccurate and, as such, detract from the credibility that I would think Wikipedia is attempting to establish. Sincerely, Rachel Marsden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RachelMarsden (talk • contribs)

Statement by party 2

Note from uninvolved party

It should be noted that User:Arthur Ellis was the subject of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Warren Kinsella, which has since banned him from editing Warren Kinsella or any articles about Canadian politics - including therefore Rachel Marsden - and also bars him from using socks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morwen (talk • contribs)

Note from an uninvolved party

Today (Sept. 20), Mark Bourrie's www.ottawawatch.blogspot.com site was hacked and the arbcom decision re: Warren Kinsella was linked to it in an attack against Dr. Bourrie. Something needs to be done by Wikipedia to stop dragging Wikipedia into this troll feud.142.78.190.137 15:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Thatcher131

Ellis is banned from editing Rachel Marsden, including the talk page. However, if he (and Marsden) have legitimate BLP concerns, there should be some means of addressing them. Note however that on September 14, Ellis filed notifications to the parties here of a mediation, rather than arbitration (he seems to have used the wrong template, and possibly been confused about the nature of the two processes, as no RFM has actually been filed). Arbitration seems premature; a content RFC, third opinion, or mediation seems in order first. Thatcher131 17:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, its not listed on the main RFM page. Thatcher131 22:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Bearcat

Starting with Arthur Ellis' allegations in his statement here, of the four edit blocks that have been applied to him in the past seven weeks, not a single one was applied by either me or Bucketsofg. And as for BLP, what AE is forgetting (or choosing to ignore) is that it specifically precludes the removal of properly documented material, meaning that his reversions did not qualify for any exemption from 3RR. And nobody "mocked her marriage" anywhere on the talk page; the only matter discussed was whether an acceptable media source could be provided to confirm that she had gotten married. (And to this day, a media source still hasn't been provided, I might add.) And furthermore, neither Bucketsofg nor I have at any time ever made a single negative comment about Marsden on the talk page — except for one mildly sarcastic dismissal of a personal attack against WP editors by an anon who was almost certainly Ellis or Marsden, there isn't a single comment posted by either Buckets or myself to that talk page which deals with anything other than policy qua policy.

There are no grounds here to even consider mediation or arbitration. As has been repeatedly pointed out to Arthur Ellis, the BLP policy that he cites in defense of his position specifically states that if an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. Jimbo's comment was about a significantly different version of the article over six months ago, and cannot be taken as applicable to the heavily revised article as it currently stands; I've seen at least a dozen uninvolved editors review the article and conclude that it was one of the most carefully and thoroughly source-documented articles they had ever seen on WP. In fact, the last editor to review it on the BLP noticeboard found one source link that was even remotely problematic, and that was a link which isn't even part of the dispute here.

And both Ellis and Marsden really seem to love alleging that I have an unacceptable bias in the matter (as if they themselves didn't), even though I have never made a single edit to this article that in any way involved my own personal opinions; as an administrator, my only interest in the article is in ensuring that Wikipedia policy is correctly followed. BLP is not contravened by including the disputed material, because it's an incontrovertible, well-documented and legitimately notable fact of Marsden's life that the accusations in question were made; the article as written simply documents that reality and does not insinuate anything further than that. Whereas Ellis and Marsden have repeatedly contravened vandalism, verifiability, 3RR, autobiography and sockpuppet policies, and applied a selective, incorrect and highly self-serving reading of BLP in their crusade to remove it.

The bottom line is that Ellis and Marsden are the only people contravening Wikipedia policy here, and I'm frankly quite uninterested in taking part in any process designed to undermine Wikipedia policies by giving article subjects the right to control what Wikipedia can or cannot write about them. This complaint has no basis in Wikipedia policy; it's based entirely in Marsden's desire to sweep an inconvenient part of her past under the rug for public relations purposes despite the fact that the policy being cited specifically says that properly documented material cannot be removed from an article just because the subject doesn't like it being there.

As far as I'm concerned, any continuation of this process is giving off the undesirable message that Wikipedia policy can be overturned or ignored at will, and basically rewards Ellis and Marsden for being disruptive. Bearcat 22:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Geedubber

I haven't really edited the article for 2 months now so I don't know why I was listed as a party in this dispute. The article is properly sourced so I do not see what the beef is. I would have to agree with Bearcat's argument that Arthur Ellis is simply misinterpreting BLP policy. I would urge the arbitrators to decline this request as this just another example of Arthur Ellis trying to skirt around Wikipedia policy and trying to impose his own POV on articles. Geedubber 00:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Bucketsofg

I encourage anyone to go over to the Rachel Marsden entry, and if they find anything unencyclopedic, unsourced, or poorly sourced, to improve it or remove it, as indeed they should in any article.

In the meantime, members of the Arbitration Committee will remember having just banned Arthur Ellis (aka Ceraurus, Mark Bourrie, etc., etc.), among other things for having engaged in abusive sock-puppetry and disruption in articles about himself, Warren Kinsella (his bête noire), Pierre Bourque (a friend of Kinsella's), and Rachel Marsden (a friend of Bourrie/Ellis). They may not recall, however, that in his evidence in that arbitration Ellis claimed to have written current version of Rachel Marsden, which is not greatly different from its current state (see diff here). Indeed, I complimented him for his contribution at the time (here; his response at the time (here) gave no hint at dissatisfaction.

Why, then, the current complaint, which so clearly misinterprets the BLP? Why his erroneous accusation that I blocked him for using the sock-puppet Craigleithian to break 3RR (I've never blocked him, see my block log)? Why the strange assertion that I somehow 'forced' him to use that sock, which in any case was a sleeper account that he created months ago? Why did he use anonymous IPs to leave these little turds on my talk page yesterday and today: "You are one obsessive prick. And I know who you are." and then "You are academically and intellectually dishonest. This dishonesty will soon be made known to your peers"? On May 20, one of Ellis/Bourrie's socks, having been blocked for personal attacks and vandalism of this same sort, wrote: "Fuck you. My IP changes every six hours. I'll be back. I will cause as much Wikipedia trouble as I can!". Ellis/Bourrie's arbitration request is merely another way to disrupt: a thrown together pastiche of half-truths and error, supported by not a single diff, that is merely fulfilling his promise to cause as much trouble as he can.

In light of this, I recommend that the Arbitration Committee reject the request, not least because it thought it was banning him from the Rachel Marsden article when it ruled (so one arbitrator here). Since it is clear that Ellis intends to return to this entry once his current block passes, the arbitrators may want to clarify their decision as they vote on whether to accept or reject this case. Bucketsofg✐ 02:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:Tom harrison

Knowing nothing about Marsden before this, I read the article. Based only on our article, a casual reader would have to conclude she is either an insane lying psycho stalker, or that our article is written by people who think she is, and have worked hard to collect and maintain material to prove it. I think it might be worth looking into how the article got that way. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

• Threaded comments removed. Rebuttal can be added to own section. FloNight 04:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

• Accept Fred Bauder 19:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

JarlaxleArtemis 3

Initiated by Psychonaut at 21:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

• Psychonaut (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (complainant)
• JarlaxleArtemis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (respondent) [7]
• Will_Beback (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (JarlaxleArtemis's mentor) [8]
• Linuxbeak (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (JarlaxleArtemis's mentor) [9]
• LtPowers (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Dozens of other Wikipedians are affected; they can join themselves to this RfAr if they so wish.

This is the third arbitration case against JarlaxleArtemis. (See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JarlaxleArtemis, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JarlaxleArtemis 2) I am bringing this matter directly to arbitration because, despite repeated flagrant violations of his parole from banning, his mentors and other administrators have failed to keep his behaviour in line. His user talk page is full of threats to block or ban him, but no meaningful action has ever been taken. His mentors were given power to summarily block or ban him for parole violations, and this should have been done long before he reached his current level of disruption.

Statement by Psychonaut

Since his unbanning, JarlaxleArtemis has engaged in the following activities, almost all of which he was explicitly warned not to do as a condition of his unbanning. In theory he could or should have been banned for violating these conditions, but the administrators assigned to mentor him have for the most part only made empty threats to block him. He has been actually blocked only a couple of times for short periods, but he never learns from this and continues his disruptive activities.

• Copyright violations. He continues to contribute images and text which are not licensed under a free license and which are not used or cannot be used under the "fair use" doctrine. He has done this despite the fact that his previous two bannings and RfAs were largely about copyright violations, and that he was supposed to educate himself about Wikipedia copyright guidelines as a condition of his unbanning. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

• Flouting of WP:MOS. He refuses to follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style on the basis that it is "incorrect". Other Wikipedians and administrators have to argue with him in order to accept it, but despite this he continues to flout it. [17] [18] [19]

• Blank/misleading edit summaries. He often enters blank or misleading edit summaries, despite having been warned against this. [20] [21]

• Removal of deletion tags. When people list his articles or images for deletion, he summarily removes the deletion tags. He has been repeatedly warned not to remove deletion tags. [22] [23]

• POV edits/vandalism. He's ignored consensus by repeatedly making POV edits to articles. He was temporarily blocked for this in August. [24] [25]

• Personal attacks. He continues to make personal attacks. [26]

• Removing user warnings. He has repeatedly removed user warnings from his talk page. He does this despite a prominent notice at the top of his talk page which states "Please do not remove this and other enforcement notices from your talk page". [27] [28] [29] [30]

• Vandalbots. He publically posts scripts intended to be used for vandalism. [31]

• Attempts to gain administrator privileges. He attempted to gain checkuser rights on Wikipedia and gain administrator passwords on another wiki. [32]

• Adding false/nonsense redirects. He creates dozens or hundreds of useless or obviously incorrect redirects from Unicode characters (e.g., [33], [34], [35] [36]). One gets the impression that he has an unannotated list of Unicode characters for which he creates arbitrary redirects based on their appearance rather than semantics. Many of these redirects are from illegal characters which cause Wikipedia to issue invalid XHTML. [37] He has persisted in these activities over several months despite repeated warnings on his talk page, (e.g., [38]) one of which led to a temporary block.

—Psychonaut 21:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JarlaxleArtemis

I request an arbitration against the user Psychonaut. Psychonaut has been out to get me from the start. He is repeatedly lying and harrassing me for no apparent reason. I haven't been making any personal attacks, so the the so-called "warning" I removed from my talk page was illigitimate. As for vandalbot scripts, what the fuck is he talking about? Complete fucking nonsense. I also have not been making nonsense redirects, as these redirects are useful. Psychonaut just doesn't seem to have the capacity to comprehend many things. Attempting to gain administrator rights is complete nonsense. Psychonaut is repeatly violating Wikipedia:Assume good faith. How can I gain admin shit by pasting something in a sandbox? If you notice, my edits to Pluto were made on the first day of the planet change. Also, I don't know what that has to do with POV. ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 22:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are the one who is lying, Cyde. I propose an indefinite ban on you for trolling. ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 22:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Cyde Weys

I urge the ArbCom to consider an outright ban on Jarlaxle Artemis. I only had one run-in with him recently, but it was part of a long string of ongoing low-level disruption. This run-in occurred on Pluto, with Jarlaxle changing its status from "dwarf planet" to "planet" as part of an intense edit war on that article (the IAU decision had just come down the previous day). Later he professed to have not known the IAU's decision, but I find that incredibly unlikely. He knew exactly what he was doing, and when he got into trouble over it, he tried to lie his way out. --Cyde Weys 21:44, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Sam Blanning

Jarlaxle has just had his community ban reinstated after discussion at WP:AN. Don't think there's anything more to do here. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Second comment by Cyde Weys

It looks like this application should be rejected; JarlaxleArtemis has had his community ban reinstated and there is nothing more to do here. --Cyde Weys 01:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by LtPowers

Jarlaxle is incorrigble, uncooperative, argumentative, self-righteous, and nigh-incapable of admitting fault. This would indeed seem to be obvious grounds for an indefinite block, but I would like to see this arbitration case accepted regardless, even if only so that Jarlaxle cannot claim this was the vengeful or vindictive actions of a few "anti-Jarlaxle" admins, and so that he can clearly see the harm he's done to the encyclopedia without the extra baggage of the harm being shown by users he clearly feels are out to get him. Powers ^T 21:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

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

• Reject absent reversal of community ban. Fred Bauder 19:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Second appeal by David

Initiated by David | Talk at 19:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Dbiv (talk · contribs)

This is an appeal against the ban on editing Peter Tatchell, and to substitute article probation. I am anxious to get back to editing but that cannot happen until the article ban is disposed of.

Statement by David

The grounds of appeal are these:

• An article ban is covered by Banning policy which states that "Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves" (my emphasis). Yet the discussion on the Administrators' noticeboard came to a clear consensus that if edits added good content, they should be kept and not reverted, and applied this to all of my edits. This situation in and of itself either makes a mockery of Banning policy, or makes the article ban a practical nullity. This is not "wikilawyering" - the reason why we have article bans is for editors who have been found to have persistently added bad content, and it allows enforcing administrators to revert without having to familiarise themselves with the subject and check whether the edits are good.
• Considerable unease with the article ban was expressed by many editors in good standing in the discussion. Editors described the article ban as "more disruptive than the editing of the page due to the lack of community support" and "inane". Its effects were described as "beyond absurd" by one former Arbitrator. An editor observed that it was "simply bizarre that positive improvements should be reverted as a result of an ArbCom ruling". Another asked whether "just as an editor can be banned under 'community patience' logic, why not have the inverse apply?" (the clear implication being a community over-ruling of an ArbCom ban).
• This contribution in particular is one which should be considered thoroughly in all its aspects. Rather than quote the whole thing it is perhaps better to give the diff and let people read it for themselves.
• The Arbitration Committee's most active clerk declared that he would not enforce the 'remedy' any more, which while it is not in terms a repudiation of what was decided, is definitely a very pointed refusal to endorse it.

Additional comments:

• Because this is not a judicial process, there is no 'contempt of court' statute. I am perfectly entitled to refuse to accept the validity of the judgment and still appeal it. I should point out however that I have not sought to challenge the validity of any ban imposed under the sanction, nor have I asked to be unblocked for that.
• I am arguing that the article ban is unacceptable in principle and unmerited in practice and should be removed. I am not arguing that it should be removed because I have defied it.
• Personally I would prefer if this was handled through a motion in a prior case rather than go through the lengthy process of a full hearing, though this is a matter for arbitrators.
• I would also ask, should the committee be minded to agree to consider this case, that they simultaneously consider lifting the article ban from Irishpunktom. I never asked for this and specifically self-added to a case I was not a party to in order to argue against it.

Comment by Mackensen

Speaking as the former arbitrator quoted above, I stand by my statements. The present remedies as they stand do not in any way help the encyclopedia and have weakened it in several regards. If the article needs protection by all means let's have article probation and one-revert rule–a remedy that all parties would be satisfied with. The present situation is ridiculous. Mackensen (talk) 01:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by KimvdLinde

I second the comments of Mackensen. If left as is, this is going to cause more stress in the community every time it comes up. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Sjakkalle

I third the comment of Mackensen. I suggest that the ArbCom impose a 1RR restriction on Peter Tatchell instead of an article ban. This worked well with William M. Connolley on climate change articles some time ago, allowing him to make useful contributions and putting an effective stop to the edit warring. When the remedy forces us to revert clearly excellent edits, something is wrong. It sends shudders down my back to think that we are going to revert anyone who provides valid sources to the article in the interests of WP:CITE and WP:V. We have a number of respected admins declaring major discomfort with enforcing the current remedy, and I understand them very well.

Comment by ALoan

As one of the editors quoted above, I still think it is ludicrous that improvements to an article should be reverted on the basis that the editor was banned from editing that article by the ArbCOm. By all means, change the decision to say that any contentious edits can be reverted, and impose a 1RR or 0RR, but the ArbCom should not be making decision that have the effect of making the encyclopedia worse on an objective basis. What is more important - ArbCom or the encyclopedia? WP:IAR. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Batmanand

I am not hugely involved in this matter (I have an interest in the Peter Tatchell article, and first mentioned the matter on WP:AN/I to start the discussion which has been much quoted in this appeal), however I would urge the Committee to accept this case. It is not a sign of weakness or going back on precedent to accept the case; aside from the fact that the result could still be to reaffirm the ban, I believe an acceptance would be enormously helpful for the community. The fact is that the current situation is absurd. We are removing excellent material, including citations, from an article that has a desperate need for good quality referencing. Dbiv is providing them, and they are being removed, reinserted, reverted, and generally ugliness is ensuing. What we need is some clarification, backed up by reasoning. So far, as far as I know, no real justification has been given for the article ban. That is not to say that it is not the correct remedy, just that the perception among some editors is that it is not, because the reasons why it is have not yet be explained (I believe that some refutation of specific points of Dbiv's first appeal was given by Dmcdevit, but not a full explanation of why this remedy was imposed).

I honestly do not know whether or not this remedy is the right way to deal with what was an obviously unacceptable situation. I am not an administrator, so in a sense the ruling does not matter to me. What I do know is two-fold. Firstly, that the remedy does not have anywhere near full community support (indeed it may not be an exaggeration to say it has minority support, at least in the WP:AN/I conversation). This is making it unenforced, and maybe unenforceable; it is surely only a matter of time before another revert and edit war erupts over Dbiv additions to the Tatchell article. Secondly, the Committee relies on its standing in the community to enforce its rulings, and the lack of clarity in this case is damaging this standing. In the long term, this could be disasterous, as by and large what the Committee does is not only good but essential work. It is pretty much our last resort against many types of problem users. If its authority (for those of you with a Classical bent, the Roman constitutional law term auctoritas would be better than authority) is worn away through a few problem cases, or rather a few badly explained decisions, the whole encyclopaedia will suffer. All it takes to reverse this potentially appalling outcome is it to accept this appeal, and properly consider the issues raised, and then come to a decision with a full exposition of why. Batmanand | Talk 10:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Irishpunktom

Davids article ban is entirely my fault. This was one of many articles I revert warred on, wheras it was the only one David did. David revert warred in part because of a dedication to improving the article, and also, in part, because of me not using the talk page. Further to that, david and I came to an agreement which resolved the conflict, the agreement proposed (it must be said) by David. The solution David has proposed is agreeable and fair, to say the very least, and refusing to implement would actually confuse me. The article was, by and large, made by David, though he has made no attempt at "owning" it. Hs contributions have overwheelmingly been positive and reverting his edits seems contrary to the spirit of the project,and would have a negative effect on the encyclopedia. --Irishpunktom\^talk 19:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reply from David

I'd like to thank Irishpunktom for his help, but I did want to put on record the fact that I certainly don't agree with him that the article ban was his fault. I bear him no ill will at all for what has happened. In the opening of our agreement I acknowledged that I should not have been edit warring. David | Talk 21:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Uninvolved User:Newyorkbrad

David's contention that Arbitrator Dmcdevit must recuse himself from this case is without merit. Although Dmcdevit clearly has strong views about the matter, they are based on his participation in these arbitration proceedings themselves. Every arbitrator necessarily forms views about every case that he or she participates in, yet that doesn't disqualify the arbitrators from continuing to participate in the case or from hearing later issues in the same case, or we quickly would run very short of arbitrators. The fact is that two arbitrators, Dmcdevit and Fred Bauder, appear to have taken on the task of drafting the decisions for the ArbCom, and therefore are more conspicuous than the other arbs when the decisions are being evaluated. That is a basis for appreciating their contributions to the work of the committee, even when we disagree with their rulings or proposals in a particular case (which I do often enough), and not for seeking to oust them from continuing their work. The reference to an inadvertent procedural error that was made in another, unrelated case, on which I have commented elsewhere and strongly urged the committee to rectify its error, is also irrelevant to this case and is not appropriate. David does not effectively further his position with argumentation of this nature.

Notwithstanding all that, I do urge the ArbCom to give serious consideration to this appeal per the comments from Mackensen and others. The best outcome here might have been for David to edit constructively on other articles for awhile and then request modification of the ban, David has taken the position that he cannot contribute to the project at all if he acknowledges the article ban. I do not approve of "self help" but David and other users have proposed reasonable alternative remedies in lieu of the article ban that could accommodate all the competing interests. His recent edits to Peter Tatchell are, by common consent, useful and beneficial and ther has been no allegation that he has continued the conduct that led to the ArbCom ruling against him. Frankly, there appears to be a quite remarkable consensus of administrators (many of whom are in rabid disagreement with each other on numerous other issues) that applying the remedies presently in effect would damage the project. This represents new and important evidence that could justify a reopening of the decision to consider whether the remedy should be modified. Newyorkbrad 13:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Note: The first paragraph of this comment may be obsolete, as David has modified his statement. Newyorkbrad 14:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC))[reply]

(Note: See also comment from Arbitrator Fred Bauder responding to Request for Clarification, below: "If there is no trouble, I really don't care either" about enforcing the original RfAr remedy. Newyorkbrad 21:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Comment by User:Fram

I would like to comment of the first point of Dbiv's appeal. There was a consensus that now that the edits are made and they are good, it is not useful to remove the edits. This siutation however does not make "a mockery of Banning policy": what makes o mockery of it is a user who ignores a ban, who refuses a perfectly good solution to be able to make contributions anyway (by using the talk page), and who only appeals here after the "consensus" discussion has shown that many editors feel that while we should keep the edits made until now, we should not ignore the ArbCom decision and let Dbiv continue. If Dbiv would have made his contributions via the suggested way (talk page) for a while (a few months or so), thereby showing that he respects the decision of ArbCom (whethere he agrees with it or not) and that he is willing to participate in a constructive way, an appeal to lift the remainder of his ban and to let him edit the article directly could well have been accepted (I wouldn't mind such a decision). To appeal a decision he has ignored anyway is something completely different though, and the contempt for the ArbCom he has already shown by his behaviour would only be reinforced by accepting the appeal now. ArbCom decisions are binding, editors should follow these decisions or appeal them, but not ignore them: and admins should certainly not ignore ArbCom decisions they disagree with by supporting editors that violate such decisions, even if they do it by adding positive content. Fram 09:10, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:MikeHobday

While it might be convenient to ask Dbiv to edit the talk page, it is clear to me that to ask an editor to only edit a talk page is insulting and demeaning. It announces that s/he is a second class editor. The question therefore, is whether the offence merits this treatment. In my view, clearly not. Dbiv's actions were wrong and desysoping should have been the end of it. MikeHobday 19:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:Netscott

I just want to second the sentiment of RFCU admin User:Mackensen here. The project is being hurt by User:Dbiv's 1 year article ban. A 1RR probation for an equivalent time would be equivalently effective as a remedy and the project would benefit overall from Dbiv's editing directly on the Peter Tatchell article. Given User:Dbiv's having been desysopped this additional penalty strikes me as excessive. (→Netscott) 19:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

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

Reject, original decision was sound. Fred Bauder 01:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tommysun

• Initiated by Tommysun Tommy Mandel 01:16, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Darkfred (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• TommySun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jefffire (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by party 1

(amended)

I make the claim that Darkfred is POV pushing, [39]See ::" Ohh I will admit I am biased, I have never believed in them...") copying copyrighted text into article without attibution, modification of copyrighted material to support his POV, modification of quoted material to support his POV, removal of evidence that does not support his POV, deletion of archives, misrepresentation of evidence, defamation of character of known scientists, repeated and severe personal attacks, trolling, disruption of the editing process and lieing. He does all this as if it is proper, and he is the victim. To disagree with him is trolling. Darkfred demonstrates that he is not knowledgable about the research and is not qualified to determine what evidence is valid evidence. He is a threat IMO to the integrity and reliability of Wikipedia. Specific examples will be introduced on my evidence page but can be found anywhere in the talk pages (except for the archive that he deleted.)

My name is Tom Mandel, I am a nobody. However, during the past 34 years I have read a whole-lot of Eastern philosophy, quantum science, general systems theory and complexity science. I created the wholeness seminar 2000 at [40] and was the founding webmaster of [41] for seven years. I am the chairman of the Primer Group within ISSS, and our home page is at [42] You can know me by what I did.

I am not a Wikipedian, I am an ISSS researcher who followed a link to Wikipedia. Perhaps I am a Wikireader. I read two articles. I started at the plasma cosmology page, and tried to correct errors and insert evidence that the big bang was falsified by quantized redshift discovered by Tifft.. Turns out that the big four there are big bang supporters. Not much we can do about that...Still interested in plasma I found crop circles in Wikipedia. I had already researched drop circles and even wrote an essay about the Real crop circles are unreal. They are inexplicable. They have features that cannot be explained by our ordinary physics.

But the article in Wikipedia clearly gives the impression that they are all hoaxed. It was written as if the case were closed, all crop circles were hoaxed. End of story.

A good summary of the situation was stated by Gerald Hawkins, an astronomer of Stonehedge fame, in an interview during which he said "...It’s not a joke. It’s not a laugh. It’s not something that can be just brushed aside...There are whole areas in the scientific community that are not informed about the crop circle phenomenon, and have come to the conclusion that it is ridiculous, a hoax, a joke, and a waste of time...It’s a difficult topic because it tends to raise a knee-jerk solution in people’s minds. Then they are stuck. Their minds are closed. One can’t do much about it. But if they can keep an open mind, I think they’ll find they’ve got a very interesting phenomenon.

I have tried to build an article section which would include the serious investigations, especially the scientific investigations. This is one of my edits--

A controversy has developed around the question of who are the creators of the crop circles. Some claim that the crop circles are made by causes yet unknown while others claim that crop circles are made by hoaxers. Everyone seems to agree that some of the crop circles are extremely well constructed and incredibly beautiful.

This edit and almost all of the rest have been reverted by Darkfred et al. I do not revert back, I simply edit in another entry, and they simply revert it back out. I've added the dispute tag several times, they revert it back out.

It might be a good idea to use this as a test case, At stake is the reliability of Wikipedia, and while local arguments such as who hosted who on a show may be important to the parties involved, some articles have global influence requiring a global responsibility to present all sides fairly. Crop circles could be one of those.

I assumed that even a cursory reading of the record would make it crystal clear what is going on here. Appears I might not even get to the evidence page.

Scientific evidence is a reliable source,and certainly not a source that should be denied readers of Wikipedia because it introduces anomalies which the mechanistic theory cannot account for. Wikipolicy is to improve it, flesh it out, correct the typo's in good faith, not simply erase it as if it is the one with the power that rules.

Statement by party 2

I am a frequent RC patroller, editor, article writer and translator on wikipedia. The particular edit he mentions above has been reverted by quite a few editors other than myself, I am simply the only editor willing to engage him in debate on the talk page.

I will be brief. I do not want to waste your time but a resolution to this problem would certainly free up a good chunk of my own wiki-time. Tommy-sun Is quite a prolific creator of work. In his time at Crop Circles he has made over 60 main page edits, of which only 2 are unreverted. In this same time he managed to post over 500 times on the talk page, mostly cutting and pasting material found on conspiracy theory web-sites. He was banned twice earlier for his interactions on Plasma cosmology . Although I do not believe he is a vandal or troll (he seems sincere), I do believe that TommySun's presence is a net negative for Wikipedia. --Darkfred ^{Talk to me} 02:03, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with jeffire below. It is interesting that tommy has not listed any of the better known editors or administrator who are reverting his edits as well. Is there some other course of action I can take to be through with this quickly, from the arbcom comments below it seems like you consider this pretty straight forward. --Darkfred ^{Talk to me} 06:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by "party 3"

This entire request seems frivilous to me. No other attempts have been made at dispute resolution before this RfA was filed. I contest my own involved status as well. I place a few messages on the talk page after noticing what I regarded as highly PoV edits made by Tommy detailing my opinions on the matter and reverted changes made which I regarded as clear PoV pushing. I was very surprised to find a RfA message on my userpage. I have only witnessed this dispute for a short time, but it appears that Tommy is not operating in a constructive or civil manner. Jefffire 15:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

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

• Accept, though the situation with Tommysun looks clear enough that admins could deal with him without our intervention. Acceptance does not mean admins can't still use their block button. Dmcdevit·t 06:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Reject, material must have a reliable source to be included. Fred Bauder 01:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jessica Lunsford

Initiated by Cumberbund at 06:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

• 65.184.18.231 (talk · contribs)
• Redvers (talk · contribs)
• Yanksox (talk · contribs)
• WorkingHard (talk · contribs)
• Ricandersen (talk · contribs)
• Marine_69-71 (talk · contribs)
• Kilo-Lima (talk · contribs)

Articles

• Jessica_Lunsford

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• I left notice for all the parties of interest on their talk page - directions above aren't clear if I was supposed to do this or if someone else would. Hope this is okay. Cumberbund 07:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Marine_69-71 (talk · contribs) referred me to mediation.

Statement by party 1

User/s keeps adding irrelevent advertising (web host info) along with false "Alexa" website stats (if true these could easily be verified and a link provided, but they are not). Who hosted a murdered girl's website is not encyclopedic - this is advertising. And putting this next to clearly fallacious website stats is false advertising. The back and forth of my deleting and the reading of the info has led to two instances of page protection. If arbitrated, I will respect whatever change the committee agrees to.

• Can you clarify which users are adding the content and which ones are removing them? If the users who keep adding the information use different names and IPs but can be confirmed to be the same by WP:RFCU, arbitration may not be needed. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:06, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• WorkingHard (talk · contribs) and (what I strongly believe is his most recent sockpuppet) 65.184.18.231 (talk · contribs) among other ip addresses are the ones adding the info.Cumberbund 20:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

You may be surprised to know you are dealing with a few of the people intimatley involved with this case. We are PERSONALLY connected to Mr. Lunsofrd in a way that cannot be denied ever. All edits to Wiki have been shown verifiable via links such as cnn, msnbc, as well as links to the actual court documents. The user Cumberbund, who is in fact a webmaster that wanted the webhosting job and we decided NOT to hire him because of his criminal history. We DID in fact hire Charlotte Web Hosting, which you can plainly see in the supporting links, (CNN has a TON of them)

This user Cumberbund has erased anything on the Jessica page he does not agree with. The unfortunate thing about it is, everything we post is FACT and verifiable via affadavits from court and coroner's reports. Cumberbund may choose to disagree with them, but he is doing nothing more then vandilising Wiki, using the tried and true "troll" way of arguing, (Act like the victim in the argument)

We may not be as Wiki inclined as he is, that does not mean our points are not valid as much, or in this case way more then his, as we actually hold in our hand court released documents. Cumberbund is in fact a 34 year old person with a very extensive criminal history, you may leave us an email address for more information for conclusive PROOF.

Cumberbund has NO reason to be on wiki except to take off any mention of webhosting whatsoever, like the spoiled child who didn't get a lolipop, he whines, and you so far have been doing an EXCELLENT job of helping him. Instead of going in gun ho, read the links, do the research, THEN come to Wiki to have your say. He says the webhosting is not relevant to her story, then ask him why for months he has ONLY made edits to remove the webhosting part and leaving everything else untouched. If he had been hired to host the site, you can BET he would be all over wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lunsford

Look at every one of his contributions, he is using wiki for nothing more then a personal harrassment tool. Feeding into him isn't what we'd expect from Wiki.

If you have ANY doubts at all of his sockpuppetry, run an ip search for his postings all over Wiki, you might be very amused. He has already been told by OTHER admins to LEAVE information that has been verified on the jessica lunsford entry, which he has refused to do. I'd also like to mention, he says that the webhosting is not important part of her story, it was VERY important, it DID do a verifiable 9 million unique hits in 10 hours, Alexa DOES show it, and yet once again, google this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=charlottewebhosting+lunsford+&btnG=Search

Of course, you know, for him it's (If I didn't host it, no one will) He has spent the last YEAR making websites all over the net talking about Jessica Lunsford, putting DOWN Mark Lunsofrd AND Jessica, as well as trying to libel/slander Charlotte Web Hosting in any way he can. He has done nothing on Wiki for the last YEAR except page blank and act a victim.

RE: sockpuppetry, we were asked to signup with a username for wiki after making several vandilism reverts on the entry, we did, and a day later were banned for being sock puppets, the admin who banned us, unbanned us hours later after seeing the mistake he made, and even other admins came to our talk page and said we were NOT sock puppets.

This is a perfect example of why wiki deals with so much false information. 65.184.18.231 17:46, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WorkingHard

Read the Jessica Lunsford entry by Admin Tony The Marine , you'll see where he says that I am not a sock puppet and that Cumberbund has been reverting pages with verifiable and notable information on them for really no reason at all.

I'd Also like to point out in the above section where it asks if all parties were made aware of this arbitration and User Cumberbund said they were, no one involved in this page so far except for Cumberbund, was told of this arbitration. Once again he's trying to play the victim forgetting that every admin he has gone to has not sided with him. 65.184.18.231 17:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

VERIFIABLE ALEXA link http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=2y&size=medium&compare_sites=&y=r&url=http://www.jessicamarielunsford.com#top

Goodluck with that Cumberbund...

65.184.18.231 18:00, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• The link 65.184.18.231 shows proves him wrong. It links to something called "daily reach" but what really needs to be clicked on are "rank" and "page views".

The page views tab shows that the site never had more than four million views in a day (the user/s keep saying the site had over 10 million). And "Rank" never shows the site breaking the top 20 THOUSAND let alone top 20 for even a single day (the user/s keep reclaiming: "received over 10,000,000 unique hits in 9 hours, making it Alexa.com's third most visited website for the year of 2005.") Cumberbund 04:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You know (sighs) if a page does 4 million hits in one day, and the page went live at 9:58pm and did 4 million hits in 2 hours and another 7 million hits the next day (According to Alexa), well thats alot of hits in 24 hours. 24 hours = 1 day to most people in America. Learn how to read Alexa stats please, Page rank is calculated monthly, so are page views, and page views are not counted as unique hits, please learn what a unique hit is compared to a refreshed page hit. That is also one of the reasons we didn't hire you for the webhosting, you have no clue what your doing. 65.184.18.231 04:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved User:Pia_L

No, someone has to point this out, or I won't be able to sleep tonight. What Party 2, user 65.184.20.40, is disputing is the removal of the sick and twisted words from the alleged killer who has confessed to molesting and killing this 10-year-old child. It can't be right that victims are defined on Wikipedia by the words of their killers, and that descriptions such as this are featured so prominently in articles about murder victims who are minors. The removal of the following sections are under dispute by user 65.184.20.40 (see [43]):

1. John Couey, the accused killer, related that the murdered child, "did not appear a virgin the first time they had sexual intercourse, stating she did not cry or yell out, and in fact smiled and said it felt like she was having her period."

2. Party 2 also wants the name and residence of the mother of the dead child to be included in the article: "Her mother, XXX, lives in XXX, in southwestern Ohio's Warren County, Ohio|Warren County."

3. But most of all, Party 2 wants an obsolete website [44] highlighted and linked, and the name of the previous web hoster mentioned, even though the copyrighted pictures of the child have long been removed from that site and a new website established by the family (who also seem to have chosen to host the new site elsewhere).

I think this article deserves attention from experienced wiki-people here for two reasons: 1. The proposed additions by Party 2 seem to aim to push a web hosting firm. In an article about a murdered child, that aim is in extremely poor taste. 2. Some troubling documents pop up with a simple Google search on the mentioned web hoster's name. I would normally consider these sort of documents of dubious value and importance, especially since the site where they are published seems to be put together by people in the porno industry who have had hosting disputes and rocky relationships with the web hoster in question, but I still find the whole thing extremely troubling. Pushing the mention of this web hoster, in combination with the pushing for details from the molester's mouth about the child, is just too much for me to stomach. Even more troubling: the use of unique hits in advertisement in an attempt to profit from a similar site about human tragedy is demonstrated in another document [45]. My personal preference would be a Wikipedia where no commercial enterprises at all are pushed in encyclopedic entries, and in this case, the advertisement of a product actually makes my skin crawl. Pia 09:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Restored my entry, which was partly deleted and changed by user 65.148.20.40. I reject the arguments about including the material about the minor and the family because it is irrelevant to the case and of gutter level tabloid quality. As as gesture of good faith I have not restored the link in my above statement to the website about the web hoster, nor the link to the court document, nor the references to the industry of the web hoster in question, found on that particular site. However, the rest of my statement is to be deleted by clerks and arbitrators only, as they see fit. I want nothing further to do with user 65.184.20.40-65.184.18.231 etc, or with his speculations about the child, but I thought I'd point out, before I go, that some pretty strange editing practices are emerging from that cluster of names, not just here, but on user pages as well, such as this, where even the intro by the user was deleted [46]---which seemed a rash move until the user materialized and seemed in perfect agreement [47].) Something about this whole situation is very unsettling to me. Pia 09:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum by User:65.184.18.231

Add Relevant to the case, it is included in court records that are extremely verifiable at the links provided. This is an entry about Jessica Lunsford, her emotional state, comments, statements during her detention are very much important facts. Also relevant to the case since pornography was found on the computer that had been accessed just hours before Jessica was suppossedly kidnapped, this alone made national news and appeared in several papers, this is still an ongoing investigation into Mark Lunsford for this. As I said, this isn't personal point of views, this is fact, this is verifable, this is Wikipedia. "Prior to the jury selection, Judge Ric Howard ruled that Couey's defense attorneys cannot question Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford, about his finances or introduce evidence of pornography found in the trash bin of his computer after his daughter disappeared." [[48]] Read about it here (just one link for now, can flood the page with more if you need them) 65.184.18.231 03:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Add I did not add that information to Wikipedia, look at the logs please 65.184.18.231 03:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC) Add The website is still the "official website" for Jessica Lunsford, it always will be, Mark Lunsford is in charge of the website and as he has said many times in news interviews, the website remains in his control, and while he is not computer inclined to fix it, he is dealing with more important issues such as traveling accross America to get laws changed. What's more important for you, his daughter's website, or him getting laws changed.65.184.18.231 03:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Add the article also mentions Bill O'Reilly, is the article pushing his talk show as well? The website was shown on national television stations for weeks, Bill O'Reilly conducted 1 interview with Mark Lunsford for less then 12 minutes. Which is more notable? One site that does millions of hits, or 12 minutes of air time. I'd argue more people saw the website then watched the Bill O'Reilly interview 65.184.18.231 03:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Add Wikipedia is not about Personal Points of view [[49]], it is an online encyclopedia, the facts of the case are the facts, yes, they are terrible to read, but they are the verifiable facts as presented in court documents via the District attorney and the medical examiner. I have no doubt that documents pop up when that webhosts company name is put into google, Cumberbund has done an excellent job over the last 2 years writing as much libel as he can about the hosting company. I can verify VERY EASILY that the user Cumberbund is exactly who I know him to be via email headers showing his ip address that will match the ip address here as well as his isps. That is why for 2 years he has made only edits to remove anything we add, and yet he STILL says that John Couey is being held in Georgia jail. He doesn't even care enough about the article to do research in any matter. I'd recommend that you start doing a total investigation into this story instead of posting links that Cumberbund has made over the last 2 years in order to libel/slander a company. Fortunatley for us, we are not connected now or have ever been connected to any of the people that you have shown in those links and furthermore would cite the rule of we don't allow that as posted by Admin Redvers.➨ so for now since you are obviously either another sock for Cumberbund (not too hard to imagine since you posted exactly everything he has for the last 2 years) or a very close friend of his, I have removed all of your posts that could contain personal information about a person (Wether or not they are a wikipedia editor or not). It makes me wonder how far people will argue over this situation, especially those not even involved in the case. Instead of trying to present people in a false/misleading light, maybe you should actually present your case to wikipedia in a rational way. This is about an entry for Jessica Lunsford, if you are here to present her, her father or the companies he STILL works with in a negative light, I'd just think you would be more helpful to wikipedia by contributing to subjects you know more about possibly. 65.184.18.231 03:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Uninvolved User:Newyorkbrad

Based on the competing claims presented, this appears to be a very serious situation requiring prompt attention, investigation, and resolution. Given the nature of the material in dispute and the apparent off-wiki enmities involved, I see little chance that mediation as suggested by one arbitrator is going to be helpful. On the other hand, I am also concerned that debating the merits of the parties' positions on this article through the very public and protracted medium of an arbitration case lasting for months is only going to exacerbate the hatred that is evident and the publicity given to the allegedly inappropriate and privacy-invading material. This case should either be accepted by ArbCom or addressed by WP:OFFICE and resolved in a highly expedited and sensitive manner. Newyorkbrad 14:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(In response to a comment above:) Perhaps I should have used a different word than "enmity," but if one party to the case believes that "everything they've written about me outside of this site has been totally false," I submit that supports my inference that the Wikipedia mediation process is unlikely to resolve the dispute. Newyorkbrad 21:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/2/0/0)

• Reject. Please use mediation first. Dmcdevit·t 04:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Accept Fred Bauder 00:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Reject per Dom. Premature. James F. (talk) 19:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Falun Gong

Wikizach at 05:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Articles

• Falun_Gong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Li_Hongzhi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Teachings_of_Falun_Gong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Involved parties

Fire Star 火星

• Tomananda (talk · contribs)
• Yueyuen (talk · contribs)
• Mr.He (talk · contribs)
• Miborovsky (talk · contribs)
• Samuel Luo (talk · contribs)
• Mcconn (talk · contribs)
• Fnhddzs (talk · contribs)
• Dilip rajeev (talk · contribs)
• Cj cawley (talk · contribs)
• Fire Star (talk · contribs)
• Sumple (talk · contribs)
• Omido (talk · contribs)
• HResearcher (talk · contribs)
• Kent8888 (talk · contribs)
• Yenchin (talk · contribs)
• Olaf Stephanos (talk · contribs)
• Andres18 (talk · contribs)
• Otomo (talk · contribs)

dispute resolution Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-09-03_Falun_Gong WP:RFM#Falun_Gong

I am a mediator in a case brought to me by a user working on the Falun Gong article. I researched further about the dispute; and found that some policies of wikipedia were key to the arguments on their page. On request and approval of parties, I have brought this to the Arbitration Committee, in hopes of solving the problem. I will be working on our page to give the council members information quickly, by both me and other parties.

Statement by party 1

The picture Falun Gong presents of itself to the West...something akin to a peaceful medititative group...is a false picture of the real teachings and practices of Falun Gong. I have written most of what appears in the current Criticism and controversies page and ask that the content remain, subject to adding new edit material if it is deemed necessary for balance. Master Li tells his disciples that when they talk about Falun Gong ("clarify the truth" to use FG jargon) they absolutely must not speak about the teachings "at a higher level." Those higher levels include the core concepts of Fa-rectification (the Falun Gong equivalent of judgment day, but with some different twists) and salvation for those who do not resist the Fa-rectification or think that Li's teachings (called the Dafa, or "great law") are not good. Practitioners are promised the status of gods if they follow Li's requirement that during this period of Fa-rectification they do everything they can to expose what he considers the evil and wicked Chinese Communist Party.

The Falun Gong goal is the elimination of the CCP through a variety of non-violent means, including spreading the Nine Commentaries through such Falun Gong media outlets as the Epoch Times. Falun Gong practitioners deny this goal...arguing that Li says it's the gods who will eliminate the CCP, not them...they nevertheless spend most of their time actively pursuing the elimination of the CCP. Thus the Falun Gong must be thought of as a spiritual movement with an agenda to destroy to a foreign government, not just a passive victim of that government. Much of the resisence by FG practitioners to inclusion of these obvious aspects of Falun Gong has amounted to quibbling about the meaning of words. If one says this is a "political" agenda, the practitioners in unison will say it is not because Li supposedly is not seeking power for himself in China.

Li assumes the role of a god or main Buddha, but to western reporters has also said he is just an ordinary man. There has been endless debate about what terminology to use, but nevertheless the teachings are clear in this regard. Li says "without me the cosmos wouldn't exist" and that his Dafa is providing the only means for salvation during this period of the last havoc. Simply stated, Li assumes many supernatural powers which are absolutley essential for a Falun Gong practitioner to reach "consumation." They cannot do this without the direct intervention of Master Li, yet they resist any honest reporting of his divine status in Wikedia.

In the opinion of many Western cult experts, Li has all the characteristics of a classic cult leader. He manipulates his followers, demands total obedience (if he withdraws his protection they forfeit their only chance for salvation), and says he cures the illnessnes of his disciples at the exercise sites. One harmful aspect of Falun Gong teachings is Li's insistence that sickness is not really sickness, but rather the opportunity to get rid of bad karma. Although practitioners deny it, they do avoid seeking medical attention when they are sick and frequently report on this practice on the Falun Gong web sites.

The bottom line for this Wikipedia article is that it must present the well-published opinions of Falun Gong critics, most of whom are Western academics and many of whom are cited in the Criticism and Controversies page. While the Criticism page itself has been fairly stable for several months...it is thoroughly sourced with publshed material...the biggest obstacle has been the resistance of Falun Gong practitioners to the inclusion of material on Fa-rectification and salvation of the "Fa-rectification Dafa disciples."

The editors who are critical of the Falun Gong do not object to the inclusion of sourced and verifiable material on the so-called persecution of practitioners in China, however much of the material...such as the allegations of organ harvesting from live FG...is highly dubious at best.

I think that's about 500 words, so I will stop here. In order to get a more detailed idea of some of the content that has been disputed for the past 6 months, please read through some of the archives. --Tomananda 08:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

Falun Gong practitioners working on the article have all been explicit that we have no intention to hide any information or teachings. All the primary sources are freely available on the Internet. What we are concerned about is the way in which this information is presented: the discourse. In our view, the other party introduces text passages in a very goal oriented manner. They select "controversial" quotations from a corpus of thousands of pages, omit their context, and glue them together with sarcastic commentary. They have significantly emphasized some issues while crudely downplaying others. For example, a comprehensive background for the qigong phenomenon and Falun Gong's cultural position in China was removed from the beginning of the article. We think it's absolutely essential, because we're not talking about an isolated phenomenon, but something that stems from an altogether different paradigm (for a short summary, see: [50]). An average reader is not at all familiar with these axioms and ontological postulations. A neutral and rather good description of Falun Gong's spread in China is written by Noah Porter in his Master's Thesis. [51]

In short, Falun Gong practitioners view the practice's popularity as a cultural revival. With 70 to 100 million people practicing it before the persecution was launched, it is the most popular form of qigong in Chinese history. The practitioners believe that Falun Gong is veritable cultivation practice (xiulian), something that's always been at the heart of old China, yet was secularized in the modern era, and whose roots were mostly forgotten. For us, the substance is right there - it has nothing to do with a coup d'état, there is no hidden agenda, and our persistent motivation to practice has nothing to do with sociological reductions. We want the article to provide a meaningful, neutral rationale for the practice.

By exposing the political actor that has been cruelly persecuting Falun Gong for the last seven years, the practitioners are simply countering state terrorism by entirely nonviolent means. It was the Communist Party who produced a political question out of Falun Gong. Whether Falun Gong is deemed political or not depends on how one looks at the reactions to its violent suppression. We need to make a distinction between 1) seeking political power as such and 2) criticizing a political actor that has verifiably engaged in crimes against humanity. Additionally, even when two sides of a story have been easily available, the other party has been repeatedly pushing their preferred version on the front.

Anti-FLG editors are claiming that Li Hongzhi has made racist statements, but we don't think that's the case at all. This specific issue is a metaphysical question concerning the origin of a human spirit and its connection to "higher levels", all the while it has been explicitly stated in the teachings that it's nothing to be concerned about. In addition, mixed race marriages are quite common among practitioners. This is a good example of the other party's tendency to misrepresent the actual teachings, focusing on a tidbit and making it seem as "shocking" as possible. Another example is the homosexuality question: even though Falun Gong's position regarding some moral issues is rather conservative, the practitioners have never imposed any demands on others. Just because we think that some human behavior is not "upright" from a metaphysical point of view, we've never sought to restrict anyone's rights to live as they please.

While drafting the introduction, members of the other party have attempted to gloss over the fundamentals of the practice while emphasizing aspects that they consider more important for the reader to know. While we are not against the inclusion of such information, we want to ensure that they receive proper weight and sufficient context in order to be understood in conjunction with other relevant teachings. The goal of the main editors of the other party has never been to explain what Falun Gong is, but instead to create an "exposé" by highlighting the teachings they disagree with or consider absurd, placing these above all others. In doing this, context is never considered, and background is always omitted, which creates an article that only confuses the reader. By reading through the discussions on the introduction, one may come to understand more clearly the two very different views that exist among the editors.[52] [53]

Reverting is another problem. There have been massive revert wars on these pages. A lot of reverting has been done without posting any explanation on the talk page. Instead, a simple rebuttal is sketched on the history page accompanying the revert. A lot of hard work has been disregarded or totally ignored. A typical example of this can be found in a recent revert on the Li Hongzhi page. [54]

There are only a few Western "cult experts" who have deemed Falun Gong as a cult, while others have completely disagreed, like UNADFI in France, not to speak of most people within the cultural studies. Falun Gong is entirely voluntary, it's not a formal organisation, there's no operational hierarchy or even membership, and genuinely carrying out the cultivation is everyone's private matter. Simply put, Falun Gong is a collection of free teachings. Practitioners are a heterogeneous group of individual people who've chosen to apply this philosophy to their everyday life. We feel that the other party is more on a mission against "heretical dissidence" than anything else. ---Olaf Stephanos 22:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party User:Continueddonations

Party 1 doesn't go far enough in exposing the known evils of Falun Gong, which, for example, include overt racism against mixed marriages by the movement's founder, Li Hongzhi. There is no question that the Falun Gong proponents, in the article as elsewhere, are involved in an attack on China's ruling communism, subtle only to those who aren't really paying attention. All that really remains to be discussed, once having admitted to this obvious reality, is to what extent this political subterfuge can be justified as a reaction against totalitarian rule - and to what extent it cannot. As things stand, the article's Falun Gong proponents persist in testing the credulity of Wikipedia's English-speaking readership by persisting in flatly denying all this. Continueddonations 00:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party Jsw663

I think the main issue here is that Falun Gong practitioners are turning the pages in question into advertisements for their cult, whereas those anti-FLG are turning the pages mentioned above into a critique of the pages mentioned above. This in many ways can count as misconduct and abuse. However, the more serious question to be raised is whether a truly encyclopaedic + 'neutral' view (NPOV) on the entries on Falun Gong and related pages is possible, since this is such a controversial matter. Therefore, it is both a misconduct issue as well as a content issue - the two are in many ways related in this case. At least that's how I see it. Jsw663 16:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/2/0/0)

• Accept Fred Bauder 17:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Unless someone offers substantial evidence of misconduct soon, other than a content dispute, I will reject. Dmcdevit·t 04:49, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Reject per Dom. James F. (talk) 19:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ghirlandajo

Initiated by Cowman109^Talk at 16:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

• Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Piotrus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) not really involved, see below -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Cowman109 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Template:Wp-diff
• Template:Wp-diff

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ghirlandajo
• Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-05-29 Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878
• Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-07 Polish Cabal and myself as its leader
• Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-20 Crimean war
• ANI Report with a list of recent trolling and incivility
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive124#Ethnic slur
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/AndriyK#Ghirlandajo_warned
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive133#Ghirlandajo

Statement by Cowman109

Ghirlandajo has been consistently incivil towards other editors in his time here on Wikipedia and has made personal attacks as shown in the above RFC, has engaged in tendentious editing per the above Mediation Cabal cases and has recently trolled and provoked editors as shown by WP:ANI#Ghirlandajo. Also, another accusation is that he is making use of meatpuppets, such that many users come to defend him and support him in content disputes and other arguments. It also seems that wherever he goes, a certain group of users always supports him in content and user disputes, of note being Ghirlandajo's interactions with Polish users, as shown by the last ANI archive link, in particular Piotrus.

As an addendum, it seems that Ghirlandajo has failed to assume good faith of other editors he comes in conflict with, which promotes a negative environment between him and other editors. The responses to the recent ANI report also appear consistent with his behavior - if anything, it would have been better to simply leave the situation alone instead of further patronising other editors with the attitude that he is above them for his article contributions. If he would have liked to contest this block, it could have been much more civil to calmly ask for a review of the block instead of trolling with comments such as "When a stranger comes to WP:ANI and asks to block a well-established contributor... and he gets instantly blocked by a person whom that contributor criticised an hour ago... well, it is called... Wiki-justice, apparently. --Ghirla -трёп- 22:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC). I stand by my beliefs that his interactions with users are highly innapropriate for the encyclopedia, and while a block may not be in order, it needs to be made clear that his attitude towards other editors is innapropriate. Cowman109^Talk 20:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Piotrus

This arbitration is a suprise to me. To the best of my recollection I am not currently involved with any edit disputes with either Ghirlandajo or Cowman109, although for the record I had been involved in some major disputes with Ghirlandajo in the past. I can offer my comments in the current Ghirlandajo-Cowman dispute, as well as discuss my past experiences with Ghirla, and on the possible solution (I have thought about ArbRequest against Ghirla in the past) but as there is no current Ghirlandajo-Piotrus dispute I am not sure if I classify as an 'involved party'.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:06, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party Grafikm_fr

I find this arbitration a bit quick, surprising and intempestive. Ghirla and Piotrus have been involved in a lot of disputes in the past, but the trend is clearly cooling down (as confirmed by Piotrus himself). For instance, Piotrus recently praised Ghirla for a well-written article on a Russo-Polish war, which is something rather new[55]. In any case, conflicts now follow a rather well-established DR scheme and there is no reasons to take it further. As for the recent thread on WP:ANI, it does not even remotely qualify for ArbCom.

In the light of what I and Piotrus said, I suggest that our Arbitrators dismiss this case and return the respective parties to already existing DR processes. After almost a year of quite lengthy and often disruptive processes (which incidentally saw some of the main protagonists blocked) things are finally return to normal. Let's not start the fire again please. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addenum 1: You will note that on ANI WP:ANI#Ghirlandajo, very few users find his remarks to be incivil. Angry, yes, but not incivil. Only Tony and Dmc find them so. By the way, both should recuse themselves from the case... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 01:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Ideogram: "Ghirlandajo has driven many editors away from Wikipedia"? Do you have any proof of that? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 12:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Ideogram #2: "Are you now going to argue that Ghirlandajo is kind and welcoming towards those he disagrees with, that he attracts more and better editors to the project?" First Ideogram, I find your phrase is bordering on procès d'intention and is quite disturbing. Second, Piotrus is witness, I warned Ghirla many times about his behavior. Point is, things are cooling down (well, they were before that sordid RFA affair) and that's why this Arbitration is intempestive. Putting more gaz in the fire won't solve things. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 13:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party Giano

Ghirlandajo can be abrupt and curt. He does not mince his words. He is however a huge asset to this encyclopedia, and the links provided by Cowman 109 at WP:ANI#Ghirlandajo as reason to bring this case, do not in my view prove anything

• [56] A comment on a very contentious piece of Wikipedia history.
• [57] A comment on my talk page mentioning no names just his view of a situation
• [58] Again a view and a recommendation
• [59] Yet again his view, no insults or obscenities.
• [60] Some people may even call this wise advice.
• [61] No one is singled out, again he states a view - no more.
• [62] He expresses his view
• [63] He concurs on a contentious matter with another editor, in this case me.
• [64] And yet again he concurs with other editors.
• [65] I cannot imagine why this dif is even listed. It is his view in a legitimate forum for expressing it.

In all the above links, Ghirlandajo has done no more than robustly express his opinion, which he is at liberty to do. That he does not do so in the language of an 18th century courtier at Versailles may be regretted by some, but there is no Wiki-law that says this has to be so. He uses no insults, or obscenities overall he seems to feel the system is at fault, and the overriding message is that of a good wikipedian anxious to do what he considers his best for the project

I submit that on the evidence provided by Cowman 109, Ghirlandajo has no case to answer. Cowman's statement "It also seems that wherever he goes, a certain group of users always supports him in content and user disputes" is meaningless - and has, I think, no business here. The reasons for bringing this case have been given, it would be wrong to keep digging and trying to find others. Evidence for bringing the case has been brought and it is in my view inconclusive unless to be a little brusqe is a crime Giano | talk 10:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Further to my statement I would like to make the following observations. This is a preliminary hearing to see if the charges brought by Cowman 109 are worth following. The arbcom may or may not feel the evidence he has presented worth further investigation.

However, not since the days of the inquisition have others then been allowed to turn up with further charges. This is contrary to every judicial system in the civilized world. People cannot just pop into a court room where a man is being tried for an murder and say "Oh yes, by the way, on his holiday in Minsk in 1989 he stole a policeman's whistle".

Some people may feel Tony Sidaway, Ideogram, and Renata should confine their comment to the evidence presented, and that they have had ample opportunity to begin a case themselves, but for their own reasons have decided not to. Some people may construe their actions to be jumping on the bandwagon, or even kicking a man when he is down. What ever their agenda it could smack of medieval justice. Such behaviour would not be allowed in any modern western court room.

The interchanges between Ideogram and those defending Ghirlandajo in a modern court of law, would be regarded as prosecuting council, a role he has assumed, badgering a witness before commencement of trial. This would cause the trial to be abandoned and Ideogram to be held in contempt of court.

The above is merely an observation of how Wikipedia justice differs from that in Europe and North America. Giano | talk 18:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And this leads me to beleive [66] further comment is futile. The expression "For God;s sake" springs to mind. Giano | talk 07:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• To answer Mackensen's query the case concerns the points brought her by Cowman, see links above. However the case now seems to have been hijacked by Tony Sidaway who is going off on tangents unconnected to the case. His points should be dismissed in order that Ghilandajo can be judged fairly here. They are unconnected to this case. Giano | talk 07:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Ghirlandajo

I don't recall to have ever interacted with User:Cowman109. I don't remember him expressing any specific concerns on my talk. He never applied for mediation or comments of my behaviour which seemed questionable to him, to the best of my knowledge. In short, I fail to see in what am I being accused and by who. Unless it is explained what this case is about, I will not contribute to this arbitration. Please don't bother me, I have articles to write and not to discuss something of which I have no idea with someone who I don't know. Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 18:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since I posted the above statement, User:Tony Sidaway came up with a statement against myself. It is instructive that when the issue was discussed on WP:ANI yesterday, no commentator except Tony Sidaway identified my comments as "inflammatory and grossly incivil". Others qualified them as "to the point", "slightly angry", and "just". Furthermore, the first time I mentioned him in my about 50,000 edits was an hour before that, when I posted this comment about the controversial re-promotion of Carnildo. Two hours later Tony Sidaway blocked me, citing that very edit as a pretext. Exhilarating, isn't it? After that, he returned to the RfA page and noted with satisfaction that "the noisy opponents of the RfA are now in the minority". Of course, Tony Sidaway didn't discuss the matter with me because he just came and blocked me immediately after reading my criticism. Did it never occur to him that gratuitous blocks of well-established contributors serve no other rational purpose than radicalizing them? It is notheworthy that in the same diffs I expressed criticism of ArbCom and Kelly Martin over Carnildo's re-promotion. The same day, Kelly Martin was quick to express her unconditional support for Tony's actions, while someone who I don't know launched an arbitration case. Well, I'm forced to give up the subject, as I was threatened with further blocks if I continue to question the validity of his behaviour. The whole affair seems to me like an attempt at revenge for my dissident opinions, which is also a nice pretext for User:Halibutt and other established ghirlaphobes from all quarters to add their 2 cents here. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I feel obliged to respond to Renata's statement. As a member of the Lithuanian community, she is entitled to protect it from inroads made by Russian editors. I cannot help thinking that her statement was motivated by my yesterday's edit, which led to some rewriting of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, an article about a predominantly Slavic and Orthodox medieval state. This is a purely content dispute which has been caused by the fact that articles about Lithuanian history contain some extreme statements concerning Russian history. We have been over this mined ground over and over again. I'm sorry that Renata uses this page as an equivalent of an RfC. It is not fair to deny me an opportunity to explain my own edits in detail, especially as many diffs pertain to the articles written by myself. It would have been more helpful if she had discussed what she feels problematic about my behaviour on my talk page or on the article's talk page or on RfC, rather than bringing it up for the first time on this page. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The latest accusations are so wildly different, that I fail to see anything in common between them. These are two separate cases. I remember to have had a content dispute with User:Mzajac last year, but I don't think that I have interacted with him after the ArbCom's decision concerning the subject matter of that old RfC. If we had some disputes recently or I was incivil towards Mzajac this year, I await diffs to refresh my memory. I may say for myself that I have avoided pages edited by Mzajac, knowing him for an exceedingly delicate editor who tends to overre-act to my edits. The difference of our characters is no basis for arbitration. Fred's accusation that User:Wiglaf left Wikipedia last year because of my disagreement with some of his more extreme views struck me speechless. I strongly advise to review the history of his relations with User:Molobo and his joint actions with User:Shauri, with whom I had never met in Wikipedia (cf. this and this), before making such sweeping accusations. I think that Wiglaf, with all his shortcomings, is irreplacable as an editor. I was involved in one slowly dragging content dispute with him (as User:Dbachmann may testify) but I don't recall any evidence of incivility or personal attacks there.

I was urged to trim my statement and therefore commented out my lengthy response to User:Ideogram, as the issue seems to have been settled, anyway. Since I can't see a common denominator between so many unsubstantiated accusations on seemingly unrelated matters and since I don't know which one is the main basis for this case, I follow the example of Pecher, Geogre, ALoan, and R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine), among others, and take a break until the next week in order to sort out my attitudes towards the project and all the bad blood that has characterized it of late. I shall return to this page when I understand what's going on here. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 21:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Tony Sidaway

In response to Mackensen's plea for clarity, I'll put this case into a nutshell.

Ghirlandajo's ongoing behavior casts Wikipedia in divisive terms. Pole against Russian [67], himself against "aberrant" bureaucrats [68], himself (again) against "Carnildo's [bureaucrat] buds" [69], editors against administrators [70]. The problematic behavior seems to have a long history and is not strictly related to any one incident. I think there is a behavioral problem that needs to be remedied in the interests of the encyclopedia.

Similar cases of a disruptive rabble-rousing polemicist who is also widely regarded as a good editor have come before the arbitration committee before, most notably in the Alienus case.

"Wikipedia is not a place to hold grudges, import personal conflicts, or nurture hatred or fear. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions goes directly against our policies and goals." (What Wikipedia is not) --Tony Sidaway 01:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Ideogram

I first encountered Ghirlandajo in the course of mediating cases for Medcabal. He was edit-warring on two articles and refusing to discuss. My first attempt to get him to discuss was deleted as "trolling". When I tried to contact friends of Ghirlandajo to get some kind of communication he accused me of "wikistalking". He has also accused me of "revert-warring" and "sockpuppetry"

This is only my personal experience with Ghirlandajo, there are literally hundreds of similar instances. Ghirlandajo is paranoid, incivil, and incapable of assuming good faith. But the biggest problem is that Ghirlandajo believes that Wikipedia needs him more than he needs Wikipedia. As long as he has this holier-than-thou attitude he will treat the entire community with contempt. I don't know what rule this breaks, but I hope it is clear this attitude cannot be tolerated. --Ideogram 05:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paranoia: calls the English Wikipedia "sinister" and "totalitarian" claims he was blocked for opposing an RFA implies bureaucrats are not to be trusted edit summary accusation of sockpuppetry

Failure to assume good faith: attacks another editor and his ancestors claims his opponent is a nationalist accuses an editor of being deliberately inflammatory and recommends he be banned edit summary calls previous editor a "stalking troll"

Incivility: sarcastically asks if his opponent has any arguments

Personal attacks: edit summary

Revert warring: [71]; [72], [73], [74];

Ghirlandajo continues to claim he is being persecuted over individual events and refuses to understand that he has a long pattern of unacceptable behavior that needs to be addressed. --Ideogram 09:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"I'm sorry." Ghirla, I am not trying to belittle your awesome contributions here in any way, but those two words of yours mean more to me than all the rest. I have indeed noted that you have been more accommodating of late, but it took comments by Grafikm fr and others to make me realize this was a conscious effort. I am truly sorry that this RFAr got filed in the middle of all this but it was hard for us outsiders to see what was going on.

I am now prepared to recommend this RFAr be dropped as being obsolete, or that if it is accepted, Ghirla be given the lightest possible punishment, some kind of warning I suppose. The problem appears to have solved itself. --Ideogram 07:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Alex Bakharev

As an established meatpuppet user guilty in occasional support of User:Ghirlandajo I have to remind you that with all respect the task of this project is writing an enciclopedia. Without writing the articles all our wonderful social and administrative activities are just an empty mastrubation. On this page I heared a phrase Ghirlandajo is a valuable editor but.... I am not sure everybody here understands just how valuable he is for the project.

I consider myself to be a sort of content creator, having written around 150 articles some to WP:DYK level and over 15K edits with around 10K in the mainspace. Many of my mainspace are products of AWB and Vandalism reversion, so they are not that valuable. Despite a not particular impressive results it took a significant amount of effort. I think most of people here can say something like this about your own contributions. In the case of Ghirlandajo we have more than 1000 new articles, quite a number of them of a very high standards, more than 50K edits - most of them are actually content creation, not automatic tools, very little vandalism reversion, little revert warring and empty talk - 90% is what Wikipedia is for - the content creation. I am monitoring P:RUS/NEW and more or less aware of all new articles related to Russia. Ukraine and Belarus. The quality and quantity of Ghirlandajo's work there is equal to the total of next five..ten best users (me included). Without Ghirlandajo there would be huge holes in the Wikipedia's coverage of the 1/6 the Earth. Besides this I constantly find that Ghirlandajo making valuable contributions to the spheres completely outside the Eastern European realm. Anyway I will estimate that Ghirlandajo is approximately five to ten time more valuable than an average established user or admin like me.

Yes, he has strong opinions on some problems and occasionally not very civil. Sometimes he is stubborn. Still I am finding that it is an absolute disgrace for our project that we assemble here not to praise his great efforts but to shame him or even ban him. In my own opinion such great contributors like Ghirlandajo or for example User:Halibutt who is also often a target of criticism deserve from us, people of the project, that we do our best to establish the most comfortable conditions for their work with the minimal misuse of this valuable resources on wikilawyering. Obviously it does not mean to give them a free hand in inserting their POV into the articles or biting new users, or putting really venomous attacks on established users. But otherwise I would think that in our own interests to live such people alone and let them work for our project. abakharev 12:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC) Rspns to User:Ideogram. I am not aware of any productive user diven away by Ghirlandajo. Who are you talking about? abakharev 13:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by non-involved party User:Pan Gerwazy

First I would like to beg administrators' indulgence, as this is my first attempt at involvement in such matters.

This whole affair is an aftermath of the dispute over the Russo-Turkish War. That User:Ghirlandajo does not remember that User:Cowman109 was involved there too ([[75]]) does not testify to bad memory, but to the fact that he is working so hard at this project that he simply could not possibly remember all brief encounters of that kind. The problem with mediation there was that User:Ideogram insisted that everyone deleting the reference to a book by an Armenian genocide denier (some Turkish editors were using the article to introduce the book as a trustable academic source into Wikipedia) should explain why (s)he did that, whereas the problem with that book and its author had been discussed at length on the talk page already.

I did not exactly see eye to eye with Ghirlandajo at that page ([[76]] , but as the attempts at "mediation" were obviously only exacerbating the situation with Ghirlandajo claiming User:Ideogram to be a troll or a sockpuppet, I did some digging into past encounters between Ghirlandajo and Ideogram and told Ghirlandajo on his talk page what I had found (evidence of possible stalking) and advised him not to react to a rather ambiguous comment by Ideogram before, which sounded like an invitation to a revert war. ([[77]] and subsequently [[78]]) Apart from the stalking (see further evidence [[79]]), Ghirlandajo also accused Ideogram of sockpuppeting. The point being that before Ideogram arrived on the scene as mediator, an anonymous IP, the Ghirla stalker, had been working in unison with Turkish editors in a revert war against Ghirlandajo: [[80]] and [[81]]. After Ideogram arrived, this anonymous IP more or less left the Russo-Turkish scene, thinking he had done enough damage there, and went on to other pages.

Now User:Piotrus is flabbergasted to see himself presented as an interested party. I am not. He was dragged into this conflict because no one else could be found who may better damn Ghirlandajo. In fact, this "affair" as I called it at the beginning of my statement, has been going on for some time, since the end of June: [[82]]. Why do I get the impression that this is a cabal of two who have waited for Ghirlandajo to be trivially blocked on incivility to present a Request for Arbitration? In any case, including User:Piotrus indicates how weak this case was from the beginning and that it was started as a fishing operation – it was believed someone else was bound to report further evidence of annoying language from Ghirlandajo to this Request. A request that is rather untimely, because Ghirlandajo has recently decided to keep to writing and improving articles and leave the bickering to those who are not so good at writing an encyclopaedia - and is trying to keep himself to that proposition.--Pan Gerwazy 23:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC) (trimmed to 490 words according to MS Word)[reply]

Statement by non-involved party User:Renata3

I completely agree with User:Ideogram. Ghirlandajo is uncivil and insulting with very strong Russian POV. The incidents are not isolated cases, but overarching patters of behavior developed through years and months. Just no one got the guts do anything about it because, as Alex Bakharev nicely explains, Ghirlandajo did write 1000 articles.

Some examples of Ghirlandajo incivility:

• [83] putting in a nice pink box on top of his talk page that "The edits of established ghirlaphobes from Poland and former Polish dominions will be promptly removed, unless their proconsular leader is defrocked"
• [84] threatening to enforce the disclaimer described above in reply to a good faith questions on his recent edits, and accusing editor of trolling and nationalism
• [85] keeping up with his promise above
• [86] keeping up with his promise above.
• [87] accusing User:M.K of "Russophobic hand" when that particular sentence in the article came from 2004.
• [88] edit warring over his personal opinion on "reconstructed" or "recently built" castle

Some examples of POV edits:

• [89] defending POV phrasing: "These brilliant feats of arms — utterly unprecedented in Russo-Polish relations..."
• [90] removing external link and image that supports architect not being Russian
• [91] removing categories not to show he was French-Russian
• [92] describing Red Army military campaign as "walked across Polish borders"
• [93] and finally, recognizing his own POV on user page

He even thinks that he owns articles:

• [94] reverting "unexplained" edits, but this is Wikipedia where people are encouraged to edit freely, no?
• [95] revert warring on image placement (yes, he got blocked for that)
• [96] again, image layout
• [97] demanding to cite policy on changing image caption

While browsing through contributions, I did not seem to catch a single attempt to compromise, alter his original stand, to meet somewhere in between. He seems to have this "my way or the high way" notion. I urge ArbCom to see this case not as Ghirla vs Piotrus as originally presented, but Ghirla vs community. He has been a problem user for a very long time. I doubt anyone could argue that he is incivil. Yes, some like Alex, can and will point out to his numerous contributions, but is that a license to be a dick? Renata 17:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quick reply to Ghirla: I did ask you on your talk about one of the diffs I supplied. No response so far. As to "revenge" for Grand Duchy of Lithuania: I made not a single edit to that article and not a single diff I provided is about you editing that article. Here, again, Ghirla thinks he is being "hunted" for isolated incidents, when really these are patterns of behavour repeating again, and again, and again on different articles and Wikipedia namespace. Renata 15:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party Bishonen

I'm certainly not part of any group of users habitually defending Ghirlandajo; in fact in the only dialogue I've had with him, in April of this year, he was wounding and inconsiderate, and I've given him a wide berth ever since. Nevertheless, I urge arbcom to reject this case. In fact I urge Cowman109 to withdraw it. I believe, after a sampling of Ghirlandajo's more recent contributions, that he is already well on the way to communicating on-wiki with more consideration for others. (Or that he was, as the circumstances around his recent 3-hour block and around this RFAr will surely tend to the opposite effect.) The recent diffs posted by Cowman on ANI are IMO by no means personal attacks or incivilities, they're mere expressions of opinion in appropriate venues. I clicked on them lazily, expecting to have my preconceptions confirmed—"oh, yeah, Ghirlandajo, rude bugger"—and was astonished to see what kinds of edits are now being called "incivility and trolling". Please just look at them, Giano lays them out above. In the ANI discussion following on Cowman's list of diffs, some strong protests were lodged against the treatment of Ghirlandajo, and incomprehension was expressed of why these diffs were even being posted (a puzzlement I share). See especially the fully argued comment by Irpen on Tony Sidaway's actions ("dangereous, unwarranted and harmful", as italicized by Irpen). What Tony did was post a warning on User talk:Ghirlandajo that referred to the edits in question as "gross incivility and what appear to be trolling or deliberately inflammatory comments"[98] (IMO a provocative description) and then he blocked Ghirlandajo for this response. The block reason given is "Unreasonable and defiant response to request to tone down after multiple instances of gross incivility"[99] I'm flabbergasted by this. "Unreasonable" might equally well be applied to Tony's insistence that these edits are grossly incivil, and as for defiant, WTF? (That stands for "What The Flap-doodle".) Users don't get to defy admins now—that's a block reason? What are we, 19th-century headmasters at a really strict public school? If this kind of treatment "encourages" Ghirlandajo to be more civil, I'll eat my cascading style sheets—where's the realistic psychology? There is too much blocking for putative, subjectively defined (as there is no other way of defining them), "NPA violations", and it only seems to be getting worse. The idea of blocking an editor one finds abrasive in order to give him/her "time to cool down" or an "opportunity" for introspection or whatever (a notion also mooted in the recent User:Giano debacle) seems to me to be mere Newspeak, and just about equally patronizing as planting officious warning templates on established users. Did anybody ever improve in civility, let alone introspection, by being talked down to in this way?
The most important point I want to make is that I think Ghirlandajo had already seen the light and was being more congenial. That's the impression I've formed from a sampling of his recent contribs. Of course I may have missed stuff, but better-informed editors are saying the same thing above, I see. (See statement by Grafikm_fr). I believe that the complaints made at the old RFC which is listed as evidence above and which was brought in December 2005, are essentially obsolete. I would fully endorse Ghirlandajo's request for more recent evidence. Finally, it's not an admin job, or even an arbcom task, to fix people. Yes, Ghirlandajo probably does think the project needs him more than he needs it; yes, he goes on a lot about his contributions; yes, it's annoying; so? I'm annoying, you're annoying. Wikipedia is not the bed of Procrustes for reworking people's personalities all into the same approved mold. For instance, and this is just one minor example, we're not all Americans. There needs to be room in the project for a fiery Sicilian like Giano, a rancorous Swede like me, an... annoying Russian like Ghirla. To some of us, the dominant American/British wiki discourse (which I'll refrain from offering any stereotype of) can even be annoying in and of itself. More headroom, please. Bishonen | talk 19:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party user:Geogre

This is an absurdity wrapped in travesty. Unpleasant people are normal. People who are arrogant, abrasive, imperious, intemperate, and even malicious in their hearts are normal, and Wikipedia is not a project only for saints. There is no policy against being curt or even nasty. There are multiple policies against disruption of Wikipedia, and in this case the disruption is being caused by Tony Sidaway. It is not that I endorse any particular nastygram by Ghirla, but rather that the idea that dissenters are to be blocked and then arbitrated when they "don't get the message." The message is to be nice, effectively, since an honest statement of dissent is incivil. Those against Carnildo's reappointment are in "the minority," but RFA was never 50/50. The moving goal posts on his RFA have gotten several people to either leave or express outrage. If outrage is now a blockable offense, then leaving is the only option. There is a policy that says we don't attack each others' persons. That is all it says. Failure to please the administrators is no crime. Seeing administrators as being in a conspiracy is no crime. Only when we try to run with jackboots do we justify every malicious thing that our detractors can say, and this case gives every wild eyed opponent of Wikipedia's administration the perfect justification because it is absolute evidence. Geogre 20:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party user:Mzajac

Perhaps there is no way to know that Ghirlandajo's behaviour has driven any editors away from Wikipedia, but for several months I have chosen to edit in topics where he is not active, and actively avoid participating in any discussion where conflict with him is likely. His extremely unpleasant manner of participating in disputes is hard to take, and I could certainly see how it could cause other editors to withhold contributions. I'm glad to see things have been improving. —Michael Z. 2006-09-08 18:48 Z

Statement by uninvolved party Fred-Chess

I hesitated to post this, becase I feel that people leave Wikipedia on their own behalf, and not because of others.

But since it is repeatedly questioned whether anyone has left Wikipedia because of Ghirla, I will point my finger towards User:Wiglaf -- an administrator with 10k+ edits -- who left Wikipedia in December 2005. His Special:Contributions/Wiglaf makes it obvious why he left.

Statement by uninvolved party by User:R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine)

Normally, I try to stay as far away from the meat-grinder known as Arbcomm as humanly possible. But the defendant known as Ghirla, has invoked not only my name but that of my departed friend and one of my wiki-mentors, Wiglaf. Fred Chess' above comments are correct, Ghirla was in no way responsible for Wiglaf's departure nor was Molobo. While they certainly did not give him reason to stick around, neither did they drive him off.

• Second point, Ghirla and I are not friends. Like many here, he and I have had our differences in the past. Sometimes unpleasant, heated exchanges in which certain derrogatory terms have been traded. I blame him no more than myself (afterall it takes two to Tango, right?). I quite frankly find him a boorish Russian nationalist. He doubtless views myself as an Ugly American redneck. But so what?! At the end of the day we don't hate eachother...we tolerate eachother, we agree to disagree and we respect eachother as editors, scholars and gentlemen. We see beyond our differences of opinion, personality and nationality and put up with eachother because we realize that having us both here makes this place and this project better than if one of us departs on account of the other. Which leads to my-

• Third point, Ghirla does damn good work, and he does A LOT of it. Even his foes must acknowledge this. Overlooking, downplaying or ignoring this fact, is shortsighted and (in my POV) foolish. The defendant's personality should not be allowed to overshadow this fact. in fact, many of the best writers,both here and out there on earth where it really matters, are opinionated, outspoken, contentious, cranky, ill-tempered assholes. Bishonen makes this point quite well above.

• Point the Forth, "You can't take away peoples' right to be assholes". If you don't know where that quote is from, I suggest you go see Demolition Man (film)...go ahead I'll wait till you're done. And when you try to take that right away you only make things worse.

• Point Number Five, is more of a question really, why is Ghirla really here? Because he is a churlish Russian Bear? Or because, like Karmafist, he's an outspoken opponent of the increasingly authoritarian , heavy handed and (dare I say) arbitrary power structure here on Wiki:en? Surely if edit warring and disruption are the charges, why isn't User:Molobo here? If having, as someone (not me, unfortunately) once described, A "temper like a harvest combine inside an orphanage", is a crime, then why isn't User:Kelly Martin here (again)? Both are just as guilty, but are far less productive contributors than Ghirla, which to my mind makes them more expendable for the good of the project and the community. If you must have a witch hunt, try going after the real witches for a change.

• Point (not a number!) Six, this project really does need Ghirla and his like more than they need it. That he is here now, represents a failure of all the normal channels of mediation, dispute resolution and community building. Taking punitive action against him for any of the above "sins", would only further compound these failures.

But, if Wikipedia desires to shoot itself in the foot once more, who are we to stand in the way. Trying to roll this here growing boulder upside an increasingly steep and rocky mountain is getting tiresome. There is enough knowledge and talent involved in this Arbcomm case alone to start our own Wiki. And we will learn from the mistakes and maybe get it right this time, by creating a community and project where knowledge and good writing are welcomed and rewarded (Wow what a concept!). So either learn to put up with us, as we put up with you, or bid farewell to "an annoying Russian", "a fiery Sicilian", "a rancorous Swede" and "a lazy, mildly dyslexic AADD afflicted bastard, with a Scots/Irish temper, courtesy of my ancestors which has been deep fried by a Southern climate and upbringing Y'all." Hmm maybe if we do start our own Wiki, we should call ourselves the Disgruntled Wikipedians' Breakfast Club BTW, I'm only half joking...but which half?--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 08:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A query from Mackensen

It's unclear from the above if this request concerns Piotrius and the Russo-Turkish War or Tony Sidaway and Carnildo's RfA. I'm having real difficulty imagining a case that includes both. Could someone wiser than I explain what the hell is going on? Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 01:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party by Dbachmann

as per Bish above, I urge arbcom members to reject this request. No coherent case is built. Ghirla is an extremely productive editor (40,000 edits?); yes, his behaviour has been problematic in the past; for all I know, it has improved significantly. A stale rfc from last December does not build an arbcom case, and I take it the arbcom has more pressing duties than generally reviewing and judging the sum of a user's 40,000 edits. If there is any recent, urgent matter, let Cowman submit another to-the-point rfc first. Presenting diffs such as these [100] [101] as "evicence", as Cowman does, seems to indicate wikistalking on Cowman's part rather than any misbehaviour (let alone RfAr-able offences) on Ghirla's. dab (ᛏ) 09:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party Peripatetic

I've had very little interaction with Ghirlandajo, maybe a couple of times back in February when I worked on a couple of Russian articles. But as far as Wikipedia is concerned, this man is worth his weight in gold. Whether it's quality of articles or quantity of edits, it's hard to beat what he has contributed to WP. What we need is more editors like Ghirlandajo and less of the ponderous bureaucracy that seems to have mushroomed in WP over time. More creators of high-quality content and fewer chatterboxes and hangers-on would be a positive for the project. It'll be a sad day if Ghirla ever decides to pack up here and go off to RU:WP. --Peripatetic 17:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Halibutt

Firstly, having been conflicted with Ghirlandajo over a variety of issues in the past I'm not that uninvolved, but I believe hardly anyone is. And especially people who have ever came in touch with Ghirlandajo. Anyway, as has been pointed during the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ghirlandajo, he is a good editor, with great knowledge and ability to share it. I can recall hundreds of his articles on Russia's historical landmarks, towns or people, and most of them were good at the very least.

However, he has a huge problem with dealing with people and especially so if anyone disagrees with him. It seems to me that when in conflict over some issue, the most natural reaction for him is to jump to personal remarks, offences, accusations, name-calling and other such uncivil remarks. Typically, his reaction to anything he disagrees with is somewhere between soflty unpleasant and downright offensive, even to new editors new to Wikipedia. It seems to me that he's seen the light, which in his own eyes justifies any kind of behaviour and any kind of vocabulary. //Halibutt 06:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. As to people leaving Wikipedia because of Ghirlandajo's incivility, I guess this comment might shed some light on why did User:Rydel leave. //Halibutt P.S. II As to what R.D.H. wrote above in his point (not a number) six, I'm not sure that the failure of processes that were meant to change Ghirlandajo's ways could be blamed entirely on the processes themselves. Imagine a criminal going out of jail and then committing the very same crime again. Sure, it is a failure of the entire process of re-education, but it's the guy to go to jail again, not the chief warden. //Halibutt

Response to Statement by Halibutt by Grafikm_fr

Well, in the light of recent events, I just thought it would be nice to dot the "i"s about someone leaving because of another.

Take this nice diff: [102]

Written by Renata (party to this case, incidentally):

I have decided just to simply fuck it, and tell the nasty and ugly truth: the only solution out of this nonsense is for someone to quit. So let me make the start. (...) Hali, good luck on further destruction of Lithuanian community on WP. And yes, I do have the balls to say: I DO have a problem with Halibutt.

Do you know the story of the kettle who accused another object which name escapes me of being black? Well, we have kinda a similar one here, with Halibutt accusing Ghirla of making some editors leave... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ALoan

I was not involved in the alleged historical issues with Ghirlandajo. However, I believe these should stay where they are, in the past. The question is how he behaves now and in the future.

From what I can see, the worst that can be said of his behaviour now is that he does not mince his words, and he does not suffer fools gladly. If that requires an ArmCom case, then so be it, but I would invite the ArbCom to also investigate the surrounding circumstances, and, in particular, the recent block by Tony Sidaway (ignoring a block at the end of July that was quickly reversed, his second block this year). Do any of the cited links show any evidence of the alleged "gross incivility" complained of? Does an "unreasonable and defiant response" to an admin (while not accepting that that was an accurate characterisation of his response: indignant, I would call it) justify a block for 3 hours?

I have written before that "Wikipedia is not maiden aunts' tea party. We debate issues fully, frankly and robustly; and we should not be afraid to express our views (within the accepted policies) for fear that others may get attacks of the vapours. Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, and that goes just as much, if not more, for talk page and user talk pages." This was in reponse to a suggestion that Giano should be blocked for one month, not because of anything he had done, but pour encourager les autres. I hope this is not a similar case. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party Errabee

In real life, nationalism abounds in both Poland and Russia. These sentiments are bound to occur on Wikipedia. Recently, we've had a number of pro-Polish and/or anti-Russian conflicts on Wikipedia and Commons. This RfAr seems to be at least partly due to this same phenomenon, attacking the most prominent pro-Russian member. By accepting this RfAr, the ArbCom would succumb to this Polish nationalist movement. I therefore urge the ArbCom to consider very carefully if they should accept this RfAr. Ghirlandajo's recent actions, especially those mentioned by Renata, must be seen in the context of extreme Polish POV pushing, which he is trying to fight. Errabee 23:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to point out that comments like above were exactly the root of problems we had with Ghirla in the past - problems, which I'd like to stress, seem to have diminished now (as I state above). I'd like to take this opportunity to state that the above comment, completly unfounded and serving only to antagonize and create divisions and conflict between nationalities,is quite uncivil and I hope arbitrators and other readers of this topic will reprimmand Errabee for it - less in a few months we deal with RfArb about that user. PS. To be clear: as a Polish editor of Wikipedia I feel quite offended by the above remark.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How is this unfounded? In the last month alone we've had the move of Polish September Campaign to Invasion of Poland (1939), the Anarchist League of Ingria and other Ingria related topics, anti-Russia sentiments at Talk:Vilnius and the proposed deletion of the {{PD-Soviet}} template and that's only what I remember. I don't seem to remember any pro-Russian movements, whereas anti-Russia sentiments are abundant. Renata's so-called evidence, especially ones like these (her third example of POV edits), is a complete travesty. Removing a French-Russian category is not POV when his family lives in Russia for almost 200 years (remained there after Napoleontic war of 1812). The presenting of that kind of evidence (and the whole way this RfArb is presented) creates divisions and conflict between nationalities. Mine was simply a statement of fact, not unfounded as I've proven, and certainly not meant to antagonize. And as a last note, speaking in soccer terms, asking for a yellow card is not nice and I am quite offended by your comments. Errabee 10:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not an expert on anti-Russian sentiments on Wiki, and from he examples you give above I am familiar only with the case of movement of PSC to IoP(39), which was done through a proper WP:RM procedure and certainly not with any 'anti-Russian' intention (nor outcome). What I found offending in your post was the suggestion that there is some 'Polish nationalist movement' (WP:CABAL anyone?), and that Poles are prosecuting Russians on Wikimedia projects. PS. Considering that this RfA was not initiated by the Polish editors, and the two who spoke here (me and Halibutt) seem (IMHO) to be taking a neutral stance, your assertion that the 'Polish nationalist movement' is trying to influence ArbCom with this RfArb is pretty bizzare (and offensive).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party MBuk

Just a shor rhetoric questions to all who advocates here Ghirla:

• Should active and valuable contribution to WP be considered as an exuse for insulting other users, breaking the basic WP policy WP:NPOV, refusing to discuss the differences with othe contributors, edit warring, etc.?--Mbuk 17:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

• Threaded dialog removed: wait for the case to be accepted and you'll have all the rebuttal opportunities you ever might want. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC) (acting as assistant clerk)[reply]
• removed threaded dialog from Renata's statement. Each party comments go into their own statements. -- Drini 18:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Threaded comment removed; add rebuttals to own section. --FloNight 12:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/1/1/2)

• Recuse, but urge acceptance per my statement on ANI. Dmcdevit·t 00:21, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Accept Fred Bauder 17:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Accept. - SimonP 19:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• A comment, for now. I am unsure whether or not to accept. I do believe a case could be made; the phrase I keep hearing as noted above is "he is a prolific and valuable editor but..." The "but" happens to be a large one; I have seen from Ghirlandajo, consistently, comments that make me wince at their abrasiveness, and no one, no matter how otherwise good an editor, should be making them. And yet this is a somewhat incoherent case and not a strong one, with no real specific incident to pin down. In light of comments that he has been making conscious efforts to tone it down, no vote for now; if this is truly the case I would far rather see it continue than set these wheels in motion. Perhaps an alternative to arbcom could be considered, with a reconsideration of the request if this is not sufficient? Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm with Mindspillage on this. Charles Matthews 09:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Reject, but echoing Kat's concerns. James F. (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for clarification from the Committee on matters related to the Arbitration process. Place new requests at the top.

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Intangible (encore)

I have asked for a clarification on my arbitration [103], but got no response there, so I will try it here. My comment was:

Intangible 10:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eternal Equinox:request for clarification of clarification

There is a new ruling that Eternal Equinox, aka User:Velten is limited to a single account; and after a lot of carry-on (some of it appears at the foot of this section), she seemed resigned to following it. However, today she again edited anonymously, supporting herself at Promiscuous (song) and making this sneaky revert. There was no apology or "oops, forgot to log in" or anything of that nature, in fact the IP had already been used for another edit four minutes earlier. I assume not very much good-faith forgetfulness in this case. (I know, I know, but with respect, the arbcom hasn't already spent as much good faith on the editor as I have.) She apparently "foresaw" herethat it would happen soon, even though I can't say I can remember the diligent Eternal Equinox (etc) persona having any tendency to forget to log in. Anyway. Does the ruling have any teeth? It doesn't specify any penalties for editing anonymously. Can she be blocked for it? If not, I foresee she soon won't log in at all. (As above, on the good faith already spent.) Bishonen | talk 19:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kehrli

just a quick note that now that User:Kehrli is banned from editing m/z or presumedly articles about mass spectrometry, he is now moving on to export his cranky beliefs onto physical constant and to dimensionless number (although i agree with him that renaming it dimensionless quantity was a good idea). but he has some personal pet theory that dimensionful physical constants are essentially equivalent to dimensionless fundamental physical constants which is contrary to the present widely accepted state of physics. we (User:Army1987 and i) have reverted his factually incorrect changes to both articles and have tried to reason with him from multiple angles and his responses is to say without any content that our explanation supports his fallacious position, to misrepresent our positions and repeat the misconception as if nothing was ever written by any of us to explain what was wrong with it. he is basically repeating that the widely accepted wisdom is a misconception and then replacing it with his own misconception. i think he is trolling, but am not entirely sure. i am sure he's a crank. i have now tired of dealing with him, but if he tries to reinsert this junk, i'm afraid an edit war will ensue. i need help from admins who are real physicists to be able to examine Kehrli's claims (which he tries to make sound reasonable, but they are fundamentally misconceived). r b-j 19:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Intangible

Please see this WP:AN/I discussion regarding my involvement in this case. The general feeling, it seems, is that this case needs to be revisited for the following reasons:

1. I was never informed that I was a party to the case;
2. neither I nor any other editor could thereby provide evidence in my defense;
3. no evidence to which I could respond was presented against me;
4. and the action taken against me did not have the support of the required majority.

Thank you, in advance, for your time and consideration. Best wishes, --AaronS 01:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: I shall be very inactive until 30 September (preparing my thesis, taking GRE, and applying to grad schools). If it is decided that this issue should be re-examined, please keep this in mind. Better yet, feel free to keep this on the backburner and deal with more pressing problems for the time being. --AaronS 03:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The evidence was your edit warring and prior blocks. Please offer actual reasoning why you should not be on probation, rather than procedural arguments against how it was done. Dmcdevit·t 04:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If that is the evidence, here is my short response: two of the administrators who blocked me for WP:3RR have since re-examined their decisions and regretted them.[104][105]The first block was deserved, but I had violated 3RR inadvertently. I discussed the situation with the admin who blocked me, and he lifted the block, because I was at the time doing a lot of work to improve the New England article. I stayed away from anarchism for a while, because it is truly a difficult page to work with.

One always walks a thin line while trying to improve controversial articles. I have had the benefit of working with several excellent editors from all sides of the ideological spectrum. In fact, I'm amazed at how some people can have such strong feelings about either side of an issue and still work together and reach compromises through civil discussion. This is how things usually proceed at anarchism when a few inflammatory editors are not around -- namely, User:RJII, User:Thewolfstar, and User:Hogeye and their various admitted or proven socks. When they or their sock puppets are involved, things usually get heated up very quickly, and that's when edit wars start to crop up.

I try to avoid edit wars as best as possible. When I revert, I try my damnedest to revert without edit warring. Or, I only revert sock puppets of banned users, suspected or proven. I should note that I rarely revert people who are simply suspected of being sock puppets, unless they have come from out of nowhere and are making the same edits or arguments as a recently banned user without any discussion (see User:That'sHot and User:DTC). As soon as they start engaging in discussion, I don't care whether or not they are sock puppets, and am happy to have them on board as long as they play nicely. If a sock puppet is obliged to edit in the best interests of the article, then there's no harm done. Unfortunately, their talk page discussions tend to descend into some nasty stuff.

In conclusion, with an examination of the current evidence, if I were to be put on probation it would be for nothing more than having a one deserved 3RR violation block on my record, a block that was soon lifted. I am a helpful, cordial, friendly editor, and quick to apologize to those whom I have wronged. I do not like edit warring, and find it pointless. It achieves nothing. I don't mean that philosophically, either. I mean that literally. What an article says right now doesn't matter, so long as there are other people who think that it shouldn't say that, and who can back up their claims with verifiable, reliable sources. At the same time, socks of banned users should be reverted, if only because they are a nuisance. I also do not edit tendentiously. Very few of my edits are controversial, and they are usually either (a) common opinion or (b) backed up with sources.

I think that you will find that most of my edits are useful, and that all of the editors who get along well here also get along well with me. People need to work on controversial articles like anarchism, and those articles need to be watched; however, it is very difficult, time-consuming, and sometimes frustrating.

Lastly, if there were 11 arbitrators in the beginning, and 1 recused himself/herself, then 6 is still the majority; 6 is the majority in a group of 10, and 5 would only be half. Forgive me if I'm using the wrong numbers, but if I am not, then this whole discussion seems rather moot. --AaronS 13:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The abstention of User:SimonP from Remedy 3 was treated in the same manner as a recusal, reducing the majority for that motion to 5. The motion passed. Evidence was presented demonstrating that AaronS was blocked for edit warring, and a Finding to that effect was made in the case. I regret that neither the arbitrators nor the clerks informed AaronS that probation was being considered in his case. This was an oversight. --Tony Sidaway 04:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, since Aaron is currently busy, I will try to do what I can to explain why he should not be on probation. As you know, his first block was overturned after he explained the situation. The blocking admin in the second case later apologized and said they wouldn't have blocked had they had more information at the time of the block, but since the block had already expired by that time he was never unblocked. [106] It appears as if the blocking admin from the third block may feel the same way, although they didn't explicitly say they wouldn't have blocked, but I think it was implied. See for yourself and decide I guess. [107]. Anyways, most of the edit warring that happens at the anarchism articles is due to users who are now indefinitely blocked, or sockpuppets of those users before they are blocked themselves for being socks. A lot of outsiders don't realize this, so users like Aaron will occassionally be blocked. It's understandable, and it usually gets resolved without a problem. I personally think probation is inappropriate in his case, especially considering he was never even notified. The way I see it, the case for Aaron needs to be reopened. Some of the original supporting voters may change their minds after hearing Aaron's side of this. I'm not sure Tony if your post above is meant as a way of saying the case is closed and won't be reopened, but if so, that is not right. You shouldn't be able to decide whether Aaron still should be on probation since you (nor anyone else) can unilaterally put a user under probation. Aaron's part of the case needs to be re-voted on to maintain basic fairness. The Ungovernable Force 06:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just a clerk so I wouldn't be involved in the decision on whether to re-open. However as a clerk I rummaged around in the case and came up with what I thought might be relevant detail. --Tony Sidaway 06:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, just wanted to make sure. It sounded like you were turning it down without saying so explicitly. Thanks for the clarification. Ungovernable Force^{Got something to say?} 07:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Irishpunktom

Admins are discussing here whether they will be enforcing Remedy 7.3.1, "Irishpunktom and Dbiv are banned from editing Peter Tatchell for one year" with respect to Dbiv. Admin and ArbCom clerk Tony Sidaway has, in fact, said outright that he would "stop trying to enforce this remedy", saying that Ignore all rules applies here. [108] Is non-enforcement optional or dependent on the quality of the edits, or is this a bright-line ruling? --Calton | Talk 01:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's my personal opinion, made as a Wikipedia editor. My role as an arbitration committee clerk means that sometimes things I say may be misinterpreted, and I apologise for unintentionally misleading anybody into thinking that my opinion is worth more than anybody else's. I only meant (and I said as much) that I had decided that I myself would cease attempting to enforce the remedy. I object to no other administrator who enforces it and I will take no action to challenge enforcement (I also said as much). As far as I'm concerned this remedy is a fully enforceable arbitration ruling, equal to any other arbitration ruling in its legitimacy. --Tony Sidaway 02:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no trouble, I really don't care either. Fred Bauder 17:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sathya Sai Baba

Statement by Andries

1. Does not linking to purportedly unreliable websites also include the homepages of critics with their own articles of Sathya Sai Baba e.g. Robert Priddy (see [109]), Basava Premanand, M. Alan Kazlev (see here [110] one of the webpages on the website authored, owned, and maintaind by Kazlev, linked to in his Wikipedia article), Sanal Edamaruku, Babu Gogineni, the late Abraham Kovoor, and the late H._Narasimhaiah. SeeWikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/#Robert_Priddy for a description of this dispute.
2. Does not linking to unreliable website also include wikipedia user pages such as user:Andries See [111]
3. Do unreliable websites also include the websites created and maintained by user:SSS108 especially for Wikipedia. In certain cases such as this one [112] the webpages on this website are simply copies that SSS108 took from the webpages of exbaba.com [113]
4. Is it okay to use webpages with copies of reputable sources on purportedly unreliable websites as convenenience links in the references. See e.g. here [114]
5. User:SSS108 removed a lot of information from the article talk page [115] that I had moved from the article [116] to the talk page [117]. In spite of my request to do so he did not justify in specifics why this removal was either justified by WP:BLP or the arbcom decision regarding posting external links. I object to mass removals of information from the talk page that are not motivated in specific terms if and where it violates WP:BLP or the arbcom decision. SSS108 stated the intention to remove more of my future comments from the talk page [118] Is SSS108’s or my behaviour a violation of talk page etiquette?

Andries 13:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC) added one more clarification request 17:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SSS108

Regarding Points 1-4:

I would like to point out that the Geocities site that Andries is now complaining about was created, with his consent and agreement, in mediation with BostonMA: Reference. In the past 6 months, Andries has never complained about the content (or ownership) on the Geocities site although the Geocities site is completely neutral, cannot be traced to either Pro/Anti Sathya Sai Baba Sites and whose content has never been disputed by Andries for the past 6 months.

Andries is now having a change of heart and is wishing to link references to his and other Anti-Sathya-Sai-Baba sites in violation of a clearly stated ruling by ArbCom that forbids this: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sathya Sai Baba. It is also important to point out that since all these references come from reliable sources (newspapers, documentaries or magazines) they are not "owned" or copyright protected to Anti-Sai Sites. The material in question cannot be claimed by Andries as his own and was never originally published on Anti-Sai sites.

Andries entire argument is moot in light of the ArbCom ruling. Andries is unremittingly attempting to link to his Anti-Sai site so he can push his Anti-Sathya-Sai-Baba agenda. Why is he so insistent that the links go to his personal, critical, partison and controversial website when there is a neutral one that does not push anyone's agenda? That is the question that is at the heart of this matter. To further illustrate this point, Andries feels that slanderous pages are entirely appropriate on Wikipedia. See Reference where Andries stated, "re-insert homepage of the subject in question robert priddy can slander on his own article whoever he likes". It is disturbing comments like these that prove that Andries has a keen agenda to push on Wikipedia.

Even today (Sept. 9th), Andries made a highly questionable edit where media articles (which were determined to violate WP:NOT) were moved from the Article to the Talk Page: Reference. This was discussed in arbitration (Reference), in which I stated that Andries was using the talk pages to promote his Anti-Sai agenda.

I have also agreed to hand the Geocities site over to a neutral 3rd party. If anyone is willing to take over this Geocities site and assume responsibility for its upkeep (and update it accordingly, as needed), I will gladly hand the site over. I stated this when the site was created.

Andries has been trying to change Wikipedia policy on the Wikipedia:Citing_sources (see history) page so that he can push links to Anti-Sai websites (including his own) on Wikipedia: Reference. I posted on the thread on September 7th: Reference. Andries conceded that this argument preceded the ArbCom ruling and was unrelated to the ArbCom case (Reference). What is strange about this is that despite his former comments, Andries was attempting to cite this very same argument (from the Wikipedia:Citing_sources page) that he was using to defend the inclusion of links to his Anti-Sai Sites: See FloNight's Thread. Also see Tony Sidaway's Thread.

Regarding Point 5: :See Thread on my talk page where I gave reasons for removing this information.

Finally, the policy might be different on pages that have not had an ArbCom ruling, however, it is my contention that since ArbCom made a ruling specific to the Sathya Sai Baba articles, the general policy must be interpreted in association with the ArbCom ruling. Thank you. SSS108 ^talk-email 14:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tony Sidaway

I want to comment here on my dual role in this matter. My first response on this was that it seemed to be a matter for administrators to resolve, and I investigated as an administrator and warned Andries politely in my role as an administrator that in my view and that of other admins he was contravening the ruling in the arbitration case.

Andries has come back politely with what amount, in my view, to clear signals that he requires much closer direction on this matter. I suggested that clarification from the arbitrators might be a good way of resolving this matter, and his query here is the response. Andries has shown by his responses and actions that he is eager and willing to comply with the arbitration and in my role as a clerk I commend his queries to the Committee, While this is clearly a dispute that could have become very rancorous, it seems to me that Andries is doing his best to avoid that path and seek clarification. I also commend SSS108 for his civility in the course of expressing a difference of opinion in a forthright and honest manner.

I hope that this is not "crossing the streams". I hope it's clear that my views as an administrator and as a clerk are quite distinct. My regard for both participants here is very high. Their honesty and civility is impressive. --Tony Sidaway 02:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eternal Equinox limited to one account

This was originally posted under motions in prior cases, but only arbitrators can make such motions. I guess this amounts to be a request for clarification or further action in the Eternal Equinox case. A motion was subsequently passed. --Tony Sidaway 23:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Eternal Equinox came back a few days ago, editing her favorite articles as an anon, from her trademark range. She has already amassed a fairly impressive log of blocks and bans The user is editing by ArbCom permission, she's not banned; so could that permission be made conditional on her creating an account and being limited to using that only? I think I saw her claim a while back that she has munged the Eternal Equinox password--IIRC--but she could obviously easily create a new name account. The floating cloud of IPs she's using makes it very difficult to keep track of her edits and infractions, to block her (I got collateral damage on the brief range block I imposed last night) and to communicate with her. Bishonen | talk 14:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I am fairly sick and tired of all this. I returned on September 5, 2006. It's now September 10, 2006 and I've amassed five bans/blocks. Pretty ridiculous-sounding for six days of editing. There seems to be a problem here, which is that the Arbitration ruling has gotten to those users who still won't leave me alone (Bishonen, Bunchofrapes, etc.). They are abusing the ruling as an excuse to block me whenever they feel it appropriate. In these five cases:

1. Bunchofgrapes blocked me for edit-warring with another user and refers to my edits of debate and discussion as "disruptive". Extraordinary Machine and I have been trying to achieve consensus — which is working — but Bunchofgrapes interfered with the excuse that I was being disruptive. Where am I disrupting?
2. Second ban/block: I declined the ban because it was obnoxious and ridiculous. Bishonen comes along and begins abusing the ruling by banning me because of my comments and why I thought it was unfair. This suggests to me that whatever they say is going to happen; that won't be.
3. Third ban/block: I stated that the ban at Cool (song) was insincere and I would continue editing it since I was trying to resolve issues that have been coming along pleasantly. (See the process on the talk page.) Of course, Bunchofgrapes bans the IP for "violating" his "ban".
4. Fourth ban/block: Extraordinary Machine, the user in question of the discussion at Cool (song) resets the ban, perhaps presumably to avoid discussing and achieving consensus. This suggests that he wants his edits to remain when I found some of them questionable. But the process is going well, like I've said.
5. Fifth ban/block: The most abusive actions taken of the ArbCom ruling was this one. I was trying to post a response on Talk:Cool (song), when suddenly I've been blocked. When I see that it's Bishonen, I cussed a lot at her, especially since this "ban" was absolutely notorious. What she claims here is almost entirely false.

• She says that I "repeatedly piddled" with the images on Simon Byrne. Utter nonsense; I edited twice here and here. Editing twice is not "repeatedly piddling" with an article. I was first reverted by Sagaciousuk for not providing an edit summary (which I'd forgotten). I said okay and went back and provided an edit summary. Bishonen then "magically" appears two minutes later and claims that I was toying with the image and claims I was "trolling". My browser indeed does have an image-display problem, and decreasing it by a single pixel would have made it the appropriate size for my monitor. She ignored this, but my main concern is that she is 100% convinced that I edited the article because it was authored by Giano. I detest Giano and had no idea that he'd edited this article. A few days before Belton House was on the main page; I knew he'd edited this article and didn't bother with it because I knew Bishonen would come up with an excuse. So when Simon Byrne appeared on the main page only a few days later, I didn't think twice that an article authored by the same user would appear soon after (this is something that should become official on Wikipedia). I didn't even make a major edit to the article and she says I was trolling. Two edits is not trolling, especially since I was first reverted for not providing an edit summary and because the user who reverted me does not have any affiliation to me. I had no idea Giano wrote most of the article until afterwards checking the history. Here is the "fifth ban", which is very misleading.

There is a problem with this ArbCom ruling and adjustments will have to be made in order to ensure that these users do not abuse it the way they have been. Also, I will absolutely not create an account since I'm only editing Wikipedia on occasion now. This is Hollow Wilerding, which you have been told (and obviously received the e-mail for since you wrote my name in one of the "bans"). I'll be sure to tell E.E. that you're failing to respond to him. Hollow Wilerding 17:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I second Bishonen's request to limit this person or persons to one account, and would request that an Arbitrator propose such a motion as an additional remedy. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:31, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have made the motion, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Dmcdevit·t 18:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've made myself quite clear: I will not access accounts. Also, don't abuse the ArbCom ruling. 64.231.113.136 22:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that rather than choose a logged-in account and stick to it you intend to use a variety of IPs? --Tony Sidaway 00:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because I edit a few times per day now, unlike beforehand (which was very many), I choose to edit from an IP-only account. 64.231.154.178 21:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That reasoning is not sufficient. In fact, it does not even logically follow that editing anonymously is more useful for lower level of activity. However, it is a lot easier to violate article bans when you are a changing IP. Dmcdevit·t 22:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It may not be sufficient to you, but it certainly is to me. 64.231.153.78 20:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you guys believe us now, huh? Here you have the Hollow Wilerding demeanour in a nutshell. I request permission to ban her for more than a week from pages she disrupts. "Up to a week" is a feeble remedy for this editor. Bishonen | talk 21:36, 12 September 2006 (UTC).[reply]

This is not for you to determine or request; since the RFAr is effective, you are to operate it as stated. Abusing it, as you currently have been (blocking for trolling? What trolling?) is disruptive enough. Most of my edits since September 5 have been neutral and what you establish as "disruptive" has been far less than that. My last edit has nothing to do with "the others believing you now"; I stated that editing anonymously is sufficient to me because I'm not editing as much anymore (which was stated in an edit a bit further up); this is my second edit today. 64.231.153.78 02:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Given the above I suggest that any IP editor from Canada (especially but not restricted to Sympatico in the Toronto area) that disrupts articles in a recognizable manner should get a one-week anon-only block. Thatcher131 14:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How biased and full of nonsense. 64.231.152.103 19:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I endorse Thatcher 131's proposal. I dislike banns and blocks intensely but for this number/person I realistically see no option. Giano | talk 20:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to Bishonen, she can block a disruptive editor for as long as seems reasonable. Arbitration probations are permissive with respect to administrator action; they are not intended to limit administrator action. Consult on WP:AN. --Tony Sidaway 20:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A reasonable period of time seems appropriate. I will complain if she intends on blocking for non-disruptive and purely discussion-related material, however. Also, "one week" does not apply to Talk:Cool (song), which is solely discussion (as of now). 64.231.152.103 21:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eternal Equinox is inaccessible. If you want me to create a new account, it will have an entirely new name. 64.231.119.5 23:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will make an exception to the "treat as banned" to reply to this. That's fine. The arbitrators already said that's fine. Please tell us what your new name is after it is created. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is the new account. I don't want Bishonen, Bunchofgrapes or Giano posting on the talk page unless strictly necessary. Also, any unfair blocks will be discussed; edit-warring is not "disruptive" if it's progessrive. I want them to acknowledge this and stop abusing the RFAR. That's all. I have nothing more to say. By the way, you'll need to pardon me if I accidentally editing anonymously without realizing it (because I'm sure most of us have done this). Veltron 01:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, this is unacceptable. Posting on my talk page is not trolling. I'm utterly confused at admin actions at this point. Veltron 01:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Only Arbitrators may make such motions)

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rejected requests (extremely sparse, selective, and unofficial)