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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Last April, User:Thomas Basboll was banned [1] from articles and talk pages related to the September 11 attack. Since then he's hardly done anything else, limiting his work to user pages. He's always civil and articulate; individual edits can seem reasonable. But his goal here has been and remains to get the truth out about the collapse of the World Trade Center. Whatever his motivation, no matter how he describes or intends his edits, their invariable result has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'. He has shown no interest in contributing in any other area; he's banned from that area; he continues his work in a sandbox, and invites others to edit on his behalf. [2] If encouraging others to apply edits he can't make himself doesn't violate the letter of his topic ban it's at least contrary to its purpose, and continually beating the drum for the 9/11 conspiracy theories is a continuing disruption. Tom Harrison Talk 14:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Update: I have decided withdraw my opposition to this request, shut down the sandbox experiment, and stop interacting with editors.-- Thomas Basboll ( talk) 04:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure an all out arbitration is necessary. If the topic-ban applies to user talk pages and my own sandbox then I am in the wrong and will stop immediately. If it does not, I think Tom Harrison needs to provide a bit more evidence that, on balance, the "invariable result [of my edits] has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'". In the one case where a user has objected to my use of his talk page, I have respected that wish, but otherwise my suggestions have been met with understanding and have been implemented (or not) as the user I contacted chose. I have not asked users to edit "on my behalf"; I have pointed out errors in articles to them and sometimes suggested prose that I believed could express an idea they were defending in talk discussions. I'm really am just trying to help.--
Thomas Basboll (
talk) 14:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The ban against Thomas Basboll had been based on reasons "described by Jehochman" [4]. However, Jehochman has advised Thomas Basboll as follows: "I think it might be worthwhile to write a crisp version of the article in your sandbox ..." [5]. So this is, in my opinion, best left to the community to sort out, at this point of time. -- Cs32en ( talk) 14:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
More of the same...Basboll has been topic banned from editing all pages related to the events surrounding 9/11...this includes conspiracy pages, where he has been an advocate. Arbcom may not be familiar with this issue, but I surely am, and our server space is not to be used to sidestep topic bans using personal sandboxes or others usertalk to rally a cause for which one has been topic banned...topic bans should mean just that...one is banned from the topic, regardless of the location. I have stated repeatedly that AFTER Basboll was topic banned that, based on his obvious articulateness, that he must be educated and surely...surely, he could and should help out with other areas that are not related to those he is topic banned from. I tried to encourage him to do so...but instead, he continues his fixation on this subject matter...though of course, outside main article space. WP:MEAT applies in this case...a topic banned editor, especially one who has been known to advocate fringe theories, shouldn't be encouraging others of similar POV [6] and discouraging those that base their work on known evidence...as Basboll did to me here...which resulted in my asking him to avoid my usertalk if he was going to use it for his 9/11 issues. Furthermore, major collaborative pieces should be worked on in article space in my opinion...creating sandboxes pages when we already have working long standing pages that can be improved only allows topic banned people a way to avoid sanction from being topic banned...
So can arbcom help clarify for Mr. Basboll what a topic ban implies and maybe succeed where I failed and encourage him to find some other topic to edit? I'm hoping that this is the case...-- MONGO 00:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
In response to Jehochman below...though I surely appreciate that we don't want to suppress beliefs, Basboll is topic banned...that means banned from editing on that topic...as far as I can see, that means we don't allow them to use likewise thinking fellow editor's usertalks to rally support for their POV, especially a POV that is based on fringe theories that undermine the factual encyclopedic integrity of our articles. Furthermore, setting up sandboxes to update sections, write new articles or alter existing ones related to what the editor is topic banned from seems to be a breach of the purpose of the topic ban...so we have millions of other articles...Wikipedia exists for Mr. Basboll as a platform to advocate his fringe beliefs regarding 9/11...he has had almost zero other interest in any other area...if he can't find another area to edit and repeatedly violates his topic ban...why is he here anymore?-- MONGO 03:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Examples where he has been approaching others to alter edits and or comment in articles he is topic banned from...to be fair, some of these are from those he does not share a POV with... [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [ here he comments at arbcom enforcement regarding the same topic he is topic banned for [13], here he tells one of his fellow (to put it nicely) alternative theorists all about me... [14], here he tries to defend a fellow 9/11 conspiracy theorist that is blocked [15]...I can easily produce more examples of Mr. Basboll violating his topic ban. More needs to be done to tell these single purpose accounts to go find another playground.-- MONGO 03:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
In response to Basboll above..the link he provides [16] where he claims I changed wording to reflect, as he puts it, the correct wording, only applies to the word "adjacent"..the remaining red changed text was added by me after great arguments and is reflected in the references provided. Regardless, this was part of the exchange that led me to ask him to cease using my talkpage to violate his topic banning.-- MONGO 05:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Thomas seems polite and I have been polite in return. If he's not banned from editing is his sandbox, then he is allowed to do so. As I understand, he is free to edit there. Everybody has some sort of POV. We don't ban editors for what they believe; we ban them by how they act. If Thomas supports WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V, I see no problems. If however he's playing me the fool, well, that would be a poor idea. Jehochman Talk 02:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
The arbitration remedy clearly states:
Thomas's topic ban was a bad ban by an involved administrator: Raul654. Raul654 edited 7 World Trade Center (16 times), argued against editors who support a controlled demolition (at least 8 times), and reverted 7 World Trade Center then protected the page, in violation of Wikipedia:Admin#Misuse_of_tools.
Raul654's "content disputes on articles in the area of conflict" |
---|
The
arbitration remedy states:
Raul654 is NOT an "uninvolved" administrator.
Raul654's did not follow the arbcom guidelines, the arbitration remedy states:
Raul654 did not warn Thomas before the block. The arbitration remedy states also:
Thomas Basboll used a "communal approach" in a straw poll. Jehochman lost the straw poll, which meant a majority of editors agreed with Thomas's POV. Instead of attempting to build consensus, Jehochman filed the Arbitration enforcement against Thomas. |
This text has never been posted before:
What is an "uninvolved administrator"?:
As my edit diffs clearly show, Raul has previously participated in "content disputes on articles in the area of conflict."
Therefore I ask that the topic ban be immediatly lifted, as a highly involved administrator made it.
Raul654 have you ever had a dispute on 7 World Trade Center? The edit diffs above show clear content disputes on 7 World Trade Center. Ikip ( talk) 04:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Ikip is rehashing - verbatim - the same argument he put forth the last time around - the very same argument that was explicitly rejected by the one and only arbitrator to comment on them ("I see Raul654's actions here as being in line with the AC's decision, and support them." -Morven) To wit - I have edited the 9/11 articles on occasion, and I make sure that they remain free of conspiracy theories and other gibberish, which is fully in line with our policies about verification and neutrality. (That is to say, conspiracy theories do not produce reliable sources - they mostly rely on cutting away context and ignoring all dissenting evidence.) Thomas is an editor whose sole purpose on Wikipedia is to introduce conspiracy theories into our 9/11 articles. While he is polite, his editing on those articles is singularly counterproductive, as Mongo above attests to. I was never particularly active on those articles, and my participation predates Thomas - I mostly stopped editing them by the time he started here. Which means I am uninvolved both in the sense of (a) editing on those articles, and (b) interacting with Thomas. (The arbitration committee, I believe, intended the ban to apply to the latter case). In either case, I am not involved, and fully capable of assessing the utility of a ban application. Raul654 ( talk) 05:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
1) The historical recostruction by Vandelberg is incomplete: Actually only one arbitrator replied to the request of appeal (and btw this arbitrator was asked two times to explain his position here and here but he didn't reply). Later, when the request was archieved, another arbitrator said that this kind of requests have to be asked to AN/I (so the appeal was not "rejected" but just ignored). Therefore there was a request for a review at WP/ANI where other 3 uninvolved administrators said that:
Positions against Thomas Basboll or against the review of the ban had been expressed only by involved administrators who contributed to the ban. "Unfortunately" this request for a review was deleted by the bot after a period of 24 hours without new messages. And so Thomas couldn't have a review for bourocratic reasons - even if there was a consensus on the necessity of it since the arbotrators didn't express.
1bis) It is very paradoxical that we follow mechanically the rules when the bot delete the request and so leave Thomas banned without appeal and we now instead pretend to apply the "spirit" of the rules - not the letter - when Thomas talk with other users. It looks very much as a persecutory behavior.
2) To say (as Tom Harrison does) that
is a personal and disputable point of view of Tom who as far as I can see has never had a "neutral" perception of this matter when he contributed to the pages. Even if the arbitrators would share the same point of view of Tom Harrison about 9/11 it shouldn't be relevant in their decisions: arbitration is not for disputes about article content.
3) To say (as Tom Harrison does) that
is meaningless because a) nobody has even proved that thomas have been disruptive, the sanction he received was *discretionary* so it was just the personal opinion of the admin which didn't receive any support or even a review by the community, b) it is entirely possible that the suggestions of Thomas are indeed conctructive, you cannot judge them "a priori" just on the ground of your personal POV.
4) Coren says:
The problem is that the arbcom has explicitely defined the meaning to be given to the term "involved" ("For the purpose of imposing sanctions under the provisions of this case, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict.") and it makes Raul "involved" without a doubt. If this meaning is considered to be "insane" by somebody it is not relevant here.
-- Pokipsy76 ( talk) 15:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The sanctions in this case are being gamed. Editors who are banned start new accounts, which then must receive the mandatory warnings before they can be sanctioned. Please modify the warning requirement so that administrators may place sanctions without warnings on disruptive single purpose accounts that edit within the locus of dispute. For further reading see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Huntdowntheconspiracists and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bov, particularly the checkuser clerk's note on the latter case. Note that I am involved in editing these articles and have been responsible for filing the above two sockpuppet cases as well as a large number of WP:AE requests that have resulted in topic bans. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 13:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Tony0937 has been here for 18 months and virtually 100% of his editing is related to promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories. Could one of our intrepid arbitrators please look at their contributions and tell us why this account is allowed to continue stoking this dispute? Jehochman Talk 23:57, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Numerous users have been blocked or banned for espousing unverifiable September 11 conspiracy theories. Any new user who appears on Wikipedia suggesting, in earnest, that the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives planted by "conspiracists", may be reasonably viewed as a meat puppet of one of those blocked or banned editors. As such, they may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator.
Wikipedia is not for publishing counter-factual 9/11 conspiracy theories. We really should say enough is enough. I am tired of all the socks and POV pushers, and the enablers who want to hear them out. Therefore, I have proposed the above common sense approach. Please indicate whether you support this or not. Thank you! Jehochman Talk 20:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
The most problematic article has had its semi-protection restored. This seems to have reduced the flow of disruptive WP:SPA single purpose accounts to the point that we can get back to work. Jehochman Talk 12:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The accounts have regrouped and are now launching an effort to rename the article to their preferred version. I have commented here that we need administrative help to block disruptive WP:SPA accounts, per the fine advice I have been given below. Could you fine arbitrators please have a look at that discussion and see if you know of any administrators willing to close down the SPA/SOCK party that's going on there? Jehochman Talk 22:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Comment I do not read the comment made by Stephen of "suck it up" (below) as being intentionally or otherwise rude but rather as another way of saying "take it on the chin". As admins we all know that dealing with SPAs and block evaders is part of the joy of the job. Blocking as per the evasion rules remains open to all admins (as detailed by Rlevse and others below), and semi-protection is also a suitable resort at times. Further if an admin is involved to the point s/he can't block, those admins have normally developed trusted behavioural collegial links to other admins whom they can ask to look objectively at a particular situation, and have the appropriate action taken.-- VS talk 07:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
"We have a passel of tendentious sockpuppeteers who can spend 60 seconds to create a new account, while it takes me at least an hour to shut them down via our bureaucratic processes. That's a very unfavorable tradeoff." This is exactly right. Facile suggestions to follow dispute resolution, ask for an ininvolved admin, or get a buddy to do the block for you (seriously?) don't address the problem. That's why this is again before the committee. I invite bainer to model the behavior he prescribes. Tom Harrison Talk 12:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Would it be possible to identify a "go-to" checkuser who would be willing to look at questions of sockpuppetry on this topic on an expedited basis? This would be someone willing to field relatively informal checkuser requests from admins active on the topic, evaluate their merit, and act on them (if appropriate) rapidly. In the past I've found this approach hugely useful in dealing with high-volume sockpuppetry, and it might help here. MastCell Talk 19:04, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I have edited on various subjects on the German Wikipedia, but my edits on the English Wikipedia are, up to this time, primarily on 9/11-related topics. So I am probably an involved editor here.
In my opinion, we seriously need to consider the possibility that flawed judgment and inconsistent reasoning on the part of some established editors have significantly contributed to the situation that we now face. People will not identify with Wikipedia, and thus will more likely tend to use distractive methods, when confronted with unconvincing arguments, or with a situation in which they perceive that policy is being misconstrued to support reverting their edits or blocking their contributions.
One example has been the recent discussion on the deletion of the word "box-cutters" from the article on the attacks of Sept. 11 [43]. While numerous mainstream media have reported this, is has since become apparent that all these reports are based on a single source (Ted Olson). Evidence such as a trial exhibit mentioned in the discussion now strongly indicates that the information from this source has been incorrect. As being published in a reliable source is an indication that a piece of information is WP:V, but not a sufficient condition in itself, the word "box-cutters" was eventually changed to "weapons" [44], along with some other changes in the text. While this discussion led to a result consistent with Wikipedia policy, there were a number of arguments put forward by established editors that clearly are not supported by policy, such as:
Other such arguments, expressed in other circumstances, have been:
If these failures in the editorial process of the articles are being corrected, then all editors could be held to a higher standard with regard to their behavior, and genuine vandalism and trolling would be much easier to isolate, whether by community interaction or by appropriate administrative measures. -- Cs32en ( talk) 20:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Oppose Jehochman has suggested that the policy with regard to 9/11-related articles should be changed as follows:
Both proposals imply that administrative actions would no longer be based on the behavior of editors (i.e. whether they engage in constructive discussion, support their suggestions by arguments related to Wikipedia policies, etc.) but on what they think or what they believe in. Calling everybody who shares a certain belief or supports a certain argument a "meat puppet" is not only a misinterpretation of WP:MEAT, but also a thin veil to disguise this approach. -- Cs32en ( talk) 20:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Jehochman's statement that the semi-protection of the article has significantly reduced editing by non-autoconfirmed users is misleading. There have been two edits by non-autoconfirmed users during the time the article was not semi-protected. During the same period of time, there have been approximately fifty edits by Jehochman and three other editors, with very little explanation or discussion of these changes on the talk page. -- Cs32en ( talk) 14:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
One of the editors involved in the discussion has now been blocked for what are, as far as I can see, valid reasons. It would, however, be very helpful to clearly indicate the specific reasons for which a sanction is being requested. Any controversial discussion is even more difficult if people who take part in it are at the same time unsure as to whether any requested sanctions could be applied to them.
My view of the discussion on the renaming of the article is as follows:
In less than 40 minutes, Jehochman has deleted 6790 bytes, or more than 12% of the text, from the article World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories ( 15:31, 15:33, 15:34, 15:36, 15:52, 15:56, 15:58, 15:58, 15:59, 16:01, 16:03, 16:07, 16:08, 16:09). This happened without any attempt to discuss the changes on the talk page, and numerous parts of the article that have been there for weeks, if not months or years, have been deleted. Jehochman has requested a semi-protection of the article at 13:00 today, and has received a reply to his request at 14:35. [45] This may have triggered the ensuing rampage. -- Cs32en ( talk) 16:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC) Jehochman has filed an A/E request against me on 24 April, at 20:32, and has withdrawn that request on 25 April, at 00:23. I'm collapsing this subsection as it is of less relevance to the present request from Jehochman regarding the prior arbitration case on 9/11-related articles. -- Cs32en ( talk) 20:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC) |
I think that I am an involved party here and Jehohman's proposal makes me feel very uneasy. He has suggested by that I could be banned for talking about a peer reviewed paper. I suppose I am a SPA and I think that I have heeded the advise posted there. I have read the policy on Verifiability and the Guide Line on Reliable sources and I cannot see the problem. I do not believe I have broken any rules that would constitute a reason for a ban and yet I feel intimidated. Tony0937 ( talk) 23:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
First things first. The requested motion is flawed on face. It doesn't make any sense to treat new editors with a certain POV as meatpuppets of some ur-conspiracist. It is far more likely that there are several sockmasters, dozens of people unrelated to those sockmasters who intend to disrupt wikipedia, and yet more people who geniunely hold these views and don't have a connection to either of the two previous groups. Applying MEAT to all three groups under the assumption that they are all puppets of the first group will generate bad will, unpleasant but valid unblock requests and consternation over admin overreach.
So we should reject Jehochman's motion to ammend (whatever) the case.
Nevertheless, I'm pretty frustrated with the response he is getting from some members of the committee here. The 9/11 conspiracy articles are under an arbcom ruling because they are the locus of dispute between our editors and editors who have disrupted the encyclopedia, wasted time and don't have any real interest in contributing to Wikipedia broadly. It is the poster child for requiring arbcom actions. Because of the nature of the conspiracy and its adherents, online advocacy of conspiracy theories will almost always outstrip reliable sourcing on the theories themselves. the number of editors involved makes it difficult if not impossible to reach a consensus on the talk page which reflects reliable sourcing on the issue and hold-outs (either SPAs or not) make it difficult to commit an edit to those pages which has less than unanimous support. The nature of the theories themselves cause their exponents to disbelieve reliable reporting on the subject and misconstrue or misrepresent sources which may provide limited support for some facet of the conspiracy.
We know all this. What you are hearing now is an editor who claims that these sanctions are insufficient or at least burden responding administrators too much for the effort required to trigger them. Instead of telling him to "suck it up", why don't you draw up an alternative motion which doesn't BITE the newbies as much? Protonk ( talk)
That being said, I don't think ArbCom can do much about it directly. — Coren (talk) 03:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The process to develop a procedure for deciding Ireland article names has stalled. All three moderators have resigned. However, options for the next phase of the process have been suggested.
I would summarise the comments of those editors participating in the current discussion of the options on the wikiproject talk page as:
Approve option 1 (or a version of it):
OK with option 1:
Oppose option 1:
Concerned with option 1:
That's at least a two-thirds majority in favour of trying option 1.
I ask:
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
The Troubles, are not as contentious as they once were, thanks to the tight lid on edit-warring that was created by User:Rlevse here, that subjected the whole subset of articles covered by The Troubles to a 1 RR. This has blunted a lot of the constant edit-warring. However, six months after the fix was applied, someone wants to rip the band-aid off and let the (metaphorical) blood flow anew. User:Sandstein has stated that he will not act on AE requests regarding this remedy, because it is not an ArbCom remedy. We've already seen several folks using IP's to edit war and then when the IP is blocked, use throw-away accounts. The sanctions are needed.. there are 10+ sections in the archives where this is used since December alone.
So, despite my utter distaste of time-wasting bureaucracy such as this, would the ArbCom please vote in the following as a formal ArbCom remedy, as posted by User:Rlevse:
List of times the Rlevse sanctions has been brought up on AE (there are another 5-10 where it's been mentioned in passing, but these are the ones that refer to the 1RR rule itself.)
[46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], and the two latest ones on AE. If the Committee would look at the history of AE from archive 30 or so on, usually 2 or 3 or 4 sections per archive will have to do with this series of articles,
I don't believe that a new full fledged ArbCom would do anything more then to spend a couple months of time with the same parties arguing in the same way. Instead, what should be done is apply common sense. Use the Rlevse sanctions, and keep the peace in an area where there will be no peace if not applied.
If one admin chooses not to act on a particular enforcement request, it doesn't stop another administrator stepping in. Whilst Sandstein might not agree and therefore decide not to take action, if another administrator believes the editor in question has broken the case remedies (In this case it is enforcement of discretionary sanctions) then that is up to them and they may block for that. From what I can see, Sandstein hasn't said he'll overrule other administrators and I suspect he wouldn't even challenge other administrators if they made blocks as part of Rlevse's restriction. It looks like Sandstein merely doesn't agree and doesn't feel comfortable enforcing the decision - that's his prerogative and feel free to simply block if someone goes against the 1RR restriction. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 22:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm commenting in my capacity as admin patrolling WP:AE and responding to enforcement requests there. Ryan is right in that I won't (and have no authority to) overrule any admin enforcing the "Troubles" case as he or she sees fit. However, the "Troubles" decision does not, as Ryan seems to believe, provide for discretionary sanctions. Instead, at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Probation for disruptive editors, it provides that disruptive editors may be put on Wikipedia:Probation and, at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Enforcement, that these editors are then subject to 1RR. That is the arbitral decision that can and should be enforced at WP:AE, including by me.
The section entitled Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case, which purports to put all articles in the area of conflict under 1RR, on the other hand, is not an enforceable arbitral decision, since it was apparently never voted on by the Committee. Its author, Rlevse, has confirmed this at [58]. That is why I will not act on enforcement requests concerning it.
I recommend that the Committee:
Sandstein has summed up what I was going to say. Perhaps both sanction-schemes would be useful? Ncmvocalist ( talk) 05:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
As the unlucky administrator who started the long chain of events that lead there, I want to add two things. One, discretionary sanctions do exist in that dispute area, they are editor targeted however. Two, the broad 1RR was proposed as an alternative to using probation. It has, I believed, helped significantly in the topic area, and has set an objective standard for that all users can be held up to. I strongly urge the committee to consider endorsing the community remedy.-- Tznkai ( talk) 04:29, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Having opposed the sanctions, or I should say how they came about I must concede that they have had a positive effect. They have reduced the edit warring and encouraged discussion. POV warriors have been marginalised with disruptive editing being quickly closed down most of the time. Some Admin’s with a particular bias (admin’s can and do have biased opinions) have been reluctant to address the actions of some editors but the 1RR has proved itself despite this. We all know what the sanctions entail, and have clarified through experience what 1RR is and how it operates. For example, a number of reverts without intermediate edits in between is considered to be 1 revert.
So what I’d suggest is that the sanctions be placed on a separate page with the block log transferred to it. It should include:
It should also include what we mean by 1RR, so there is no ambiguity. If it is felt that criteria no.1 is not clear enough expand it. The template be changed to direct editors to the appropriate page, including a link on Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Final_remedies_for_AE_case in case any templates are missed during the page change. That’s my 2 cents worth, as to simply remove the sanctions would be counter productive.-- Domer48 'fenian' 09:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
It's a pleasure to be filing a positive request. As the Committee is aware, ScienceApologist has been working on an improvement drive for the optics article. He wishes to see the revisions imported to en:wiki and bring the page to featured article status. This requires three things:
So proposing the following case amendment:
Kaldari and Sceptre should be adding their agreement to this propoal shortly, and ScienceApologist should be emailing the Committee to affirm his endorsement of this request. Respectfully submitted, Durova Charge! 00:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Affirming Durova's post. Probably no need to affirm that I would seeing as I announced on AE my intention to if asked. Sceptre ( talk) 00:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Affirming Durova's post. Although I would like to clarify that I think it is important for ScienceApologist himself to make the import edit, which would require a 1-edit suspension of his wikipedia ban. The reason behind this is that this rewrite is a significant contribution to Wikipedia and 10 years from now it shouldn't take an archeologist to figure out who contributed the writing (indeed it should be possible for a bot even to make the determination). This is both to insure proper attribution per the GFDL and per convenience for future editors. This is not strictly required per the GFDL, but it is the proper way to handle this, IMO. Doing attribution in edit summaries is far from ideal, especially when we're talking about a complete rewrite of an important article (mainly because such attribution is not machine-parsable). I would be willing to handle performing the 1-edit unblock and reblock and overseeing the edit.
I support this request. However I submit that it would be much easier to simply allow ScienceApologist to make the edits directly, to wit, I propose the following motion:
Paul August ☎ 19:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with bringing the content into Wikipedia, but I disagree with Kaldari's proposed method of doing so by having ScienceApologist do a single copy-and-paste edit. For GFDL purposes, I believe it would be preferable for an admin to transwiki the article, then merge the page histories, which I believe would result in SA's edits showing up in the page history as being by SA. The GFDL situation is complicated because SA is not the only person who has contributed to the article at Wikisource. If SA or anyone else does it as a single edit, I suggest listing the names of the contributors in the edit summary; but that's not as good. See the discussion at Talk:Optics, especially the comments by Moonriddengirl, for example here; she's very knowledgeable about copyright policy. ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 00:40, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
1) Kaldari, Sceptre, and Durova are granted permission to act as proxies for ScienceApologist by making edits to the optics article, its talk page, and any process pages directly related to the optics featured article drive.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Notifications:
I have userfied an article, Blood of Angels deleted in an AfD for User:Ebonyskye. I have since discovered this archive: User talk:Ebonyskye/Archive1 in which the user has been notified by User:Thatcher that a checkuser found a relationship between the Ebonyskye account and that of User:GuardianZ who was banned from editing the Midnight Syndicate article. Thatcher also informed Ebonyskye that the ban extended to related articles including Nox Arcana articles. The article I userfied is a Nox Arcana article. My query relates to the wording of the ArbCom case. "GuardianZ (talk · contribs), and Skinny McGee (talk · contribs) are banned indefinitely from Midnight Syndicate." is clear enough. However, "No present or past employee or associate of Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana, or Monolith Graphics, under any username or anonymous IP, may edit Midnight Syndicate or associated articles. " is less clear. Under the ruling is GuardianZ/Ebonyskye free to edit Nox Arcana articles? SilkTork * YES! 16:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The issue is whether the petty edit warring continues or starts up again. Fred Talk 21:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Relevant Arbitration enforcement archives: [59], [60]
Although this checkuser request was formally declined, another checkuser answered privately that Ebonyskye was related to GuardianZ ( search link for arbs). It's possible that this was an error, of course, but I believe Ebonyskye is a "present or past employee or associate of Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana, or Monolith Graphics, under any username or anonymous IP" and so falls under the topic ban passed as remedy 2. I notified her of the topic ban here, logged here.
It is apparent from Ebonyskye's contributions that she has been evading her topic for a long time. Interestingly, I find a complaint by Ebonyskye that Skinny McGee ( talk · contribs) was evading the same topic ban, which resulted in Skinny McGee receiving a stern reminder. Why Ebonyskye was not similarly reminded and sanctioned, I have no idea.
Most of Ebonyskye's edits relate to the band Nox Arcana (including a considerable amount of self-promotion, which is not really an Arbcom matter) and she has largely (but not entirely) avoided direct edits to Midnight Syndicate where the dispute arose. (Skinny McGee seems to be a current member of the band while Ebonyskye is, or is associated with, a former member, now a member of Nox Arcana.)
One possible response would be to narrow the topic ban to encompass Midnight Syndicate only, to allow Ebonyskye to edit Nox Arcana-related articles, although this seems somewhat inequitable to Skinny McGee and essentially rewards Ebonyskye for being able to escape sanction for repeated violations of the ban over the last 18 months. Another possibility would be to lift the topic bans entirely on a trial basis, contingent on continued good behavior by all parties. I am somewhat concerned about this approach, having just discovered the diff of Ebonyskye reporting Skinny McGee's violation while knee-deep in her own repeated violations, and I would be interested to hear Ebonyskye's views on why she thought it was appropriate to report the violation in August 2008 while she was at that same time engaged in editing multiple articles that fell under her topic ban. (I expect she will say that she never was GuardianZ; I point to the checkuser log I noted above, and also to her contribs, if she is not GuardianZ she is still clearly a related editor. There are ways to correct a mistaken topic ban, pretending it does not exist is not one of them. She needs to come up with a better answer than that.) Thatcher 17:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Thatcher, I still state I am not and have never been any other editor, not GaurdianZ, not Skinny McGee, no one.. I believe I sent you an email two years past with my home address, after which I immediately began to get spammed. (Not blaming you, just maybe opened up my email to this inadvertently). So I removed my email from Wikipedia and even got a new email. Anyway, the reason I reported on Skinny McGee was because I could. He falsely accused me of making edits I did not make then falsely accused me of being another editor. I simply returned the favor, except that he was proven to have had 4 other accounts, whereas I did not. And Thatcher, you yourself said that your discision is based on editing I had done.I did not start having a problem with McGee until he started with me. Per the suggestions of other editors (who also turned out to be sockpuppets - MarckChase, and unsigned others) I began looking for reliable sources to back up some of the statements on the Nox Arcana pages. I added what I thought was appropriate, describing the music, the instrumentation, and was slammed for it. So I looked for more sources. Then I got slammed for having too many links. More seasoned editors and admins love to slam on newer editors to "be bold" and "cite" etc, and when we DO, then we get crap for citing too much and for being too bold. This is just stupid that now there's actually a "committee" to decide if anyone properly looked into something I complained of 2 years ago. You didn't care then, so why now? And I can't even recall all the edits I may have made 2 years back and really don't want to waste time looking through history and trying to recall what I was even thinking then. How about this solution. Delete all of it, every scrap for BOTH bands. Who cares, right?
Ebonyskye (
talk) 22:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
OK. I admit, it IS frustrating to be falsely accused. So, how do I go about proving who I am, or in this case, who I am not? It's like deja vu, I know I asked this of Thatcher and we (or some admin and I) traded emails, but that seemed to go nowhere. Also, I would like to suggest some AFDs. Where might I go to do this? I read the procedure, but since I am banned from editing certain articles, I cannot follow said procedure. There are plenty of articles needing RS or that are far less notable than any I have edited. Since I am discouraged to create, perhaps I can help clean up. Ebonyskye ( talk) 06:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
As the filing party who requested the Midnight Syndicate arbitration, I found SkinnyMcGee to be the more cooperative of the two primary disputants and subsequently awarded that editor a barnstar for creating a DYK about an unrelated (and uncontroversial) topic. GuardianZ was the primary aggressor in the original dispute. At no time in my observation did GuardianZ demonstrate a commitment to adapting to site standards or to Wikipedia's larger mission. To the extent that I noticed followup (which was quite some time ago), either GuardianZ or someone closely associated with that individual appeared to be openly contemptuous of project norms. Although I have not encountered the Enonyskye account directly, if the Committee were to demonstrate lenience toward either side of the dispute I would encourage them to either extend it toward SkinnyMcGee or else equally toward both parties. Meat/socking and topic ban evasion should not be rewarded while the party who demonstrates improvement remains under full sanction. Durova Charge! 21:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Midnight Syndicate, which closed in January 2007, this Committee found that several editors had engaged in extended edit-warring and disruptive editing on Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana, and related articles. The disputes appeared to stem from real-world disputes concerning the history of these musical groups, with which these editors were or are associated off-wiki. As a result, two named editors as well as all others associated with the groups were topic-banned indefinitely from editing this group of articles.
More than two years have elapsed since the topic-bans were imposed. During this period, there have been some allegations of sockpuppetry, but in general terms the level of edit-warring and disruption on the articles has decreased, reflecting that the topic-bans have had their desired effect. Now, however, it has been suggested that we consider relaxing the topic-ban in whole or part.
The editor misconduct that led to the imposition of the remedies was serious. However, two years is a long time on Wikipedia, and it may be that the editors who were previously restricted are now capable of editing these articles in compliance with all relevant policies. This would include, among other things, avoiding edit warring and disruptive editing, editing only from a neutral point of view, minimizing edits that reflect the impact of any conflict of interest, and discussing controversies that may arise in a civil fashion on talkpages. In addition, it can be hoped that the passage of more than two years may have helped to alleviate any real-world feuds or bitterness that led to the original problems.
Understandable concern has been expressed that lifting the editing restrictions will lead to a resumption of the original problems. Accordingly, we should not simply terminate the remedies. However, in an effort to balance the competing considerations here and to allow a fair chance to evaluate the effect of our extending a second chance to this group of editors, I offer a motion. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 02:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
The remedies (1 and 2) ordered by this Committee in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Midnight Syndicate are suspended for a period of 90 days. During this period, the editors who were previously restricted by these remedies may edit without topic restriction. However, they are instructed to comply with all applicable Wikipedia policies and guidelines in their editing, particularly those discussed in the original arbitration decision. Each of these editors is also instructed to edit these articles from only a single account.
During the 90-day trial period, should any of the previously restricted editors engage in edit-warring, POV editing, or other misconduct on the articles in question, any uninvolved administrator may reinstate the topic ban against that editor or impose another appropriate sanction. Unless the misconduct is blatant, a warning to the editor should first be given.
As the end of the 90-day period approaches, a request for permanent termination or modification of the remedies may be submitted for consideration by this Committee.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Per [61] - It seems that the vast majority of DreamGuy's incivility stems from heated debates WP:AFD. Given this, Is it possible to use secondary sanctions such as page/namespace bans when there is a clear link (as determined by an enforcing admin) between a certain page/namespace or forum and his violations of his behavioral editing restriction. In this case we are requesting a 2-6 month ban from WP:AFD as determined by a mentor. «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l» (talk) 15:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Response to DreamGuy: I wish to note that DreamGuy's 1rr restriction is not as voluntary as much as he is trying to deceive it to be. It was mandatory in return for an early unblock from one of his numerous previous incidents. I also note that he seems to think that discrediting an IP user who initially brought the extent his misconduct to light will in someway weaken the case against him, which it does not. He also makes ad homenium arguments against other users and does not address the issue of his conduct «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l» (talk) 15:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Response to DreamGuy: The 1rr is mandatory because you agreed to it in return for an early unblock, Its mandatory because you cant just start ignoring it. You said you would abide by it and now you have to wether you want to or not, that is what mandatory is, look it up in Wiktionary if you wish. Oh and I note that your the one who has a editing restriction they have violated around 30 times recently, not I, so please stop trying to discredit me as it wreaks of baiting. And I with to note that this is not a personal dispute, Until a few days ago I didnt even know you existed on this earth (never loan Wikipedia), But today I find you making ad homenium attacks against an IP user who reported your gross misconduct and blatant violations, So now I'm following up «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l» (talk) 16:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
DreamGuy has not followed either the letter or spirit of the ArbCom behavioral restrictions. To date, he has accumulated almost a dozen temp blocks for violations of civility, which would seem to indicate that the short-term blocks are not sufficient to the task at hand, as DG has chosen to ignore these restrictions, arguing each and every time that the fault lies with others. His behavior has not improved substantially since the AE restrictions were set in place. While it would be easy to call for an indef block and finally be done with the matter, DG's often quality edits barely equal the overwhelming BITEy and uncivil nature of his edits and edit summaries (which stifle discussion and chase away editors both new and old). The AE sanction calls for a year block; I think that something approximating half that with a mandatory period afterwards with a mentor. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 15:24, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
It disheartens me that some people are willing to jump to a conclusion over there before I even had a chance to respond and are willing to take the accusations made by an anon IP (extremely likely to be a indefinitely banned editor User:Azviz) at face value. Actually looking into the edit diffs provided there shows a good percentage of no bad behavior whatsoever -- use of word "Pshaw" in a response, patiently explaining that claims in a BLP need reliable sources, good faith disagreements about reliable sources. Any of those edits that could be accurately described as uncivil were as part of wikihounding by that banned editor, a likely reappearance of that editor under a new name, and some extremely aggressive and uncivil actions taken against me by others. ArbCom is about solving problems, right? Not about letting edit warriors bait and use ivil POV pushing to ultimately prevail. Banning me from AFDs just mean that the editors in question -- all of them major warriors in AFD related maters -- get to continue their bad behavior not only with one less person to take a different side but knowing that they can target other people for similar wikihounding and actions in hopes of getting them blocked too.
Frankly, if any sort of action is going to be taken against me, it also needs to be taken against the others involved, who were far more uncivil, and seem to be violating a whole string of more important policies, like sources on BLPs, getting around bans, and so forth. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and Arcayne seriously overstates his case. He has a long history of filing false accusations against me out of some revenge motive over something that happened from years back. His claims about the block lengths are simply false. The escalating blocks system set up would get nowhere near a year. It's supposed to escalate, and I don't think it's ever gotten beyond a week, and the length of time is supposed to reset. I should also point out that I voluntarily limited myself to 1RR, so I am on more restrictions than what the sanctions originally called for. Arcayne seems to want to try to fool people into thinking some longterm block is called for, when in actuality this is just another case of the people complaining just hoping to game the system so they can continue their own bad behavior. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Response to Promethean: "Mandatory in return for"...? No, not mandatory at all. I suggested it myself, volunteered to do it, and the block in question was almost over so I had nothing to gain by doing so other than to try to improve things. I did not have to accept it, as I could have waited out the block. Nothing about it was mandatory. But, again, are you here to try to resolve conflicts or just to try to give a spin on things so you can get someone blocked you do not like? I addressed my behavior over on the ArbCom page. You haven't addressed your own behavior or that of anyone but me. Conflict doesn't happen in a vacuum, and it can't be solved by people trying to use blocks as a tool to prevailing in a personal dispute. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I would like to request that my topic ban on editing Ayn Rand related articles be lifted. There is a great deal of work that needs to be done on Rand related articles, including major ongoing consolidation and cleanup being led by Skomorokh and J Readings (please see Template:Objectivism and Ayn Rand Cross Talk, which has become a central hub for these efforts). Currently, my limit to talk pages is severely limiting my ability to improve the project, as even in the most uncontroversial of cases I have to ask for other users to make the change, which is frustrating to me and, I am sure, them. Were the committee to lift this restriction, I would voluntarily place myself on 0RR (excepting, of course, vandalism removal), would avoid making any controversial edits without first gaining clear consensus via the Talk page, and would make sure to avoid involving myself in any edit wars. Thank you for your consideration. TallNapoleon ( talk) 03:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
As a side note, I only listed myself because I don't believe this directly affects other users. I did post a link to this on Template:Objectivism and Ayn Rand Cross Talk, and if the Committee likes I would be glad to notify all other members of the original ArbComm proceeding. TallNapoleon ( talk) 04:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I have been spending some time trying to help with the Rand-related articles recently, and I can confirm TallNapoleon's statement that there is an immense amount of editorial work to do. It would be very helpful to have him back on board. KD Tries Again ( talk) 16:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Edit warring has continued on the article, but with new editors. Articles of this nature have significant issues on questions of weight and verifiability and attempting to deal with them simply as behavioural issues of the editors involved is at best a short term solution. Current editors have carried out far more RRs that KD ever did. I have no objection to his request, he has always been careful to attempt a NPOV and to properly source material in a field where he is knowledgeable. -- Snowded ( talk) 05:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
A couple examples of edits he may have made to Objectivism (Ayn Rand) here and here. -- Karbinski ( talk) 10:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
As well an example of an edit to Objectivism (Ayn Rand) - here - that he objected to being reverted. -- Karbinski ( talk) 15:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
1) The topic ban imposed on TallNapoleon ( talk · contribs) (see WP:RANDARB#TallNapoleon topic-banned and warned) is removed. In place of a mainspace topic ban, TallNapoleon is subject to a zero-revert restriction (0RR) on Ayn Rand and related articles for the remainder of the six-month duration. He is instructed to seek talk page consensus before undertaking any potentially controversial edits. TallNapoleon is encouraged to continue his efforts to develop a functional consensus and improve articles related to the subject.
Motion enacted Tiptoety talk 23:05, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There are currently fourteen active arbitrators (excluding one recused), so eight votes are a majority.
1) In remedy 1.1 (" Area of conflict") of the West Bank - Judea and Samaria case, "... the Palestine/Israel dispute ..." is replaced with "... the Arab-Israeli conflict ...".
Motion enacted - Tiptoety talk 23:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I was topic banned in the Scientology arbitration (the one that is all over the media right now). The Arbitrary Committee says:
2) All IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked as if they were open proxies. Individual editors may request IP block exemption if they wish to contribute from the blocked IP addresses.
Where do I find the IP addresses covered by this? Which ones exactly "are to be blocked"? Please clarify. Shutterbug ( talk) 05:34, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
As a community, we tend not to provide to users forbidden to edit or restricted, a full list of "IPs they cannot edit from". As you yourself are (as you rightly say) topic banned, and also a bunch of IPs closely related to CoS editing are blocked, the question is likely (as Roger says) moot.
This isn't specific to "you". It applies equally to all users and any dispute, whose actions are such that an IP range needed to be blocked to prevent their improper activities. That is quite an extreme measure, and is not taken lightly.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 14:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
It is in fact equal to all users. Any user whose actions are sufficiently disruptive, will be told eventually "sorry, you can't edit on our website". Users are also told (and have been for years):
In fact the CoS is not being "punished". Whether as an organization, or by extending facilities to its members, or both, the CoS appears to have had its computers used, for a range of disruptive editing behaviors that are not permitted here. Possibly they endorsed, facilitated, or enabled it, possibly it really was just a bunch of users they allowed onto their systems. All organizations are responsible for the usage of their computers when it impacts on others. If you run a library and your computer is used for pornography or hacking, it will be blacklisted even if you as a librarian were not doing these things. So the ranges that might be called upon for this disruption, are blocked.
In making that decision, the nature or name of the organization is not significant and unimportant in and of itself. The sole factor is that despite past cases, its IPs continue to be a persistent source of harmful editing. To save you worrying that CoS might be being picked on, note that range blocks are applied in many cases of disruption and vandalism, where they are needed to frustrate easy access by other disruptive individuals or groups.
Wikipedia editing is a privilege, not a suicide pact; persistent known "high risks", or sources of disruption, are not necessarily desirable in this encyclopedia project. If there are "good faith" users who can and have faithfully followed all of our policies every time they edit Wikipedia, then as the Committee have said, IP block exemption may be applied for by those few.
Past actions have not yet met with a substantive change for the better. We can be fairly sure CoS knew about them; it's extremely unlikely that arbcom cases and blocks wouldn't be "known" internally, that they don't track the articles on them, have no awareness of their own computers' usage over 4 years, or that in all that time not one person of any standing in 12 million members was involved in editing or got to hear about the blocks or past cases.
If CoS had been serious about not wanting to have this action imposed upon them and upon all who edit from CoS related computers, they have had the option several times to desist, or to impose conditions on those using the computers. Evidently, according to the evidence, they did not realize it was necessary to manage their computer usage, chose not to prevent the activity, or did not do so effectively. Either way this is the result, and it is a response to disruption, not a "pro/anti" anything. We would (and have) done the same to schools, libraries, and other highly disruptive ISP ranges, when these have acted as a persistent source of disruption.
As for the media, they are free to report this or call it what they like. If you want to read what it really is, then the ruling is open to reading by everyone on the planet.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 22:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Shutterbug, whatever your expectations of the internet and people's behavior on it, here at least we look for adult behavior. That includes mature understanding to all editors, that expectations exist and apply. To the extent we don't get it after warnings and dialog, we protect the project and move on. From your perspective a number of scientologists have persistently taken action that despite requests and warnings, has ultimately brought the CoS into disrepute. The Church doesn't get to play the part where they counter "it's just a few bad apples", because CoS' own equipment and IPs were used for the purpose.
I suggest that if people at CoS feel this result isn't something that they generally wanted, then they collectively have a high level of power to make it extremely clear to a wide range of adherents that it must end, here and now, and editing according to Wikipedia norms will be the only acceptable behavior endorsed to adherents due to the risk of harm. CoS officials -- global, regional or local -- between them have the power to make that statement publicly and formally, and they have the power to mean it or just mouth the words. They have the power to regulate the IPs they collectively manage or not. SoC members may show it matters to them to listen to this, or doesn't matter. (So, of course, may your opponents, but that isn't your personal concern any more.) We have taken the action we usually take to protect the project; they may now realize their error and change course, or show by inaction that it wasn't very important to their Church after all. But be assured, the personal feelings of the Church are not at issue here. What is at issue is procuring a move towards good neutral editing and appropriate conduct on this website in the scientology topics, if on no other sites on the planet.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 02:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Regarding Shutterbug's comments:
It's particularly odd to see this complaint coming from Shutterbug. Contrast it to Shutterbug's declaration on 9 December 2007 at RFAR:
An analysis of that statement, juxtaposed against prior news coverage from 2007, has been in my evidence since December 2008. [73] Additionally, it was Shutterbug (formerly User:COFS) who was the principal subject of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/COFS first filed in April 2007, and later the arbitration case of the same name: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS.
Evidently, for over two years this person has not held him- or herself accountable either for having failed to abide by Wikipedia's policies or for having failed to inform the organization whose reputation s/he was endangering. Over two years ago I attempted to explain to this person that Wikipedia's open edit and public history structure meant s/he was risking a much bigger public relations problem than the legitimate problem s/he was trying to fix. That caution, and remedial suggestions which followed, were met with open contempt. That reaction continued even after events proved empirically that those cautions were correct. It can hardly come as much surprise, that more than a year and a half after the Arbitration Committee passed Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/COFS#Responsibility_of_organizations, the capabilities it outlined have finally been implemented:
Forget for a moment what organization this is: if it were a county government, or a sporting goods manufacturer, or anything else, this individual's Internet access privileges would long since have been curtailed on the organizational side. Wikipedians are volunteers who can (and have) blocked editing access from any organization up to and including the United States House of Representatives. [74] [75] It is entirely incidental that in this instance the organization happens to be a religion. It certainly is regrettable that things have had to go so far, and as a gesture of good faith I repeat my standing offer to nominate any Scientologist's biography for deletion upon request, if it meets the dead trees standard. [76] If Shutterbug and the Church of Scientology are willing to assume their share of responsibility for the events that led to this impasse, and if they take good faith measures toward correcting the problems that led here, then I would gladly initiate a motion to modify and/or lift the restriction. Durova Charge! 01:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
This request should be archived later today, provided there are no further comments. Hersfold ( t/ a/ c) 14:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I was topic banned in the recent second Scientology arbitration case, for stuff I did months before the first Scientology arbitration case which occurred in summer 2008.
There is something fundamentally wrong with banning me from this topic since not only was this "evidence" ignored in the first case but I also haven't violated the terms given from that case.
Accordingly, I'm uncertain what, exactly, this request is asking for. Put simply I'd like to continue editing any article I please. Banning someone from editing a topic should be a last resort, and since the arbcom didn't say I was pushing a POV in the first case I'd argue that we haven't quite reached the last resort. (If the arbcom ruled I was pushing a POV, and I continued to do the same thing, a ban would make sense. That isn't the case here.)
I totally understand that at first glance it might seem I had been ...been consistently pushing a specific point of view... Honestly though, the only POV I'm "pushing" is what's in the sources - every edit I made was as a result of what our best sources say. (Secondary sources like Time magazine and the LA Times, as well as primary sources like the US Navy.) The fact is these sources are unpopular with Scientologists and it took a great deal of time and effort to maintain them in most Scientology articles. You aren't saying I should just let editors with a positive view of Scientology remove info this easily sourced?
As regards mentioning my "harassment" of Justanother the point I am trying to make is that I disagree with the arbcom's first ruling which was affirmed in this case. Since he was banned by this arbcom for the same behavior I was trying to call attention to it is especially irritating that the same committee would affirm my attempts to solve this problem SOONER was harassment. Anynobody( ?) 01:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Gentlemen I've ALWAYS used ALL information from what we consider reliable sources. Articles about Scientology feature in depth coverage of its negative aspects. Are you saying we should ignore the bulk of what the sources say about a topic because some people don't like what it has to say? (For example a Time article called The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power obviously is going to say things Scientologists don't like, and might just make anyone citing it look anti-Scientology.)
If not, would you please explain how someone could use info like Time's, the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, or any of the other dozen or so reliable and non-biased sources without appearing to support the points in them? Anynobody( ?) 02:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I noticed that some of the editors banned, on both sides, haven't edited for quite some time. For example CSI LA last edited in 2007 and the same goes for Orsini Why are these two being topic banned after having escaped scrutiny (or even participation) in the first arbcom case AND not made an edit since 2007?
None of the graphics I made are meant to disparage anyone or anything and directly reflect the available sources. The image of DC-8s arriving on Earth for Xenu was meant to replace an already made illustration created by modifying a photo of NASA's DC-8 in space with the word Xenu on its tail.
Lastly, this arbitration reaffirmed that I previously harassed Justanother. I submit that the whole allegation if harassing Justanother (aka Justallofthem) stems from my attempt to get a WP:RFC/U going regarding his behavior. After the last arbitration I've not had any real contact with him, and he's been banned for the same type of behavior I was trying to call attention to in the first place. WP:HA#What harassment is not says A user warning for disruption or incivility is not harassment if the claims are presented civilly, made in good faith and attempt to resolve a dispute instead of escalating one. I've never called for him to be banned or demanded punishment, all I asked for was a RFC when it appeared he was having similar problems with several editors through giving the community an opportunity to comment. Anynobody( ?) 02:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Anynobody, this a cumulative decision based on all your "bad deeds". I am curious to see how the article develops without us. Let the clueless rule! Shutterbug ( talk) 01:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Either there's more to the case against Anynobody or there isn't. From only what's posted within the case pages, which isn't much, I don't know.
I looked at each "POV" diff (two) and each "disparaging" graphic (five). The diffs are fairly ordinary-looking edits, and would seem to be POV only if not reliably sourceable. The graphics are documentation of a type permitted as original research or describable primary sources. Two of the graphics would seem to be disparaging (by the editor) only if they weren't based on reliable sources. I don't know if they were or weren't based on reliable sources in the details, but in the current article, the LA Times seems to back the core issue that Anynobody was editing.
If these edits were based on reliable sources, then Anynobody must have done something notable within the article talk pages that merited the "POV" and "disparaging" charges. Did he? I don't know.
The fact-finding mentioned that prior arbitration determined that Anynobody harassed Justanother. I looked at that case, and it determined that Anynobody "complained to and of Justanother with great frequency and persistence". Well, now that Justa* has been banned from the entire project, one might reasonably conclude that Justa* was a frequent and persistent problem under the radar. In any case, with Justa* gone, a remedy against Anynobody inclusive of that reason lacks a preventive purpose, so I suggest tagging it with a note of 'No longer relevant to a preventative remedy since Justa(names) has been site banned by another remedy of this case'.
My tentative conclusion is that there is either no substantive case against Anynobody, or it's a case that's been presented with insufficient specificity. If there is no substantive case, the topic ban and restriction should be rescinded. If there is a substantive case, please present it so Anynobody can either defend his actions, or avoid doing again whatever he supposedly did that was so bad it deserved a topic ban. Milo 01:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
This is a request for a minor clarification or amendment of remedy #2 (IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology), to avoid a point of contention that is sure to arise some time soon.
The ruling states, "All IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked as if they were open proxies. Individual editors may request IP block exemption if they wish to contribute from the blocked IP addresses."
Could the Committee clarify that this covers IP addresses reasonably believed to be owned or operated by the CoS, or that appear to be substantively used for that purpose or on their behalf, not just those where "ownership" is formally proven through an IP registrar or "operated by" is claimed (and disputed).
This guidance would be worth obtaining before any blocks start hitting the administrators' incident or arbitration enforcement noticeboards, and because it is an obvious block evasion/ wikilawyering tactic (obtaining new IP addresses not visibly "owned or operated" by CoS, even "broadly interpreted", would be trivially easy).
FT2 ( Talk | email) 12:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
This is an archive of past Clarification and Amendment requests. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to file a new clarification or amendment request, you should follow the instructions at the top of this page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Last April, User:Thomas Basboll was banned [1] from articles and talk pages related to the September 11 attack. Since then he's hardly done anything else, limiting his work to user pages. He's always civil and articulate; individual edits can seem reasonable. But his goal here has been and remains to get the truth out about the collapse of the World Trade Center. Whatever his motivation, no matter how he describes or intends his edits, their invariable result has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'. He has shown no interest in contributing in any other area; he's banned from that area; he continues his work in a sandbox, and invites others to edit on his behalf. [2] If encouraging others to apply edits he can't make himself doesn't violate the letter of his topic ban it's at least contrary to its purpose, and continually beating the drum for the 9/11 conspiracy theories is a continuing disruption. Tom Harrison Talk 14:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Update: I have decided withdraw my opposition to this request, shut down the sandbox experiment, and stop interacting with editors.-- Thomas Basboll ( talk) 04:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure an all out arbitration is necessary. If the topic-ban applies to user talk pages and my own sandbox then I am in the wrong and will stop immediately. If it does not, I think Tom Harrison needs to provide a bit more evidence that, on balance, the "invariable result [of my edits] has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'". In the one case where a user has objected to my use of his talk page, I have respected that wish, but otherwise my suggestions have been met with understanding and have been implemented (or not) as the user I contacted chose. I have not asked users to edit "on my behalf"; I have pointed out errors in articles to them and sometimes suggested prose that I believed could express an idea they were defending in talk discussions. I'm really am just trying to help.--
Thomas Basboll (
talk) 14:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The ban against Thomas Basboll had been based on reasons "described by Jehochman" [4]. However, Jehochman has advised Thomas Basboll as follows: "I think it might be worthwhile to write a crisp version of the article in your sandbox ..." [5]. So this is, in my opinion, best left to the community to sort out, at this point of time. -- Cs32en ( talk) 14:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
More of the same...Basboll has been topic banned from editing all pages related to the events surrounding 9/11...this includes conspiracy pages, where he has been an advocate. Arbcom may not be familiar with this issue, but I surely am, and our server space is not to be used to sidestep topic bans using personal sandboxes or others usertalk to rally a cause for which one has been topic banned...topic bans should mean just that...one is banned from the topic, regardless of the location. I have stated repeatedly that AFTER Basboll was topic banned that, based on his obvious articulateness, that he must be educated and surely...surely, he could and should help out with other areas that are not related to those he is topic banned from. I tried to encourage him to do so...but instead, he continues his fixation on this subject matter...though of course, outside main article space. WP:MEAT applies in this case...a topic banned editor, especially one who has been known to advocate fringe theories, shouldn't be encouraging others of similar POV [6] and discouraging those that base their work on known evidence...as Basboll did to me here...which resulted in my asking him to avoid my usertalk if he was going to use it for his 9/11 issues. Furthermore, major collaborative pieces should be worked on in article space in my opinion...creating sandboxes pages when we already have working long standing pages that can be improved only allows topic banned people a way to avoid sanction from being topic banned...
So can arbcom help clarify for Mr. Basboll what a topic ban implies and maybe succeed where I failed and encourage him to find some other topic to edit? I'm hoping that this is the case...-- MONGO 00:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
In response to Jehochman below...though I surely appreciate that we don't want to suppress beliefs, Basboll is topic banned...that means banned from editing on that topic...as far as I can see, that means we don't allow them to use likewise thinking fellow editor's usertalks to rally support for their POV, especially a POV that is based on fringe theories that undermine the factual encyclopedic integrity of our articles. Furthermore, setting up sandboxes to update sections, write new articles or alter existing ones related to what the editor is topic banned from seems to be a breach of the purpose of the topic ban...so we have millions of other articles...Wikipedia exists for Mr. Basboll as a platform to advocate his fringe beliefs regarding 9/11...he has had almost zero other interest in any other area...if he can't find another area to edit and repeatedly violates his topic ban...why is he here anymore?-- MONGO 03:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Examples where he has been approaching others to alter edits and or comment in articles he is topic banned from...to be fair, some of these are from those he does not share a POV with... [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [ here he comments at arbcom enforcement regarding the same topic he is topic banned for [13], here he tells one of his fellow (to put it nicely) alternative theorists all about me... [14], here he tries to defend a fellow 9/11 conspiracy theorist that is blocked [15]...I can easily produce more examples of Mr. Basboll violating his topic ban. More needs to be done to tell these single purpose accounts to go find another playground.-- MONGO 03:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
In response to Basboll above..the link he provides [16] where he claims I changed wording to reflect, as he puts it, the correct wording, only applies to the word "adjacent"..the remaining red changed text was added by me after great arguments and is reflected in the references provided. Regardless, this was part of the exchange that led me to ask him to cease using my talkpage to violate his topic banning.-- MONGO 05:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Thomas seems polite and I have been polite in return. If he's not banned from editing is his sandbox, then he is allowed to do so. As I understand, he is free to edit there. Everybody has some sort of POV. We don't ban editors for what they believe; we ban them by how they act. If Thomas supports WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V, I see no problems. If however he's playing me the fool, well, that would be a poor idea. Jehochman Talk 02:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
The arbitration remedy clearly states:
Thomas's topic ban was a bad ban by an involved administrator: Raul654. Raul654 edited 7 World Trade Center (16 times), argued against editors who support a controlled demolition (at least 8 times), and reverted 7 World Trade Center then protected the page, in violation of Wikipedia:Admin#Misuse_of_tools.
Raul654's "content disputes on articles in the area of conflict" |
---|
The
arbitration remedy states:
Raul654 is NOT an "uninvolved" administrator.
Raul654's did not follow the arbcom guidelines, the arbitration remedy states:
Raul654 did not warn Thomas before the block. The arbitration remedy states also:
Thomas Basboll used a "communal approach" in a straw poll. Jehochman lost the straw poll, which meant a majority of editors agreed with Thomas's POV. Instead of attempting to build consensus, Jehochman filed the Arbitration enforcement against Thomas. |
This text has never been posted before:
What is an "uninvolved administrator"?:
As my edit diffs clearly show, Raul has previously participated in "content disputes on articles in the area of conflict."
Therefore I ask that the topic ban be immediatly lifted, as a highly involved administrator made it.
Raul654 have you ever had a dispute on 7 World Trade Center? The edit diffs above show clear content disputes on 7 World Trade Center. Ikip ( talk) 04:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Ikip is rehashing - verbatim - the same argument he put forth the last time around - the very same argument that was explicitly rejected by the one and only arbitrator to comment on them ("I see Raul654's actions here as being in line with the AC's decision, and support them." -Morven) To wit - I have edited the 9/11 articles on occasion, and I make sure that they remain free of conspiracy theories and other gibberish, which is fully in line with our policies about verification and neutrality. (That is to say, conspiracy theories do not produce reliable sources - they mostly rely on cutting away context and ignoring all dissenting evidence.) Thomas is an editor whose sole purpose on Wikipedia is to introduce conspiracy theories into our 9/11 articles. While he is polite, his editing on those articles is singularly counterproductive, as Mongo above attests to. I was never particularly active on those articles, and my participation predates Thomas - I mostly stopped editing them by the time he started here. Which means I am uninvolved both in the sense of (a) editing on those articles, and (b) interacting with Thomas. (The arbitration committee, I believe, intended the ban to apply to the latter case). In either case, I am not involved, and fully capable of assessing the utility of a ban application. Raul654 ( talk) 05:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
1) The historical recostruction by Vandelberg is incomplete: Actually only one arbitrator replied to the request of appeal (and btw this arbitrator was asked two times to explain his position here and here but he didn't reply). Later, when the request was archieved, another arbitrator said that this kind of requests have to be asked to AN/I (so the appeal was not "rejected" but just ignored). Therefore there was a request for a review at WP/ANI where other 3 uninvolved administrators said that:
Positions against Thomas Basboll or against the review of the ban had been expressed only by involved administrators who contributed to the ban. "Unfortunately" this request for a review was deleted by the bot after a period of 24 hours without new messages. And so Thomas couldn't have a review for bourocratic reasons - even if there was a consensus on the necessity of it since the arbotrators didn't express.
1bis) It is very paradoxical that we follow mechanically the rules when the bot delete the request and so leave Thomas banned without appeal and we now instead pretend to apply the "spirit" of the rules - not the letter - when Thomas talk with other users. It looks very much as a persecutory behavior.
2) To say (as Tom Harrison does) that
is a personal and disputable point of view of Tom who as far as I can see has never had a "neutral" perception of this matter when he contributed to the pages. Even if the arbitrators would share the same point of view of Tom Harrison about 9/11 it shouldn't be relevant in their decisions: arbitration is not for disputes about article content.
3) To say (as Tom Harrison does) that
is meaningless because a) nobody has even proved that thomas have been disruptive, the sanction he received was *discretionary* so it was just the personal opinion of the admin which didn't receive any support or even a review by the community, b) it is entirely possible that the suggestions of Thomas are indeed conctructive, you cannot judge them "a priori" just on the ground of your personal POV.
4) Coren says:
The problem is that the arbcom has explicitely defined the meaning to be given to the term "involved" ("For the purpose of imposing sanctions under the provisions of this case, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict.") and it makes Raul "involved" without a doubt. If this meaning is considered to be "insane" by somebody it is not relevant here.
-- Pokipsy76 ( talk) 15:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The sanctions in this case are being gamed. Editors who are banned start new accounts, which then must receive the mandatory warnings before they can be sanctioned. Please modify the warning requirement so that administrators may place sanctions without warnings on disruptive single purpose accounts that edit within the locus of dispute. For further reading see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Huntdowntheconspiracists and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bov, particularly the checkuser clerk's note on the latter case. Note that I am involved in editing these articles and have been responsible for filing the above two sockpuppet cases as well as a large number of WP:AE requests that have resulted in topic bans. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 13:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Tony0937 has been here for 18 months and virtually 100% of his editing is related to promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories. Could one of our intrepid arbitrators please look at their contributions and tell us why this account is allowed to continue stoking this dispute? Jehochman Talk 23:57, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Numerous users have been blocked or banned for espousing unverifiable September 11 conspiracy theories. Any new user who appears on Wikipedia suggesting, in earnest, that the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives planted by "conspiracists", may be reasonably viewed as a meat puppet of one of those blocked or banned editors. As such, they may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator.
Wikipedia is not for publishing counter-factual 9/11 conspiracy theories. We really should say enough is enough. I am tired of all the socks and POV pushers, and the enablers who want to hear them out. Therefore, I have proposed the above common sense approach. Please indicate whether you support this or not. Thank you! Jehochman Talk 20:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
The most problematic article has had its semi-protection restored. This seems to have reduced the flow of disruptive WP:SPA single purpose accounts to the point that we can get back to work. Jehochman Talk 12:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The accounts have regrouped and are now launching an effort to rename the article to their preferred version. I have commented here that we need administrative help to block disruptive WP:SPA accounts, per the fine advice I have been given below. Could you fine arbitrators please have a look at that discussion and see if you know of any administrators willing to close down the SPA/SOCK party that's going on there? Jehochman Talk 22:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Comment I do not read the comment made by Stephen of "suck it up" (below) as being intentionally or otherwise rude but rather as another way of saying "take it on the chin". As admins we all know that dealing with SPAs and block evaders is part of the joy of the job. Blocking as per the evasion rules remains open to all admins (as detailed by Rlevse and others below), and semi-protection is also a suitable resort at times. Further if an admin is involved to the point s/he can't block, those admins have normally developed trusted behavioural collegial links to other admins whom they can ask to look objectively at a particular situation, and have the appropriate action taken.-- VS talk 07:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
"We have a passel of tendentious sockpuppeteers who can spend 60 seconds to create a new account, while it takes me at least an hour to shut them down via our bureaucratic processes. That's a very unfavorable tradeoff." This is exactly right. Facile suggestions to follow dispute resolution, ask for an ininvolved admin, or get a buddy to do the block for you (seriously?) don't address the problem. That's why this is again before the committee. I invite bainer to model the behavior he prescribes. Tom Harrison Talk 12:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Would it be possible to identify a "go-to" checkuser who would be willing to look at questions of sockpuppetry on this topic on an expedited basis? This would be someone willing to field relatively informal checkuser requests from admins active on the topic, evaluate their merit, and act on them (if appropriate) rapidly. In the past I've found this approach hugely useful in dealing with high-volume sockpuppetry, and it might help here. MastCell Talk 19:04, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I have edited on various subjects on the German Wikipedia, but my edits on the English Wikipedia are, up to this time, primarily on 9/11-related topics. So I am probably an involved editor here.
In my opinion, we seriously need to consider the possibility that flawed judgment and inconsistent reasoning on the part of some established editors have significantly contributed to the situation that we now face. People will not identify with Wikipedia, and thus will more likely tend to use distractive methods, when confronted with unconvincing arguments, or with a situation in which they perceive that policy is being misconstrued to support reverting their edits or blocking their contributions.
One example has been the recent discussion on the deletion of the word "box-cutters" from the article on the attacks of Sept. 11 [43]. While numerous mainstream media have reported this, is has since become apparent that all these reports are based on a single source (Ted Olson). Evidence such as a trial exhibit mentioned in the discussion now strongly indicates that the information from this source has been incorrect. As being published in a reliable source is an indication that a piece of information is WP:V, but not a sufficient condition in itself, the word "box-cutters" was eventually changed to "weapons" [44], along with some other changes in the text. While this discussion led to a result consistent with Wikipedia policy, there were a number of arguments put forward by established editors that clearly are not supported by policy, such as:
Other such arguments, expressed in other circumstances, have been:
If these failures in the editorial process of the articles are being corrected, then all editors could be held to a higher standard with regard to their behavior, and genuine vandalism and trolling would be much easier to isolate, whether by community interaction or by appropriate administrative measures. -- Cs32en ( talk) 20:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Oppose Jehochman has suggested that the policy with regard to 9/11-related articles should be changed as follows:
Both proposals imply that administrative actions would no longer be based on the behavior of editors (i.e. whether they engage in constructive discussion, support their suggestions by arguments related to Wikipedia policies, etc.) but on what they think or what they believe in. Calling everybody who shares a certain belief or supports a certain argument a "meat puppet" is not only a misinterpretation of WP:MEAT, but also a thin veil to disguise this approach. -- Cs32en ( talk) 20:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Jehochman's statement that the semi-protection of the article has significantly reduced editing by non-autoconfirmed users is misleading. There have been two edits by non-autoconfirmed users during the time the article was not semi-protected. During the same period of time, there have been approximately fifty edits by Jehochman and three other editors, with very little explanation or discussion of these changes on the talk page. -- Cs32en ( talk) 14:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
One of the editors involved in the discussion has now been blocked for what are, as far as I can see, valid reasons. It would, however, be very helpful to clearly indicate the specific reasons for which a sanction is being requested. Any controversial discussion is even more difficult if people who take part in it are at the same time unsure as to whether any requested sanctions could be applied to them.
My view of the discussion on the renaming of the article is as follows:
In less than 40 minutes, Jehochman has deleted 6790 bytes, or more than 12% of the text, from the article World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories ( 15:31, 15:33, 15:34, 15:36, 15:52, 15:56, 15:58, 15:58, 15:59, 16:01, 16:03, 16:07, 16:08, 16:09). This happened without any attempt to discuss the changes on the talk page, and numerous parts of the article that have been there for weeks, if not months or years, have been deleted. Jehochman has requested a semi-protection of the article at 13:00 today, and has received a reply to his request at 14:35. [45] This may have triggered the ensuing rampage. -- Cs32en ( talk) 16:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC) Jehochman has filed an A/E request against me on 24 April, at 20:32, and has withdrawn that request on 25 April, at 00:23. I'm collapsing this subsection as it is of less relevance to the present request from Jehochman regarding the prior arbitration case on 9/11-related articles. -- Cs32en ( talk) 20:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC) |
I think that I am an involved party here and Jehohman's proposal makes me feel very uneasy. He has suggested by that I could be banned for talking about a peer reviewed paper. I suppose I am a SPA and I think that I have heeded the advise posted there. I have read the policy on Verifiability and the Guide Line on Reliable sources and I cannot see the problem. I do not believe I have broken any rules that would constitute a reason for a ban and yet I feel intimidated. Tony0937 ( talk) 23:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
First things first. The requested motion is flawed on face. It doesn't make any sense to treat new editors with a certain POV as meatpuppets of some ur-conspiracist. It is far more likely that there are several sockmasters, dozens of people unrelated to those sockmasters who intend to disrupt wikipedia, and yet more people who geniunely hold these views and don't have a connection to either of the two previous groups. Applying MEAT to all three groups under the assumption that they are all puppets of the first group will generate bad will, unpleasant but valid unblock requests and consternation over admin overreach.
So we should reject Jehochman's motion to ammend (whatever) the case.
Nevertheless, I'm pretty frustrated with the response he is getting from some members of the committee here. The 9/11 conspiracy articles are under an arbcom ruling because they are the locus of dispute between our editors and editors who have disrupted the encyclopedia, wasted time and don't have any real interest in contributing to Wikipedia broadly. It is the poster child for requiring arbcom actions. Because of the nature of the conspiracy and its adherents, online advocacy of conspiracy theories will almost always outstrip reliable sourcing on the theories themselves. the number of editors involved makes it difficult if not impossible to reach a consensus on the talk page which reflects reliable sourcing on the issue and hold-outs (either SPAs or not) make it difficult to commit an edit to those pages which has less than unanimous support. The nature of the theories themselves cause their exponents to disbelieve reliable reporting on the subject and misconstrue or misrepresent sources which may provide limited support for some facet of the conspiracy.
We know all this. What you are hearing now is an editor who claims that these sanctions are insufficient or at least burden responding administrators too much for the effort required to trigger them. Instead of telling him to "suck it up", why don't you draw up an alternative motion which doesn't BITE the newbies as much? Protonk ( talk)
That being said, I don't think ArbCom can do much about it directly. — Coren (talk) 03:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The process to develop a procedure for deciding Ireland article names has stalled. All three moderators have resigned. However, options for the next phase of the process have been suggested.
I would summarise the comments of those editors participating in the current discussion of the options on the wikiproject talk page as:
Approve option 1 (or a version of it):
OK with option 1:
Oppose option 1:
Concerned with option 1:
That's at least a two-thirds majority in favour of trying option 1.
I ask:
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
The Troubles, are not as contentious as they once were, thanks to the tight lid on edit-warring that was created by User:Rlevse here, that subjected the whole subset of articles covered by The Troubles to a 1 RR. This has blunted a lot of the constant edit-warring. However, six months after the fix was applied, someone wants to rip the band-aid off and let the (metaphorical) blood flow anew. User:Sandstein has stated that he will not act on AE requests regarding this remedy, because it is not an ArbCom remedy. We've already seen several folks using IP's to edit war and then when the IP is blocked, use throw-away accounts. The sanctions are needed.. there are 10+ sections in the archives where this is used since December alone.
So, despite my utter distaste of time-wasting bureaucracy such as this, would the ArbCom please vote in the following as a formal ArbCom remedy, as posted by User:Rlevse:
List of times the Rlevse sanctions has been brought up on AE (there are another 5-10 where it's been mentioned in passing, but these are the ones that refer to the 1RR rule itself.)
[46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], and the two latest ones on AE. If the Committee would look at the history of AE from archive 30 or so on, usually 2 or 3 or 4 sections per archive will have to do with this series of articles,
I don't believe that a new full fledged ArbCom would do anything more then to spend a couple months of time with the same parties arguing in the same way. Instead, what should be done is apply common sense. Use the Rlevse sanctions, and keep the peace in an area where there will be no peace if not applied.
If one admin chooses not to act on a particular enforcement request, it doesn't stop another administrator stepping in. Whilst Sandstein might not agree and therefore decide not to take action, if another administrator believes the editor in question has broken the case remedies (In this case it is enforcement of discretionary sanctions) then that is up to them and they may block for that. From what I can see, Sandstein hasn't said he'll overrule other administrators and I suspect he wouldn't even challenge other administrators if they made blocks as part of Rlevse's restriction. It looks like Sandstein merely doesn't agree and doesn't feel comfortable enforcing the decision - that's his prerogative and feel free to simply block if someone goes against the 1RR restriction. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 22:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm commenting in my capacity as admin patrolling WP:AE and responding to enforcement requests there. Ryan is right in that I won't (and have no authority to) overrule any admin enforcing the "Troubles" case as he or she sees fit. However, the "Troubles" decision does not, as Ryan seems to believe, provide for discretionary sanctions. Instead, at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Probation for disruptive editors, it provides that disruptive editors may be put on Wikipedia:Probation and, at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Enforcement, that these editors are then subject to 1RR. That is the arbitral decision that can and should be enforced at WP:AE, including by me.
The section entitled Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case, which purports to put all articles in the area of conflict under 1RR, on the other hand, is not an enforceable arbitral decision, since it was apparently never voted on by the Committee. Its author, Rlevse, has confirmed this at [58]. That is why I will not act on enforcement requests concerning it.
I recommend that the Committee:
Sandstein has summed up what I was going to say. Perhaps both sanction-schemes would be useful? Ncmvocalist ( talk) 05:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
As the unlucky administrator who started the long chain of events that lead there, I want to add two things. One, discretionary sanctions do exist in that dispute area, they are editor targeted however. Two, the broad 1RR was proposed as an alternative to using probation. It has, I believed, helped significantly in the topic area, and has set an objective standard for that all users can be held up to. I strongly urge the committee to consider endorsing the community remedy.-- Tznkai ( talk) 04:29, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Having opposed the sanctions, or I should say how they came about I must concede that they have had a positive effect. They have reduced the edit warring and encouraged discussion. POV warriors have been marginalised with disruptive editing being quickly closed down most of the time. Some Admin’s with a particular bias (admin’s can and do have biased opinions) have been reluctant to address the actions of some editors but the 1RR has proved itself despite this. We all know what the sanctions entail, and have clarified through experience what 1RR is and how it operates. For example, a number of reverts without intermediate edits in between is considered to be 1 revert.
So what I’d suggest is that the sanctions be placed on a separate page with the block log transferred to it. It should include:
It should also include what we mean by 1RR, so there is no ambiguity. If it is felt that criteria no.1 is not clear enough expand it. The template be changed to direct editors to the appropriate page, including a link on Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Final_remedies_for_AE_case in case any templates are missed during the page change. That’s my 2 cents worth, as to simply remove the sanctions would be counter productive.-- Domer48 'fenian' 09:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
It's a pleasure to be filing a positive request. As the Committee is aware, ScienceApologist has been working on an improvement drive for the optics article. He wishes to see the revisions imported to en:wiki and bring the page to featured article status. This requires three things:
So proposing the following case amendment:
Kaldari and Sceptre should be adding their agreement to this propoal shortly, and ScienceApologist should be emailing the Committee to affirm his endorsement of this request. Respectfully submitted, Durova Charge! 00:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Affirming Durova's post. Probably no need to affirm that I would seeing as I announced on AE my intention to if asked. Sceptre ( talk) 00:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Affirming Durova's post. Although I would like to clarify that I think it is important for ScienceApologist himself to make the import edit, which would require a 1-edit suspension of his wikipedia ban. The reason behind this is that this rewrite is a significant contribution to Wikipedia and 10 years from now it shouldn't take an archeologist to figure out who contributed the writing (indeed it should be possible for a bot even to make the determination). This is both to insure proper attribution per the GFDL and per convenience for future editors. This is not strictly required per the GFDL, but it is the proper way to handle this, IMO. Doing attribution in edit summaries is far from ideal, especially when we're talking about a complete rewrite of an important article (mainly because such attribution is not machine-parsable). I would be willing to handle performing the 1-edit unblock and reblock and overseeing the edit.
I support this request. However I submit that it would be much easier to simply allow ScienceApologist to make the edits directly, to wit, I propose the following motion:
Paul August ☎ 19:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with bringing the content into Wikipedia, but I disagree with Kaldari's proposed method of doing so by having ScienceApologist do a single copy-and-paste edit. For GFDL purposes, I believe it would be preferable for an admin to transwiki the article, then merge the page histories, which I believe would result in SA's edits showing up in the page history as being by SA. The GFDL situation is complicated because SA is not the only person who has contributed to the article at Wikisource. If SA or anyone else does it as a single edit, I suggest listing the names of the contributors in the edit summary; but that's not as good. See the discussion at Talk:Optics, especially the comments by Moonriddengirl, for example here; she's very knowledgeable about copyright policy. ☺ Coppertwig ( talk) 00:40, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
1) Kaldari, Sceptre, and Durova are granted permission to act as proxies for ScienceApologist by making edits to the optics article, its talk page, and any process pages directly related to the optics featured article drive.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Notifications:
I have userfied an article, Blood of Angels deleted in an AfD for User:Ebonyskye. I have since discovered this archive: User talk:Ebonyskye/Archive1 in which the user has been notified by User:Thatcher that a checkuser found a relationship between the Ebonyskye account and that of User:GuardianZ who was banned from editing the Midnight Syndicate article. Thatcher also informed Ebonyskye that the ban extended to related articles including Nox Arcana articles. The article I userfied is a Nox Arcana article. My query relates to the wording of the ArbCom case. "GuardianZ (talk · contribs), and Skinny McGee (talk · contribs) are banned indefinitely from Midnight Syndicate." is clear enough. However, "No present or past employee or associate of Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana, or Monolith Graphics, under any username or anonymous IP, may edit Midnight Syndicate or associated articles. " is less clear. Under the ruling is GuardianZ/Ebonyskye free to edit Nox Arcana articles? SilkTork * YES! 16:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The issue is whether the petty edit warring continues or starts up again. Fred Talk 21:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Relevant Arbitration enforcement archives: [59], [60]
Although this checkuser request was formally declined, another checkuser answered privately that Ebonyskye was related to GuardianZ ( search link for arbs). It's possible that this was an error, of course, but I believe Ebonyskye is a "present or past employee or associate of Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana, or Monolith Graphics, under any username or anonymous IP" and so falls under the topic ban passed as remedy 2. I notified her of the topic ban here, logged here.
It is apparent from Ebonyskye's contributions that she has been evading her topic for a long time. Interestingly, I find a complaint by Ebonyskye that Skinny McGee ( talk · contribs) was evading the same topic ban, which resulted in Skinny McGee receiving a stern reminder. Why Ebonyskye was not similarly reminded and sanctioned, I have no idea.
Most of Ebonyskye's edits relate to the band Nox Arcana (including a considerable amount of self-promotion, which is not really an Arbcom matter) and she has largely (but not entirely) avoided direct edits to Midnight Syndicate where the dispute arose. (Skinny McGee seems to be a current member of the band while Ebonyskye is, or is associated with, a former member, now a member of Nox Arcana.)
One possible response would be to narrow the topic ban to encompass Midnight Syndicate only, to allow Ebonyskye to edit Nox Arcana-related articles, although this seems somewhat inequitable to Skinny McGee and essentially rewards Ebonyskye for being able to escape sanction for repeated violations of the ban over the last 18 months. Another possibility would be to lift the topic bans entirely on a trial basis, contingent on continued good behavior by all parties. I am somewhat concerned about this approach, having just discovered the diff of Ebonyskye reporting Skinny McGee's violation while knee-deep in her own repeated violations, and I would be interested to hear Ebonyskye's views on why she thought it was appropriate to report the violation in August 2008 while she was at that same time engaged in editing multiple articles that fell under her topic ban. (I expect she will say that she never was GuardianZ; I point to the checkuser log I noted above, and also to her contribs, if she is not GuardianZ she is still clearly a related editor. There are ways to correct a mistaken topic ban, pretending it does not exist is not one of them. She needs to come up with a better answer than that.) Thatcher 17:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Thatcher, I still state I am not and have never been any other editor, not GaurdianZ, not Skinny McGee, no one.. I believe I sent you an email two years past with my home address, after which I immediately began to get spammed. (Not blaming you, just maybe opened up my email to this inadvertently). So I removed my email from Wikipedia and even got a new email. Anyway, the reason I reported on Skinny McGee was because I could. He falsely accused me of making edits I did not make then falsely accused me of being another editor. I simply returned the favor, except that he was proven to have had 4 other accounts, whereas I did not. And Thatcher, you yourself said that your discision is based on editing I had done.I did not start having a problem with McGee until he started with me. Per the suggestions of other editors (who also turned out to be sockpuppets - MarckChase, and unsigned others) I began looking for reliable sources to back up some of the statements on the Nox Arcana pages. I added what I thought was appropriate, describing the music, the instrumentation, and was slammed for it. So I looked for more sources. Then I got slammed for having too many links. More seasoned editors and admins love to slam on newer editors to "be bold" and "cite" etc, and when we DO, then we get crap for citing too much and for being too bold. This is just stupid that now there's actually a "committee" to decide if anyone properly looked into something I complained of 2 years ago. You didn't care then, so why now? And I can't even recall all the edits I may have made 2 years back and really don't want to waste time looking through history and trying to recall what I was even thinking then. How about this solution. Delete all of it, every scrap for BOTH bands. Who cares, right?
Ebonyskye (
talk) 22:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
OK. I admit, it IS frustrating to be falsely accused. So, how do I go about proving who I am, or in this case, who I am not? It's like deja vu, I know I asked this of Thatcher and we (or some admin and I) traded emails, but that seemed to go nowhere. Also, I would like to suggest some AFDs. Where might I go to do this? I read the procedure, but since I am banned from editing certain articles, I cannot follow said procedure. There are plenty of articles needing RS or that are far less notable than any I have edited. Since I am discouraged to create, perhaps I can help clean up. Ebonyskye ( talk) 06:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
As the filing party who requested the Midnight Syndicate arbitration, I found SkinnyMcGee to be the more cooperative of the two primary disputants and subsequently awarded that editor a barnstar for creating a DYK about an unrelated (and uncontroversial) topic. GuardianZ was the primary aggressor in the original dispute. At no time in my observation did GuardianZ demonstrate a commitment to adapting to site standards or to Wikipedia's larger mission. To the extent that I noticed followup (which was quite some time ago), either GuardianZ or someone closely associated with that individual appeared to be openly contemptuous of project norms. Although I have not encountered the Enonyskye account directly, if the Committee were to demonstrate lenience toward either side of the dispute I would encourage them to either extend it toward SkinnyMcGee or else equally toward both parties. Meat/socking and topic ban evasion should not be rewarded while the party who demonstrates improvement remains under full sanction. Durova Charge! 21:00, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Midnight Syndicate, which closed in January 2007, this Committee found that several editors had engaged in extended edit-warring and disruptive editing on Midnight Syndicate, Nox Arcana, and related articles. The disputes appeared to stem from real-world disputes concerning the history of these musical groups, with which these editors were or are associated off-wiki. As a result, two named editors as well as all others associated with the groups were topic-banned indefinitely from editing this group of articles.
More than two years have elapsed since the topic-bans were imposed. During this period, there have been some allegations of sockpuppetry, but in general terms the level of edit-warring and disruption on the articles has decreased, reflecting that the topic-bans have had their desired effect. Now, however, it has been suggested that we consider relaxing the topic-ban in whole or part.
The editor misconduct that led to the imposition of the remedies was serious. However, two years is a long time on Wikipedia, and it may be that the editors who were previously restricted are now capable of editing these articles in compliance with all relevant policies. This would include, among other things, avoiding edit warring and disruptive editing, editing only from a neutral point of view, minimizing edits that reflect the impact of any conflict of interest, and discussing controversies that may arise in a civil fashion on talkpages. In addition, it can be hoped that the passage of more than two years may have helped to alleviate any real-world feuds or bitterness that led to the original problems.
Understandable concern has been expressed that lifting the editing restrictions will lead to a resumption of the original problems. Accordingly, we should not simply terminate the remedies. However, in an effort to balance the competing considerations here and to allow a fair chance to evaluate the effect of our extending a second chance to this group of editors, I offer a motion. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 02:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
The remedies (1 and 2) ordered by this Committee in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Midnight Syndicate are suspended for a period of 90 days. During this period, the editors who were previously restricted by these remedies may edit without topic restriction. However, they are instructed to comply with all applicable Wikipedia policies and guidelines in their editing, particularly those discussed in the original arbitration decision. Each of these editors is also instructed to edit these articles from only a single account.
During the 90-day trial period, should any of the previously restricted editors engage in edit-warring, POV editing, or other misconduct on the articles in question, any uninvolved administrator may reinstate the topic ban against that editor or impose another appropriate sanction. Unless the misconduct is blatant, a warning to the editor should first be given.
As the end of the 90-day period approaches, a request for permanent termination or modification of the remedies may be submitted for consideration by this Committee.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Per [61] - It seems that the vast majority of DreamGuy's incivility stems from heated debates WP:AFD. Given this, Is it possible to use secondary sanctions such as page/namespace bans when there is a clear link (as determined by an enforcing admin) between a certain page/namespace or forum and his violations of his behavioral editing restriction. In this case we are requesting a 2-6 month ban from WP:AFD as determined by a mentor. «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l» (talk) 15:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Response to DreamGuy: I wish to note that DreamGuy's 1rr restriction is not as voluntary as much as he is trying to deceive it to be. It was mandatory in return for an early unblock from one of his numerous previous incidents. I also note that he seems to think that discrediting an IP user who initially brought the extent his misconduct to light will in someway weaken the case against him, which it does not. He also makes ad homenium arguments against other users and does not address the issue of his conduct «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l» (talk) 15:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Response to DreamGuy: The 1rr is mandatory because you agreed to it in return for an early unblock, Its mandatory because you cant just start ignoring it. You said you would abide by it and now you have to wether you want to or not, that is what mandatory is, look it up in Wiktionary if you wish. Oh and I note that your the one who has a editing restriction they have violated around 30 times recently, not I, so please stop trying to discredit me as it wreaks of baiting. And I with to note that this is not a personal dispute, Until a few days ago I didnt even know you existed on this earth (never loan Wikipedia), But today I find you making ad homenium attacks against an IP user who reported your gross misconduct and blatant violations, So now I'm following up «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l» (talk) 16:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
DreamGuy has not followed either the letter or spirit of the ArbCom behavioral restrictions. To date, he has accumulated almost a dozen temp blocks for violations of civility, which would seem to indicate that the short-term blocks are not sufficient to the task at hand, as DG has chosen to ignore these restrictions, arguing each and every time that the fault lies with others. His behavior has not improved substantially since the AE restrictions were set in place. While it would be easy to call for an indef block and finally be done with the matter, DG's often quality edits barely equal the overwhelming BITEy and uncivil nature of his edits and edit summaries (which stifle discussion and chase away editors both new and old). The AE sanction calls for a year block; I think that something approximating half that with a mandatory period afterwards with a mentor. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 15:24, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
It disheartens me that some people are willing to jump to a conclusion over there before I even had a chance to respond and are willing to take the accusations made by an anon IP (extremely likely to be a indefinitely banned editor User:Azviz) at face value. Actually looking into the edit diffs provided there shows a good percentage of no bad behavior whatsoever -- use of word "Pshaw" in a response, patiently explaining that claims in a BLP need reliable sources, good faith disagreements about reliable sources. Any of those edits that could be accurately described as uncivil were as part of wikihounding by that banned editor, a likely reappearance of that editor under a new name, and some extremely aggressive and uncivil actions taken against me by others. ArbCom is about solving problems, right? Not about letting edit warriors bait and use ivil POV pushing to ultimately prevail. Banning me from AFDs just mean that the editors in question -- all of them major warriors in AFD related maters -- get to continue their bad behavior not only with one less person to take a different side but knowing that they can target other people for similar wikihounding and actions in hopes of getting them blocked too.
Frankly, if any sort of action is going to be taken against me, it also needs to be taken against the others involved, who were far more uncivil, and seem to be violating a whole string of more important policies, like sources on BLPs, getting around bans, and so forth. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and Arcayne seriously overstates his case. He has a long history of filing false accusations against me out of some revenge motive over something that happened from years back. His claims about the block lengths are simply false. The escalating blocks system set up would get nowhere near a year. It's supposed to escalate, and I don't think it's ever gotten beyond a week, and the length of time is supposed to reset. I should also point out that I voluntarily limited myself to 1RR, so I am on more restrictions than what the sanctions originally called for. Arcayne seems to want to try to fool people into thinking some longterm block is called for, when in actuality this is just another case of the people complaining just hoping to game the system so they can continue their own bad behavior. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Response to Promethean: "Mandatory in return for"...? No, not mandatory at all. I suggested it myself, volunteered to do it, and the block in question was almost over so I had nothing to gain by doing so other than to try to improve things. I did not have to accept it, as I could have waited out the block. Nothing about it was mandatory. But, again, are you here to try to resolve conflicts or just to try to give a spin on things so you can get someone blocked you do not like? I addressed my behavior over on the ArbCom page. You haven't addressed your own behavior or that of anyone but me. Conflict doesn't happen in a vacuum, and it can't be solved by people trying to use blocks as a tool to prevailing in a personal dispute. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I would like to request that my topic ban on editing Ayn Rand related articles be lifted. There is a great deal of work that needs to be done on Rand related articles, including major ongoing consolidation and cleanup being led by Skomorokh and J Readings (please see Template:Objectivism and Ayn Rand Cross Talk, which has become a central hub for these efforts). Currently, my limit to talk pages is severely limiting my ability to improve the project, as even in the most uncontroversial of cases I have to ask for other users to make the change, which is frustrating to me and, I am sure, them. Were the committee to lift this restriction, I would voluntarily place myself on 0RR (excepting, of course, vandalism removal), would avoid making any controversial edits without first gaining clear consensus via the Talk page, and would make sure to avoid involving myself in any edit wars. Thank you for your consideration. TallNapoleon ( talk) 03:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
As a side note, I only listed myself because I don't believe this directly affects other users. I did post a link to this on Template:Objectivism and Ayn Rand Cross Talk, and if the Committee likes I would be glad to notify all other members of the original ArbComm proceeding. TallNapoleon ( talk) 04:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I have been spending some time trying to help with the Rand-related articles recently, and I can confirm TallNapoleon's statement that there is an immense amount of editorial work to do. It would be very helpful to have him back on board. KD Tries Again ( talk) 16:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Edit warring has continued on the article, but with new editors. Articles of this nature have significant issues on questions of weight and verifiability and attempting to deal with them simply as behavioural issues of the editors involved is at best a short term solution. Current editors have carried out far more RRs that KD ever did. I have no objection to his request, he has always been careful to attempt a NPOV and to properly source material in a field where he is knowledgeable. -- Snowded ( talk) 05:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
A couple examples of edits he may have made to Objectivism (Ayn Rand) here and here. -- Karbinski ( talk) 10:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
As well an example of an edit to Objectivism (Ayn Rand) - here - that he objected to being reverted. -- Karbinski ( talk) 15:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
1) The topic ban imposed on TallNapoleon ( talk · contribs) (see WP:RANDARB#TallNapoleon topic-banned and warned) is removed. In place of a mainspace topic ban, TallNapoleon is subject to a zero-revert restriction (0RR) on Ayn Rand and related articles for the remainder of the six-month duration. He is instructed to seek talk page consensus before undertaking any potentially controversial edits. TallNapoleon is encouraged to continue his efforts to develop a functional consensus and improve articles related to the subject.
Motion enacted Tiptoety talk 23:05, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There are currently fourteen active arbitrators (excluding one recused), so eight votes are a majority.
1) In remedy 1.1 (" Area of conflict") of the West Bank - Judea and Samaria case, "... the Palestine/Israel dispute ..." is replaced with "... the Arab-Israeli conflict ...".
Motion enacted - Tiptoety talk 23:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I was topic banned in the Scientology arbitration (the one that is all over the media right now). The Arbitrary Committee says:
2) All IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked as if they were open proxies. Individual editors may request IP block exemption if they wish to contribute from the blocked IP addresses.
Where do I find the IP addresses covered by this? Which ones exactly "are to be blocked"? Please clarify. Shutterbug ( talk) 05:34, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
As a community, we tend not to provide to users forbidden to edit or restricted, a full list of "IPs they cannot edit from". As you yourself are (as you rightly say) topic banned, and also a bunch of IPs closely related to CoS editing are blocked, the question is likely (as Roger says) moot.
This isn't specific to "you". It applies equally to all users and any dispute, whose actions are such that an IP range needed to be blocked to prevent their improper activities. That is quite an extreme measure, and is not taken lightly.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 14:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
It is in fact equal to all users. Any user whose actions are sufficiently disruptive, will be told eventually "sorry, you can't edit on our website". Users are also told (and have been for years):
In fact the CoS is not being "punished". Whether as an organization, or by extending facilities to its members, or both, the CoS appears to have had its computers used, for a range of disruptive editing behaviors that are not permitted here. Possibly they endorsed, facilitated, or enabled it, possibly it really was just a bunch of users they allowed onto their systems. All organizations are responsible for the usage of their computers when it impacts on others. If you run a library and your computer is used for pornography or hacking, it will be blacklisted even if you as a librarian were not doing these things. So the ranges that might be called upon for this disruption, are blocked.
In making that decision, the nature or name of the organization is not significant and unimportant in and of itself. The sole factor is that despite past cases, its IPs continue to be a persistent source of harmful editing. To save you worrying that CoS might be being picked on, note that range blocks are applied in many cases of disruption and vandalism, where they are needed to frustrate easy access by other disruptive individuals or groups.
Wikipedia editing is a privilege, not a suicide pact; persistent known "high risks", or sources of disruption, are not necessarily desirable in this encyclopedia project. If there are "good faith" users who can and have faithfully followed all of our policies every time they edit Wikipedia, then as the Committee have said, IP block exemption may be applied for by those few.
Past actions have not yet met with a substantive change for the better. We can be fairly sure CoS knew about them; it's extremely unlikely that arbcom cases and blocks wouldn't be "known" internally, that they don't track the articles on them, have no awareness of their own computers' usage over 4 years, or that in all that time not one person of any standing in 12 million members was involved in editing or got to hear about the blocks or past cases.
If CoS had been serious about not wanting to have this action imposed upon them and upon all who edit from CoS related computers, they have had the option several times to desist, or to impose conditions on those using the computers. Evidently, according to the evidence, they did not realize it was necessary to manage their computer usage, chose not to prevent the activity, or did not do so effectively. Either way this is the result, and it is a response to disruption, not a "pro/anti" anything. We would (and have) done the same to schools, libraries, and other highly disruptive ISP ranges, when these have acted as a persistent source of disruption.
As for the media, they are free to report this or call it what they like. If you want to read what it really is, then the ruling is open to reading by everyone on the planet.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 22:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Shutterbug, whatever your expectations of the internet and people's behavior on it, here at least we look for adult behavior. That includes mature understanding to all editors, that expectations exist and apply. To the extent we don't get it after warnings and dialog, we protect the project and move on. From your perspective a number of scientologists have persistently taken action that despite requests and warnings, has ultimately brought the CoS into disrepute. The Church doesn't get to play the part where they counter "it's just a few bad apples", because CoS' own equipment and IPs were used for the purpose.
I suggest that if people at CoS feel this result isn't something that they generally wanted, then they collectively have a high level of power to make it extremely clear to a wide range of adherents that it must end, here and now, and editing according to Wikipedia norms will be the only acceptable behavior endorsed to adherents due to the risk of harm. CoS officials -- global, regional or local -- between them have the power to make that statement publicly and formally, and they have the power to mean it or just mouth the words. They have the power to regulate the IPs they collectively manage or not. SoC members may show it matters to them to listen to this, or doesn't matter. (So, of course, may your opponents, but that isn't your personal concern any more.) We have taken the action we usually take to protect the project; they may now realize their error and change course, or show by inaction that it wasn't very important to their Church after all. But be assured, the personal feelings of the Church are not at issue here. What is at issue is procuring a move towards good neutral editing and appropriate conduct on this website in the scientology topics, if on no other sites on the planet.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 02:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Regarding Shutterbug's comments:
It's particularly odd to see this complaint coming from Shutterbug. Contrast it to Shutterbug's declaration on 9 December 2007 at RFAR:
An analysis of that statement, juxtaposed against prior news coverage from 2007, has been in my evidence since December 2008. [73] Additionally, it was Shutterbug (formerly User:COFS) who was the principal subject of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/COFS first filed in April 2007, and later the arbitration case of the same name: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS.
Evidently, for over two years this person has not held him- or herself accountable either for having failed to abide by Wikipedia's policies or for having failed to inform the organization whose reputation s/he was endangering. Over two years ago I attempted to explain to this person that Wikipedia's open edit and public history structure meant s/he was risking a much bigger public relations problem than the legitimate problem s/he was trying to fix. That caution, and remedial suggestions which followed, were met with open contempt. That reaction continued even after events proved empirically that those cautions were correct. It can hardly come as much surprise, that more than a year and a half after the Arbitration Committee passed Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/COFS#Responsibility_of_organizations, the capabilities it outlined have finally been implemented:
Forget for a moment what organization this is: if it were a county government, or a sporting goods manufacturer, or anything else, this individual's Internet access privileges would long since have been curtailed on the organizational side. Wikipedians are volunteers who can (and have) blocked editing access from any organization up to and including the United States House of Representatives. [74] [75] It is entirely incidental that in this instance the organization happens to be a religion. It certainly is regrettable that things have had to go so far, and as a gesture of good faith I repeat my standing offer to nominate any Scientologist's biography for deletion upon request, if it meets the dead trees standard. [76] If Shutterbug and the Church of Scientology are willing to assume their share of responsibility for the events that led to this impasse, and if they take good faith measures toward correcting the problems that led here, then I would gladly initiate a motion to modify and/or lift the restriction. Durova Charge! 01:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
This request should be archived later today, provided there are no further comments. Hersfold ( t/ a/ c) 14:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I was topic banned in the recent second Scientology arbitration case, for stuff I did months before the first Scientology arbitration case which occurred in summer 2008.
There is something fundamentally wrong with banning me from this topic since not only was this "evidence" ignored in the first case but I also haven't violated the terms given from that case.
Accordingly, I'm uncertain what, exactly, this request is asking for. Put simply I'd like to continue editing any article I please. Banning someone from editing a topic should be a last resort, and since the arbcom didn't say I was pushing a POV in the first case I'd argue that we haven't quite reached the last resort. (If the arbcom ruled I was pushing a POV, and I continued to do the same thing, a ban would make sense. That isn't the case here.)
I totally understand that at first glance it might seem I had been ...been consistently pushing a specific point of view... Honestly though, the only POV I'm "pushing" is what's in the sources - every edit I made was as a result of what our best sources say. (Secondary sources like Time magazine and the LA Times, as well as primary sources like the US Navy.) The fact is these sources are unpopular with Scientologists and it took a great deal of time and effort to maintain them in most Scientology articles. You aren't saying I should just let editors with a positive view of Scientology remove info this easily sourced?
As regards mentioning my "harassment" of Justanother the point I am trying to make is that I disagree with the arbcom's first ruling which was affirmed in this case. Since he was banned by this arbcom for the same behavior I was trying to call attention to it is especially irritating that the same committee would affirm my attempts to solve this problem SOONER was harassment. Anynobody( ?) 01:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Gentlemen I've ALWAYS used ALL information from what we consider reliable sources. Articles about Scientology feature in depth coverage of its negative aspects. Are you saying we should ignore the bulk of what the sources say about a topic because some people don't like what it has to say? (For example a Time article called The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power obviously is going to say things Scientologists don't like, and might just make anyone citing it look anti-Scientology.)
If not, would you please explain how someone could use info like Time's, the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, or any of the other dozen or so reliable and non-biased sources without appearing to support the points in them? Anynobody( ?) 02:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I noticed that some of the editors banned, on both sides, haven't edited for quite some time. For example CSI LA last edited in 2007 and the same goes for Orsini Why are these two being topic banned after having escaped scrutiny (or even participation) in the first arbcom case AND not made an edit since 2007?
None of the graphics I made are meant to disparage anyone or anything and directly reflect the available sources. The image of DC-8s arriving on Earth for Xenu was meant to replace an already made illustration created by modifying a photo of NASA's DC-8 in space with the word Xenu on its tail.
Lastly, this arbitration reaffirmed that I previously harassed Justanother. I submit that the whole allegation if harassing Justanother (aka Justallofthem) stems from my attempt to get a WP:RFC/U going regarding his behavior. After the last arbitration I've not had any real contact with him, and he's been banned for the same type of behavior I was trying to call attention to in the first place. WP:HA#What harassment is not says A user warning for disruption or incivility is not harassment if the claims are presented civilly, made in good faith and attempt to resolve a dispute instead of escalating one. I've never called for him to be banned or demanded punishment, all I asked for was a RFC when it appeared he was having similar problems with several editors through giving the community an opportunity to comment. Anynobody( ?) 02:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Anynobody, this a cumulative decision based on all your "bad deeds". I am curious to see how the article develops without us. Let the clueless rule! Shutterbug ( talk) 01:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Either there's more to the case against Anynobody or there isn't. From only what's posted within the case pages, which isn't much, I don't know.
I looked at each "POV" diff (two) and each "disparaging" graphic (five). The diffs are fairly ordinary-looking edits, and would seem to be POV only if not reliably sourceable. The graphics are documentation of a type permitted as original research or describable primary sources. Two of the graphics would seem to be disparaging (by the editor) only if they weren't based on reliable sources. I don't know if they were or weren't based on reliable sources in the details, but in the current article, the LA Times seems to back the core issue that Anynobody was editing.
If these edits were based on reliable sources, then Anynobody must have done something notable within the article talk pages that merited the "POV" and "disparaging" charges. Did he? I don't know.
The fact-finding mentioned that prior arbitration determined that Anynobody harassed Justanother. I looked at that case, and it determined that Anynobody "complained to and of Justanother with great frequency and persistence". Well, now that Justa* has been banned from the entire project, one might reasonably conclude that Justa* was a frequent and persistent problem under the radar. In any case, with Justa* gone, a remedy against Anynobody inclusive of that reason lacks a preventive purpose, so I suggest tagging it with a note of 'No longer relevant to a preventative remedy since Justa(names) has been site banned by another remedy of this case'.
My tentative conclusion is that there is either no substantive case against Anynobody, or it's a case that's been presented with insufficient specificity. If there is no substantive case, the topic ban and restriction should be rescinded. If there is a substantive case, please present it so Anynobody can either defend his actions, or avoid doing again whatever he supposedly did that was so bad it deserved a topic ban. Milo 01:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
This is a request for a minor clarification or amendment of remedy #2 (IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology), to avoid a point of contention that is sure to arise some time soon.
The ruling states, "All IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked as if they were open proxies. Individual editors may request IP block exemption if they wish to contribute from the blocked IP addresses."
Could the Committee clarify that this covers IP addresses reasonably believed to be owned or operated by the CoS, or that appear to be substantively used for that purpose or on their behalf, not just those where "ownership" is formally proven through an IP registrar or "operated by" is claimed (and disputed).
This guidance would be worth obtaining before any blocks start hitting the administrators' incident or arbitration enforcement noticeboards, and because it is an obvious block evasion/ wikilawyering tactic (obtaining new IP addresses not visibly "owned or operated" by CoS, even "broadly interpreted", would be trivially easy).
FT2 ( Talk | email) 12:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)