This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning KillerChihuahua

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:31, 11 April 2013 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

KillerChihuahua ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence#Editors reminded and discretionary sanctions (amended)

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 21:17, 11 April 2013 Undoes over 100 edits and returns entire article to this version on February 15 2013. Subsequently makes 15 more edits to try and fix the problematic aspects of that mass revert.
2. 14:34, 12 February 2013‎ Similar to above, during dispute on one part of the lede KC reverts all the way back to the lede from September of 2010.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. This editor is an admin who frequents AE and knows about the discretionary sanctions well enough to know what kind of behavior is acceptable. All the same, back in February, I did remind her of the discretionary sanctions with regards to her conduct on the subject.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I really am baffled by KC's behavior on this topic, it seems in this recent instance she basically reverted all the way back to the point when she stopped contributing to the article. She has basically been a bull in a China shop in her edit-warring on this article and these reverts to much older versions are disruptive to the point of making constructive work on the article impossible. She engaged in a lot of rapid and extensive deletions back in February and hardly participated in any talk page discussion over such edits, which basically meant that other editors would have to discuss some content she deleted to try and correct issues she raised and before we could get anything done she would delete some other large bit of material, forcing us to discuss that until everyone was tired of discussing anything. This is just not the kind of conduct that should be expected from an AE admin participating in an area subject to discretionary sanctions.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:31, 11 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• Aprock, the issue here is that she went in and reverted over 100 edits, apparently without bothering to check at what she was doing until after the fact. Some of the issues she created were fixed and others are still there. I don't have the will to clean up after her or rehash a bunch of other discussions after what happened in February.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:42, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• That is not even remotely a fair characterization of what I am saying. I am saying that KC's mass-reverting and mass-deleting has exhausted my will. Back in February I raised my concerns about this kind of reverting and tried to work with KC, but it obviously isn't stopping her from doing this kind of thing.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:22, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• KC's conduct in February is why I felt so quickly compelled to initiate an AE case over this recent revert. Her conduct then was reckless and disruptive and I don't want to see it resumed. See the relevant part of the article revision history and the talk archives here and here. KC was most actively involved in this discussion and this one.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:08, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• The "cleanup" KC engaged in mostly concerned obvious collateral damage such as her removing tags and re-adding interwiki links that had been removed by Addbot. Many substantive changes were made that have been reverted with no actual explanation, in addition to various other reasonable improvements such as one edit that fixed a dead link.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:29, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• Sandstein, setting all the chaff aside, there is no reason why KC being an admin would prevent you from reviewing this request. Honestly, I doubt you would find many who would consider reverting over 100 edits made by over a dozen editors of varying perspectives on a highly contentious article. Most editors would see it as monumentally disruptive, admin or not.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 15:33, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply
• Ed, I was not really interested in any sort of block or topic-ban. My interest is that reverting of this magnitude by KC be stopped. It should go without saying that you don't revert 100 edits that were made over two months by over a dozen editors and only offer as your explanation: "Not seeing recent changes as an improvement, this article is getting more fractured, not less." A restriction on KC or perhaps the article that prevents this type of reverting could be sufficient.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:21, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply
• I am not saying I was exhausted by two edits. See the two specific talk page sections I linked in the last sentence of my remark at 17:08, 12 April 2013 and BH's statement about KC's editing in February. Those are all things that factored into the situation.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:08, 14 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[1]

Discussion concerning KillerChihuahua

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by KillerChihuahua

I reverted to a version by BlackHades, which changed little as intervening edits were mostly back-and-forth. When one restores an earlier version and there were intervening good edits, one restores those changes, and that's what I did, noting this in edit summaries; including edits by BH and TDA. I removed content tagged as uncited since 2011; rephrased a sentence ("studies argue" I changed to "authors of studies argue" since studies cannot argue); I made a MoS fix and a dablink fix. Regarding the edit back in Feb, that was a different situation and edit, with considerable discussion on the talk page, and although my attempt to end an edit war over the lead by going back to an earlier longstanding version had strong support on the talk page at that time, it was promptly reverted by BlackHades [2] and no one has edit warred to keep it. It is bizarre to me that I'm accused of edit warring, as I restored BlackHades' version and not my old version which TDA inexplicably refers to. Am I now accused of being BlackHades' meatpuppet? Is TDA "exhausted" by two edits he didn't like, one of which was reverted by BlackHades in Feb, and one of which I explain above? Regarding Akuri's claims, if he has tried to discuss "these matters" with me at all I'd be appreciative of a diff, unless he's referring to his post on the article talk page at 22:43 11 April. Ditto for the rest of his accusations, as I have no recollection of any such behavior as he describes. Killer Chihuahua 16:54, 12 April 2013‎

• Oh, did I miss a dead link? Thanks for letting me know, I'll go find it and fix it. Killer Chihuahua 17:39, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

  Ok, done. Anything else? Killer Chihuahua 17:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• Atethnekos, I'm trying not to edit the article while this AE request is open, except with the broken link that seemed impossible to misconstrue. I'm more than happy to revisit the details and restore consensus edits I missed; I missed a dead link which I've already fixed after TDA brought it to my attention, and I can either restore the edit you mention after this request closes, or you can do it and I'll be just as happy. I have no objection to that fix. I wasn't quite done when I got called away from the pc last night, and then of course when I got back on today this was here. So I apologize for any dismay at the delay, but really think I should avoid editing the article during this. Killer Chihuahua 22:24, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply
• Sandstein, I find myself agreeing with TDA here. While it is true that All parties are subject to sanctions and may have their actions reviewed, it is also true you can ignore chatter not connected with the original complaint. While I sympathize with your desire to have someone who called you an officious little jerk in front of ArbCom, I don't think this is the opportune moment. Killer Chihuahua 18:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by aprock

This is a curious request for enforcement. As evidence of edit waring The Devil's Advocate presents two diffs separated by months. The most recent diff is from just over an hour prior to the request for enforcement. The Devil's Advocate has neither raised the issue on the article talk page, nor on KillerChihuahua's talk page. The edit from February coincides with very active participation by KillerChihuahua on the article talk page.

The request seems premature at best. aprock ( talk) 00:29, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

The suggestion that a single series of consecutive edits should be brought to AE by The Devil's Advocate because he doesn't have the will to edit collaboratively is nothing less than disruptive. I suggest that The Devil's Advocate be formally warned that the topic area is under discretionary sanctions and reminded to pursue usual avenues of dispute resolution in lieu of immediately turning to AE at the first sign of edits that he does not agree with. aprock ( talk) 02:12, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Akuri

I have been trying to resolve these issues on the talk page, and I also tried to in February when I was editing as an IP before I had an account. Although I've tried to resolve the dispute, I agree with The Devil's Advocate that taking this to AE is necessary. It's impossible to collaborate with someone who doesn't try to justify their reverts on the talk page, even when reverting more than a month's worth of edits.

When KillerChihuahua has explained what she thought was wrong with the content she removed, which isn't always, she hasn't been willing to try to fix any of the problems she raised with it. So it's been up to editors like The Devil's Advocate, BlackHades and myself to try to rewrite the content in a way that could satisfy her. Then there would be another round of mass reverts or deletions, and the discussion would restart from the beginning. KillerChihuahua's editing forces the discussion into an endless cycle where we have to discuss the same content again and again, which makes it impossible to move forward with improving the article, even for people like me and BlackHades who are still trying to. Akuri ( talk) 03:51, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• I want to note that I for one agree with Sandstein's suggestion to request a case. I understand the sentiment that this report should examine KillerChihuahua's conduct and no one else's, but doing nothing about all of the other issues only means they'll come up again. The one-way interaction bans have been a major source of conflict at least since last July. For more details see my comment in Sandstein's user talk. Akuri ( talk) 21:13, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Mathsci

The Devil's Advocate does not appear to have discussed matters with KillerChihuahua (either on her talk page or on the article talk page) before rushing here with jumped-up claims. As Aprock comments, TDA has misused this noticeboard. As far as KillerChihuahua is concerned, TDA could be nursing a grudge, since he was dismissive when she gave him an official warning about calling Sandstein an "officious little jerk". [6]

Statement by Atethnekos

I'm not entirely sure what this enforcement request is supposed to accomplish.

My concern with the edit mentioned by The Devil's Advocate above [13] was that it reverted a change I made in response to some issues raised by user Guettarda in the following discussion section: Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Misrepresentation_of_sources. BlackHades and Guettarda debated how to fix the content, and KillerChihuahua added some insight as well. I felt the issue was easily resolvable, I offered this view, and changed the content as well. I thought the change helped, because the issue seemed to go away. But now the edit mentioned above returns the content to which Guettarda objected. I am just wondering why my edit was not an improvement and how it contributed to the fracturing of the article. I think Guettarda's objection is now unaddressed, which is not good because he raised a legitimate objection to content not precisely following sources. -- Atethnekos ( Discussion,  Contributions) 22:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

What KillerChihuahua writes above directed towards me addresses the concern I had with this issue. -- Atethnekos ( Discussion,  Contributions) 22:53, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Opinion by MONGO

I think The Devil's Advocate is nearing the point of exhausting the patience of the community. I strongly suspect that The Devil's Advocate is a ban evader. That's my opinion.-- MONGO 20:24, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Opinion by Beyond My Ken

Further to what MONGO writes above, if TDA is not himself a ban evader, he is certainly a major enabler of ban evaders. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 23:09, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by BlackHades

KillerChihuahua's edits have been extremely problematic and disruptive. She has been making huge reverts without discussion and removing hundreds of edits by countless editors time and time again. Once to a version from over 2 months ago [14], another time to a version from over 2 years ago [15], and another time reverting 20 edits to improve the lead by several different editors that worked together here. [16] Constantly reverting countless improvements by countless editors that have worked together to improve the article.

She appears to be very heavily opinionated on the topic of Race and Intelligence, which of itself is not a problem or issue but becomes one when she starts practicing WP:Truth by deleting and reverting properly cited text that goes against her POV. Such as constantly deleting the lead that mentions the existence of average racial IQ differences here and here and here and here. Despite the fact that the text in question adheres to WP:LEAD and has always been a part of the lead of this article for several years without any disputes. While the cause of average racial IQ differences certainly remains in dispute among researchers in the field today, the mere existence of average IQ differences between races is universally acknowledged by all researchers across the board. I have mentioned this fact to KillerChihuahua, which is also acknowledged by all other editors of the article except for KillerChihuahua, who stated that the existence of average IQ differences between races is "not universally accepted (except by certain racists and race supremacist groups)." [17] She is certainly entitled to her own opinion. But when her opinion conflicts with the universal consensus of the field, as well as the universal consensus among editors of the article, but she decides to force her POV anyways by removing accurate text that adheres to guidelines through deletions and mass reverts it is extremely problematic.

Her latest mass revert appears to be for the permanent removal of the section "Brain Size". Which she stated "There is no "fixing" a section which has no RS which are about the article. You cannot "fix" synth and OR by simply saying you're-adding it." [18]. This is despite the fact that one of the sources is Hunt & Carlson which is widely considered to be a reliable secondary source by nearly all other editors. Her statement seems to indicate she will not allow the section "Brain Size" to exist under any circumstances regardless of what changes any other editors make. As her personal opinion is that there is "no RS which are about the article". Despite the fact that many published peer reviewed studies in major mainstream journals does exist on the specific topic, as well as numerous secondary sources, and despite other editors that completely disagree with her and acknowledge the existence of these many reliable sources. She will not allow this section to exist under any circumstances.

In regards to Mathsci's accusation of WP:TAG TEAM. This is downright comical. Mathsci has a very long history of attacking and accusing any and every editor from Race and Intelligence that doesn't edit the article from his strict POV including falsely accusing both me and Akuri of sockpuppetry here. [19]. BlackHades ( talk) 00:24, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Tom Harrison

I've been reading through the article and talk page, and it seems to me exaggerated to say KC undid over 100 edits. This diff more accurately shows KC's change. I really don't understand the basis of TDA's complaint. It doesn't look to me like KC disrupted the article, or the talk page, where discussion is proceeding. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Volunteer Marek

If Akuri, commenting above, isn't a sock of a banned user, I'll stuff jalapeno cheetos up my nose, take pictures and post them on Commons. Volunteer Marek 20:58, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

@ Sir Fozzie

R&I is, and likely forever will be a very contentious area. - Please. That's about as a clear cut admission that Wikipedia's dispute resolution process, including WP:AE, which is part of it, is a total failure as one could ask for. R&I isn't Sarah Palin. It's not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's not Polish-German quabbles over Gdanzig or Copernicus. It's not Scientology. It's not the Armenian Genocide. I could agree if your statement referred to these. But this is actually a much narrowly defined topic area which really *shouldn't* be controversial.

I've seen and joyfully (and less so) participated in LOTS of contentious areas on Wikipedia. At most what you get in them is something like a total of 5 or 6 committed editors over a span of three or four years. Counting numbers on both sides. But somehow this area manages to attract this many new accounts within a space of months, ad nauseam. And as soon as one account gets banned a few more pop up.

So spare us the excuses and the hand washing. The only reason why this topic area is a continuous problem is because of the persistent, long ongoing sock puppetry and meat puppetry which - as anyone who's paid attention for at least some time knows - is coordinated by a small group of individuals who manage to generate many more user accounts than their existential, spiritual and physical presence can justify. And it's the same shit over and over again. Yes, this provokes an "equal and opposite reaction" in folks like Mathsci who get a bit obsessed with hunting down all these sock puppets and meat puppets. But the problem is that there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done about all the sock/meat puppetry.

Frankly, from now on, anyone who brings up an WP:AE request or tries to agitate for another R&I case (which of course, would address the great "wrongs" of the past R&I cases, which unfairly banned some user which the filer is not actually familiar with but feels the need to speak up for anyway) should automatically get their ass checkusered. Any SPA that gets obsessive about the topic area needs to be checkusered. Any new, especially SP accounts should be required to establish a strong consensus on the talk page before being allowed to make changes to these articles (i.e. reverting them would be exempt from the 3RR rule). Most of the pages in the topic area need to be put on permanent semi-protection. And what you really need to come up with is a way which will cause these people to get simply BORED with this crap and leave on their own.

There's nothing intrinsic about this topic which would cause it to be "forever... very contentious". Wikipedia DR just fucked it up along the way. Volunteer Marek 02:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by (username)

<-- Copy and paste this empty section below the most recent statement and replace "(username)" with your username. -->

Result concerning KillerChihuahua

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

The allegations that have been made here include allegations of disruptive editing and/or POV-pushing by an administrator (The Devil's Advocate, Akuri, BlackHades), allegations of making a disruptive AE request (Aprock, Mathsci), allegations of disruptive editing by tag-teaming including single-purpose accounts and sock-/meatpuppetry (Mathsci), and allegations of ban evasion or enabling thereof (MONGO, Beyond My Ken). While at least some of these statements raise serious concerns, the evidence is by far not clear enough for me to be able to determine what, if any, action is needed. That would require a much more in-depth analysis than is reasonably possible here. This request reflects the sort of complicated multiparty dispute about alleged longterm misconduct by veteran editors that individual AE administrators are not well-equipped to sort out on their own (maybe that's why nobody has commented here so far). I therefore propose that we refer the request to the Arbitration Committee with the recommendation that they determine whether the allegations are substantial enough to warrant opening an arbitration case.  Sandstein  08:31, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

To clarify: that misconduct on the part of an administrator has been alleged is not the problem (but it underlines the severity of the allegations, as administrators are expected to conduct themselves in an exemplary manner). Administrators are subject to discretionary sanctions in the same manner as other editors. What makes responding to this request difficult for an individual reviewer is the number and scope of the various allegations, and the attendant difficulty in establishing the relevant facts. This board is not set up for conducting the sort of detailed evidentiary proceedings that appear necessary to address all allegations that have been made here with respect to the recent editing at Race and intelligence.  Sandstein  17:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I don't think this complaint is of sufficient importance to justify a two-month deliberation by Arbcom. If memory serves, there have been quite a large volume of complaints to Arbcom and also here at this noticeboard about race and intelligence. The reason for this is presumably that those who are attached to this issue are unusually persistent. What's been brought here this time looks like a plain content dispute, and there is no hint that Killerchihuahua was intending to carry out her admin role at Race and intelligence. If all we have to go on is what's submitted in this complaint, I would advise the editors to go back to the talk page and open a WP:Request for comment. If the same data were presented at the 3RR noticeboard it would probably be closed with (at most) some article protection. There is no case for blocking or sanctioning anyone. In his comment above Sandstein lists a number of the allegations mentioned in this thread, but you need to make allowances for the high level of rhetoric that is common in anything about WP:ARBR&I. We shouldn't allow our own time or that of Arbcom to be wasted. If this business turns out to be intractable we can impose permanent full protection at Race and intelligence and only allow edits to be made through talk page consensus. EdJohnston ( talk) 18:06, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• I don't really see any substance to the initial complaint here. KillerChihuahua's actions are indistinguishable from the standard bold, revert, discuss cycle. The idea that TDA's will has been "exhausted" by two edits by KC over the course of >2 months is somewhat hard to credit. No doubt everyone associated with this topic area is a bit exhausted - particularly those who have had to deal with the rotating cast of sockpuppets and single-purpose agenda-driven editors - but if we're going to sanction people for exhausting their fellow editors then I don't think I start with KC, at least not on the strength of the evidence presented here.

  As to the question of opening an ArbCom case, it's important to recognize that a number of personalities active in this topic area thrive on wiki-litigation. If there's an actual basis for a case, then by all means one should be requested, but many of these accounts seem to view wiki-litigation rather than actual editing as their primary purpose, and we shouldn't really enable that unfortunate tendency. MastCell  ^Talk 21:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• (e.c.) I agree that the original complaint hasn't convinced me that the two reverts at issue reflect more than a content dispute. But the rest of the allegations made here (even if many of them turn out to be unfounded) indicate to me that the editing environment of that article is still quite unhealthy. We shouldn't just dismiss them as "rhetoric", because casting unproven aspersions of serious misconduct against others in public fora is, in and of itself, a conduct problem. If somebody doesn't take a good hard look at the conduct of everybody involved, these issues are likely to fester and lead to continued trouble. That's particularly because many of those involved are administrators or otherwise veteran editors, which means that wikipolitics, old grudges etc. will further complicate any attempt at addressing individual problems that may pop up, as will continuing allegations of puppetry or ban evasion, which are very difficult to prove or disprove, but contribute to poisoning the editing environment. On that basis, I still favor a referral to the Committee, which is free to decline the case if they think there's nothing here worth their time. If other uninvolved admins disagree, I don't object to a no-action closure of this request, because I agree that we don't really have a clear basis for administrative action here. Full protection should only be used as a last resort, I think, because it penalizes well-behaved editors and makes it more likely that the dispute spills over to related articles. That's why I favor editor-specific remedies over article-specific ones.  Sandstein  21:34, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

My thoughts: I do not find these allegations enumerated in this complaint to be substantiated to the point of taking any actions here. R&I is, and likely forever will be a very contentious area. I think what we're seeing here is.. for lack of a better phrase, assuming bad faith, because so much bad faith has been shown between editors previously in this area. I would suggest that while we may or may not be at the point of opening yet another Arbitration Committee case, that continued sniping and filing of complaints (both justified and not) make it ever more likely that another case would be the proper path to take here. SirFozzie ( talk) 01:43, 14 April 2013 (UTC) reply

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Widescreen

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

IRWolfie- ( talk) 17:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Widescreen ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARB/PS

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

Editor keeps flogging a dead horse about his objections to WP:FRINGE and the existence of List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience here; [20] it appeared to start here: [21]. Despite being told that List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience wasn't the place to complain about the fringe guidelines the editor has persisted with spurious arguments which bring up no specific objection to any particular content (note that the editor appears to have been blocked from the German wikipedia), and his occasional tagging of the article [22] [23] [24]. The editor appears to be against the existence of the article and has repeatedly argued that it should not exist, but has not taken it to AfD despite being asked to do so if they object to it. Can this editor be given an official warning about discretionary sanctions in this topic area?

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

Not an exhaustive list, but here are some examples:

1. Warned on 13 April 2013 by Ronz ( talk · contribs)
2. Warned on 12 April 2013, 13 April 2013 by IRWolfie- ( talk · contribs)
3. Warned on 12 April 2013 by Dominus Vobisdu ( talk · contribs)
4. Warned on 2 April 2013 by Dougweller ( talk · contribs)
5. Warned on 28 March 2013 by BullRangifer ( talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[25]

Discussion concerning Widescreen

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Widescreen

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Widescreen

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

The request has merit. Edit-warring about the inclusion of a POV tag in List of topics characterized as pseudoscience is disruptive, especially considering that no cogent explanation of what is supposed to be the "point of view" promoted through this list has been made on the talk page. As others have observed, if Widescreen is of the view that this list is as such non-neutral, they should nominate it for deletion, rather than using the talk page as a WP:SOAPbox for their views, which is also disruptive (although I note that others can help to not prolong an unproductive discussion by not replying to any soapboxing). I'm issuing the requested warning.  Sandstein  20:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC) reply

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

astronomer28 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Astronomer28 ( talk) 04:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from the subject of Nicolaus Copernicus or to other issues of debated Polish/German nationality claims, imposed at

Administrator imposing the sanction

Fut.Perf. ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

Notification diff

Statement by astronomer28

1) I have not engaged in edit-warring since my warnings (my most recent revision on April 8, 2013 reverted to a previous version one paragraph that was changed without consensus and another that was in dispute; I've certainly not made any more changes than other users). I will not engage in edit-warring in the future.

2) I have been promoting the NPOV (with evidence of such) throughout, trying to make the article more accurate and have the Copernicus nationality dispute settled. Most recently, I put up a new proposal on the Talk page that can perhaps help to solve it but it's been erased.

3) I have been accused of being a sockpuppet (twice now by one user) and "motivated by nationalism". I am neither and no one has provided any evidence to the contrary. I can perhaps understand the first accusation if I had been pushing a POV (which I have not) because I have an SPA, but not the second. I became involved in the discussion in the first place because the article was inaccurate and did not comply with Wikipedia NPOV guidelines (it still doesn't).

4) You may wonder why I have an SPA. It's for privacy. When I first viewed the Copernicus nationality debate on the Talk page in 2008, some of the discussion was belligerent and included personal attacks. I realize it's sort of a catch-22 since SPAs can draw criticism, but my purpose has been to simply make this Wikipedia article more accurate as it relates to his nationality.

5) A user or two involved in the discussion state that because there had been consensus for a while, we therefore shouldn't change it now. I don't think there's ever been real consensus; there certainly isn't one now. And what kind of an argument is that anyway? Furthermore, stating that Copernicus was a Polish astronomer is not pushing a POV or nationalistic. In fact it's the NPOV and complies with WP:Opening_paragraph#Nationality. Sure, one can disagree (and perhaps someone will show actual evidence of why it's not the NPOV) in the same way as disagreeing with a supposed consensus is good for discussion and makes Wikipedia better.

I request that my topic ban be unblocked. Thank you, Astronomer28 ( talk) 04:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Fut.Perf.

Statement by Piotrus

As a long term editor from WP:POLAND, I'll say we don't need this kind of "help" in Copernicus. If that editor wants to be useful, there are plenty of Polish topics in need of improvement that do not involve controversial issues like those covered by the topic ban. Let him/her first prove they can work on uncontroversial issues before stepping into this mess again. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by astronomer28

Result of the appeal by astronomer28

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.

• I'm not convinced by anything in this appeal. He says he hasn't edit warred since his last warning. Surely the two blocks in February ought to have been sufficient warnings that he ought not to have edit warred in April, as he clearly did. This suggests to me that there were sufficient grounds for the ban. The promise not to edit war in the future is simply not credible in the face of this evidence to the contrary. Barring any better reasons, I would support declining this appeal. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply
• I would decline the appeal. Astronomer28 is, by their own admission, a single purpose account, dedicated to promoting a particular point of view in a higly contested area. That is contrary to WP:NPOV, which applies to conduct as well as to content, and is incompatible (in my view) with a pattern of conduct that only promotes one particular point of view. This alone makes the topic ban justifiable, irrespective of the specific events that triggered it.  Sandstein  08:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply
• Agree this should be declined. I'm a bit concerned that the appellate is in fact trying to evade scrutiny with their SPA for "privacy" as per Wikipedia:SCRUTINY-- Cailil ^talk 17:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply
• On 23 March I warned Astronomer28 that I was considering an indef block if he continued to edit war on Copernicus. This makes me the second admin to warn him of this possibility with regard to that specific article. I had stated that sanctions would be unlikely if he would "avoid making any further changes to the Nicolaus Copernicus article prior to getting a talk page consensus.." It is disappointing that he resumed edit warring at Copernicus on April 8, a fact which led FP to institute the ban which Astronomer28 is now appealing. So against this background, the topic ban from Copernicus appears to be a reasonable step and I would oppose granting this appeal. EdJohnston ( talk) 00:27, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• Given that there seems to be a strong consensus here that the appeal should be declined - I'm doing so and closing this thread-- Cailil ^talk 20:04, 15 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Request concerning Cptnono

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Nableezy 07:08, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Cptnono ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 02:09, 8 April 2013 1st revert
2. 06:12, 9 April 2013 Revert at 24hrs +4:03
3. 06:18, 10 April 2013 Revert at 24hrs +0:06

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

I can't find his being formally notified of the case, but he's been sanctioned multiple times and has brought multiple complaints here, so obviously aware.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The edit summary of the last edit should suffice for the cause of this request. I feel like I might be gaming he system by waiting 24hrs. Yes, yes you are gaming [t]he system by waiting 24hrs. The information on the Golan's status had previously been in the body, and was removed by another user. I added it elsewhere, Cptnono reverts without comment on the talk page. He is reverted and waits for 24 hours and 6 whole minutes to revert again. That after the prior revert had taken place 28 hours and 3 minutes after he his prior revert.

Cailil, the last two reverts are the same, and further they have nothing to do with the inclusion or exclusion of the wikilink Archaeology of Israel. Your second diff of my supposed edit-warring is my requesting a citation, and the third is rewriting the text to correspond to the cited reference when one was not supplied. I cannot tell how either of those diffs show me edit-warring over anything. nableezy - 15:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Cailil, please explain how adding a {{ cn}} tag or rewriting the text to conform to the source when no additional source was provided is part of a slow edit war. nableezy - 17:25, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Bump. nableezy - 14:42, 16 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Can somebody please close this? Been open for a while now. nableezy - 14:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning Cptnono

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Cptnono

The second diff was not intentionally waiting 24 hours (coincidence). Admittedly, the third was. That is fairly minor and it should be noted that Nableezy said he was not going to engage in discussion† even though I opened an RfC while Supreme Deliciousness completely ignored the talk page altogether. This is a knee-jerk AE request with very little meat.

I also did use the talk page (forgive the typos my keyboard is gummy on this machine) but: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3ARujm_el-Hiri&diff=549631456&oldid=549460921 http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Rujm_el-Hiri&diff=prev&oldid=549255671 detailed edit summaries +an RfC request

I took a break from editing and played by the rules. I don't celebrate division on my user page by listing every AE discussion I have been part of and assumed we could grow past our turbulent history. I am not going to start throwing accusations around and providing diffs for why I believe both Nableezy and SD should be topic banned because that is how these AEs get out of hand. But if any admin feels that I deserve to be sanctioned then I would appreciate 24 hours for a proper response. I also do not think Tim should be allowed to act in this case due to my previous (and still unresolved) comments regarding potential bias.

† [26] Cptnono ( talk) 07:42, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

It should be (reluctantly) noted that I was sanctioned by you, Sandstein(AGK) years ago and you(he) let me know that disputing it under the grounds that I was not formally notified could appear to be wikilawyering. So I am aware of the sanctions. This also is not a 1/rr infraction. If anything it is edit warring. However, I only "edit warred" with two reverts over 2 days without discussion from the parties I was reverting. (not asking to be in trouble just trying to be up front) Cptnono ( talk) 08:18, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Apologies for getting you and AGK confused. I think I am basically getting at: If you think I crossed a line with the third diff then give me a warning or even a minor sanction. I feel that Nableezy intentionally goaded me then there was some slight tag teaming. I might be overreacting and over-analyzing it. But that third diff (the only one that I see as a problem) was very minor. I tried to do right by using the talk page instead of running to AE. I don't want to circumvent punishment (since any sanction would be barely addressing "disruption") on a technicality. Cptnono ( talk) 08:37, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I am torn right now. I was too busy to log in the last couple days and was happy to see that I was not blocked since I did make that single revert that may have crossed the line. From a quick scan of the thoughts from some comments: NO, the ongoing semantics over "if" "in" "of" Israel have absolutely no bearing on this case. We can (and probably should) open an RfC on it but right now we should be discussing if I crossed a line. The first and second reverts are not a problem. The third (and only problematic one) was me making a revert when the editors refused to use the talk page. Go ahead and levy an appropriate sanction for that single edit. It was not multiple edits and ongoing content disputes are not within the scope of this request.

Also, can we be open about what this is? I admittedly made a revert that could raise eyebrows but we all know this AE continues a battlefield mentality. You guys are counting diffs between Nab, SD, and BS. That is not needed. This is an article about archaeology! Cptnono ( talk) 07:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Cptnono

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I agree that this conduct would normally be sanctionable as gaming the system to edit-war. But even if an editor is already aware of the case or has previously been sanctioned, this does not change the fact that a warning as described in WP:AC/DS#Warnings is still a formal requirement for imposing sanctions (see my view at WP:ARCA#Statement by Sandstein, issue 2). In addition, I'm of the view that WP:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction is unenforceable at least if the editor at issue has not received an individual warning about it (see my view at WP:ARCA#Statement by Sandstein, issue 1). In that ARCA thread, T. Canens notes (correctly, in my view) that this requirement can be satisfied with a warning in an editnotice. However, the article at issue, Rujm el-Hiri (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), has no such editnotice. I'm therefore of the view that we can do nothing here but issue the required warning to Cptnono.  Sandstein  08:12, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

OK, I note that Cptnono has waived the warning requirement (if any), so we can examine the matter on the merits. I'll post comments about that later.  Sandstein  09:16, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• Given that these are 3 2 different edits being reverted I'm inclinded to be a bit more lenient. That said this is clearly an attempt to "wait out the restriction". Which is unacceptable. Cptnono has in fact accepted this about the 3rd revert above. Given that its 12 months since Cptnono was blocked (for anything) and given that it's over 2 years since their last ArbPia enforcement blocked (which was 3 hours) I would suggest a 24-72 hour block. For gaming 1RR, editwarring and tendentiousness.
  The reason I'm suggesting this is beacuse from a perusal of the talk page of that article I can see a significant level of tendentious editting by a number of users (Biosketch's talk activity being the worst example). The Arab-Israel Wikipedia conflict has been imported there - that's what the RFARs are designed to stop. With that in mind whether there is a sanctions notice on the page is irrelevant, the users involved are bringing that issue to that page and frankly I'd support a wider investigation here into the editwarring at the heart of Cptnono's reverts above.
  For instance looking at just one of the reverts in context, the slow edit war over the inclusion of the wikilink and phrase of "archaeology of Israel" goes back weeks and includes 3 editors, Cptnono [27] [28], Nableezy [29] [30] [31], Biosketch [32] [33]. An inital removal was made by Supreme Deliciousness [34] but they have not editwarred. This editwar has dominated the edits to this article since February 2013. In fact in the 12 month period between March 2012 and March 2013 there were only 3 edits. Since then there have been over 30 edits (roughly 30% of which is this editwar). With that in mind I'm inclinded to at least suggest a page ban all for 3 editors: Cptnono, Nabeelzy, and Biosketch-- Cailil ^talk 14:49, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Agree with the assessment regarding Cptnono as concerns gaming and editwarring, likewise Biosketch (who I've notified of this thread), not so sure about Nableezy, whose edits, in part, go beyond sterile back-and-forth editwarring. I'm not a fan of short blocks, as they tend to be punitive rather than preventative. Ultimately, if an editor can't contribute collegially in this general topic area, what they need is a topic ban. I'm frankly unsure what should be done. In and of itself, the edit war is rather trivial, but I am strongly disappointed in having to see the same usernames (notably Cptnono and Nableezy) in ARBPIA AE disputes for years and years on end.  Sandstein  17:25, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I can see your point re: Nableezy but like you I am dismayed at seeing their continued border-line behaviour in relation to the RFAR ruling. There comes a point when line-stepping is in and of itself not helping the encyclopedia. That said, I agree that in this instance (if viewed in isolation) thier role was not the worst. Unfortunately I think we have to open the can of worms, because if this incident is a spill-over conflict (and it has all the hallmarks of one IMHO) it behooves us to find out where/how it started. And in my view if we have a situation where the same editors are fighting the same (fundamentally off-wiki) conflict on multiple articles we have to stop it. Or else we'll just be here again for the upteenth time.
On a side note, and I'm not necessarily advocating this, the last time that I saw situation at AE like this, mandated external review would have been the preferred sanction but at that point it wasn't available. MER is something that could be considered, but it would require significant work from the reviewing sysop/mentor. As real life (i.e work) commitments preclude me from being able to do this I'm loathe to ask someone else to, but that said it remains an option-- Cailil ^talk 18:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC) reply

This MER thing looks rather time-consuming and complicated; I can't imagine it working reliably over any length of time.  Sandstein  08:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• Since the submitted reverts show Cptnono gaming the WP:1RR restriction, I would favor a sanction of some kind. The discussion at Talk:Rujm el-Hiri#wikilink about the definition of 'Israeli archaeology' suggests that some opportunities for compromise were missed. In that discussion it looks to me that Biosketch and Cptnono are playing word games to make this site part of the domain of 'Israeli archaeology', due merely to the fact that some of the scientists who explored the site were Israeli. If they can win this argument will it give additional proof that the Golan Heights are part of Israel? It should not tax anyone's brain to come up with politically neutral ways of stating (a) where the archaeological site is located, (b) who the scientists were who studied the site. The page at Talk:Rujm el-Hiri looks to be mostly a nationalist turf war and not much about archaeology. EdJohnston ( talk) 04:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• As in the above case, I agree with your analysis. A medium-term topic ban for the two users who are using this article about a completely apolitical archaeological site to "mark the territory" for one side in the territorial dispute about the Golan Heights appears appropriate. But I can't find a previous warning per WP:AC/DS#Warnings for Biosketch; if there is none, all we can do is issue one.  Sandstein  08:14, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

On the note about Biosketch not being formally warned, as far as I'm concerned any user who has taken part in 14 ARBPIA AE requests [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] (5 of which they actually started and one of which led to them being cautioned about misusing AE) has been "constructively warned" and gives up the right to ignorance of the sanctions. If Biosketch wants to hold others to account vis-a-vis the RFARs they have to know that the sanctions exist, historically that would have been the finding here, however I am cognisant of the current WP:ARCA discussion about AE procedures. IMHO the actions of importing an off-wiki agenda, that has had long running attempts at resolution on-wiki, to an article where it previously has not occurred are extremely serious and are probably worthy of a WP:DE sanction outside of the RFAR. But if it is the consensus here that recent 'clarifications' on AC/DS have in fact tied our hands (at least until "early next month") we are left with the options of revisiting this or simply warning Biosketch, both of which are unsatisfactory. Another option is to sanction and let them appeal, personally in this case that action may in fact led to clarity for us at AE and would be consistent with how others have been treated in past cases. But agree we have a strange situation here-- Cailil ^talk 16:37, 12 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Having taken a look at the talk page of the article, there are ridiculous word games being played by Cptnono and actually, to a greater extent, BioSketch (the conversation where he pretends for five posts not to understand what the problem with linking to Archaeology of Israel is would be almost comical if it weren't clearly disruptive). I would support a sanction of some sort on both, and agree with Cailil that sanctioning and allowing appeal is the best route - it is not possible, as Cptnono admits, that regular editors are not aware of the restrictions. Black Kite ( talk) 09:58, 13 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Could someone please close this? The last comment is three days old. I'd do it, but contrary to popular opinion, I don't actually want to be the one responsible for making a decision about every single one of these ... refreshingly frank exchanges of views.  Sandstein  16:55, 16 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• Closing: Since Rujm el-Hiri is a spillover from the traditional dispute over ownership of the Golan Heights we should take this seriously. There was one suggestion above to just issue bans from the Rujm el-Hiri article. Lately it has been uncommon to issue article bans in the ARBPIA area. Usually any bans given are from the whole I/P topic. The discussion above indicates that Biosketch should be already aware of the ARBPIA discretionary sanctions. For this reason, and per the other comments above, Cptnono is banned from the topic of the Arab-Israeli conflict on both articles and talk pages for six months and Biosketch for three months. No agreement was reached here on a sanction for Nableezy, though one admin referred to 'their continued border-line behavior' and another noted that he was "strongly disappointed in having to see the same usernames (notably Cptnono and Nableezy) in ARBPIA AE disputes for years and years on end". EdJohnston ( talk) 20:03, 18 April 2013 (UTC) reply

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Apostle12

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

[ UseTheCommandLine ~/ talk ] # _ 06:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Apostle12 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBR&I#Notifications

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. [49] "Replacing" contentious material. Discussion on Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton talk pages and at WP:RSN regarding coleman's reliability as a source has been, at minimum, contentious. Re-inserting contentious material is clear slow edit war and POVPUSH behavior, particularly when these sources have been removed specifically because of their unreliability. There is extensive discussion here for example, and Apostle12 was present for and is clearly aware of that discussion
2. 2013-04-16 This edit is also difficult to justify. There is discussion about the sourcing on the Talk:Huey_P._Newton#Latest_addition_to_the_John_Frey_shooting page (and here, too). This seems like pretty clear forum shopping. in order to POVPUSH.
3. Date Explanation
4. Date Explanation

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 2013-04-09 by Sandstein ( talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I logged in after two weeks away simply to slap a refimprove tag on a medical article that does not comply with MEDRS. I made the mistake of looking at my watchlist. I am going back to my wikibreak now. FOR REAL THIS TIME, DAMMIT.

How narrowly are you construing "race and intelligence" to be able to say that POVPUSH edits to articles about entities active in race/ethnicity politics do not qualify? If you're going to propose sanctions but then not enforce them when you have such abundantly clear examples of someone trying to circumvent or ignore policy on contentious issues then what good are you? -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/ talk ] # _ 09:44, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

These articles were part of the WP:ANI discussion which garnered the notification in the first place, no? -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/ talk ] # _ 09:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[50] I couldnt find a template for this, so I just wrote the thing out.

Discussion concerning Apostle12

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Apostle12

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Apostle12

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I don't see how these edits fall within the scope of the WP:ARBR&I sanctions, that is, "the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed". The edits at issue are about the Black Panther Party and their activist Huey P. Newton, which means that they are broadly about American race politics, but not also about human abilities and behaviour. If this is not explained, I intend to close this request with no action.  Sandstein  09:09, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

In reply to the additional comments above, just because something is related to race issues does not mean it is related to the more narrow topic for which discretionary sanctions are authorized, that is, the intersection of race and human behavior. The ANI discussion was about alleged links between race and criminal behavior. That is not the case here. The request is closed as not actionable.  Sandstein  10:56, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Tarc

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Prioryman ( talk) 18:58, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Tarc ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology#1 June 2012 amendment

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 13:38, 24 April 2013‎ Removal of Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology project banner by User:John lilburne
2. 19:26, 24 April 2013‎ Removal of Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology project banner by User:Tarc

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

List of Wikipedia controversies includes a section on a significant issue involving Scientology under List of Wikipedia controversies#2008. It is therefore within the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology, of which I am a long-standing member. I added the project's banner to the article's talk page in recognition of this. The WikiProject Guide is very clear that "a WikiProject's members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project". In addition, and this is bolded in the original for emphasis, "if a WikiProject says that an article is within their scope, then you may not force them to remove the banner." Likewise, again bolded in the original, "No editor may prohibit a group of editors from showing their interest in an article". This is unambiguous and long-standing practice. However, John lilburne removed the project banner without explanation or comment earlier today [51]. I subsequently posted an explanation to the talk page about why the article fell within the scope of the WikiProject and warned against removing the project banner [52]. Immediately afterwards, Tarc removed it again, falsely stating that the article "has nothing to do with Scientology", even though it has an entire section about it. [53] Tarc also hatted a section that I posted explaining the arbitration sanctions in place concerning that WikiProject, with the message "Fabrications will not be given the time of day" [54]. John lilburne subsequently posted "reverted again. No go and bitch about it somewhere. One editor does not make a WikiProject." [55] Neither Tarc nor John lilburne are members of WikiProject Scientology. The WikiProject Guide gives WikiProject members full discretion to tag articles of relevance to their WikiProjects, and explicitly prohibits non-project members from removing project banners or from prohibiting editors from showing their interest in an article. Tarc and John lilburne's incivil, aggressive and bullying response to my explanation is also highly inappropriate.

Scientology-related articles are under discretionary sanctions authorised by the Arbitration Committee in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology#1 June 2012 amendment. I am therefore bringing this here for resolution as Tarc's conduct is wilfully not in accordance with the expected standards of behaviour, and therefore is in violation of the sanctions. For the record, I give John lilburne a pass as I had not spelled out the reasons and guidelines at the time of his removal of the project banner and, assuming good faith, he may not have been aware of the rules regarding defining project scopes. Tarc gets no such pass as he acted in the full knowledge that his actions were in explicit breach of the rules. In bringing this here, I'm not seeking to have anyone blocked, but would like to confirm the long-standing principle that WikiProjects have authority to define which articles are within their scope and to obtain a clear instruction that Tarc and other non-project members should not attempt to deny this authority to WikiProject Scientology. Prioryman ( talk) 18:58, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

@IRWolfie: Actually, as a party to that case, I can tell you that the sanctions were just as much about interpersonal conduct as about POV-pushing. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology#Editing environment (editors cautioned), which notes the existence of "a hostile editing environment" caused inter alia by "edit-warring and uncivil comments". What we are seeing here is exactly these two things: two editors edit-warring to prevent WikiProject Scientology from including this article in its scope, and uncivil comments against the WikiProject Scientology member who has sought to include it in scope. Note that neither Tarc nor John lilburne have advanced any reason at all for violating the rule that non-project members should not remove project banners placed by members of WikiProjects. It appears to be purely a case of disruptive WP:IDONTLIKEIT. That kind of conduct is exactly what the sanctions were enacted to prevent. Prioryman ( talk) 19:23, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

@Sandstein: You're right that nobody can WP:OWN an article. However, we're not talking about an article, we're talking about the scope of a WikiProject, and the WikiProject Guide is explicit that the members of the WikiProject do have "ownership" of that. It could hardly work otherwise. Suppose members of WikiProject Kosovo took it on themselves to refuse any WikiProject Serbia tags to be added to articles about Kosovo? Members of WikiProjects have always had full authority over what the scope of their projects is; that doesn't imply ownership of any article. Also, joining a WikiProject "at any time" for the specific reason to add or remove tags would not count, as it would blatantly constitute gaming the system. Finally, as noted above, I am not seeking a sanction, merely a clear confirmation of the existing principle that WikiProject Scientology members have authority to define the scope of their own WikiProject and for Tarc and others to be instructed not to arbitrarily deny that authority. Prioryman ( talk) 19:38, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Sandstein, how do you suggest this should be resolved, then? Tarc and John lilburne clearly have no authority to block WikiProject Scientology from having this article in its scope, and they haven't even offered a reason for blocking it. They've edit-warred to block it and have been aggressive and uncivil in doing so. What is the solution? Also, regarding your point about "ownership", please see the FAQs at the top of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council. Prioryman ( talk) 19:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• 19:59, 24 April 2013‎

Discussion concerning Tarc

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Tarc

Poppycock.

The Prioryman vs. Wikipediocracy spat is well-known to regulars here by now, I assume. He tried and failed to get the article deleted, tried and failed to get that AfD overturned at DRV, then tag-bombed the article itself, most of which were either addressed quickly or reverted as not relevant. Attention should also be drawn to Template:Did you know nominations/List of Wikipedia controversies, where Prioryman is attempting to squash a DYK entry for the article, where IMO is quite clear to all that given his animosity with the article creator and contributors, he should step aside as a DYK reviewer.

As for the Scientology matter, it seems that Prioryman is attempting to put extra snares and roadblocks in the way of editors with whom he has past disagreements. What better way to accomplish that than try to put the article, on the flimsiest of flimsy connections, under the auspices of Arb discretionary sanctions? Remember, the article only contains the following passage;

In May 2008 a long-running dispute between members of the Church of Scientology and Wikipedia editors reached Wikipedia's arbitration committee. The church members were accused of attempting to sway articles in the church's interests, while other editors were accused of the opposite. The arbitration committee unanimously voted to block all edits from the IP addresses associated with the church; several Scientology critics were banned too.

Not every single article in the project that makes a simple, factual statement about the Scientology Arb case needs fall under its WikiProject, nor be subject discretionary sanctions therein.

This filing is frivolous. Tarc ( talk) 20:03, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Update: this is indeed a serious problem, but the problematic actions clearly lie on Prioryman's actions. Tagging the article with the Scientology banner seems to automatically bring with it the big block-lettered "this article is now subject to discretionary sanctions" warning at the top of the talk page. That is plainly disruptive and unacceptable. Adding an article to a project is one thing, but when that addition brings along the unwanted baggage of an Arb case, then IMO it is a problem. Random users of a wikiproject don't get to decide when and where to extend Arbitration sanctions. Tarc ( talk) 20:14, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

@AQFK, no, I have never been involved in any Scientology-related dispute at any time, so no topic-ban. I find the topic area to be rather uninteresting, honestly. Tarc ( talk) 21:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

@Thryduulf, I am getting a bit tired of wikiprojects and their tags being considered some sort of hallowed and untouchable territory. I reject that insipid "trout" nonsense (god, if there was ever a wiki'ism I hated more...) and I reject any notion that I am compelled to discuss such a thing with a wiki-project. I have quite clearly explained the reasons for the removal; Template:WikiProject Scientology has the Arb restrictions hard-coded into it. Having that beast sitting at the top of the article talk page would have a chilling effect on those who wish to edit the article, even though it may at most (and I even debate this aspect of it) apply to a single 3-sentence entry in the article. Tarc ( talk) 23:54, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by uninvolved IRWolfie-

The article is within scope for that project, so I don't see why people are removing the wikiproject template. That said, using discretionary sanctions for a dispute which appears to have it's roots in issues that are not related to the initial arbitration appears seems like inappropriate usage; the reason the sanctions are here is because of POV pushing around Scientology topics. An edit war about adding/removing a wikiproject that appears to be, coincidentally, Scientology related should be handled elsewhere. IRWolfie- ( talk) 19:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

@Priory, it might be a good idea to discuss the issue at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Scientology if you find non-members removing the template, IRWolfie- ( talk) 19:55, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by uninvolved Alanyst

This doesn't seem to be a dispute regarding the Scientology topic itself. On the surface it's a conflict over the applicability of a Wikiproject label to an article. On a deeper level it's part of the years-long animosity that I've observed between Prioryman and various critics/adversaries of his, most of whom seem to have connections to criticism sites like WR and Wikipediocracy, and more specifically is a continuation of the recent dispute between Prioryman and his adversaries regarding the creation and maintenance of the List of Wikipedia controversies article in question. To me, this has every appearance of gamesmanship and score-settling rather than a sincere concern about disruption to the encyclopedia's coverage of the Scientology topic. It would be nice if Prioryman and his adversaries all quit nursing their mutual grudges; such things don't end well. alanyst 19:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Darkness Shines

Prioryman is citing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide asthough it were policy, it is not. It is just a guideline. Darkness Shines ( talk) 19:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Comment by A Question for Knowledge

Wait, is Tarc topic-banned from Scientology? If so, they clearly violated their topic ban. If not, I am perplexed at what the violation is or what this request is trying to achieve. We don't sanction editors for disagreeing or for a minor edit war. PrioryMan: you should attempt to resolve this the way we try to resolve all content disputes: by following the dispute resolution process. Try working it out on the talk page. If that fails, open an RfC. If that doesn't work try the Dispute resolution noticeboard. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 21:21, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

In my opinion, you do have basis for invoking WP:ARBSCI and the discretionary sanctions . . . against Prioryman. This is a ridiculous attempt to game the discretionary sanctions and AE for a personal vendetta. As Prioryman has invoked "conflict of interest" in an attempt to get rid of this article, the notification on the talk page appears to be an attempt to wikilawyer an instruction that's meant to stop Scientology editing and target it at editing by anyone from Wikipediocracy. He has also threatened editors with being brought here if they disagree with him about the WikiProject tag. Prioryman has a problematic history editing in this area from when he was editing as ChrisO as can be seen from looking at the arbitration case page and he is obviously well aware of the sanctions.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:17, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

@Jclemens Typically, the idea is that only edits broadly related to the topic fall under the sanctions. How broadly is up to interpretation, but it should never be interpreted as allowing an article such as this to be considered to fall entirely within the area of sanctions just because of a single paragraph. It depends on the nature of the edit. Seems to me Prioryman was trying to wikilawyer with the "editors instructed" remedy from ARBSCI to subject all editors to those requirements simply for editing that list article, even if their edits have nothing even tangentially to do with Scientology. Note how he simultaneously tagged the article with a COI tag when noting the ARBSCI instructions, one of which concerns conflicts of interest.-- The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Thryduulf

• Was the removal of the project banner wrong? Yes, undoubtedly.
• Was edit warring about it wrong and stupid? Yes, undoubtedly.
• Should all parties have known better? Yes, undoubtedly.
• Is this within the scope of the Scientology topic for the purposes of discretionary sanctions? Yes - they were authorised for the Scientology topic "broadly construed" and to my mind that includes edit warring over whether a topic is relevant to Scientology. The list of wikipedia controversies article itself is not within the scope but the Scientology WikiProject definitely is.
• Do anybody's actions rise to the level of sanctionability? No. Nothing beyond a firm trout for Tarc for removing a wikiproject banner without discussing it with that wikiproject and a second for edit warring about it; and a single firm trout slap for Prioryman for bringing this here rather than discussing it at a lower level venue first (one of the WikiProject talk page, the article talk page or Tarc's talk page would seem to be the obvious choice).

All that said, I think it's about time that there was some dispute resolution (probably an RfC) regarding the List of Wikipedia Controversies and the interactions between editors (including, but not limited to Prioryman and Tarc) regarding it; and (possibly separately) about the behaviour of editors regarding sites like Wikipediocracy to determine what is acceptable here and what is not. Otherwise this will end up at Arbcom. Thryduulf ( talk) 23:01, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Carrite

I'm not differently abled enough to comprehend how removal of a project banner relates to discretionary sanctions on POV-driven single purpose creators of Scientology content. This strikes me as a third chapter of POINTY disruption which follows the filer's nomination of the List of Wikipedia controversies piece for deletion at AfD (snowed close Keep) and the filer's appeal of this decision to Deletion Review (decision unchanged, no consensus). I suggest that a boomerang thumping of the filer might be in order here if this sort of disruption does not cease. Carrite ( talk) 23:47, 24 April 2013 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite ( talk) 23:53, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Volunteer Marek

This is exactly what I already said here [56]. If some Scientology related hi-jinks begin to occur on that article then yeah, sure, bring to WP:AE. But so far this is just trying to scare editors away with the banner of "if you edit this article you will be subject to, OMG! DISCRETIONARY sanctions!". It's like trying to put a "Beware of the Dog" sign on someone else's, not yours, property when the person involved doesn't even like dogs (they like cats!), never mind them owning one. Volunteer Marek 02:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by WhatamIdoing

This has also been discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Dispute over adding WikiProject template to article talk page, where the response was the usual: one group of editors (those at a page) does not get to order around another group of editors (those who want to use the many bots that depend on WikiProject banners).

Tagging an article is not some sort of land grab. Despite the panicked assertions above, tagging a page does not change the scope of the ArbCom case. Tagging a page is primarily a method of getting the article into proper categories so that various bots can provide information about the article to the project.

Here's a partial list of what breaks when you remove this particular tag from an article:

• The article won't turn up in Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology/Article alerts if prod'd, submitted for GA, etc.
• The article won't turn up in Category:Scientology articles needing attention if tagged for attention.
• Cleanup tags won't get listed in the cleanup listing for this project.
• The article won't get listed in Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment for the project.

As you can see, the banners aren't advertising for the projects: they are fundamental infrastructure that multiple bots and toolserver tools depend on. Removing a tag has a strongly negative effect on the practical ability of the project participants to actually support the article, because without the tag, they can't get timely notification of issues.

By the way, we most frequently see this complaint with WP:WikiProject LGBT studies. It's usually asserted to be a BLP violation to say that an article is within the scope, or it's an insult to the memory of some gay icon, or something like that. With the geography-oriented WikiProjects, it's usually a complaint that having the banner for a national WikiProject harms the advertising value for a moribund city-based WikiProject. I believe that this is the first complaint for the Scientology group. We have over the last few years had multiple lengthy RFCs on the issue, and the result has been the same every single time: some editor's distaste for a particular banner is not a sufficient reason to prevent the group from using these bots to get information about any article that interests the participants. That's why the Guide is so direct about it: once people know what the tags do (other than take up space at the top of the talk page), nobody wants to interfere with them. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 05:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Tarc

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

In my view, this request is not actionable, and borders on the frivolous. To begin with, per WP:AC/DS#Warnings, any sanction would require a prior warning, of which no evidence is supplied. On the merits, I consider that whether a project tag should appear on a talk page is a content dispute, not a conduct issue, and therefore outside the scope of arbitration or its enforcement. Even if the tag's removal were to be considered a conduct dispute, I am of the view that the argument that members of a WikiProject have the exclusive authority to decide whether a talk page should carry the corresponding project tag is mistaken. It conflicts directly with WP:OWN, a policy: "No one 'owns' an article or any page at Wikipedia. If you create or edit an article, others can make changes, and you can not prevent them from doing so." Any interpretation of a guideline that purports to convey such authority is therefore, in my opinion, inadmissible. It would also have little practical meaning, as anybody may join a WikiProject at any time and thereby gain the purported authority to add or remove tags.  Sandstein  19:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Prioryman, if you are not asking for a sanction, then this request is doubly inactionable. Arbitration enforcement (and arbitration generally) does not exist for the purpose of deciding policy disputes in the abstract, and it has no authority to do so. It exists only for the purpose of taking actual enforcement actions.  Sandstein  19:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

OTOH it seems appropriate to tag the article as falling under the Scientology wikiproject in order to have extra eyes on that particular (if small) section, due to the peculiar history of Scientology-related topic on WP that led to the ARBCOM case in the first place. -- SB_Johnny |  ^talk✌ 01:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

The problem here, in my mind, is that the granularity of a project banner, and discretionary sanctions, is assumed to be an entire article. But this is a list article, and sure, the Scientology tag could apply to that specific single element within the list, but the idea that discretionary sanctions could apply to the entire article based on the inclusion of one list entry is untenable. We might need a better set of guidelines for how to deal with mixed-element lists that include some contentious (read: under discretionary sanctions) content among other non-related content, but that's not something for AE to make up out of whole cloth. Jclemens ( talk) 01:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

OK, I think we have consensus here that this is not actionable, and I'm closing this thread accordingly. We don't need to discuss whether the inclusion or removal of the tag was a good idea, as this board is not the forum to discuss this issue. From an AE point of view, Tarc is however mistaken to state that it is disruptive to tag the talk page with the Scientology project box just because that box includes a DS warning. That warning is correct, as the article does contain Scientology-related content, to which discretionary sanctions apply. However, because these sanctions apply whether or not they are mentioned on the talk page, the talk page warning is in my view admissible but not strictly necessary from an AE point of view: Before receiving sanctions, a user would in any event need an individual warning (via edit notice or user talk page). In any case, if there is an edit war about the inclusion of the Scientology tag, this could conceivably lead to discretionary sanctions, but we're not there yet by far. As it is, this is a dispute that needs to be settled through the normal dispute resolution mechanism, as EdJohnston says above.  Sandstein  08:31, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Bobrayner

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Evlekis (Евлекис) ( argue) 23:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Bobrayner ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

ARBMAC sanctions, Topic Ban on Balkan subjects

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 22/04/13 Sheer arrogance "sooner or later OUR articles will reflect what the sources say". Flouting Common English AND WP:AT to introduce Albanian language text. "OUR" articles do not have selective naming, we generally follow WP:AT or historical accuracy. The place to push for changes on how we report names of cities is to have the pages moved. For example, Pristina is neither the Serbian name (Priština) nor the Albanian (Prishtina) but this user wishes to have it on the latter and claims "sources" are the reason. The source could be in Albanian for one, in English but published by an Albanian for another but in any case, we have English examples of Beograd yet we still report Belgrade.
2. 22/04/13 As above. Notice for Prokletije, known otherwise as Albanian Alps, the user has a penchant for Alpet Shqiptare (precisely in its red link over existing article) not known to any English speaker, the same line sees the blind revert re-introduce a lower case initial letter "sharr" for what according to AT is Šar Mountains.
3. 08/04/13 As above, two weeks ago.
4. 08/04/13 As above, two weeks ago. Note the link to Dukagjin is wrong in that it leads to a place in northern Albania, it just happens to be a name that Albanians prefer in place of Metohija which is the name according to AT and how the place has long been known in English.
5. 22/04/13 Re-introduces non-existent "Serb forces" as he dislikes the truth that Kosovo War was KLA vs Yugoslav authorities. He claims "let's stick to what the sources say" and demonstrates this by deleting this source which clearly says "Yugoslav security forces" with opening thee words. In its spot he places no source whatsoever, just changes wording to 'Serb forces'.
6. 22/04/13 As above, first disturbance in this area for two weeks. No editor had challenged the sourced facts in that time.
7. 01/04/13 Earlier attempt at same revision. Although there had at that time been no source to support the true version, no citation was being given by Bobrayner to verify his "sources" claim in the summary.
8. 01/04/13 A false summary in which I am named and accused of something for which I am not responsible.
9. 01/04/13 As above, start to finish.
10. 22/04/13 Despite this overwhelming consensus [57] on grounds of neutrality on "border" issues for the disputed region of Kosovo's outline with the rest of Serbia. We still get the following greasy summaries and their respective revisions, BBC source removed here.
11. 22/04/13 Falsely reporting Momčilo Perišić as former head of Serbian army, which he knows was only re-established 2006. He has done this previously [58] and yet the entire story already exists in its correct article Military of Serbia and Montenegro in which Perišić is listed alongside all other figures to have held the position. See also [59], [60], [61], [62]. Attempts to explain circumstance here [63].
12. 27/12/12 Border issue again, severe edit-warring to push pro-Kosovo independence viewpoint [64], [65], [66], [67].
13. 22/04/13 - pushing "Serbia recognises Kosovo" again here, and here shortly after.
14. 22/04/13 Denialism of facts influenced by scanty sources. Full catalogue here, attempts to deceive date back to 20/11/12, see how the user replaces FR Yugoslav flag with independent Serbian flag which was not adopted until 2006 when nation became independent. Spreading lies.
15. 22/04/13 Even though the valid and neutral and furthermore, not-disputed-by-anybody term Central Serbia has decreased in significance since 2009 according to the Serbian constitution, it maintains ceremonial status. However, the abrupt switch from Central Serbia to Serbia per se for movement into Kosovo is contrived deliberately to make Serbia and Kosovo seem like two separate states which breaches NPOV in that it indiscreetly suggests Kosovan independence with no provision for its disputed status. Continuation here, and here with a personal attack in the summary.
16. 22/04/13 Removing sourced information per WP:IDONTLIKEIT and is opposed by the multitude.
17. 22/04/13 Removing sourced information to battle against consensus, continuing here. All started here with no consensus or attempt at discussion.
18. 22/04/13 This contribution speaks for itself. The map being removed was not controversial, Kosovo was already marked green and outlined to accept disputed status. Once more.

Just over two weeks ago, I completed an AN/I grievance against the user with this edit. The full scale of this editor's disruptive behaviour is explained there though I didn't realise that AN/I was both the wrong place and the manner was inappropriate. To synopsise, we have had two peaceful weeks with no issues on ARBMAC subjects whilst Bobrayner was absent. No sooner did he return than he immediately embarked on a rampage to make gross POV-pushing and policy-contravening reverts/fresh edits and all hiding behind the irrelevant and stale "sources" argument. The most notable change involves naming conventions on Kosovan subjects. The user is aware that we observe historical accuracy for providing names of settlements according to how they were known at the time in question and this is consistent with the language of the contemporary state. The user is also aware of WP:AT yet has chosen to take every opportunity he could find to switch English language names of towns for their controversial Albanian translation - controversial because Kosovo's status is subject to dispute and all good faith editors tread very carefully to use neutral wording which acknowlegdes the situation and neither leans one way or the other. The user dismisses this as "synthesis" and "wiesel wording" and proceeds to stylise the article 100% in the direction of Kosovan independence, Albanian as language having monopoly over WP:AT and common English; furthermore the user is known for edit-warring [68] and he adds lies to articles, namely anything to do with the Kosovo War in which he outright denies that the belligerent against whom the Albanian KLA waged war was the Military of Serbia and Montenegro, known as the Army of Yugoslavia which comprised two republics - Bobrayner prefers "Serb military", "Armed Forces of Serbia" [69] and anything denigrating the Serbian nation despite them not having had an independent army - only police and paramilitary units. He justifies this depredation with a template summary, "let's stick to what the sources say" despite having been shown that publications are selective simplifications which use "Serb" over "Yugoslav" and he has been given examples where this is so on matters where it is known Yugoslav is correct and Serb is wrong (eg. Milošević wrongly labelled Serb president in reliable source when position was held by Milutinović; Milošević was actually Yugoslav president at time of publication). In addition, a full explanation was spelt out black and white fresh from a source which he was using [70], the text explained the full Yugoslav/Serb scenario. On top of that, the rest of the WP community to edit on the Balkans observe a consensus which favours precision over press-style simplification thus dismissing the idea that "sources" trump facts.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on Date by Name of user who made warning 1 ( talk · contribs)
2. Warned on Date by Name of user who made warning 2. If there is no warning 2, delete this entire line ( talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Sandstein, you must forgive me for never having filled out an AE request and not knowing the exact procedures. Concerning remedy I don't know what to put because I was merely hoping to see Bobrayner receive a topic ban. To ensure this does not turn into Dramafest, please note the following which will not contain citations unless requested. For every accusation made against my revisions on matters of AT, English usage over Albanian, Yugoslav troops over Serbian, alleged stalking, I can justify each edit one by one. Where I was named in the summary for sections I did not concoct stands correct: I was simply reverting a batch of consecutive edits in which I spotted about 90% of information was false/contrived to mislead. To that end, what remained showed no signs of vandalism so I felt I should clear the section. I even provided the revisions where those points were first inserted on Rayner's talk. Be that as it may, I did later correct that section though none of this has stopped Bobrayner edit-warring to restore his own version. Quite where User:Neutral Fair Guy is supposed to come into this I don't know, what we do know about him however is that he has not only made 53 edits, but thousands as it is confirmed who he is, User:Sinbad Barron. Rayner alo fails to realise that the Sinbad Barron franchise makes edits PRO-Bobrayner, not against. Rayner in turn has never reverted a Sinbad account, or had words with him. And if User:Keithstanton is another incarnation (it's 50/50), Rayner has even endorsed that editor's revisions by reverting to them.

Exceeding revert restrictions is one thing, self-reverting is another. Besides, he did the same thing at List of massacres in the Kosovo War. For the time I made an unlogged edit, I was warned. I deny any such editing after that time and if anybody believes I have been responsible for the edit-warring at Cinema of Kosovo, I invite that admin to carry out a CU.

Having read Joy's remarks, the second time BOOMERANG has been mentioned, I have come to the conclusion that there is a protection racket here. I stand by my edits 100%, and mentioning this to WhiteWriter is a far cry from canvassing. If you name editors in these talks there is even a requirement to alert them, not the same thing as sending out messages to allies when you are proposing AfD or a page move. Concerning "stalking", naturally when you clock half a dozen nonconstructive edits by a user it is reasonable to follow up and see what he has been doing elsewhere. Several of Rayner's edits since his break are in tact, each one that isn't concern removals of large sourced chucks, some of the time it was not even Rayner's first attempt at doing so and it had been more seasoned editors reverting him originally.

On the subject of stalking, I am very interested as to how Rayner managed to find Hiking in Kosovo, Climate of Kosovo and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stanislava Pak Stanković.

If the admins involved wish to turn the table on my account and turn me into the accused party. I have no fears. By the same token, I have no expectation that Rayner will be sanctioned here so I might just have to drop this case. But before I do I'll say one thing, it is striking that editors such as User:Keithstanton and others get banned from editing when making Rayner-esque edits. He survives without a blotch. Editors who go overboard in producing pro-Serbian NPOV violations receive topic bans. Curiously, the fact that this is all dismissed as a mere "content dispute" with Rayner continuing battleground editing contrary to consensus and with opposition from a host of good editors (none of whom I have alrted to this talk), the very fact that this has gone on for over six months speaks for itself. Evlekis (Евлекис) ( argue) 13:48, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

PS for Edjohnson. I have to be honest, I am on 1RR, a sanction by which I am debilitated. Nothing for which I raised this talk concerns violations on an actual 1RR article. Just thought you should know. Evlekis (Евлекис) ( argue) 13:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Issue to be taken into account

As regards Sandstein's proposal evidently influenced by his interpretation of the evidence submitted, I feel I should mention that I have kept this as short as possible with the basis for the talk being what he has done since his return from a two-week absence. Rayner's disruption, battleground editing and gross POV pushing goes back six months on these issues alone and he has made many enemies, not just this one. To this end it is only right that before a decision be reached, specific misgivings must be addressed and this time, I will be giving citations.

• Comment by Sandstein: Bobrayner's argument that Evlekis has been stalking him just to disagree with him on random issues appears plausible; it is indeed difficult to see why Evlekis (who has otherwise edited only Balkans-related articles) would otherwise insert himself into these disputes. Evlekis does not rebut Bobrayner's allegation....
  • Reply: whilst Balkan topics dominate my 30,000 contributions, not everything is in that field. I did indeed dismiss the pathetic allegation in this post, 3rd paragraph, so Sandstein will need to read it.

Stalking

• Comment by Sandstein: ...and his reference to articles on which he alleges Bobrayner has been stalking him is not supported by any diffs.
  • Hiking in Kosovo is a new articled created on 24 February 2013. Locating it is like finding a needle in a haystack, I embarked on a number of changes and improvements between 8-9 April which sit harmlessly for two weeks and in one blast, all gone, copy edits, grammar, spelling mistakes, the lot, and all for nothing more than to re-introduce Albanian endonyms. For more proof, spot the difference here [71].
  • Climate of Kosovo was a graveyard article with two edits from its creation in 2008 until February 2013 ( see bottom), then it came to life. I make five edits to the page between 27 and 31 March including naming of settlements per WP:AT. An opportunist IP tries his luck at restoring Albanian endonyms, I get wind of this as the page is on my watchlist and then from out of nowhere, hello! what's this?, then this. Date: 8 April 2013.
  • Stanislava Pak Stanković is up on offer because she so-called "lacks notability". Yet mysteriously, our friend found the article for deletion project page [72].

I contend that none of this is possible without the user having rifled through my contributions (ie. stalking).

Asides Climate of Kosovo which I dated 8 April, please observe these examples:

• North Kosovo crisis. Where it began [73]. 2349 UTC on 7th
  

next came Climate of Kosovo listed above

• Natural resources of Kosovo - new article, February 2013, should be difficult to find. Rayner's first contribution to it, reverting me. 2353 UTC on 7th
• Majlinda Kelmendi - hardly touched since creation in November 2010. Hello! A revert to restore Albanian name of town 2355 UTC on 7th, spotted two minutes after above edit.
• Demographics of Kosovo - the famous "spelling fix", either he typed extremely fast or he reverted. 2357 UTC on 7th
• Tuzi was created in 2005. Rayner made his first ever contribution to that page on 8 April 2013 eleven days after my clean-up edits and his purpose is simply to re-Albanianise the text [74]. 0007 UTC
• Talk:Republika Srpska - next comes this comment in which he makes no attempt to conceal the individual with whom he has a problem. 0011 UTC
• Koriša bombing - 0018, 0044, 0157. Although Rayner's disruption and edit-warring on that article went back much further, please note how the 0018 revision directly cancels my contribution which has sat unchallenged for six days in which time Rayner had many several contributions.
• United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo - a point for which Rayner has long pushed and continues to do so. [75] 0044.

1hr 5mins, nine articles - achieved either by scanning down the contributions by Evlekis or by astronomical coincidence.

84.74.30.129

If I am supposed to have edited from this account, I'd be world famous for the time it took me to hop so quickly from Britain where I live to Switzerland where the IP is based [76].

Whilst we are on the subject, I am rather curious about this pattern: This account has a special interest in Albania–Yugoslav border incident, as does indeed this account which I suspect is the same person. All of the edits to that page are consistent with this from Rayner, plus [77].

Rita Ora

Rather than cherry-picking, try reading the whole section to place this matter is perspective. "Pig ignorant" is a cliche in which pig is an intensifier and the partnering remark "biased towards her nation's mindset" is my response to an editor who comments that the woman's personality is clear from her statements. It was initially taken as an attack on the editor in question but was eventually cleared up and I assured the relevant persons that I would not make comments in that fashion again ad such I haven't. Rayner's accusation that this is me allegedly denying genocide is neither here nor there, however, for the record, in 1990 when it was reported that Ora's parents came to Britian, there was not a single gunshot fired yet in that province.

Serbian Army

• Comment by Sandstein: The Serbian Army edits by Bobrayner are edit-warring, but date to December 2012‎ and are not at this point very actionable any more..
  • Response. Are you sure???? One day of quiet is not enough to warrant that claim.

Comments from Joy

• that 'spelling fix' edit had a bad summary indeed, but if you actually look into the particular dispute, you'll see that bobrayner's behavior is consistent and fair: the entire table is attributed to a 2011 census reference, and the document is published by current Kosovo authorities in Albanian.
  • Bobrayner has been explained by many editors on several occasions that this is English Wiki and we use English names, as such we don't have Den Haag, Wien, Beograd or München. Joy's own editing background make it clear that he is very well versed in the names of Kosovan settlements and knows full well that switching settlement titles to report them per their Albanian names is tendentious. It is one thing when the Albanian name is already known in English as part of a title (eg. League of Peja, KF Kosova Vushtrri, Grand Hotel Prishtina) but Rayner doesn't even use that argument that Joy has provided for him when making his changes: Joy deems Rayner "consistent and fair" thinking that he is merely observing publication in Albanian. As a matter of fact it is all part of a wider campaign in which Rayner believes that those Albanian names are part of English itself. Just look at this unsigned comment some hours ago [78]. A page about hiking! Demographic list sources are one thing, but hiking in Kosovo??? Please! He just wants everything in Albanian for Kosovo and that is the end. I mean if you think I am making this up, just consider this: Prokletije - article title; Albanian Alps - pipe, but all right, atleast it is English. What does Rayner give us? [79], Alpet Shqiptare, yes, RED LINK. Bobrayner NOT tendentious?? Checkmate.

• The Republika Srpska city list dispute was pretty retarded, granted, but again, bobrayner was consistent in his position of matching the ref to the content - at the cost of deletionism - and he was apparently the first to bring it up on Talk there (before his first revert). That's also not exactly the hallmark of a tendentious editor.
  • Joy has hit the nail on the head "at the cost of deletionism". First of all, Joy's assertion that Rayner consulted the talk page before his first revert is wrong. By the time the topic was introduced (see top), Rayner was already citing this revert completed five hours before the talk page comment. What is interesting is the restoration of the deletion, if you read the summary here [80] (also posted before talk was launched), the user points out that a source is in place and if numbers do not match then one is free to change them in accordance with that source. The manner in which Rayner was deleting was more akin to falsely inserted information (eg. listing Chinese television viewing figures on an article about Israel's occupation of Gaza), as if those towns really did not belong to Srpska. So here Rayner at 1809 initiates discussion, however this [81] supporting edit arrived five minutes before the talk. All of this is a far cry from Joy's idea that Rayner was playing fair. To be honest, I don't know why so many admins are exalting instances where Rayner is "not tendentious" when the multitude of examples clearly show that he is: all the dirty schemes to present Kosovo as a country with no regard for its disupted status, the deliberate removal of FR Yugoslavia and its replacement with "Serb" for matters known to relate to the state. These concern me far more than Republika Srpska.

Finally

I have breached 1RR four times. The first time I admit was on purpose logged out, a known case, for which I was warned and have not done it again. The second, third and fourth occasions were different. Each time it was in error: two very different revisions I submitted on Koriša bombing and it was not brought to my attention until it was too late. Rayner had reverted nine minutes after I had taken out "Serb" a second time. It was one obscure feature I genuinely missed. For the other two, I self-reverted and was only caught out because of the distortion of UTC and my local time. That said, on neither occasion did I "game the system" by re-reverting after time, such as right now [82].

To this end, I contend that since I too base my edits on sourced information, facts, consensus, and have proven unequivocally that I can operate within 1RR; with evidence that I am not editing from other machines logged out, I am in no greater need of a block, a topic ban or any other "more comprehensive" sanction than the antagonist and subject of this discussion, Bobrayner.

If any other apologists for Rayner would like to present further cases of his "innocence", please produce them so I may refute them one by one. Evlekis (Евлекис) ( argue) 02:14, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

24/04/13: brief message for Joy before I sumbit evidence of neutral edits

I'd like to draw your attention to two things. If I were wrong about WP:AT forming an overriding basis on how we present names of settlements then I accept that. As such, I have made changes to the Demographics of Kosovo municipality list which I hope will in some way be accepted as a compromise and a step towards resolution. As it took me a few edits to complete, have a look at the end result, a new table with names given in every known variation - article title remains first, but I have placed Albanian before Serbian in the list and we can say that A comes before S in the alphabet to justify it. Of course this is one of many places that such measures may help. If the community is happy with it, I'll do the same on all related articles I find. If users are unhappy and believe that only the name per Albanian source should be reported, I believe it only right that they explain themselves. Also, you mention that that I did not respond to Rayner's comment on Talk:Hiking in Kosovo. The fact is that I have spoken about this with him time and time again, and not just me, other users too have had words with him on this subject. Naming on the Hiking in Kosovo pages is nothing we haven't seen in many places before. As for discussion, I have addressed Rayner here, here and here. Also if you care to inspect Talk:Climate of Kosovo, you'll see that it is more or less exactly what Talk:Hiking in Kosovo is except I am the one to have launched a discussion to which Rayner had not replied at the time of me writing this. Basically, I am exhausted with the same old rhetoric, going round and round in circles. That's why I opted not to satisfy Rayner on Talk:Hiking in Kosovo. Furthermore, it may be of interest to you that there are two other reason I felt I never needed to communicate in that space: firstly, my name was not mentioned, secondly, at the time of this edit, the revision stood as Rayner left it whereas I have not set foot on that page since before then.

The second thing is trivial but needs clearing up. No part of my grievance mentions Republika Srpska and the edit-warring there. You managed to locate it easily because Rayner's list of disruptive incidents is as long as your arm. Those involving me constitute a mere fraction. Now putting aside his first bold blanking edit, this contribution preceded this talk page edit so the suggestion that he used discussion first and even reverted after remains a misjudgement. I am now going to spend the next hour or so locating pages which prove I have edited neutrally and where it may not immediately seem to be the case, I shall explain why and how the neutrality of the contribution is unequivocal. Evlekis (Евлекис) ( argue) 18:55, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Proof of good faith editing pursuant to Sandstein's instruction at Talk:Evlekis

Kosovo's declaration of independence is a highly controversial subject and forms part of the wider Serbian-Albanian conflict. So well documented is this that it has spawned many articles: Kosovo–Serbia relations, Republic of Kosovo, International Recognition of Kosovo, 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, International Court of Justice advisory opinion on Kosovo's declaration of independence, the list is endless. As editors, we have a requirement to edit very carefully in this sensitive area and any contributions which hint at Kosovan independence status with no regard for its wealth of opposition, or which allege Kosovo remains a de jure provice of Serbia is evidently tendentious. However, there is a third position, a neutral position, and when this neutral factor takes over and one side is left battling that neutral factor, the absence of a genuine lobby arguing an opposing case can very easily project the objective editor to be representing the opposing arguments. To this end, I contend that editing on Kosovo-related subjects can be very difficult when something has to go one way or the other. The way around it can be to produce extremely long passages, but atleast they represent every angle. For other cases where the Kosovan region needs to be listed, there is Template:Kosovo-note which I have helped take form. Note however that extra words given to explain the Kosovo situation can often be dismissed as "weasel words" by editors reverting them when restoring their one-sided versions, just as the consensus-based template and other notifications may be dismissed by those same editors as "disclaimers" in summaries when pushing their POV revisions. I declare my position is neither on the side of Serbian integrity nor on Kosovan sovereignty as the following examples illustrate:

• Republic of Kosovo 1. Here you see the extreme difficulties of explaining that "border" for Kosovo-Serbia. No way can it be explained in simple terms for logistical reasons: even Serbia accepts the region as a subunit but the non-recognition of independence means reporting it is extremely difficult. Either way, this edit (a restoration of my earlier removed material) gives an analysis of the situation from both angles. The pro-Kosovo version looks like this (contrived to deny controversy and exalt Kosovo statehood). Had there also been a pro-Serbian editor, his changes would have looked something like this revision which never was. I contend that my version is 100% neutral.
• North Kosovo crisis. Another article which deals with the sticky "border" issue. My most recent edit, a short while ago was this finding [83], the summary speaks for itself. A pro-Kosovo edit looks like this - the removal of one word which explains the de facto situation concerning power itself, suddenly turns the situation into an ordinary frontier leaving Kosovo looking independent and presenting Serbia as not including the region. Alternatively, a user pushing for the Serb standpoint would have made an edit that looks like this [84], utterly denying the Kosovan position. Once again, my version respects the positions of both sides of the conflict.
• Šar Mountains. Now we can see two POV revisions side by side, the left one Serbian, the right one Kosovan [85]. Note also how in the pro-Kosovo revision summary, the editor's remark "Kosovo declared independence several years ago; we should bring our content up to date..." seems to take the declaration as red and that the community should observe this and discard related controversies. Following a revert to restore Serbia as the home of the mountains, I made this edit which included the note so that all readers could see where the subjects lie and can follow leads from there if there are any doubts.
• 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence. Over here, where I faced no opposition, I found a piece I thought unfairly criticises the declaration of independence itself. My change - baring in mind I had to take into account the content and sources that were already there - shifted the "controversial" label to the bodies involved in their reactions to the proclamation.
• Republic of Kosovo 2. During a period when there had been conflict over one matter but no arbitration at this stage, I made this good faith self-revert [86] per the request of one of the opposing editors with whom I was working towards resolution.

This is a brief list per Sandstein's request. If more is required, or if any other edit I have made needs answers, please inform me and I shall explain them. Evlekis (Евлекис) ( argue) 22:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning Bobrayner

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Bobrayner

I have, for some time, been trying to bring our articles on Balkan topics closer in line with what sources say. Unfortunately, Evlekis disagrees very strongly with the wording used by sources on a wide variety of Balkan topics, and this has led to something of a feud; the endless reverts make my progress much slower. This AE filing appears to be another attempt at revenge. I'll try to address each of Evlekis' diffs:

• 1 2 3 4: These diffs show me restoring the wording used by the source, which quite naturally uses Albanian placenames in Kosovo. This is not acceptable to Evlekis, who is sure that places in Kosovo must have Serbian names, and cites WP:AT even though that policy is about article titles and does not support Evlekis' preferred language (I've tried explaining this in the past, repeatedly). These edits are nothing to do with titles. Evlekis has misused WP:AT like this on many other pages and has carefully informed new editors of this spurious rule. example
• 5 and 6 Evlekis insists that "Serb forces" are "nonexistent". My edit adds six sources which each discuss Serb forces in that massacre; there are many more sources out there. (Out of all the sources used on the Prekaz article, Evlekis had cherrypicked the one which used wording closer to his preference). 7 shows the same problem; sources say "Serb", Evlekis changes the article to say "Yugoslav". There have been hundreds of edits like this on other articles.
• 8 Evlekis says "A false summary in which I am named and accused of something for which I am not responsible"; even lying to Arbcom's face. Source says "Serb"; Evlekis changed "Serb" to "Montenegrin"; I changed it back and cited another source.
• 9 (this is the bit about the Lake Radonjic massacre). Multiple reliable sources say that Serb police reported finding a mass grave. Evlekis changed that to say "Yugoslavian authorities". I changed it back to reflect what sources say. This makes Evlekis angry.
• 10: Multiple reliable sources discuss the border between Kosovo and Serbia. Evlekis doesn't like that word; it's a concession towards the notion that Kosovo might not be an integral part of Serbia. Evlekis repeatedly redesignates it an "administrative border", breaking his 1RR restriction again and again and again. The sources don't call it that.
• 11: We have a source reporting that the head of the Serbian army was taken to court for war crimes during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Evlekis is adamant that the Serbian army was created in 2006 which means that all the sources discussing war crimes by Serb forces in the 1990s can be safely ignored.
• 12: The border problem again. Sources just call it a border, an IP address (seemingly a VJ-Yugo sock) changes it to say "administrative zone with the disputed political entity", I change it back.
• 13 Another editor added this source on recent rapprochement between Kosovo and Serbia. This is not what Evlekis and allies want; the sourced content was removed from the article, I added it back in. of course it gets removed again by one of the serial reverters. Just another day in the Balkans.
• 14: The usual - sources discuss "Serb" forces, I change the article to say "Serb", the usual revert-warriors change it back to say "Yugoslav".
• 15: Evlekis doesn't like the word "Serbia" in articles about Kosovo, instead preferring to say "Central Serbia". That weasel wording allows Evlekis and allies to continue implying that Kosovo is part of Serbia. I changed it back to "Serbia" because none of the sources say "Central Serbia". [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95].
• 16 and 17: A wide range of reliable sources simply say that the Kosovo assembly declared independence. However, if you dig down into one particular court document (a primary source) and make a very selective reading of section IV.B.2 (b), you can get some legalese which, surrounded by caveats, gives a very different impression... Evlekis and allies want exactly those words at the start of the lede of multiple articles.
• 18: The article is a harmless, obscure list of municipalities in Serbia, excluding Kosovo. There was a map of municipalities in Serbia, including Kosovo. I replaced that with a map that just showed municipalities in Serbia, excluding Kosovo - a map which perfectly fits the list. A perfectly good edit. As usual, this gets outrage from Evlekis and repeatedly reverted by 23 editor. As usual, no response to my talkpage thread.

Meanwhile:

• Evlekis has already started canvassing allies to come and join this case. I don't know what has been said off-wiki but there has been very convenient timing in how another editor has joined Evlekis' revert wars.
• Evlekis has been stalking me, looking for disagreements on other completely unrelated pages that I edit; if there's a disagreement then Evlekis joins whichever side disagrees with me, and coaches any possible adversaries. Needless to say, Evlekis had hitherto shown no interest in the use of icons on railway articles. There are other examples of stalking - [96] [97] etc.
• When somebody makes disgusting personal attacks against me, Evlekis simply intervenes to make sure they stay on the side of civil pov-pushing. Evlekis knows exactly how far you can push the line with personal attacks.
• Evlekis tried reporting me to the 3RR board because he wanted free reign to reinsert blatant factual errors into Republika Srpska, and I kept on removing them. Being limited to 1RR, Evlekis used an IP to make a second revert, and canvassed an ally. He got away with just a warning, again.
• Over on another article, Evlekis breaks his 1RR again - the same old problem, sources stubbornly say "Serb" but Evlekis keeps on reverting to "Yugoslav". [98] [99]
• And another example; I change an article to reflect what sources say, Evlekis changes it back to his preferred version, Evlekis gets around 1RR by using an IP address.
• Evlekis posted an epic screed against me on AN/I; the first reply by another editor rightly used the word "boomerang". Failing to get the result he wanted despite more massive canvassing [100] [101] [102] [103] [104], Evlekis said he'd drop that thread and bring it here. Isn't that forum-shopping too?
• There are similar problems on many other articles; I can provide hundreds more diffs if somebody's going to read it all, but I don't want to go into TLDR territory.

How much longer must the encyclopædia suffer this campaign of civil pov-pushing, repeated evasion of editing restrictions, canvassing, bullying, abuse of sources, and so on? Can we get a boomerang here - in which case I'll add a wider range of evidence - or is a fresh AE request needed? bobrayner ( talk) 06:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Some more examples, as requested... (though I'm still wary of going TLDR as it's a long-running saga)

• At Cinema of Kosovo Evlekis broke his 1RR restriction again, and promptly self-reverted. Six minutes later, 84.74.30.129 ( talk · contribs) - which had never edited any other articles - appeared to redo the edit. Perfect timing! This looks like Evlekis evading 1RR again. 84.74.30.129 then made another three reverts on that article, to positions that Evlekis favoured and making Evlekis-like complaints about "Albanian language propaganda" and "English language names". Editing times overlap with Evlekis, who was active on other pages at those times; there are 5-6 minute gaps between IP edits and Evlekis edits. This anonymous editor made 4 edits in total, only made edits furthering Evlekis' position, only when Evlekis was logged in, and only when Evlekis was at his 1RR limit on Cinema of Kosovo.
• Whilst we're on coincidences, isn't it interesting that Neutral Fair Guy ( talk · contribs) created an account at a time when Evlekis would normally be editing, and then made a series of very WP:POINTY edits about an obscure but controversial epithet, hours after Evlekis had ranted about exactly the same epithet in a TLDR section of my talkpage that nobody else is likely to read? NFG then goes on to overlap a remarkable 21 pages with Evlekis (that's quite an unlikely feat for an account which only made 53 edits before getting blocked).
• Anyway. At Cinema of Kosovo, Evlekis also continues the bizarre misuse of WP:AT: [105]
• At Bardhyl Çaushi, sources say that the subject was abducted by Serb troops and held in a Serb prison; Evlekis changes this to "national troops", "FR Yugoslavia", APKiM &c. Of course the sources don't mention APKiM &c.
• Evlekis did the same thing at Izbica massacre and Battle of Glodjane, having been canvassed by WhiteWriter. Again, the sources prefer words like "Serb", Evlekis systematically changes that to "Yugoslav". Obviously, on-wiki canvassing (and setting up a tag-team) could look bad, so Evlekis would rather discuss things offsite in future.
• Majlinda Kelmendi is a BLP about a sportswoman. There are plenty of sources which make it clear that she's from Kosovo; but in a previous season, due to the problem of national recognition, she had to compete under an Albanian flag. We even have sources where she complains about it personally, plus "Even though the United Kingdom, the US and Germany recognise Kosovo, the 21-year-old was not granted the wish to perform in her homeland's colours due to the resistance of Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president. Instead, she stepped out at the ExCeL for the Games wearing Albania's insignia...". Evlekis' response? This woman's nationality can only be Albanian, not Kosovar, and this must be enforced by a string of reverts. [106] [107] [108] [109] [110].
• Unfortunately, Rita Ora's account of fleeing genoicide is not compatible with Evlekis' stance on who committed which atrocities, so Evlekis explains that she's "pig ignorant and biased towards her nation's mindset" on this BLP's talkpage.
• When Evlekis was blocked for editwarring on 10 March, 84.74.29.21 ( talk · contribs) suddenly appeared to make two characteristically Evlekis-like reverts on his articles: [111] [112]. It's in the same range as 84.74.30.129 ( talk · contribs) mentioned above. Isn't that block evasion too?

Need more? Right now there's some quite effective tag-teaming between Zetatrans, Evlekis, and 23 Editor, on articles like List of massacres in the Kosovo War. Once the revert wars calm down, I would very much like to add some fresh content based on sources like Tim Judah, but it's simply not possible right now. bobrayner ( talk) 13:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Sorry, I should have made it clearer earlier: Evlekis is under a 1RR restriction following another problem in March: "for a period of 6 months, Evlekis is restricted to WP:1RR across all of the English Wikipedia". This was on an ARBMAC topic but I don't think the restriction was officially logged anywhere... bobrayner ( talk) 14:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

• On the subject of pro-Kosovo pov-pushers, they are perhaps less active, and certainly more likely to get swiftly reverted by others, but I'm pretty sure I've dealt with their edits too (need diffs?); and when KeithStanton tried canvassing, I stomped on that. Personally, I have no national allegiance in the Balkans - I just want our articles to reflect what reliable sources say.
• I freely acknowledge that I hit a fourth revert on Republika Srpska; attempts to fix it on the talkpage failed but I should have tried to deal with the problem some other way. I was unable to self-revert because another editor reverted again. Evlekis took it to the 3RR noticeboard and we both got warnings; I thought that case was closed! Afterwards, if I had removed the factual errors again, that would have been obvious editwarring; but instead, Evlekis backed down and removed them.
• On 23 editor: Do you want me to provide diffs of problematic editing? bobrayner ( talk) 22:19, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I would argue that viewing things in terms of "the other side" is part of our problem in the Balkans, not part of the solution. Nonetheless, here are some examples where my edits went the "other way".

• Fake population numbers; somebody tried reducing the number of serbs in Kosovo, I brought it back up to the number given by sources.
• Opposing a synthesis that Belgrade had "recognised" kosovo.
• Opposing another attempt to claim spurious recognition of Kosovo.
• Opposing removal of "anti" content from International recognition of Kosovo.
• Opposing another attempt to overhype recognition of Kosovo.
• Removing more unsourced hype about international recognition of Kosovo.
• More fake population numbers; somebody tried reducing the population of a town in Republika Srpska, I fixed it.
• Underlining the importance of early Serb history (From a "golden age" way back when Kosovo was a core part of Serbia &c)
• Fixing an attempt to reduce the Serb population
• Fixing an attempt to reduce the Serb population
• Fixing an attempt to reduce the Serb population
• Fixing an attempt to reduce the Serb population
• Fixing an attempt to reduce the Serb population
• fixed the number of Serbs in Kosovo and restored sourced content on forcible "albanianisation"
• [113] It's called "Republika Srpska", not "Genocidna Republika Srpska".
• Removed slur from a Bosnian Serb politician
• Removing the "Genocidna" from Republika Srpska
• Removing more slurs from a Bosnian Serb politician
• Fixing attempts to reallocate somebody from Serb to Bosnian
• Fixed a variety of Kosovo nationalist pov-pushing
• An older one that springs to mind: When Proud Serbian Chetnik attracted a bitter thread on AN/I, I wanted to give a second chance - Evlekis agreed - and I was about to offer mentorship as a way forward; then when Proud Serbian Chetnik was revealed to be a false-flag by somebody on the Kosovo side (maybe Sinbad Barron), I was glad to have dodged a bullet, and I supported a ban.
• FRYugoslavHero even gave me a barnstar for helping him! In retrospect, I think this editor might possibly have been a VJ-Yugo sock. Oh well...
• Cutting off KeithStanton's canvassing
• Reverting blanking by an IP who was trying to erase content about killings of Serbs
• Removed another slur from the president of Republika Srpska
• This restored a lengthy list of "Recent attacks on Serbs in Kosovo", reframed the KLA as terrorists, &c.

I've tried to provide a variety of diffs (fixing different problems, different articles, different namespaces &c) but didn't do an exhaustive search and I'm still wary of TLDR; if you want more/different examples or different details, just ask, and I can put together another pile of diffs in the next couple of days.
If any sanctions are to be imposed, then I would of course abide by whatever Arbcom decides, but...

• I'm more interested in Ottoman history, per se; would a topic ban prevent me working on that? (The modern territories of Serbia and Kosovo were once Ottoman territory). For instance, I built up this collection of articles - feel free to have a look at the neutrality of my work - and I think it would be counterproductive for sanctions to prevent further work in that area, which I've been doing singlehanded. Ditto for articles I created like Stabilisation Unit which allude briefly to the region's conflicts...? Although I usually write articles on other areas (ie. Africa, taxation, ships), I accept that a few % of the articles I wrote would definitely be out of bounds, such as this, this, and this although nobody has ever expressed any concerns about neutrality on them.
• Hopefully everybody here could agree that there's plenty of other problematic editing going on in this region; even if Arbcom decided to keep me out of article-space, would I still be permitted to point out a problem on a noticeboard &c for other people to deal with? (Don't worry, I'm not in the habit of spamming noticeboards with trivial issues, I tend to save it up for the big/intractable ones)
  

In other news... Evlekis' crusade is still ongoing, alas.

• On this article, multiple sources describe bad things done by Serb forces in 1999; but today Evlekis deliberately replaced each mention of "Serb" with "Yugoslav". It doesn't matter how many talkpage threads I start; the campaign keeps on going; [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131]. For brevity, I've only given diffs from April 2013, but it's been going on for years. 23 editor has been doing the same, and canvassed WhiteWriter to join in too.
• The campaign to change placenames continues too:

[132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140] [141] [142] [143] [144] [145] [146] [147] [148] [149] [150] [151] [152] [153] [154] [155] [156] [157] [158] [159] [160] [161] [162] [163] [164] [165] [166] [167] [168] [169] [170] [171] [172] [173] [174] [175] [176] [177] [178] [179] [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] [185] [186] [187] [188] [189] [190] [191] [192] [193]
Again, just diffs from April 2013. In most cases there's already an English-language inline source which explicitly uses the "Albanian" placename, but Evlekis systematically changes them to "Serbian" placenames; no sources required, sometimes using the spurious WP:AT argument, and often with deceptive edit summaries. Sometimes the blind search-and-replace breaks citations. When new editors use "Albanian" placenames - the placenames used by sources - Evlekis warns them repeatedly for vandalism and factual errors - despite having previously warned another editor for saying the same naming dispute was vandalism. However, when a new account appears with precocious editing skills (and turns their userpage into a bluelink on their first edit), joins Evlekis' side, and does something much worse, then Evlekis is quite sure they're a newbie who needs mercy rather than warnings) Highly divergent treatment of new editors, depending on whether or not they are on the right "side"...

• There are a variety of other related problems, such as this weasel wording and synthesis [194] [195] [196] [197], and we can't use the word "border" (even though that's what sources use) [198] [199] [200] [201] [202] [203] and so on. (Again, diffs limited to April 2013).
• Unfortunately, any editor who tries to deal with such a consistent series of edits - and bring articles back in line with what sources say - will necessarily have an edit history which appears to be pushing in the opposite direction, and will still get called Albanian by Evlekis and by IPs. bobrayner ( talk) 05:15, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by Joy

I'm usually an uninvolved admin WRT Kosovo topics, because I usually don't deal a lot with this part of WP:ARBMAC area. But just in case, I'll write this in a separate section because I've dealt with both editors at length in related areas.

Evlekis, are you trying to test WP:BOOMERANG here? Most of what you've linked to are simple content disputes, in which you're advocating moot points. That, in and of itself, isn't necessarily disruptive. Filing this request, however, is.

What's particularly troubling is that you failed to heed much of the advice people gave you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive792. The request is cca 1100 words AFAICT, and it's still using phrasing that is just as non-neutral as before.

-- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 07:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Having read Joy's remarks, the second time BOOMERANG has been mentioned, I have come to the conclusion that there is a protection racket here.

What? -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 23:57, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Joy's own editing background make it clear that he is very well versed in the names of Kosovan settlements and knows full well that switching settlement titles to report them per their Albanian names is tendentious.

I've no idea what you mean by that; I know the basic facts in that Kosovo is officially bilingual, and I recall a series of edit wars on the E80 article regarding Đeneral Janković vs. Hani i Elezit or something like that. It was ridiculous because both names are largely unknown to English readers. I'm guessing we have some sort of a consensus based on reliable sources on which name is appropriate to use where. I fail to see a problem in reporting an Albanian-language census in Albanian-language names if the latter are equal in status to the Serbian-language names. If there is a consensus that only Serbian-language Kosovo toponyms are acceptable on the English Wikipedia, I'd have to see that discussion first to believe that. I never came across it at WP:NCGN or similar.

First of all, Joy's assertion that Rayner consulted the talk page before his first revert is wrong. By the time the topic was introduced (see top), Rayner was already citing this revert completed five hours before the talk page comment.

[204] is not a revert. It's an initial edit, a bold edit. The next edit was a revert of that, and then came the talk and the edit warring. If you seriously think that people here are going to take your word over that, rather than simply reading that page history to observe that simple fact, I'm lost for words.

Overall, Evlekis, you've demonstrated well enough by now that you're here for the major talking points of Serbian nationalism: blind opposition to the Kosovo Albanians and blind support of Republika Srpska, and the English Wikipedia is here as simply a tool to promote those causes; whoever obstructs that promotion is somehow out to get you. Further discussion on that topic seems redundant. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:03, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Naming on the Hiking in Kosovo pages is nothing we haven't seen in many places before. As for discussion, I have addressed Rayner here, here and here.

That's a discussion at Talk:Timeline of Kosovo history about historical names of Đakovica. How is this an overarching discussion about modern-day municipality lists? Also, I even found your overview of sources immediately lacking: most of the Turkish names were used by Turkish authors, discussing the Ottoman context, while most of the Serbian names were used by a variety of authors discussing the Montenegrin context. If you just take a hint from that simple pattern, you'd find zero reason to edit war about 2011 census names.

Now putting aside his first bold blanking edit, this contribution preceded this talk page edit so the suggestion that he used discussion first and even reverted after remains a misjudgement.

OK, the timestamp on this is 20:04, and on this it's 20:09. Yes, that is the wrong order - if the audience is entirely so trigger-happy that they can't wait five minutes. Which it may actually be expected to be on a divisive issue, but, once again, that list is not an inherently divisive issue. It only became a problem because of the rest of this kind of behavior. It is a clear violation of the spirit and letter of ARBMAC and perpetuating the argument that there's no blame at your end for it is just further proof of that.

-- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Despite INVOLVED user Joy attempt to minimise this obvious long lasting violations.

WhiteWriter, kindly back that up with some facts. Which of those disputed articles did I involve myself in? -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 16:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Statement by WhiteWriter

This user was already warned numerous times by several users. We shows complete lack of talk page decorum, and after will to cooperate in ANY possible way. Punishing one, and not other one in this would lead to complete instability and further POV violations, as user showed constant attitude toward non neutral and tendentious editing regarding Kosovo subject, in common violation of WP:AT. Despite INVOLVED user Joy attempt to minimise this obvious long lasting violations. If you do nothing now about Bob, you will point out that any kind of almost DE editing may be allowed, under specific circumstantial. Please, Sandstein, and Gatoclass, act neutral, react on both of them! User was already warned numerous times before, and nothing changed. For this kind us dispute two participant were needed, and not only one. -- WhiteWriter ^speaks 15:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Bobrayner

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

Before we can process this, you must link to the remedy that is to be enforced, the notification of Bobrayner, and any warning of Bobrayner per WP:AC/DS#Warnings.  Sandstein  05:14, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

OK, this is just to note that the remedy that is to be enforced is WP:ARBMAC#Standard discretionary sanctions, and both parties have previously received the necessary warning ( [205], [206]). Bobrayner, because we will likely have to examine the conduct of both parties in any case, I recommend that you post any evidence for alleged recent misconduct by Evlekis in your statement. I'll look at the evidence in more detail after both parties have had the opportunity to reply to the evidence submitted by the other.  Sandstein  07:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Bobrayner has mentioned User:23 editor, so I notified him of this AE. User:Neutral Fair Guy is indefinitely blocked per WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Sinbad Barron so should not require a notice. Bobrayner also discusses a 1RR restriction. This must refer to Republic of Kosovo being under a 1RR/week restriction for all editors per ARBMAC. EdJohnston ( talk) 13:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

After examining the evidence, Evlekis's complaint (limited to the numbered list) appears for the most part unfounded or stale. The reported edits generally reflect content disputes, which this board cannot adjudicate; the arbitration (and arbitration enforcement process) addresses only conduct issues. In "our articles will reflect...", "our" clearly means "Wikipedia's". The Serbian Army edits by Bobrayner are edit-warring, but date to December 2012‎ and are not at this point very actionable any more. "Don't be silly" is incivil, but not a personal attack. But an examination of Bobrayner's countercomplaint reveals that Bobrayner has been edit-warring at Republika Srpska (1 to 3 April). I also find it problematic that, in his counter-complaint, he alleges without evidence on at least two occasions that a revert was made by Evlekis while logged out.

On the other hand, while I am not convinced by many of Bobrayner's allegations, his counter-complaint does have merit in some parts:

• Bobrayner's argument that Evlekis has been stalking him just to disagree with him on random issues appears plausible; it is indeed difficult to see why Evlekis (who has otherwise edited only Balkans-related articles) would otherwise insert himself into these disputes. Evlekis does not rebut Bobrayner's allegation, and his reference to articles on which he alleges Bobrayner has been stalking him is not supported by any diffs.
• The Koriša bombing edits do look like 1RR violations. (While the 1RR was imposed as an unblock condition, not as a discretionary sanction, it is nonetheless an "expected standard of behavior" in this context, and thus enforceable via WP:AC/DS#Authorization)
• The edits by 84.74.30.129 at Cinema of Kosovo do give the strong impression of sock- or meatpuppetry in support of Evlekis's position, as does generally the frequency with which IP addresses edit-war with Bobrayner.
• The edit to Talk:Rita Ora, a slur against the article subject, violates WP:BLP.

In general, the impression one gets by looking at the edit histories of the affected articles is that both parties engage in tendentious editing, in that Evlekis systematically makes changes favoring the position of Serbia in the dispute about Kosovo, and Bobrayner systematically makes changes favoring the opposite position. Such conduct patterns violate WP:NPOV irrespective of the merits of any individual edits. Evlekis's conduct is much more noticeably problematic, but Bobrayner's tendentious edits are not less problematic just because they are comparatively low-key, e.g. at [207], where a wholesale change of (what looks like) Serbian to Albanian spellings of place names is disguised with the misleading summary "spelling fixes".

On that basis, I conclude that sanctions are warranted against both parties, but that the sanctions against Evlekis should be more comprehensive in view of the wider range and higher intensity of disruptive conduct exhibited by him, and his previous 1RR restriction. I therefore intend to impose the following discretionary sanctions:

1. For violating WP:BLP (which is not suited for a topic ban), Evlekis is blocked for two weeks.
2. For tendentious editing, Evlekis and Bobrayner are both indefinitely banned from everything related to the topics of Serbia or Kosovo. They are encouraged to request, from the sanctioning administrator or by way of appeal, a review of this topic ban after no less than six months have elapsed, with the review to be based on their record of compliance with the topic ban, and their productive and conflict-free editing in other topic areas.
3. For what looks like stalking and attempts at canvassing like-minded users, Evlekis is unilaterally interaction-banned with respect to Bobrayner. This restriction is to last as long as Evlekis's topic ban. It will be made bilateral in the event of any disruptive or abusive interactions with Evlekis on the part of Bobrayner.
4. For edit-warring and (in Evlekis's case) the possible evasion of scrutiny or restrictions via IP addresses, Evlekis and Bobrayner are both restricted to WP:1RR with respect to all edits or pages related to Serbia or Kosovo concurrently with and independently from the topic ban. This restriction applies indefinitely with respect to Evlekis and for six months after the expiration of the topic ban with respect to Bobrayner.

What do my colleagues think?  Sandstein  19:49, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

As I've said previously, I'm inclined to disagree that merely making edits that tend to favour a particular POV is necessarily sanctionable, IMO it's making edits that unduly favour a POV that is problematic. We could also probably have a useful discussion about where to draw the line between a content dispute and a conduct issue, but such matters are not immediately relevant to this request.

I haven't yet had time to look through all the diffs in this request and may not have time to do so, but the impression I have after looking at a sample is that both editors do indeed appear to have engaged, at least at times, in tendentious editing. Just how serious the problems are however I am not yet sure. Certainly I have seen enough to think that sanctions may be appropriate, but I haven't yet persuaded myself that extended sanctions of the type you are proposing would be justified. Gatoclass ( talk) 20:32, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

What do you propose instead?  Sandstein  05:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Sandstein, that 'spelling fix' edit had a bad summary indeed, but if you actually look into the particular dispute, you'll see that bobrayner's behavior is consistent and fair: the entire table is attributed to a 2011 census reference, and the document is published by current Kosovo authorities in Albanian. (I didn't actually have the patience to wade through the obnoxious Flash book mess over there to verify the exact toponyms, but the title page was in Albanian so I assume the rest is, too.) You cannot base a finding of tendentious editing on this. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 23:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I don't. Tendentious editing is reflected in the pattern of hundreds of edits all favoring one position in all these disputes, not in any individual edit.  Sandstein  05:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

It would be better that you either list some better examples or don't list examples at all when making such a general assessment. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

The edits listed by Evlekis, even if they do reflect content disputes, at least show that Bobrayner has been consistently editing in opposition to the Serbian view, and Bobrayner's evidence demonstrates the opposite case for Evlekis. I'm asking both editors to rebut my assessment that they have been editing tendentiously by posting examples of edits in which they have made changes favorable to the "other side" in the underlying real-world dispute.  Sandstein  08:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

BTW IMHO: while most of the stuff on Evlekis' list is bogus, I now noticed the Ivica Dačić section heading edit by bobrayner, and that was plain tendentious. The new paragraph was fine, but the change in the section title was just plain silly. So I concur that there's some immediate blame on that front, it's not just content disputes - even put mildly, bobrayner was yanking people's chains. At the same time, we should also censure FkpCascais and 23 editor for playing the same stupid game - rather than fixing the problems or reporting them to someone, they just engaged in bulk reverts. If we were talking about newbies, it would be a random meaningless transgression, but we're not. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

The Republika Srpska city list dispute was pretty retarded, granted, but again, bobrayner was consistent in his position of matching the ref to the content - at the cost of deletionism - and he was apparently the first to bring it up on Talk there (before his first revert). That's also not exactly the hallmark of a tendentious editor. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 23:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I disagree; the hallmark of a tendentious editor is supporting only one side of a divisive issue; and the tools employed to that end may well include talk page discussion as well as edit warring.  Sandstein  05:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

But there was no divisive issue at hand! Whether the list of cities in RS is has population numbers from one year or another is not an inherently nationalist issue for which we have ARBMAC. There is no reason to revert-war on a WP:V-enforcing deletion edit as opposed to simply fixing the verifiability issue. That in turn was later done by Evlekis, but not before he spilled some more bile in the process. Yes, bobrayner was clearly being stubborn there, too, but we can't just flatly accuse him of doing it out of some sort of bias against the topic of Republika Srpska. If we did that, most of us would be long banned because we enforced some policy in a suboptimal way.

I'm not comfortable with a standard of tendentiousness being set so low that anyone can match it with a handful of moot diffs. That way lies madness. I agree with the argument that bobrayner made an arbitration decision violation in assuming bad faith too much, but they're not automagically gaming the system by enforcing the verifiability policy. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 07:40, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

You're right, the Republika Srpska reverts are not a tendentious editing issue, although they are still edit-warring. I agree that Bobrayner was right in removing unsourced content per WP:V, but he was wrong to edit-war about it; there is no "enforcing WP:V" exception in WP:3RRNO. Joy, could you please decide whether or not you consider yourself uninvolved in this case? It is a bit confusing if you contribute both here and in a separate statement above.  Sandstein  08:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I should clarify that I don't think making edits that consistently prefer to cite Albanian/Serbian toponyms referenced to Albanian/Serbian sources is an inherent violation of ARBMAC. If edit warring on that topic is persistently not followed by the use of the dispute resolution processes, that's an ARBMAC problem, but the sole act of consistently taking some position supported by some sources cannot possibly be a problem in and of itself. I see very little in the way of dispute resolution in Evlekis' report. I dislike bland reverting with misleading edit summaries, but Evlekis didn't follow up at all after the message on Talk. He's got heaps of accusations and innuendo and walls of text, but there's little apparent effort to get a discussion going on the matter of those toponyms, AFAICT they exchanged a few messages on User talk? So I basically see bobrayner doing some problematic stuff while generally abiding by policies, and Evlekis attacking him without doing the same. That shouldn't generally translate into a topic ban of equal length for both.

I'm still not sure if I'm involved enough to recuse myself. I'll give it some more thought (gotta run right now, I exceeded my real life wiki quota for the morning :). -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:53, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I've now looked at all of the items listed by Evlekis in his report and I saw no articles where I remember making anything approaching substantial contributions. Note also that my last interaction with Evlekis was advocating the same point as himself with regard to Butcher of the Balkans. So, I don't see a reason to recuse myself. If anyone has one, please speak up. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:34, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

As I said earlier, I haven't had time to review all the evidence including the Republika Srpska dispute, but based on what I've already seen there is evidence of tendentious editing on Bobraynor's part. For example, in this edit Bobraynor adds the statement that NATO planes bombed ethnic Albanians who had been used by Yugoslav forces as human shields, basing it on page 352 of this source. However, the page in question only states that There is some information indicating that displaced Kosovo civilians were forcibly concentrated within a military camp in the village of Koritsa as human shields and later states that the civilians were either returning refugess or persons gathered as human shields by FRY authorities or both. Bobraynor in other words has turned a statement that civilians may have been used as human shields into an unqualified statement that they were used as human shields. Misstatement or misrepresention of sources is a demonstrable breach of core policy and certainly a potential ground for sanction. I should add that while I haven't yet reviewed all the evidence, this is far from the only example of questionable editing I found from Bobraynor, so at this point I could not agree that his editing in the topic area has been altogether innocuous. Gatoclass ( talk) 08:56, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Yes, that's problematic. -- It's difficult to believe, but the two are still at it even as this request is processed. Just look at the history of Bela Crkva massacre. After Evlekis previously changed the nationality of the forces responsible for the massacre from "Serb" to "Yugoslav" with the misleading edit summary "tidy page", the two are presently reverting each other about this, with Evlekis ultimately applying scare quotes to "Serb". This comes across as relentlessly tendentious editing by Evlekis, even as this case is being discussed.  Sandstein  18:41, 24 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Evlekis has not successfully rebutted my assessment that he is editing tendentiously. Except perhaps for the Šar Mountains edit, the changes he mentions are not pro-Kosovan, and some are pro-Serb. Are there any objections to applying the proposed sanctions against Evlekis now, and does anybody want to discuss Bobrayner's editing in more depth?  Sandstein  05:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Gatoclass, the example is a bit moot because the right way to counter that kind of an edit would be to explicate the uncertainty, not do a bulk revert as Evlekis had done. Had Evlekis complained at all anywhere about the human shield claim, we could have seen from the ensuing discussion if that particular part of bobrayner's edit was intentionally misleading or not. Instead, they've just revert-warred about the Serb-vs-Yugoslav subtlety (which is in turn moot WRT verifiability). This is the point where ARBMAC really kicks in - furtherance of outside political struggle, assuming bad faith rather than reporting problems, sustained editorial conflict. (JFTR the problem with the excessive tendency to bulk revert problem first affected bobrayner there, e.g. with [208]) -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 09:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Continuing on Sandstein's proposal - I agree that Evlekis should be blocked generally for the Rita Ora problem because his retort shows a lack of understanding of the basic problem - Talk pages are simply not the place for editors to make their own value judgement of any kind about article topics, let alone living people. Offhand I think 14 days is a bit excessive - Evlekis has never been blocked for more than a day, that kind of an escalation seems punitive, but then again, it's his third strike, and I don't disagree with a six-month topic ban on what appears to be some of their favorite topic areas, so I'll agree to whatever length others think is appropriate.

As for a topic ban for bobrayner, a third of Evlekis' length seems appropriate to me, because they seem to have a much cleaner plate. I don't think see the point in an immediate interaction ban, the topic bans should be implemented first. An interaction ban should happen only if they escalate the problem. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 09:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I've reviewed Bobrayner's exculpatory evidence and must revise my assessment. It does appear that Bobrayner is not tendentiously supporting only one side. On that basis, and considering the above discussion, I intend to impose the block, 1RR and topic ban for Evlekis unless there are objections. I'm not however sure what if any level of sanctions would be appropriate for Bobrayner; any opinions?  Sandstein  11:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I will take a closer look at Bobraynor's contributions and post on my conclusions tomorrow. Apart from the one clear misstatement of source mentioned above, I already found a number of other edits that ring alarm bells, so I think his editing history warrants a closer look. I haven't had time to look at Evlekis' edits, but it certainly does bother me to hear of them both apparently continuing their edit warring even as this request is under discussion. Gatoclass ( talk) 12:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

OK, I'll impose the sanctions on Evlekis and leave it up to you to determine what to do about the Bobrayner side of the case.  Sandstein  17:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Done. I've widened the topic ban scope somewhat to also encompass Republika Srpska and other territories of the Yugoslav Wars.  Sandstein  17:31, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I'm not sure if you read the continuation of one of the subthreads above, so I'll repeat it just in case - IMO for bobrayner, the revert warring to include the tendentious section title of the Ivica Dačić article was a problem, and the revert warring in general (Republika Srpska etc) was arguably a serious failure to employ dispute resolution. The latter applies to FkpCascais and 23 editor as well. These are non-trivial ARBMAC violations and a formal warning is due at a minimum. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 20:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I took a look through some of Bobrayner's recent editing history and didn't find much more of concern apart from the issues already raised above by myself and Joy, so I think we can probably let it go with a warning on this occasion. Little evidence has been presented concerning recent misconduct by either FkpCascais or 23 editor apart from a couple of reverts and I don't think that is serious enough to warrant sanctions, and since they have already been warned then probably nothing more than an advisement or reminder is called for on this occasion. If there are no objections in the next 24 hours, I will proceed as outlined. Gatoclass ( talk) 13:12, 27 April 2013 (UTC) reply

No objections. If the other two editors need sanctions, that is best examined in a separate request.  Sandstein  20:23, 27 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I meant to add, given the amount of reverting that is going on, that it might be worth considering imposing 1RR broadly across the topic area, or at least over articles/content related to the Kosovo/Serbia dispute, but I'm not sure how to go about that. Gatoclass ( talk) 05:46, 28 April 2013 (UTC) reply

We've discussed this with respect to the Israel-Palestine sanction, but basically my view is that under WP:AC/DS you can't do that without notifying every editor individually, such as via edit notice. Feel free to tag a few hundred articles with an appropriate edit notice (template?) if you want, but I prefer to focus on the problem editors that are reported here.  Sandstein  17:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC) reply