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 Capitals00

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 07:14, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Capitals00 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts :  in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan#Standard_discretionary_sanctions:

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

1. ″You can keep the wikilawyering nonsense with yourself″ WP:PERSONALATTACK
2. ″Making up nonsense would result in sanctions against you. You know that NadirAli has WP:CIR issues, just like you do″ WP:PERSONALATTACK.
3. ″Looks like he told you to come here and misrepresent the entire issue for him.″ He is casting WP:ASPERSIONS on a senior editor in good standing Samee.
4. ″Your WP:CIR issues are not even limited to this. You had exhibited similar incompetence on entire Sino-Indian conflicts.″ Rudeness and incompetence accusations during content disputes with editor The Discoverer.
5. ″Given you have been a totally disruptive editor from the get-go″ More bad-faith accusations in content disputes. Also a WP:PERSONALATTACK.
6. ″Misrepresenting Indian position when you believe it will help you pushing your POV,″ Bad-faith accusations.
7. ″so why you are engaging in this disruption now? You have issues with WP:CIR and WP:IDHT and that's the only issue″ More display of bad faith and accusations in content disputes.
8. ″now it is being followed by your typical WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior and repeating same boring refuted arguments.″ More accusations and personal attacks.
9. ″Mar4d Stop engaging in this usual IDHT″ Same as above.
10. ″I was only refuting your senseless excuses for denying Indian victory″ Clear WP:TENDENTIOUS attitude and WP:PERSONALATTACK.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. [1] The block log shows a history of blocks for edit war, disruptive and tendentious editing.

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see [2])

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This user has a tradition of accusing any editors he has disagreements with to be ″incompetent″, abusing WP:IDHT in content disputes and general incivility. There's a lot of bad-faith comments and ad hominem personal attacks coming from him. The environment this user is creating throughout the project, regardless of topic area, is unhealthy for Wikipedia editing. The block log shows that this historic behaviour is not improving. Which is why I think a very long block is in order. I am going to invite administrator Sandstein who dealt with a similar case with similar users to take a survey of these cases. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 07:14, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to Capitals00 by JosephusOfJerusalem

Well lets see your defense case. It has not yet been decided by the administrators at Copyright problems/2018 May 10 that there have definitely been copyright violations yet your WP:PERSONALATTACKs and repetitive uncivil accusations of incompetence against NadirAli and SheriffIsInTown are unceasing and relentless. [3] [4] [5] So you were already skating on thin ice there. Your response also does not address the uncalled for WP:ASPERSIONS you cast on Samee. This comment is nowhere near the level of WP:PERSONALATTACK the way your comment is in diff 8. WP:BRD here is no justification for this rude (diff 4) vitriolic accusation of incompetence by you on The Discoverer's talkpage. As for Talk:Siachen conflict it does not matter what consensus is or not until it has been reached. You were making accusations of incompetence and generally incivil replies while discussion was ongoing.

Now for your offense case, which is a classic deraiment which cannot justify your misconduct (read WP:NOTTHEM) lets break it down. Going by this user's edit history it is definitely a sleeper account, last active in 2016, then showed up to do a revert and vitriolic talkpost before disappearing and not responding ever again on Talk:Princely state despite the disruption caused. This comment on my talkpage was not a WP:PERSONALATTACK, not least considering that in that context the discussion was initiated by a spurious accusation against me of making ″deceptive pov edits″ (a reference to this plain verifiable edit which has no POV). This edit is an entirely verifiable edit which you wrongly call ″gossip″. The rest of your diffs about me [6] [7] [8] are either before Bishonen's advice or they are a misrepresentation of my messages of appeal to administrators to stop edit wars. The latter is not WP:CANVASSING.

Again read WP:NOTTHEM. Your misconduct stands unjustified. The evidence concerning you is definitely more extensive than 10 diffs if I really put my mind to collecting them. An example can be your revert of a WP:STATUSQUO version of History of Gilgit Baltistan with a deceptive edit summary of WP:BRD and again here just today after Mar4d was kind enough to restore the WP:STATUSQUO. It is also worth noting you had no prior or subsequent participation at Talk:Princely state despite the false use of WP:BRD in your edit summary.

Response to Raymond3023 by JosephusOfJerusalem

You have not addressed any of Capitals00's misconduct. Rather you have engaged in WP:IDHT by repeating Capitals00's arguments which I have already quashed here.

Perhaps it is natural you will defend Capitals00 and D4iNa4 given your history of coordination with them. I point to the evidence of WP:TAGTEAM here

1. See Raymond3023/Capitals00 coordination [9] [10] [11] [12]
2. See D4iNa4/Raymond3023 [13] [14] [15] [16] [17].
3. The same voting is also more evidence. [18] [19]. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 10:46, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to Power~enwiki by JosephusOfJerusalem

This is a critical analysis of your comment, here. You claim ″The Balochistan one makes nobody look good; perhaps those diffs should be ignored.″ I think you are mistakenly making a false equivalence and making a broad generalisation by unfairly painting everyone with the same brush without due regard to the behavioural facts.

Lets take a look at what happened. The first reply was from Samee, the second was from me. There were no personal attacks or direct comments about specific editors by either of us. According to Dennis Brown a bit of minor push and shove is okay. Now here is Capitals00's reply to both of us. It is certainly not a minor push and shove. Capitals00 cast WP:ASPERSIONS on Samee, ″Looks like he told you to come here and misrepresent the entire issue for him.″ He also attacked me directly and personally without provocation, ″Making up nonsense would result in sanctions against you. You know that NadirAli has WP:CIR issues, just like you do.″ Now lets take a look at my reply. Can you see any WP:PA in my recitation of the guidelines? Compare this with Capitals00's next response, ″You can keep the wikilawyering nonsense with yourself.″

Now lets get to the Capitals00-SheriffIsInTown exchange. This is SheriffIsInTown's comment with no WP:PA. This is Capitals00's reply, ″I believe though that you have no issue with them since your actual motive is to defend NadirAli, no matter what you have to say.″ SheriffIsInTown replied again, with no WP:PA to which Capitals00 answered with this. The next part of the chat is not bad [20] [21]. It continues until Capitals00 resumes the personal attacks, disruption accusations and CIR taunts on SheriffIsInTown, ″In place of whinning over these reports ...Seems like you don't even know what is a copyright given your CIR issue...Stop wishing that editors should allow you and NadirAli disrupt as much as you want.″

Going through this history shows that the problem is coming only from Capitals00's ″side″ here. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 03:48, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

power~enwiki: The ″ retaliatory″ suggestion was in response not to the copyright violation claim, which is itself yet to be decided, but a response to this block demand in Capitals00's comment, ″I would urge admin to block him″. I do not believe there is an equivalence between the users there. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 04:18, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

power~enwiki: This ″wiki-lawyering″ can not justify this attack, nor this earlier one. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 04:21, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

power~enwiki: You endorsed a T-Ban for me. Once again, I am going to ask you which diffs convince you that is necessary? I have already replied to you here about those which you mentioned. List the rest please. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 04:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to Justlettersandnumbers

Can you point out the diffs of ″combative behaviour″? I have already explained in length here, with detailed explanation of diffs, that the problems are entirely one-sided. I agree with SheriffIsInTown's statement that the behavioural problems of a few editors are being unfairly thought of as a problem from everyone. There is no need to create a false equivalence between everyone for the bad actions of a few. Justice does not mean collective punishment, it means identifying the culprit, this is not a Catholic high school where the whole class gets lunch detention because of a few naughty students. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 11:54, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to Vanamonde93 by JosephusOfJerusalem

I don't think its appropriate for you to comment here because you are involved in much of where Capitals00 is and you are also quite evidently friendly with and defensive of Kautilya3. The user you are protecting calls simple edits such as these "deceptive POV edits" and calls my verifiable editing " smearing." He also thinks these simple and verifiable edits [22] [23] are some sort of game. This is an exhibition of battleground behaviour. And shortly after making an incorrect equivalence between me and Capitalsoo's blatant misconduct to ask that I also be blocked with Capitals00, he decides to revert a more than week old edit of mine on a page where both of us had been active and where he had not reverted me before now, since I made the edit. This opportune timing to revert me after commenting against me is also a textbook example of his WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 21:43, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Vanamonde93, if you think I am not innocent why not prove it with diffs? As I said you are involved. You have long associations with Kautilya3. Its not right for you to comment here. The issue of involved administrators has been brought up on AE before. And if you seriously want to evaluate everyone's behaviour look at this. After I created this section on Talk:Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus Kautilya3 left this notice on my talkpage. He accused me of "targeting editors" just because I opened sections with user names in the headings. What's remarkable is that he does that himself, but that is not targeting editors? Just last month he created a section on Talk:1947 Jammu massacres with a heading calling my edits "Poor quality edits". He also accused me then and there of making "POV edits" and fighting "silly games" because of this verifiable edit. Evidently, when I see other TPs, I am not the only user having this issue of double standards with him. Sandstein I would encourage you to look at the evidence I have given about Kautilya3 here. I belive they are very much a net negative for the encyclopedia. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 06:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ GoldenRing: I don't think what has been given attention to is that this is a misconduct issue more than anything else, which spans more than the India-Pakistan topic area. This diff is a case in point. Topic bans won't be of any help in breaking the personal rudeness and incivility impasse, which is the main concern of my report. It will just continue in other topic areas. This issue can only be dealt with by interaction bans. That way the rudeness can be dealt with. I don't think topic bans are necessary at this point. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 12:39, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ GoldenRing: You just added me to the list. Can you provide the diff you are basing such a decision on? As in, where have I shown incivility that warrants such an idea? JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 12:50, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Collective treatment (punishment) is not the answer which will mete out justice. If justice is to be done the admins need to evaluate each user ;;individually. If the admins feel they don't have the time to do individual evaluations I will withdraw this case. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 13:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to GoldenRing by JosephusOfJerusalem Pt.1

You have cited these three diffs, ( diff1, diff2, diff3) as ″evidence″ of my misconduct. I made no personal attack here, I was just making a general comment about the nature of the indefinite block request that it seemed like a disproportionate retaliatory request because of NadirAli's involvement in a SPI against Capitals00 in the recent past. According to Dennis Brown a bit of minor push and shove is okay. What is exactly wrong in my recitation of Wikipedia guidelines here? It was the most civil response I could give to this inflammatory comment. I deserve marks for keeping my cool in the face of such heat, not punishment. And this diff is by no means a misconduct because WP:RPA entitles any editor to remove personal attacks. My AfD nomination here is by no means actionable. It is an article with only two references, one of them called the "News Laundry". This is also a civil reply considering the heat I was up against. I heeded Bishonen's advice and I did not make any more comments like that after his message on my talkpage. And how is my participation here battleground mentality? I have faced problems with some users' conduct and thats all I wanted dealt with. And why don't you look at Kautilya3 's actions? He calls simple edits such as these "deceptive POV edits" and calls my verifiable editing " smearing." He also thinks these simple and verifiable edits [24] [25] are some sort of game. Isn't this an exhibition of battleground behaviour? And look at this. After I created this section on Talk:Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus Kautilya3 left this notice on my talkpage. He accused me of "targeting editors" just because I opened sections with user names in the headings. What's remarkable is that he does that himself, but that is not targeting editors? Just last month he created a section on Talk:1947 Jammu massacres with a heading calling my edits "Poor quality edits". He also accused me then and there of making "POV edits" and fighting "silly games" because of this verifiable edit. Evidently, when I see other TPs, I am not the only user having this issue of double standards with him. You should also consider what I have to face and the civility I have maintained in spite of all this. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 20:43, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to GoldenRing by JosephusOfJerusalem Pt.2

@ Lord Roem: NadirAli has just pointed out that Kautilya3 has contravened his ethnicity claims restriction you imposed on him. I was not aware of this restriction otherwise I would have filed a separate report for Kautilya3 earlier. Kautilya3 is now claiming through retrospective reasoning that their reference to me being a Jewish historian was actually a reference to my study of Jewish history. They likely drew the idea of this excuse from my answer to NadirAli's question. Your restriction quite explicitly stated that any attempt to bring up a user's ethnicity would lead to an immediate block. And Jewish is certainly an ethnicity. He shouldn't have mentioned it at all. If they were truthful they would have clearly said historian of Jews. He did not. This is a violation and he is now trying to wriggle his way out by giving a new meaning to his words, as I said, through ex post facto reasoning.

I have also already given the admins evidence here about Kautilya3's uncollaborative attitude in editing. I also don't buy his claim of WP:NPOV. You can see this as an example. On Talk:Princely state he is trying and stonewalling to include Kalat, a Baloch state, as a state annexed by Pakistan [26] but is arguing and stonewalling against the inclusion of Manipur, a state that India annexed. [27] Its also important that Kautilya3 was very close to another sealioner (later caught out as a sock) Ms Sarah Welch who also did stealthy biased editing. [28] This ″closeness″ can be seen by this comment which shows Ms Sarah Welch even knew what Kautilya3 was doing in real life. [29] I also read in a recent SPI that Kautilya3 even misrepresented sock policy to protect Ms Sarah Welch from a block. [30]. Given such behaviour I don't think his claims can be given any credibility. I also pinged GoldenRing to take a look at the evidence and not ignore the double standards I have had to put up with from this user. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 23:48, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

I also just noticed the aspersions restriction. Surely his accusation against me of making "deceptive POV edits" in this simple edit comes under WP:ASPERSIONS? JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 23:52, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

I would also ask that Kautilya3 cease any more references to my heritage because he is under ethnicity claims restrictions and it disturbs me. I don't recall calling him by his nationality. It should be fair. Kautilya3 also continues to praise Ms Sarah Welch and doubts that she was a sock. After that he also claims he is not an involved party here. This despite his presence on most of these diffs and the way I have been treated by him. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 04:03, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

"Deceptive POV edits"

So this is Kautilya3's justification for calling my edit a "deceptive POV edit". I am going to deconstruct this. 1. NadirAli pointed out that the journal was available online. 2. So this is an organisation funded by the Indian Ministry of Defence. I changed "shaping" to "influencing" because I did not think there was a big deal of a difference. In fact "shaping" in my book implies greater "influence" so I actually toned it down and made it sound extra-neutral. 3. I added "claims to be" before "autonomous and non-partisan" because it came from self-published sources and is a self-sourced claim. 4. I added "independent" to a Pakistani think tank because that is what Pluto Journals, respectably associated with JSTOR called it. I do not accept the sources Kautilya3 added (over the protests of other users) because I think Pluto Journals is more qualified to know the nature of that institution than journalists. The above were essentially content disputes and I know shouldn't be here on WP:AE. But what I am trying to say is that he had no right in any way to call my edit "deceptive POV". JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 03:58, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to Seraphimblade by JosephusOfJerusalem

Seraphimblade, Lets leave Kautilya3's restrictions aside for a moment. If you think I should be sanctioned for such mild words here, diff1, diff2, diff3, then why shouldn't the same stick be applied to Kautilya3 for these threats and condescending remarks?

1. "Oh boy! You broke my heart. I was so looking forward to your approval and admiration :-): But, guess what, your "disappointment" is not grounds for deleting well-sourced and NPOV content. Your supposed objections are::* The section should be called "extent of electoral malpractice". That is fine by me.:* The actual malpractices should be covered as well. Yes, who would dispute that?:* Problem with too many ATTRIBUTIONS? Are you joking?:* SYNTHESIS between SECONDARY and PRIMARY? What exactly? And if there was such SYNTHESIS, what is the problem with it? See WP:CALC and WP:SYNTHNOT: I think a mass revert of a dozen-or-so edits based on spurious WP:IDONTLIKEIT reasons is quite crossing the line. Please be assured that you do not have a right to do such reverts. You need to justify that everything you have reverted has a policy-based reason for it."
2. "Well, I must say you are incredibly eager to hit the revert button, but remain totally evasive in the discussion that follows. What sentence have you found a problem with? Why is it CHERRYPICKED or UNDUE? You mean to say that you have read the journal article in the fifteen minutes it took you do the revert and figured out that the sentence represented a "CHERRY"? Produce your evidence. What does the article say, and how is the sentence a "CHERRY"? You have 24 hours, failing which you will end up at WP:AE."

If you want more proof then look at this. Kautilya3 left a message on PeerBaba's TP telling him to slow down his editing because of WP:NPOV issues. Okay fine. But why so aghast if I had similar objectons about their edits. He accused me of "spurious WP:IDONTLIKEIT revert" (see diff). His patronising attitude is widespread. ("Your WP:SOAPBOXing for Pakistan include statements like...You have to maintain WP:NPOV and give equal WP:WEIGHT for both India and Pakistan. This is not Pakistanopedia!") Can't you see the battleground attitude?

My alleged misbehaviour ( [31] [32] [33]) was before Bishonen's advice to me. [34] Therefore I should be cut some slack about those diffs. I want to ask you Bishonen, that if my "bad faith" warranted this message in February why can't the same be told to Kautilya3 for his accusation of deceptive POV editing, on my TP? All I am saying is that I want equitable treatment. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 02:34, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[35]

Discussion concerning Capitals00

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 Capitals00

Looks like JosephusOfJerusalem is back to his usual modus operandi by filing frivolous report on this board to get rid of his opponents like he has also done before.

10 diffs from last 4 months is all he got? When you are wasting time of majority of editors by going against consensus and engaging in disruption, you just can't expect other editors not to cite WP:CIR and WP:IDHT or react. To reply all those cherrypicked diffs, it is a mere reaction when you see hoards of disruption by editors engaging in violations of WP:OR (diff 8), WP:COPYVIO (diff 5), WP:BRD, (diff 4) WP:NPA/ WP:IDHT (diff 1), (diff 2), (diff 3), (diff 6 and diff 7), (diff 9), (diff 10). Citing WP:CIR is not a personal attack, because that page is "an explanatory supplement to the disruptive editing guideline" per community consensus. [36] Much of the diffs here comes from Talk:Siachen conflict where consensus was to include what I supported. Why you can't show diffs where I was going against consensus or I had been problematic and had no consensus for edits?

JosephusOfJerusalem has always engaged in personal attacks:-

• "page was quite stable until 30 April when a sleeper account" [37] (referring a long term editor as "sleeper")
• "People who have battles to fight and socks in contact will have the L-RD" [38]
• "removing POV warrior's bad faith message" [39]
• "removing threats from the POV warriors" [40]
• "bad faith warning by a disruptive editor on the verge of being blocked" [41]

And rest of the diffs of this report and below one comes from Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2018 May 10, where JosephusOfJersualem has defended copyright violation by falsely claiming that "I could not find any copyright violations". [42] Now that is clear evidence of WP:CIR and WP:DE, and he also attempted to selectively censor a comment that he didn't liked. [43] Clearly he has competence issues and thinks that it is a personal attack if WP:CIR has been cited to him, despite his defense of copyrights violation and clear WP:IDHT.

In a separate incident from February 2018, he was arguing against 4 editors and alleging of them failure of "WP:LISTEN" and engagement in "WP:CANVASSING", ""WP:DISRUPTION". [44] [45] It shows that he resorts to falsely allege others of misconduct only because he is not getting consensus for his POV.

He had been also warned by Bishonen for this problematic editing. However there has been no improvement and the attitude of this editor has only worsened. Furthermore, Bishonen had asked him if "there anything you'd like to share about any previous account/s?" [46] given he registered on 18 October 2017 and has been too professed when it comes to WP:GAMING. JosephusOfJerusalem suspiciously removed that message. [47]

I would request an indefinite topic ban on JosephusOfJerusalem per evidence above as well as for the following:-

• WP:EDITWAR: edit warring on Jawaharlal Nehru by promoting controversial gossips, [48] [49] despite having no support for his problematic edits. [50] Edit warring on Indian nationalism. [51] [52] [53]
• WP:CANVASS: Canvassed multiple editors to help him in his edit war by restoring his preferred version. [54] [55] [56]
• WP:CIR: Defending copyright violations as noted above. Misrepresentation of "WP:STATUSQUO on talk pages, by restoring new edits that have no consensus. [57] [58]
• WP:BATTLEGROUND: Usually prefers to allege others of bad faith, [59], create frivolous AfD of notable subject, [60] cites unrelated policies to derail discussion. [61] Capitals00 ( talk) 08:20, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ GoldenRing: As the saying goes, there is no fire without smoke. Since sanctions are based on actual evidence of disruption, we need to check that who is really making problematic edits and helping most in creating unnecessary problems for further ruining the collaborative environment despite past sanctions and warnings. Razer2115 has provided some evidence for SheriffIsInTown and I have already provided evidence against JosephusOfJerusalem above. My analysis about others concerning their very recent disruption is as follow:-

• NadirAli: 3 reverts in 38 minutes on Princely state, [62] [63] [64], restored copyvio [65] and failure to admit copyright violations, [66] generalization of sources by nationality, [67] hostile behavior, [68] [69] rehashing a rejected SPI. ( WP:HARASS). [70] [71] [72]

• NadirAli was site-banned by ArbCom [73] and topic banned by ArbCom upon return from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. [74] He is currently topic banned from image uploads, [75] was blocked in relation to WP:ARBIPA as recently as June 2017, [76] and has been brought to ARE multiple times during last year and already had enough warnings. [77] [78]

• TripWire: edit warring against consensus on Siachen conflict, [79] [80] copyright violation, [81] IDHT and personal attacks. [82] [83] [84] [85]

• In 2015, he was topic banned for 6 months from Pakistan politics and Pakistani-Indian conflicts. [86] In 2016, he was topic banned from Balochistan articles for 3 months and put under a "casting aspersions" restriction" along with Kautilya3. [87] On February 2018, he was blocked for violating subject restrictions [88] and was warned by Dennis Brown that "likely a topic ban will be used next". [89]

• Mar4d: edit warring on 2016 Indian Line of Control strike, [90] [91] [92] India–Pakistan border skirmishes (2016–present), [93] [94] [95] Sindhudesh, [96] [97] misrepresentation of sources, [98] repeated IDHT, [99] [100] rehashing a rejected SPI ( WP:HARASS). [101] [102] ( closed by Bbb23) [103] (comment removed by Bbb23)

• He was never sanctioned before in relations to WP:ARBIPA. Though he has been most disruptive as per the evidence.

If these editors had been sanctioned earlier, I don't think any of these problems would be arising to this extent. I believe that NadirAli and TripWire are the only candidates that deserves to be topic banned because it has been already proven that previous topic bans on their accounts have not worked. I am 100% hopeful that things will surely improve without having these two editors in this area.

The language that I have used had to be a lot better, about which I agree. But so far no evidence of problematic article editing has provided for me and D4iNa4, and we have not engaged in edit warring, IDHT, OR, COPYVIO, or any other forms of WP:DE. MapSGV has not a participated in any of the disputes that you have linked, why you have proposed a ban on him?

I am watching SPI that concerns JosephusOfJerusalem though his above filibustering is difficult to follow. I guess a topic ban on him is not really going to hurt. As for SheriffIsInTown and Mar4d, I believe that they would carefully read this complaint and indeed avoid the actions that resulted the situation. Capitals00 ( talk) 13:28, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Raymond3023

Ironic to see an offensive editor, editing with a battleground mentality, often assuming bad faith and demonstrating significant competence issues is talking about "civility".

These two reports are result of the failure of JosephusOfJerusalem to get his preferred non-consensus version of Princely state protected after trying hard for it. [104] [105] [106] [107]

It is fair to say that JOJ is a case of WP:CIR and probably WP:NOTHERE, since he is mostly engaging in ethnic POV battles, similar to "Towns Hill" (a banned sockmaster).

JOJ's failure to understand copyrights, STATUSQUO, and misrepresentation other relevant policies while mass canvassing other editors with the hopes that he would receive some support for his frivolous report shows that having him topic banned or blocked indefinitely would be best for us. Raymond3023 ( talk) 10:30, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by MBlaze Lightning

This is frivolous complaint; there is nothing in the diffs which would even remotely constitute "personal attacks". Also, it is worth mentioning that the majority of the diffs in question are months old—some of them dates back to February, 20 i.e. they are stale. Things get heated up in these subjects, especially when you are dealing with clear WP:OR, WP:COPYVIO, WP:NPA, WP:IDHT, but there is nothing sanctionable.

JosephusOfJerusalem comments demonstrates a glaring lack of understanding of the very policies that he citing, not to mention his gross battleground mentality as is evident from his comments here and elsewhere. I also agree with the above comments that JosephusOfJerusalem is desperately trying to get the editors with an opposite POV topic banned so that he could push his POV in peace. And not long ago, JosephusOfJerusalem has filed a similar frivolous report against another established editor. [108]

If JosephusOfJerusalem perceives comments like, "You can keep the wikilawyering nonsense with yourself" as "WP:PERSONALATTACK", then he's clearly demonstrating incompetency. He does not even know when to indent and when to outdent his comments, [109] [110] so he should not be astonished when an established editor points him to WP:CIR.

What's more striking is that these filings are strongly reminiscent of filings of socks of Faizan/Towns Hill, in particular Sardeeph ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who used to file similar spurious reports against me and Kautilya3 in order to get them blocked by citing similar trivial or non-violations. Sardeeph was eventually blocked by Boing! said Zebedee and Black Kite for WP:NOTHERE after a long ANI thread [111] that he had himself started and cited same type of evidence that JosephusOfJerusalem has cited here as well as attempted to canvass dozens of editors just like JosephusOfJerusalem is doing here.

Similarities between Sardeeph and JosephusOfJerusalem are just more than that. There is a clear case of WP:DUCK.

• Sardeeph filed two AE reports, against me and Kautilya3 on 30 July. [112] [113]
• And today JosephusOfJerusalem filed two AE reports, against Capitals00 and D4iNa4.
• Even the notification left by JosephusOfJerusalem and Sardeeph are totally same:

There is a discussion about your behaviour at WP:AE. [114]

Please see WP:AE for discussion about your behavior. [115]

Sardeeph was indeffed on 20 October 2017. JosephusOfJerusalem registered on 18 October but made his first article space edit on 31 October. [116] I see no doubt that JosephusOfJerusalem is a sock of Sardeeph and he should be blocked for his block evasion. MBlaze Lightning ^talk 13:54, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Note: I've filed an SPI report here. MBlaze Lightning ^talk 15:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Mar4d

Support indefinite block on Capitals00; According to JoJ's editing history, he is a neutral user and someone who doesn't have a personal, vested history in this disruption-ridden topic area. Unfortunately I find his observations spot on, having seen Capitals00's edit warring, incessant personal attacks, WP:NOTTHEM excuses and disruptive WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour across all pages. The above WP:WALLOFTEXT is the latest example. This unmanageable approach and attitude is justified and tolerated repeatedly without consequence, and the long-term harm it is doing to the project is completely unaccounted for.

This user is responsible for creating a deeply toxic editing environment, and has no one to single-handedly blame but himself. Unlike JoJ, the vast majority of Capitals00's recent talk page interactions involve personal attacks and confrontational vitriol directed at others, not to mention continuous condescending harassment, and there's stack-loads of evidence: [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] [124], [125]. [126], [127], [128], [129], [130], [131], [132], [133], [134], [135], [136], [137], [138], [139], [140], [141], [142]. This adds on to the myriad of edit wars, escalating new content disputes, and forcing in relentless WP:POV. It is no wonder then that the entire topic area is in a pitiable condition, when these problems are just the tip of the iceberg. I will take strong exception to MBL and Raymond3023, both of whom are involved users (their own highly problematic conduct issues require a chapter), who defended this user's disruption first on an SPI case (where he himself was not available for defense), and then in the most frivolous example of WP:TAGTEAM on ANI. When multiple people are observing the same, the question is, how long? This needs to end as it has become a net negative for Wikipedia, and it's time the curtains are pulled. For a user who has consistently shown no signs of improvement or reform, an indefinite block is in order. Mar4d ( talk) 14:30, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@D4iNa4: Well, it's a WP:CFORK which was copy-pasted right out of an existing article on the same topic, rejuvenated under a title already rejected by consensus, and it's a copyright violation based on WP:CWW with no text attribution. So yes, I will follow the rules and it will be pursued at WP:DELREV. You meanwhile have serious conduct issues as inherent below and in your response. Mar4d ( talk) 15:14, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by D4iNa4

Come on Mar4d. Regardless of your long term disruption, you had to be blocked indefinitely a few hours ago for your exceptional disruption on 2016 Indian Line of Control strike. That you edit warred to get that article redirected [143] [144] then you started a senseless AFD [145] and after already realizing that you will fail to get the article deleted, you tried to get it deleted under frivolous A10, [146] and after that your senseless AfD was closed as WP:SNOW "speedy keep" under a few hours. [147] That's what sanctionable conduct is, not the diffs showing Capitals providing warnings/guidance to users that you have misrepresented just like you misrepresented. Don't talk about "improvements" when you fail to get consensus on just every single article that you disrupt, such as 2016 Indian Line of Control strike, Siachen conflict, Kashmir conflict, India–Pakistan border skirmishes (2016–present) and lots more. D4iNa4 ( talk) 14:44, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Mar4d, that was not a WP:CFORK. You are still not getting that the article's creation was totally valid and was created following the consensus on talk page. Why you even bother to tell you are right and everyone is wrong? Or that you just don't like to get over the results because the consensus is always goes against you. D4iNa4 ( talk) 15:28, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Vanamonde93, you have misrepresented diffs in your comment. The four diffs provided by Raymond3023 are showing that how JosephusOfJerusalem was WP:GAMING the system to get his version protected by edit warring [148] and misrepresenting WP:STATUSQUO. [149] I should also mention that NadirAli made 3 reverts in less than one hour. [150] [151] [152] On 14:44 yesterday, the comment I had made here by including the diff for " speedy close" is much before the diff for "swiftly reversed" you are providing, because the revert of the the speedy closure happened on 16:21, nearly two hours after my comment on here. You can ask any uninvolved admin if a block is warranted for restoring the copyright violation for which the user has already received a warning, the answer you will get would be yes. Bigger question is that why it happened at first place, had NadirAli never violated copyrights or just heeded the warning he had already received? [153] Given he has been blocked enough times for copyrights before, why really made him deliberately ignore copyright violation? I will be adding more evidence here of actual misconduct but right now I am more inclined to wait for the outcome of the SPI: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sardeeph. D4iNa4 ( talk) 18:14, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Vanamonde93, your comment read like I was ignoring the revert of the closure, though the revert came almost 2 hours later. For what it's really worth, I haven't even voted in that AfD but I am absolutely confident that the AFD will result in "Keep". If it did, then my comment would stand taller that the idea of nominating the article for AfD is clear evidence of WP:TE because a user should not be nominating those articles for deletion that are obviously going to be kept, especially when the user in question is here for long enough. D4iNa4 ( talk) 18:45, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by SheriffIsInTown

• Support indefinite block for Capitals00, Raymond3023 and MBlaze Lightning: I will not lengthen my argument with too many diffs of these users bad behavior as this AE has gotten already very lengthy. There are many diffs provided by JOJ and Mar4d regarding Capitals00's behavior and those should be good enough to get them banned. I would just note one additional point that Capitals00 accused OP of canvassing which is a fake accusation considering they were only bringing attention of neutral and uninvolved administrators towards issues on different pages, that is no canvassing especially when OP themselves are a neutral editor in WP:ARBIPA area. Also, in their defence, Capitals00 is accusing "JosephusOfJerusalem suspiciously removed that message" for removing a message from their own talk page for which they have complete prerogative. Using arguments like these to defend their actions is self-defeating.

WP:ARBIPA calls for a conducive and coherent environment. WP:CIR might be an extension to a policy but that is not to be cited in every comment against your opponents on WP:ARBIPA articles. It is insulting to call all other editors incompetent who disagree with you. Capitals00 has been doing this in defiance of WP:ARBIPA, they are using WP:CIR as an excuse to insult their opponents.

I am supporting an indef ban for Raymond3023 and MBlaze Lightning for their accusation of socking in this very thread against the OP. WP:ARBIPA prohibits such bad faith accusations against other editors. As a matter of fact MBlaze Lightning has already once reported JOJ under a different master than the one they are associating them with in this thread. It looks like they are unable to make up their mind and associating OP with different sockmasters just to get their point through and defend the accused in vain. This is not the proper place to accuse someone of socking and that too without proper evidence plus accusing OP for socking without evidence would not take the violations of Capitals00 away. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 16:52, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• @power~enwiki: No, this is not what WP:ARBIPA is for, we do not ban most if not all. Evidence is evaluated, then violators are banned. Your statement is unhelpful and destructive for the project, it seems as if when opinion starts to turn against one editor and a ban looks evident, someone comes and says let's ban most if not all so as to confuse the admins (not that they can be) and derail the conversation.

• @Razer2115: You should be banned for casting WP:ASPERSIONS and bringing that SPI here. That SPI has no bearing on this AE and was filed after and in retaliation of these arbitration enforcement requests. You twisted it to make it look like these requests were filed after the SPI and matter is already decided that JOJ is the sock of Sardeeph. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 22:15, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Power~enwiki: Please read WP:ARBIPA, once you will read that, you will understand my argument. After, reading that up, please evaluate the diffs provided by the OP and Mar4d against Capitals00 and evaluate the socking allegation made against OP by MBlaze Lightning and Raymond3023. The act of Razer2115 to bring that undecided SPI falls under WP:ASPERSIONS, they made it look like OP filed this report because of the SPI rather SPI was filed because of AE. Also, these reports has nothing to do with content disputes rather it is about the behavior of editors on WP:ARBIPA sanctioned pages. They are to refrain from creating toxic environment by making insulting remarks, socking allegations and expression of bad faith. Referencing WP:CIR might be allowed when you really want to report someone for their lack of competency but it is not and should not be allowed on WP:ARBIPA sanctioned pages, at least not at this scale. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 03:50, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Vanamonde93: I saw your statements recommending t-ban for everyone and that concerns me a lot especially because you are an admin and I feel like you might be including me in that list. You are referring to statements made in the discussion about copyvio. My participation in that conversation might just be because of my own misunderstanding about copyvio since I have seen edits by Kautilya3 which include the quotes in citations. OP there was asking for an indef ban for NadirAli, which made me concerned. Although, my comments on that forum did not have any personal attacks compared to Capitals00 but I am willing to retract those comments if I can to avoid a topic ban as I had a clean slate so far and would like to avoid any ban at any cost. Let me know what could work for you and other admins minus a t-ban for me. I would also like to point out that Mar4d never participated in that copyvio discussion. There is an election season in Pakistan and collective ban such as proposed here would stop editors from editing all Pakistan pages not just the conflict pages thus shortening the number of editors and hurting the project overall so I request a reconsideration. @ Sandstein, Ivanvector, and Seraphimblade:, see my comment addressed to Vanamonde93 above. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 18:40, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• The latest diffs presented by Razer again fall under WP:ASPERSIONS as most of those diffs are of different people reaching out to different admins requesting to address some concerns and I do not think there is anything wrong with that. Those are also closed matters, if an admin would have thought of them as a problem, they would have taken an action there and then. For example, Mar4d opening an ANI request was closed by an admin, for example me reaching out to Ivanvector, the conversation continued because he was kind enough to look at the matter and he is still willing to, same is with my matter with Bbb23, I accepted to Bbb23 that my comments were overboard and that matter was resolved amicably. Citing diffs which put the editors in negative light and ignoring the ones where admins closed the matter, or where they were williling to work with the editors or where editors changed their behavior to positivity comes under WP:ASPERSIONS if I am correct. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 10:39, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing: I see my name in your list of violators, can you be kind enough please to let me know what the violation is so I can adjust my behavior going forward, I have been personally attacked at many occasions by many editors and have been trying not to respond in kind but might have gotten hot-headed at times realizing later on that it was not a good idea to comment in such a way but I have never been uncivil at the level of some other editors. I would love to see the diffs of my questionable behavior so I can explain/adjust my behavior. I would request you to please reconsider your recommendation as I have never gotten any ban before and would like to keep the clean slate. I have never been given an opportunity to defend or explain my behavior if anyone have seen an issue with it before. @ Ivanvector: Please reconsider your endorsement of t-ban for me. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 13:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing and Bishonen: I am still waiting for the diffs of my problematic behavior on which this decision is being based so I can defend myself and/or explain my position. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 15:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing: I was just trying to be creative with my comment and did not mean to threaten the editor rather I was talking about the evidence but I realized that I might have stepped a line over there and did try to clean up the mess by removing the comment and then striking it out. The closing admin did not take any action so I thought the matter was closed. Also, it had nothing to do with WP:ARBIPA, I did not engage with any of these two editors (Capitals00 (lately) and Uncle Sargam (overall) involved in that ANI on India-Pakistan conflict article but I regret that those comments were inappropriate. I also never thought that just a participation in this discussion can get me a ban, I proposed bans based on the reasons specified in my statement keeping in mind that the final decision would definitely rest with the admin going through my statement and not just because I am proposing something. If you do not consider the behavior of those editors problematic as described by me then you do not have to ban them, I am willing to withdraw my statement, I did not know that enforcement of WP:ARBIPA would mean clearing the decks on both sides, my understanding was that every editor’s behavior would be evaluated in connection with India-Pakistan conflict articles and then the matter will be decided. Anything minus topic-ban? A warning should be sufficient. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 15:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing: That big box in red meant to me that my conduct on WP:ARBIPA sanctioned pages will be reviewed not all over conduct and I never thought that the closed matters such as ANIs and SPIs closed by admins will be considered as well, the SPI you linked somewhere above, I never contested the decision made by admins even once, I did put a lot of hard work in it but accepted the decision, no policy says that if you suspect someone of socking and you have the evidence, still do not file the SPI because you might be sanctioned under a request filed by a third person such as JosephusOfJerusalem in this case. I was hardly interacting with Capitals00 and MapSGV at the time but they were in my mind because of some behavioral similarities but when I dug deeper I found more evidence, I was just wikidefending when I filed that SPI, I never thought for once that this would be considered as battleground behavior. All other outstanding diffs provided by other editors about me are a lot milder than some of the editors here but I am still getting the same punishment. Wikipedia is not about punishment rather it is about prevention and I think I understand more about the process now than when this AE was filed and can ensure that my behavior would be better just because of this whole interaction alone and there is no t-ban needed for this. I have seen admins close AEs before with just warnings, I was never warned but getting a straight punishment.

I value my reputation as an editor and a formal ban by an admin would be a big stain on my editing. If it suffices the admins, I can propose that I will voluntarily stay off the India-Pakistan conflict related pages for two months but would not like to get a formal ban by an admin in the form of their final decision or a notification on my talk page, if I violate the voluntary stay-away promise then admins can impose a harsher restriction.

Also, I would like to note that I received my ARBIPA alert at least for this year after a lot of interactions has already happened which are shown in those diffs. I have been only on Wikipedia occasionally most of 2016 and 2017 and people tend to forget about these things when they are not highly active. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 16:30, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Voluntary abstention proposal

• Addendum to last message above:

@ GoldenRing and Seraphimblade: I am only filling and rescuing references across different topics nowadays and can easily avoid ARBIPA topic area thus there is no official sanctioning needed by admins. I propose that I will voluntarily abstain from editing India-Pakistan conflict pages for two months (negotiable if admins consider it is too low then I request you to please suggest the term limit) with the exception of filling and rescueing references (I am requesting that I be allowed to do this on India-Pakistan conflict pages as well, as this action does not change the content). I also request that this should be written in the final decision as “SheriffIsInTown agrees to voluntarily abstain from editing India-Pakistan conflict pages for x months with the exception of filling and rescueing existing references on those pages”.

I also request that no notification be left on my talk page regarding this decision.

I am a responsible editors and I will abide by it on my own.

Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 22:00, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by power~enwiki

Many of the editors involved here "on both sides" of the India-Pakistan conflict are out of control. I'd recommend the AE admins consider sanctions against most (if not all) of the involved parties here. I note recent ANI threads from May 5 (on sock-puppetry) and April 14 (on Hookah) as involving many of these editors and being fairly disasterous. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 18:20, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

I honestly can't keep straight which of Capitals00, D4iNa4, Mar4d, Raymond3023 and MBlaze Lightning are on which side of any disputes here, but the constant bickering to get each other banned is disruptive, unhelpful, and destructive. I'm not as familiar with SheriffIsInTown, but disagree with their opinion here. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 01:06, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

The two most recent disagreements appear to be at Talk:History of Balochistan (moved from a copyvio board) and Talk:Siachen conflict#Warning. The Balochistan one makes nobody look good; perhaps those diffs should be ignored.

The Siachen one makes Mar4d and Tripwire look bad, and Capitals00's frustration, though not ideal editing behavior, is understandable. We describe the Korean War as ending when the armistice was signed, and a 15-year ceasefire should be interpreted as the end of a conflict and not as evidence the conflict is ongoing. Regardless, that's a content dispute. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 01:28, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Josephus: Suggesting that a copyright infringement complaint is purely "retaliatory" is a bit more than pushing-and-shoving, especially on a page where the discussion should be about whether copyright violations have occurred. I'm not sure how much of the 31KB change is the removal of quotes from this diff as other changes are intertwined, but it's clearly a lot. I don't take Capitals00's immediate request for an indef to be in good faith, but the copyright concern looks to be a legitimate concern. I do agree that Capitals00 seems to be the worst offender in terms of escalating things, but nobody involved here has clean hands. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 04:11, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

And it's true, the acronym soup of [154] is wiki-lawyering. That's not unique to you; every single person in this discussion so far (myself included) wiki-lawyers too much. It's not a crime to call a spade a spade. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 04:14, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Josephus: you may be right. Perhaps Capitals00 will attempt to defend his behavior, rather than simply giving an alphabet-soup of attacks against the people he was replying to. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 04:27, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• I'm not familiar enough with SheriffIsInTown or NadirAli to suggest anything one way or the other. MapSGV has been fairly idle after a ARBIPA TBAN was lifted by ARBCOM at the end of March, I'm not sure they should be included again. I support including the other 7 named editors (Capitals00, JosephusOfJerusalem, D4iNa4, Mar4d, TripWire, MBlaze Lightning, and Raymond3023) in any bulk action. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 20:50, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Razer2115

WP:AE is not supposed to be used by tireless POV-pushers to try to eliminate editors who clearly have much better grasp of WP:NPOV, WP:BRD, WP:CON, WP:COPYVIO and other relevant policies. Report seems to have been filed by a probable sock per recently opened Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sardeeph and is nonetheless frivolous. Razer( talk) 18:35, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Ignoring the WP:ASPERSIONS as well as misrepresention of evidence around, I find serious issues with some editors I am describing below.

Two users of this case, SheriffIsInTown [155] and NadirAli [156] were working hard to reject obvious copyright violation and they are now desperately derailing a strong SPI by lending defense to a suspected sock even after one CheckUser has commented that the account is extraordinarily suspicious. [157] [158] [159]

Consensus building and dispute resolutions have been already tried, but clear evidence of unwillingness to get over the outcome from NadirAli, Mar4d, [160] [161] SheriffIsInTown [162] [163] [164] [165] [166] and TripWire [167] [168] with their frequent WP:FORUMSHOPPING for already resolved issues has been most disruptive. Razer( talk) 07:27, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Vanamonde93

I cannot take admin action in this case, but I would seriously suggest a "plague on both your houses" approach here. I've looked through the diffs, and there is little to choose between the behavior of the various protagonists, with the exception of Kautilya3. There's plenty of impolite language, accusations of bad faith sans evidence, filing of pointy reports at various noticeboards, a tendency to stonewall to protect favored sources/content, and generally far too much evidence of battleground behavior. I'd recommend a topic ban from the Indo-Pakistan conflict for at least the four principals here. Vanamonde ( talk) 04:42, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Let me expand on that just a bit. The so-called copyright discussion, which has now been moved here, is actually about a somewhat subtle issue. Nadir Ali has been copying quotes onto Wikipedia, which were subsequently removed by Kautilya3. These quotes are not copied without attribution (our most egregious form of copyvio) nor do they represent excessive use of quotations in-text; they are quotations used in a reference, in a topic in which faked references, and allegations thereof, are common. This does not mean that any such use of quotations is okay; but it does mean that the use is largely a matter of judgement, and a question of balancing what is absolutely necessary with minimal use. This is a matter that could be solved by folks who disagree but are committed to working together. Instead, what do we have? One set of folks flatly denying any copyvio; another insisting that its absolutely blatant, needs to be met with an immediate block, and that any failure to agree with this diagnosis is evidence of lack of competence. Thus my conclusion that the whole bunch here are displaying a battleground mentality, with the exception again of Kautilya, whose edit summary linked above is some of the only temperate language in this mess.

  In short, most folks here are simply trying to grab every opportunity to bring sanctions down on their opponents. JosephusOfJerusalem has provided a number of stale diffs in his original post, but he's not the only one; as evidence of disruptive behavior, Raymond3023 offers four quite legitimate requests for protection, and as evidence of a frivolous AFD D4iNa4 offers a speedy close that was swiftly reversed. These items are symptomatic of this set of disputes in general, wherein discussions about genuine disputes contain pages of castigation and recrimination, little to no substance, and certainly no evidence of compromise or attempts to build consensus. Thus my recommendation above, which I continue to stand behind; t-bans for all the folks deeply involved in this dispute with the one exception already noted. Vanamonde ( talk) 17:51, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• D4iNa4, that's not going to fly; the AfD closure may have been reverted later, but the fact that it was inappropriate was evident when it was made; anyone could have seen that, had they not been blinkered by their agreement with the closure. Vanamonde ( talk) 18:29, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• SheriffIsInTown, I haven't evaluated your behavior yet, but Mar4d, Nadir Ali and the OP are certainly not innocent here; neither is MBlazeLightning, who I did not mention above. Kautilya3: I do not believe blocks are appropriate here. These are not short-term problems caused by folks losing their cool; the problems are long-running, and have to do with basic editing style. People need to be removed from the topic until their attitudes towards other editors have changed; so we need either indefinite blocks or topic-bans, and I support the latter, because that is the lesser sanction. Vanamonde ( talk) 05:48, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• JOJ, anyone can comment here, and I have made it explicit that I am not acting in an administrative capacity. I suggest you confine your attentions to your original complaint. Vanamonde ( talk) 06:24, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing and Bishonen: I would strongly recommend a t-ban for MBlazeLightning as well; aside from reports at SPI that are borderline frivolous, he has played his part [169], [170], [171], in the recent edit-wars, and has much the same attitude of treating Wikipedia as a battleground; for further evidence take a look at his talk page, where both Drmies and I told him off for making blanket reverts of suspected socks without sufficient thought or explanation. With respect to Lorstaking: his conduct is problematic, but his editing is less prolific and more widespread topic-wise; I think an Indo-Pakistan conflict t-ban is either too little or too much. Raymond3023, on the other hand, has engaged in plenty of the conflicts listed above (just look through his last fifty edits), and previously flirted with a broad IPA t-ban before NeilN gave him a reduced sanction. Finally; I know I recommended above that the t-ban be limited to the Indo-Pakistan conflict, but on further reflection, I believe the conflict between these editors is likely to spillover to other areas within the scope of ARBIPA; see, for instance, the history here, and the talk page here. If we're trying to prevent this set of folks from becoming a time-sink for the community, an ARBIPA t-ban is indicated. Vanamonde ( talk) 15:28, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• I'm not going to bother refuting Sdmarathe's diffs, because NeilN was involved in that kerfuffle, and can attest to my conduct. But, GoldenRing and Ivanvector, since you asked; Lorstaking's problematic editing is less on his own behalf, and more a tendency to jump into action for or against other editors. Examples include suggesting Mar4d be indeffed, defending MapSGV, [172], [173], [174], [175], [176], and jumping in against Willard84. This is far from helpful, but I don't know that it's sanctionable conduct; I'll let you folks judge that. Vanamonde ( talk) 16:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• Two more points, for the record. First, Ivanvector: NadirAli's involvement in this week's kerfuffle may have been accidental, but his history with ARBIPA sanctions is longer than anyone else's; he has the dubious distinction of being sanctioned in the original case, and has flirted with sanctions several times since his t-ban was repealed; see [177]. As such, I'd say that he's on a tight leash, and should be cut very little slack, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphor. Second, Lorstaking may not have participated here, but he's well aware of ARBIPA DS, having participated in an AE discussion less than two months ago. Vanamonde ( talk) 17:56, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by WBG

• As I noted on Cullen328's t/p days back, this is a situation which has grossly spiralled out of control.Vanamonde has put it quite nicely and, echoing his every wording, I' d recommend imposing an indefinite T-ban on each and every party in this dispute and the one regarding D4ina4 (just below) sans Kautilya3.Give the noticeboards and your capacities at pointy mud-slinging a break..... ~ Winged Blades ^Godric 10:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• GRing's proposal is good enough and in certain aspects, quite lenient.14:04, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Justlettersandnumbers

It was I who moved an extended and argumentatious discussion from Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2018 May 10 to Talk:History of Balochistan, as it was not advancing the process of establishing whether there's been a copyright violation or not. There seems to have a great deal too much combative behaviour by a number of editors here, including the OP. It's apparently just the sort of thing the discretionary sanctions are intended to prevent; Vanamonde's suggestion seems appropriate in the circumstances.

Capitals00, could you please tell me, here on this page, in clear and simple terms: does your copyvio report concern only material copied as quotations in the references? NB: it anyway has brought to light another apparent copyvio, which I'll deal with in due course. Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 11:39, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Kautilya3

I have been quiet because I had been busy and this discussion has been too chaotic for me to make sense of. Now that Vanamonde93 has helped to clarify it, here are my two cents. As for the COPYVIO issue at History of Balochistan, I said in my edit summary " please trim the quotes". NadirAli came back several hours later saying " Trimmed quotes". Till now everything seems normal. However, it wasn't immediately clear what NadirAli had done, because the byte count went up rather than down. Perhaps that is why MBlaze Lightning reverted it again. The next step would have been for MBlaze and NadirAli to discuss it somewhere. I don't know why Capitals00 and JosephusOfJerusalem got involved in this affair. But they did, and things went downhill soon after.

I would recommend a short block for both of them to get their act together, and give an opportunity for the involved editors to discuss things with each other. Why I am recommending it for both of them? Because Josephus's hands are not clean. One of the very first edits he did in his career was this whole-article blanking to help out his friend KA$HMIR, but KA$HMIR got caught with his pants down. We spared Josephus then. I don't see why we should keep on sparing him. He continues to play all kinds of games to help out his friends. Getting rid of this gangsterism is the first step to bringing some sanity to the India–Pakistan pages. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 20:10, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Re: NadirAli's concerns: I am impressed by NadirAli's concern for NPOV. With such commitment, would they care to explain why they replaced three whole sections of sourced content on Kashmir conflict, and brushed aside my objections saying "there is clear WP:CONSENSUS" and this is the "rightful WP:NPOV" version? Why did they claim in this very same diff that "HISTRS is a piece of advice and is not an enforceable policy" and use exactly the opposite criterion at Princely state? Running with the hare and hunting with the hounds? In any case, they need not be so presumptuous to assume that they are only ones that care about NPOV and that the Wikipedia will fall to pieces if they are not around. There are many others who care.
• As for the references to Josephus's alleged ethnicity, "Jewish historian" need not necessarily mean ethnicity. It could also mean someone who studies Jewish history. The point of those comments was to highlight how Josephus presents a neutralist, professional, scholarly image of himself, while his conduct shows the exact opposite. -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 22:49, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• Re: Josephus's comments: I see that the attempts to clear the deck continue. There is no "retrospective reasoning". On the day that Josephus came and blanked the page that I mostly created, claiming "I agree there are serious copyvios here. Text is very close to the original sources", I looked at his User page, that is what it said "Jewish historian, academic and foodie". Sure enough, all his edits till that point were dealing with Jewish history. That is the identity that Josephus himself has created for himself. Whether it was his ethnicity or not, I couldn't care less. But I was certainly perplexed why a Jewish historian, academic was blanking my page on 1947 Poonch rebellion. Josephus has not explained till this day why he did that. Perhaps he should do that first, before he finds more mud to throw at people?
• What I posted on his talk page was a warning, along with an ARBIPA reminder, not an aspersion. In the that I warned about, he mislabeled a book chapter as a journal and he modified the wording (changing "shaping" to "influencing") which made the Indian think tank (IDSA) look like a lobbying organisation. In a later edit, he even effectively removed the facts that it was a "non-partisan, autonomous organisation", even though his own source said so. The next day, he added "independent" to a Pakistani think tank (IPS), even though the source already given on the page said it is wholly owned and operated by Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic fundamentalist party. Why indeed is a Jewish historian shooting down an Indian think tank and pumping up a Pakistani think tank? Again, Josephus never offered any explanation for these actions. (I might have overreacted here, I admit, because when I tried to locate the source on that day, the Springer server was down, and I spent quite a bit of time trying to find this non-existent journal article that Josephus cited.)
• Then I am supposed to be "close" to a certain "sealioner". Ms Sarah Welch is a highly respected Wikipedian, who has made more contribution to Wikipedia than all of us on this page combined, and earned multiple barnstars and GA wins. Whether she is a sock or not, I don't know. She has always said that she isn't, and I respect her enough to give her her due. Josephus deduced that I was "close" to her because she wrote Kautilya3 has been too busy to login lately. Since I was part of the discussion, if I hadn't logged in for a few days, that would be the reasonable thing to say. Where does "closeness" come into the picture? And even if I was "close" to her, why is it any of Josephus's business?
• It looks like Josephus and NadirAli haven't learnt anything from what has gone on till now. How long should this be allowed to continue? I am not even a party to this dispute. In my own input to the admins, I recommended a reduced sanction. And this junk is what I am paid back with? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 02:24, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Ivanvector

I'm posting up here because while I'm not really capital-I Involved here, I have frequently interacted with this dispute via SPI, where reports just dealing with this small but noisy group of editors have accounted for numerous cases just this year, many (but admittedly not all) of them obviously retaliatory, and many just plainly dredging up old grudges. Unfamiliar observers should be able to see from the links provided in this thread that this behaviour is widespread: any time there is any sort of content dispute it escalates rapidly to the administrative noticeboards, where we entertain a back-and-forth name-calling while the dispute moves toward resolution. The only real reason that many of these editors are still allowed to edit is that nobody who isn't already involved really wants to take sides in this ongoing battleground affair.

As admins, our responsibility is to prevent disruption, not to punish, and so like many of the other neutral observers here it's my observation that the way forward from here is an admittedly unusual mass topic ban. I endorse GoldenRing's proposal, although I have thoughts about some users who are and are not named in their list and will have to come back to this in a bit because I have a real-life thing to do. For completeness and simplicity I recommend any topic ban issued here should cover the same topic scope as WP:ARBIPA. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 13:16, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

In my view there are some editors here whose participation has become unacceptably toxic. In diffs presented here and found through links to discussions from here, I see repeated instances of what are probably good-faith content disputes being escalated by these editors, who often appear in disputes with no apparent justification other than what one other editor described as "bad blood". Another admin described this as "factionalized" editing, which it clearly is. In doing so these editors have turned this subject away from collaboration and have made it their own personal battleground, and at this point the only way we're going to come back from that is to remove them from the topic. There are a few editors that have been named here who really ought to be in line for community bans for the way they've deeply radicalized these disputes, and so I think that everyone on this list ought to be somewhat thankful that we're only talking about a fairly-limited-in-the-grand-scheme topic ban.

I endorse GoldenRing's list, and suggest including Raymond3023, Razer2115, and MBlaze Lightning based mostly on their participation here reflecting the same battleground mentality as the others that have been identified. I suggest excluding NadirAli who at least recently seems only to have been swept up in a dispute that was unnecessarily escalated by the others. I'm not so familiar with anyone I've not mentioned (such as Lorstaking) and so don't have any advice on sanctions at this time. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 16:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

I further endorse including Sdmarathe in the proposed topic ban, from their sudden appearance here perfectly fitting the pattern I just described, and noting that they seem to be wringing out a dispute with Vanamonde93 in which they were not involved, and further noting that they seem to be latching on to this dispute to exercise a personal vendetta suggested by their comments in Vanamonde93's RfA. This is the sort of behaviour these sanctions should be designed to discourage. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 16:28, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Vanamonde93: thanks for the diffs. Based on that I would suggest including Lorstaking in the topic ban, for repeatedly calling into question the competence of opponents in a manner which can only be described as an attack, for perpetuating disputes after an administrator tells them that their involvement is unhelpful, and for displaying the same attitude as many others here that every opponent must be someone's sockpuppet even after being repeatedly told otherwise. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 16:52, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Based on observations from Vanamonde93 and Sitush, and their starting a revert war that has had Princely state full-protected for three weeks, I've struck my comments regarding NadirAli and endorse including them in the topic ban. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 18:45, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Sitush

This diffs are already plentiful above. At least some of the people involved in this mess should be indef topic banned at the widest scope of ARBIPA because the issues run deeper than just Indo-Pakistani conflicts. For example, Capitals00 seems to have problems with anything to do with Hindu/Muslim/India/Pakistan issues and has done for years, as indicated by the current content of their talk page. D4Ina4 has had similar issues, and whenever I see both JosephusOfJerusalem and Raymond3023 involved in something, I tend to walk away sharpish (JoJ, by the way, is very obviously not as recent a contributor to the project as their account creation date suggests). These people are so het-up and embroiled in personal as well as topic-related differences that I don't hold out much hope of a limited t-ban actually reducing the noise overall.

I'm less familiar with the others, aside from Kautilya3 and Mar4d, but am increasingly fed up of seeing their names among the same small group of antagonistic regulars at the various dispute venues. Kautilya3 is usually a voice of reason; Mar4d tends to veer between both extremes, depending on the subject matter - their efforts to calm down PAKHIGHWAY ( talk · contribs) a few months ago, for example, were commendable, if doomed, but their efforts in this particular topic area (the Indo-Pak conflicts) are clearly rather wayward. - Sitush ( talk) 13:51, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Sdmarathe ( talk · contribs)'s sudden arrival in this discussion is deeply suspicious. They've got a big problem with Vanamonde which has amounted to much of the little they have contributed to Wikipedia in recent years. They're also, from their history, quite obviously someone with a similar Hindutva agenda to some of the other people who are already being discussed for topic bans. I think their edits probably merit a closer inspection with a view to adding them to the burgeoning list of undesirables in the topic area. - Sitush ( talk) 16:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• The goings-on at Princely state in the few days are an example of how deeply engrained is the antagonism between these people. It is also an example of why a topic ban restricted to merely India-Pakistan conflicts is just going to lead to a lot more lawyering. FWIW, I've just written Talk:Princely_state#Proposal regarding that specific article. It isn't even one that historically has attracted a great deal of controversy - it has just got caught in the horrendous crossfire that these people seem to engender wherever they go. - Sitush ( talk) 18:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Galobtter

Noting that JosephusofJerusalem tried withdrawing the the two AEs he filed by by removing them. Galobtter ( pingó mió) 14:17, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Sdmarathe

Evidently a topic ban on Vanamonde93 should be also in order. Knowing that Vanamonde93 have been unnecessarily casting WP:ASPERSIONS and clearly trying to remove every single challenger with whom they are in dispute.

@ GoldenRing: If admins really consider conduct of more than a couple of editors to be problematic then Vanamonde93's conduct has been very problematic as well:

• Edit warring related to Anti-Hindu sentiment. [178] [179] [180] Vanamonde93 made no efforts to discuss content: talk page history.
• Threatening the involved editor on talk page and edit summaries. [181] [182] Wikipedia is not a battle ground.
• Brought editor to this board after already knowing that it is not actionable in this board. [183] Canvassed an admin to act on this request [184] and NeilN told Vanamonde93 that it is not actionable on AE. [185]

I have compared Vanamonde93's own battle ground mentality with a number of users reported here and Vanamonde93 clearly beats all of them except the OP as per these incidents I have linked in my diffs, no older than 6 days. Sdmarathe ( talk) 16:11, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

I can not help but laugh off at the suggestions indicating my "vendetta" against User:Vanamonde93 :) I have been reasonable enough to thank Vanamonde93 when they were right and criticize when I believed they were wrong. On the contrary there were several reverts that they have done that were just out of spite - who knows why. Anyone suggesting inappropriate behavior on my part should read edits 2 years back. And those that are suggesting I be included in the topic ban - need show a single edit warring incident on this topic by me. Anyone?? Sdmarathe ( talk) 22:15, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Jbhunley

Statement by NadirAli

I logged in today with the intent of editing the article on Margot Kidder upon learning of her tragic passing. I wish to emphasize that I backed away from the articles after the same editors mentioned in this thread began edit warring. I have not broken any 3RRs and removed myself from these topics, seeing there was no near end in sight and that as usual, MBL and some other editors were not being reasonable. I even modified my edits on the Balochistan, but they did not accept them. This problem extends well over decade. It's not bad enough that some editors don't allow anyone to edit ARBIPA topics that contradicts their POV, but they also continue to lay siege on ARBIPA topics and then take any opposing editor to ANI where they lynch that user. This problem spans well over a decade and is responsible for most of the edit wars. Administrators and the community have continued to ignore this problem.

But as I stated, I pulled out of the articles seeing this could end up very badly for not just me, but Mar4d as well. They have already filed an SPI against JOJ likely in retaliation for the SPI filed against Capitals00, like the one MBL filed against me in November. I have no intention of editing the article anytime soon, so I think the proposal of topic bans are a bit excessive, considering that I have created and contributed to pages in this area without edit warring.-- NadirAli نادر علی ( talk) 21:34, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

RE:Kautilya3

To editor GoldenRing:, To editor Sandstein:, The problem is if Kautilaya3 is allowed to continue editing this topic area while others are blocked, it will give unfair advantage to him given that many of his edits are objectionable. I am not trying to assume bad faith in this user as he and I have had agreements before in this topic area, but he often makes edits that are blatant POV. This will only leave pages open to him changing them to his POV without those who disagree unable to express their objection; resulting in a loss of WP:NPOV.

Another issue is that Kautilya3 is under ethnicity claims restrictions [186]

"Any attempt to bring the purported or deduced or imagined ethnic or nationality identities of any users will lead to an immediate block. This includes an editor's own stated ethnic identity or nationality"

He is also under a casting aspersions restriction. [187]

These comments by him about doubting JoJ's Jewish identity are violation of that

1. Well you are a "Jewish" historian
2. "donning a Jewish historian garb"

Sock or no sock, for that is irrelevant, someone who is under ethnicity claims restriction and aspersions restriction shouldn't be bringing up another user's claimed ethnic identity from within 1000 miles. He was banned from making any attempt to bring up another user's purported ethnicity. This is also actionable. I'm also unsure if ivanvector is aware of this and could re-evaluate on the proposals.-- NadirAli نادر علی ( talk) 21:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

If one goes through the archives they will find that Kautilya3 has already been cut a lot of slack by our sysops. He has convinced sysops before that his abuse of multiple accounts was "accidental" [188] and he has even convinced them that his edit warring was not a 1RR violation because he "misunderstood" policy. [189] I believe the administrators have already been too lenient in dealing with his wrongdoings. This is just stretching good faith over the limit. I request them to apply the same criterion on Kautilya3 which they apply to everyone else. There should be a single set of rules, not separate rules for one and another set for everyone else if Wikipedia is to maintain its stature.-- NadirAli نادر علی ( talk) 06:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC)-- NadirAli نادر علی ( talk) 06:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

To editor Seraphimblade: How can this [190] [191] be called "trying to keep things reasonable"?-- NadirAli نادر علی ( talk) 06:27, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Capitals00

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

• I agree with Vanamonde93 above that, if there is action to be taken here, it should be topic bans all around for battleground attitude, etc. I don't, however, currently have the time or inclination to go through pages and pages of invective to determine who exactly needs a time-out from the topic area. Sandstein 08:29, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• I tend to agree with Sandstein here. It looks like there are quite a few editors in this area who are behaving badly and need to take some time away from it, not just one disruptive editor causing issues. It will take some substantial effort to determine what sanctions needed and upon whom, but it is certainly clear that they are needed. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:35, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• This has got horribly out of hand. So far I've read through this, this, this, this, this and this. Almost everyone involved has completely discarded the idea that Wikipedia is a collaborative project to write an encyclopaedia and has instead taken the battleground option. I'd compile diffs, but honestly it's just about every single comment from the start of this year on those pages. I agree with suggestions above that almost everyone involved needs a T-ban. I therefore propose to ban the following editors from all edits and pages related to conflict between India and Pakistan broadly construed: SheriffIsInTown, Capitals00, NadirAli, JosephusOfJerusalem, D4iNa4, MapSGV, Mar4d TripWire MBlaze Lightning and Raymond3023.
  I intend to make the ban indefinite, with a minimum of six months, after which they can appeal here on a showing of constructive edits elsewhere (they can, of course, also appeal the ban on its merits in the usual ways). Some above have mentioned MBlaze Lightning; while the Sardeeph SPI filing is not impressive as the "evidence" amounts to them both using a bunch of common English phrases ("for a long time", "needs to be a", "I am afraid", "into the article"), if the SPI clerks don't see it as grounds for sanctions then I think we leave it alone at this point (unless anyone has further evidence to offer). Some have also mentioned Kautilya3, who I don't think merits any sanctions at this point.
  I would welcome the thoughts of other uninvolved admins before implementing this. I did consider bans from everything related to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan (the scope of the IPA DS) but the dispute here does seem to be reasonably focused on India-Pakistan conflict. I consider this outcome fairly lenient, considering that there have also been calls for the lot of them to be simply indeffed. GoldenRing ( talk) 11:32, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Sandstein and Seraphimblade: I would value your thoughts on the above. I'd also add that I think without this sort of action this is headed to WP:A/R/C. GoldenRing ( talk) 12:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ GoldenRing: I generally agree with the approach you propose; thanks for taking the time for reviewing the discussions. Because I haven't done this myself, I can't express an opinion about whether the users you name are the right ones. Sandstein 13:34, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing: But you should check whether all the editors on your list were properly alerted to discretionary sanctions prior to their conduct at issue here. Sandstein 16:15, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Thanks for the reminder. As far as I can see:

• SheriffIsInTown was alerted within the last twelve months
• Capitals00 participated in an IPA request here at AE within the last 12 months
• NadirAli participated in an IPA request here at AE within the last 12 months
• JosephusOfJerusalem alerted within the last 12 months
• D4iNa4 alerted within the last 12 months
• MapSGV alerted in the last 12 months
• TripWire participated in an IPA request here at AE within the last 12 months
• Mar4d participated in an IPA request here at AE within the last 12 months
• MBlaze Lightning alerted in the last 12 months
• Raymond3023 alerted in the last 12 months

• GoldenRing ( talk) 16:34, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ JosephusOfJerusalem: Others have presented ample evidence here. Your input on Talk:History_of_Balochistan ( diff, diff, diff) was not exactly helpful; Bishonen has previously warned you about assuming good faith when others warn you, with diffs; your talk page interaction is sometimes just bizarre ( diff, diff - you citing ESDONTS is particularly ironic); but for me I think the icing on the cake is your participation here. Your participation here is a clear example of a battleground mentality. This is clearly a dispute which has got out of hand all around, and your attempts to use it to clear the decks of the side you disagree with has no place in a collegial environment. GoldenRing ( talk) 14:29, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ SheriffIsInTown: You have treated Wikipedia as a battleground, not as a collaborative project, in many of the same discussions linked above as well as this, mess, of, a, discussion; and, again, your participation here has been an attempt to clear the decks of one side in a dispute. Classic battleground mentality. GoldenRing ( talk) 15:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ SheriffIsInTown: That's why it says in the big red box at the top of the page, If you make an enforcement request or comment on a request, your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it. I am not proposing a ban on you purely for your conduct here, you are clearly part of this dispute and your actions have exacerbated it, not helped resolve it. But your conduct here hasn't helped your case, either. GoldenRing ( talk) 16:00, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Vanamonde93: I have added a couple of names to the list. If someone wants to present evidence against Lorstaking then I could be convinced, but I haven't seen any particular misbehaviour in my own review and don't have time to dig through their contribs right now.
  I do agree that there is a significant possibility that these editors will carry on the dispute on other IPA topics; but I'm not seeing a lot of evidence of it yet. Of course that might be because I haven't looked in enough places; if only we had the time... I think for the time being I'd like to try a narrower topic ban, on the understanding that any wrongdoing on other IPA topics will be met with lengthy IPA bans. GoldenRing ( talk) 15:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• I agree with GoldenRing's proposal to topic ban SheriffIsInTown, Capitals00, NadirAli, JosephusOfJerusalem, D4iNa4, MapSGV, Mar4d and TripWire with the conditions GR describes, and also agree there's no reason to ban Kautilya. And I'd like to raise a question about Lorstaking and Raymond3023. Did you look at Lorstaking, GoldenRing? I can't say I have enough background in and of myself to propose a ban for them, but I certainly have an impression. The complex history of Raymond3023's sanctions in the area this year can be seen here. Pinging @ NeilN: do you think a topic ban of Raymond should be included in our attempt to clean up the deplorable nationalist battleground which infests this area? Bishonen | talk 15:01, 14 May 2018 (UTC). reply
  • @ Bishonen: No, they didn't hit my radar while I was looking through this. GoldenRing ( talk) 15:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
  • Some of Raymond3023's edits gave me pause but I didn't come across enough to push them onto the list; I could be convinced, though. GoldenRing ( talk) 15:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
  • I likely won't be commenting here as going through the request properly requires more time and focus than what I have to spare right now. -- NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:45, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
    • ( edit conflict) I will say that Sdmarathe's statement advocating topic banning Vanamonde93 seems wholly unconvincing to me. Vanamonde93's AE request they bring up as evidence did result in a strong caution from me to the reported editor. -- NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• For now all I want to say is that "a plague on both houses" might well be beneficial to the project. Moreover, Sdmarathe's long-term vendetta against Vanamonde is noted. Drmies ( talk) 16:50, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing: I think the general idea is okay. I will not have time to review the specifics of your proposal until tonight. If you want to wait for a second opinion I'll be happy to do that when I can, otherwise I generally trust your judgment. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply
  • @ GoldenRing: I have now had time to sort through that mess (and there's an hour I'll never get back...), as well as the evidence presented at this request and the conduct of editors at it. I will firmly agree that Kautilya3 should not be sanctioned; if anything, they seemed to be trying to keep things reasonable, and we can't blame them if that effort turned out to be futile. Between retaliatory SPIs and disruption of that process, disruption of the copyright investigation process, and general mudslinging and casting of aspersions, I agree that the other editors you mentioned need to be sanctioned based upon their behavior (and no, they were not just in the wrong place at the wrong time, they all contributed to the problem), and I would include a warning that if they move the disruption and bickering with one another elsewhere, the next step is very likely to be an indef. Enough is way more than enough here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:10, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• @ GoldenRing: I endorse your addition of MBlaze Lightning and Raymond3023 to the list per Vanamonde. Like some others, I'm a little worried about the limitation of the topic bans to conflict between India and Pakistan, and worry that the disruption, and the mutual aggression of the editors, will spread to other IPA areas. Also, we may be inviting wikilawyering fine-spun arguments about the scope of the ban. But I agree it makes sense to start with a narrower topic ban. When you log those bans, it might be a good idea to also log a formal warning that any disruption on other IPA topics will be met with lengthy IPA bans. Sdmarathe's diffs concerning Vanamonde are ridiculous, btw. Vanamonde attempted to contain the unencyclopedic excesses of a tendentious new editor; that's not evidence of a "battleground attitude", but of care for our articles. Bishonen | talk 17:18, 14 May 2018 (UTC). reply
• I have imposed bans on the ten editors I listed above from all edits and pages related to conflict between India and Pakistan, broadly construed. While they may appeal the bans in the usual way on the merits, I have also added that they may appeal here on a showing of six months of positive contributions to Wikipedia in other areas and I would encourage admins reviewing such a request to consider it seriously.
  I am going to leave this open a little longer as I would still like to take a look at the edits of Lorstaking, and am also considering what action might be appropriate re Sdmarathe; in the meantime, other admins are of course also free to take action against either or both. GoldenRing ( talk) 08:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• I have imposed a one-way IBAN on Sdmarathe, from interacting with Vanamonde93, indefinitely and subject to the usual exceptions. I am generally opposed to one-way IBANs, but if there is a case where they are warranted, I think this is probably it. GoldenRing ( talk) 08:55, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply
  • @ Bishonen: I have looked back through a couple of months of Lorstaking's contributions. I'm not seeing a case for action right now. They have defended an opposed several editors who I've just banned, but their involvement in those discussions strikes me as relatively minor and in particular they haven't taken the bludgeoning and arguing-in-circles approach of some others. They are hardly the only ones to call for blocks on some of these editors. If that's the basis for action (and I haven't see any other) then I don't think we're at the stage of sanctioning them. Other admins are, of course, free to act on their own initiative. I'd advise them to pick their friends with a little more care, but nothing more. GoldenRing ( talk) 09:25, 15 May 2018 (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 D4iNa4

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 07:33, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

D4iNa4 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts :  in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan#Standard_discretionary_sanctions :

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

1. ″your gross incompetence won't do any favor for you. I have been telling you about your disruption for years. ″Only a person with gross incompetence like you would...That's a case of gross incompetence...your incompetence...get over the facts″. WP:PERSONALATTACK and accusations of incompetence. WP:INCIVILITY
2. ″in place of making false allegations why don't you answer the actual question?″ Same as above and below.
3. ″Enough of this WP:DE and WP:IDHT now. Why you are resorting to false allegations of content forking?″ Accusations of bad faith against other editors.
4. ″Please don't engage in deceptive WP:GAMING…So you rechecked my comment after you made a nonsensical response to it? That comment from "different editor" shows how incompetent Farawahar is. You must be having same WP:CIR issues as Farawahar, no wonder he is getting support from you….Same thing. You can twist your words in an attempt to mislead others but the fact still stands that you have a battleground mentality….You don't have any competence to understand simple English.″ Same problems as above. Display of rudeness, incompetency accusations and incivility to other editors.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. [192] A history of sockpuppetry.

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see [193])

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This user has pretty much the same incivility issues as Capitals00 above. Which is why I have decided to report both together since the problems in both cases are identical. They contribute to boiling our editing environment with hatred and vitriol. And there is just no sign that this is not going to continue. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 07:33, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Response to Capitals00 by JosephusOfJerusalem

1. This rude response by D4iNa4 is a direct blatant personal attack. It cannot be compared with this relatively lighter and more polite comment by SheriffIsInTown in response to D4iNa4's other ″CIR taunt″. SheriffIsInTown's talkpost at WingedBladesOfGodric's wall is not WP:CANVASSING, he is an administrator.
2. This diff is far from being ″100% correct″. This comment that you have shown from TripWire was a decent response (requesting a focus on content and clearage from WP:PA) to this WP:PERSONALATTACK by MBlaze Lightning.
3. The language in this diff is still bad, regardless of the venue being WP:ANI. Read WP:NOTTHEM. JosephusOfJerusalem ( talk) 10:38, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[194]

Discussion concerning D4iNa4

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 D4iNa4

Statement by Capitals00

Just like the above one, this is a frivolous complaint filed only because JosephusOfJerusalem is failing to get consensus for his POV. Neither report discuss any problematic editing, but only misrepresents general criticism as "personal attack".

1. diff is just a response to personal attacks, canvassing and derailing carried out by other editor. [195] [196] [197]
2. diff is 100% correct. "False allegations" is rather a civil way to describe the comment that claims other editor in line with WP:BRD to be engaging in " personal attacks, edit-warring and WP:POV". [198]
3. diff is again correct. When your opponent is engaging in WP:IDHT and making false allegations of " WP:CONTENTFORK" and that "there's no consensus for the disputed content" [199] despite 100% clear consensus, it is WP:IDHT and WP:DE.
4. diff is unnecessary and non sanctionable because it was discussion of a conduct of a user in ANI.

Given this is a revenge complaint filed by JosephusOfJerusalem only to get rid of the far more experienced and competent editor who happens to be his opponent. I would recommend admins to read the evidence I have provided above and simply solve the problem by sanctioning JosephusOfJerusalem for his long term disruption. Capitals00 ( talk) 09:15, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by MBlaze Lightning

See Special:Diff/840836278. MBlaze Lightning ^talk 13:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Note: I've filed an SPI report here. MBlaze Lightning ^talk 15:42, 12 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by WBG

See my comments in the thread, just above. ~ Winged Blades ^Godric 10:10, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Ivanvector

This is effectively a duplicate of the Capitals00 report above, and should be speedy closed (or whatever that looks like here) in deference to that thread. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 15:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Result concerning D4iNa4

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

• See my comment regarding the complaint against Capitals00 above. Sandstein 08:30, 13 May 2018 (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 Ayytro

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Shrike ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 19:15, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts :  in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3 :

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

1. [200] Editing Arbpia article
2. [201] Editing Arbpia article

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

• Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 12 May 2018

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The user have less then 500 edits and he was specifically warned not to edit I/P articles.Also his use of "IOF(Israel Occupation Army)" instead of IDF raise the question if an editor can edit neutrally even after gaining 500 edits.-- Shrike ( talk) 19:15, 15 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[202]

Discussion concerning Ayytro

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 Ayytro

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Ayytro

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

• Yes, this violates the prohibition. Blocked for 1 week in view of the user's infrequent editing. Sandstein 14:08, 16 May 2018 (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 SPECIFICO

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Netoholic ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts :  in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBAPDS, specifically Discretionary sanctions guidelines involving decorum and expectation to follow guidelines such as WP:TALKNO, WP:NPA, WP:NOTSOAPBOX, WP:BLPTALK:

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

1. 18 May 2018 - In response to a well-reasoned and scholarly-cited comment, SPECIFICO replies "Bye-bye. No good."
2. [203], [204], [205] 16 May 2018 - [206] 13 May 2018 - [207] 10 May 2018 - [208] 4 May 2018 - General foolishness/mocking on talk page which doesn't contribute to article improvement
3. [209] 13 May 2018 - [210], [211], [212], [213], [214], [215], [216] 17 May 2018 - Several WP:BLPTALK slurs & WP:NOTSOAPBOX comments
4. 16 May 2018 Uncivil, dismissive comment to User:Atsme
5. 16 May 2018 WP:ASPERSIONS/ WP:NPA against User:JFG
6. 8 May 2018 WP:ASPERSIONS against User:Reissgo (implies a WP:COI)
7. 5 May 2018, 4 May 2018 uncivil replies

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. 22 April 2014 - SPECIFICO topic-banned ( Oct 2014 expanded to include all Austrian economics) in part due to " edits and talkpage comments on biographical articles have overtly mocked the article subjects"

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

• Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
• Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on numerous occasions
• Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 22 April 2017 by NeilN ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).
• Successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 6 February 2018.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

In the evidence section, I've tried to group things in a way that makes sense since these are largely isolated, independent comments. I've also been limited to 20 diffs per the instructions.

While SPECIFICO can occasionally make decent contributions, his activity is lately far skewed toward Talk pages and project dispute pages (such as ANI & AE) than article edits. Along with this shift, his decorum when interacting with fellow editors in the political and economic areas has reached all time lows. Also, his current topic ban was imposed in part because he used talk pages to disparage article subjects he was not a fan of, exactly as he is shown to be doing now related to Trump, etc. Its my feeling that the project would benefit more if he were directed towards other subject areas for the time being until he can demonstrate a willingness to engage on a consistent civil and productive level. Focusing so hard on these areas has caused him to lose perspective and too often to treat talk pages as a battleground/soapboak rather than as a mechanism to improve our articles. I strongly recommend an indefinite politics & economics topic ban, which he can appeal in some time, rather than a short term block. This is a more systemic problem with his working attitude, rather than something of immediate short-term punitive nature. -- Netoholic @ 03:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

To editor TonyBallioni: - I don't think your response included consideration of the BLPTALK items. Do you not think its a concern that he openly disparages the article subjects, or is AP2 too far gone and we're just going to allow it? -- Netoholic @ 04:09, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Re "AP2 topic area is a mess" - I'm sorry, but open, unapologetic mocking of editors and article subjects is exactly what makes it so, and perhaps that's because we aren't availing ourselves of the very process (DS) put in place to make this area less prone to reduction to mudslinging and disdain of their fellow editors. -- Netoholic @ 04:55, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

To editors TonyBallioni and NeilN: re: "a comment limit per thread" - doesn't that just put an additional burden on fellow editors who have to keep track of SPECIFICO's activity, counting his edits carefully? What defines a "thread"? Can he just add a section header and keep going? What if he limits himself to trash talk in edit summaries? He is a very smart player, and knows the game. Wikipedia is a big place, and politics/economics is a pretty small proportion of it. Do you believe we have to preserve his right to edit in this area, despite his inability to function professionally? -- Netoholic @ 09:02, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

SPECIFICO's response mentioning me is factually wrong. I have never moved the article liberal bias in academia. My reason for opening this request is based on my participation on the talk page of that article, and seeing a pattern I am familiar with from previous encounters. I investigated his recent behavior and, except for the first of my diffs above, I am not involved in any other of the incidents of incivility and included them here just based on what I can interpret from an outside view. Even if some diffs are not directly from AP2 pages, his incivility is a direct response to prior interaction with those editors on AP2 pages. What I personally find distressing is that on his user page and frequently in the past, SPECIFICO has identified himself as a businessman, PhD, economist, and having been published in peer-reviewed journals. In that respect, his utterly flippant rejection of a scholarly study which has hundreds of citations is unprofessional and indicates such a degree of open hostility toward either the subject matter, or the editor bringing it up, that his willing to forego basic academic decorum and has the result, likely intended, to make other editors avoid contact with him, to the detriment of the articles - a net negative to the project. I'll leave it to others to respond about how his actions have impacted them, but I will point out that I don't see anything close to apology in his response, nor any plan from him to avoid these sort of things in the future. My original thought stands - it would benefit him and the project if he were to work in other areas for a while. No one is owed access to edit in any particular area when they've demonstrated in the long-term that they can turn disagreement into disparagement. -- Netoholic @ 03:49, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning SPECIFICO

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 SPECIFICO

Sandstein and Atsme, thank you for your requests and your patience awaiting my reply.

I’ve waited a while before appearing here so that folks could have their say and to ensure that premature remarks from me would not lead to a scattershot back-and-forth before the central points had been laid out.

First, let me acknowledge that I, like many others, am very frustrated at the recent deterioration of the editing environment at American Politics articles. The discussion here has clarified for me that I have responded to this situation in some cases with rather detached, pithy, and occasionally sarcastic remarks. In general, one way editors have maintained interpersonal contact even as editing progress slowed at these articles is through a kind of banter, sometimes off-topic, which was not our style as recently as six months ago. I’m not sure that’s entirely a bad thing, but it’s become clear reading the comments in this thread that when this kind of remark is seen as pointed or edgy, that is not a constructive or useful tone. And of course written words, when folks sometimes have little familiarity with the poster, can easily be misinterpreted by some of the participants.

That having been said, I’ve learned from this thread that it is not helpful to make wisecracks or brief replies that may seem dismissive to some editors. I’ll note however that I see a lot of diffs here that do not support anything near their claims of “personal attacks” or any lesser sanctionable violations. Just to give a couple of examples, @ Drmies: made a tongue in cheek remark to which I replied in what I thought was a similar gesture here [217]. I was surprised to see this cited in this AE thread as a personal attack. Please look at this diff in context: [218] I though it would have been clear that such an interpretation does not reflect my intent, but I have now learned and I acknowledge that even what I thought was good-natured and innocuous may not seem so to the editor whose edit is being rejected. Actually, many of the diffs presented here are similar. For the record, @ Atsme: and I get along just fine, even though we often disagree and even get frustrated with one another’s views. Same goes for many other editors. And I always invite editors to come to my talk page with complaints and venting, unlike many who “ban” other users from their talk pages. At any rate, I won’t go on too long here. I hope I have been clear and I am glad to respond to any specific concerns the Admins have or their questions about any of the evidence presented here. I’ll close by saying that while Netoholic cited various principles from ARBAP2, I don’t see that his evidence documents his list of violations in this topic area. There are diffs that are not AP2 DS stuff and there are diffs (many out of context) that just don’t show what he claims.

Netoholic has tended to edit in short periods of intensive activity over the years. He seems to have been upset with me since years ago, when I was one of the editors who disagreed with his view that alt-right Canadian Youtuber Stefan Molyneux should be called a “philosopher” in Wikipedia’s voice. He followed me around for a while after he was topic banned. Notwithstanding everything I’ve said about moderating my tone, I’m afraid that to me, this just seems like more of the same with respect to the complaint and the evidence Netoholic provides. I recently made a move on the article Liberal bias in academia that Netholic reverted and which move of mine is being resoundingly affirmed on the article talk page, rejecting Netoholic’s view.

@ JFG: cites lots of diffs either out of context or diffs that don’t show what he claims. He cites stuff not about American Politics, he cites content statements I presume bothered him… I won’t assume that anyone finds these credible, but if there is any of this or other evidence that the Admins would like me to address, I’m pleased to do so. I would reply to @ Mandruss: that there’s been substantial discussion of the overuse of “informal polls” on talk pages and that I am far from the only editor who has seen that as a poor choice of process, particularly on relatively minor issues that by definition do not warrant an RfC, which would be dispositive. Disagreement on an issue of process does not seem to me worth mentioning in an AE thread. SPECIFICO talk 00:37, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Awilley: Yes, that was what I was trying to convey above. Basically, to disengage and work on other things when these deadlocked threads arise. So you're correct it's more broadly defined by "approach" than "tone". SPECIFICO talk 10:41, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Mandruss

I've found SPECIFICO's presence at Talk:Donald Trump to be a net-negative, and my sense is that it's been getting worse in the past couple of months. All the things mentioned by the OP are on prominent display there. More specifically, SPECIFICO has pegged User:JFG as a POV-pusher because JFG somewhat consistently takes a Trump-favorable position, contrary to what SPECIFICO Knows to be the Truth. Having identified JFG as a POV-pusher, SPECIFICO feels justified in pushing the limits of WP:NPA and WP:HARASS—stopping just short of "you are a fucking idiot"—as well as turning WP:AGF and WP:BATTLEGROUND on their respective heads.

Latest example: This, aggressively criticizing JFG for - gasp! - starting a survey to resolve a content dispute. That's simply unacceptable where I come from. After a little back-and-forth between me and SPECIFICO, I decided to collapse that as off-topic, whereupon SPECIFICO copied the back-and-forth to a new, uncollapsed subsection of the thread. Over 50 hours later, there have been no other comments there, indicating the level of editor interest in that. Meanwhile, some 16 or 18 editors have participated in the survey with not a peep in support of SPECIFICO's criticism of it. SPECIFICO seems oblivious that their views on things are completely out of step with those of other editors, persistently presenting them as indisputable and self-evident fact.

AFAICT, my political views are closer to those of SPECIFICO than those of JFG, but I look at who is closer to playing by the rules of the game, and JFG runs circles around SPECIFICO in that regard. JFG rarely responds to SPECIFICO in kind, and that shows more self-control than I could muster in his place. I disagree with TonyBalloni that we should address the worst offenders first and that we can't do anything because AP2 is a mess. That constitutes surrender in my book, and we might as well pack it up if many admins take that position. I didn't arrive on scene until about October 2016, so I'll leave it to others to decide whether SPECIFICO has received enough chances to improve; but I don't think the status quo should be acceptable to any objective observer. ― Mandruss  ☎ 05:05, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

@ TonyBallioni: Re-ping, phonetic similarity to TonyBaloney completely accidental. ― Mandruss  ☎ 05:08, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

SPECIFICO: If, once again, people can't see anything actionable in a persistent disregard for the letter and spirit of WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:AGF, so it shall be, and we will all continue to live with the consequences. I can't fault admins (much) for being very reluctant to enforce behavior policy under our system of self-selected "self-governance", which I consider to be a noble but woefully failed social experiment. I'll just pointlessly note for the record that your response to me completely missed my main points, and I don't think it fails AGF to use the word "sidestepped" here. ― Mandruss  ☎ 04:49, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by JFG

( pinged) Over several years, SPECIFICO has exhibited a pattern of snark towards her fellow editors, and her strong interest in the AP2 area has degraded the collegiality expected of all participants. As AE proceedings require actionable evidence, here are some recent examples I came across:

• Provocative snark towards various editors, sometimes assuming bad faith: [219] [220] [221] [222] [223] [224] [225] [226]
• Snitching
  • User talk:NeilN/Archive 44#FYI -- civility-challenged editor
  • User talk:NeilN/Archive 43#FYI user requesting AE on article talk page
  • User talk:NeilN/Archive 43#Civility at Donald Trump talk
  • User talk:NeilN/Archive 42#Your comment at Darouet's talk
  • User talk:Neutrality#Weird accusation
  • User talk:MelanieN#The confluence of conditions continues
• Playing admin
  • Archived a discussion they don't like one minute after it was hatted [227] (reverted by NeilN as Very *not* apprpriate) [228]
  • Wrongly interpreting DS restrictions to contest a validly-challenged edit as the discussion just started [229]
  • Calling for a block in response to a content dispute: User talk:MrX#BLP Warning
• Misleading edit summaries:
  • Adding SYNTH about financial difficulties in the lead of Trump's bio while noting only "add TV show fame" in the edit summary [230]
  • Re-instating a challenged edit claiming consensus was established [231] while discussion was ongoing on the talk page ( Talk:Useful idiot#Screw Saffire – note the uncivil section title chosen by SPECIFICO); called out by the next editor saying there clearly is NO "consensus" for including this, as evident from the fact that people keep disagreering with you [232]; consensus eventually turned against SPECIFICO's preferred version [233]
  • One month after this was settled, SPECIFICO discreetly labeled "copyedit" a removal of the previously discussed well-sourced material. [234] She also had refused her opponent's offer of dispute resolution, with a snide remark. [235]

Overall, SPECIFICO's interventions contribute to the toxic atmosphere in the AP2 area, especially in articles about political "current events", which are contentious enough without her fanning the flames. Her snide comments and threats have had a chilling effect on healthy debate towards article improvement. Some of the attacked editors have quit (and SPECIFICO is proud of that). Warnings have been tried, and had no lasting effect on her behavior. A topic ban is in my opinion long overdue.

Full disclosure: I used to be one of SPECIFICO's hounding targets a year ago. [236] [237] Consequently she was barred from calling for sanctions outside the appropriate venues. [238] — JFG ^talk 09:15, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Capitals00

@ TonyBallioni and NeilN: In place of sanctioning one or multiple users, I believe that you should put the area under "civility restriction" for all personal attacks and it should be clarified that any allegations based on the user misconduct, credibility, including the concerns about incompetence, tag teaming, should be made on appropriate noticeboard or reported to sanctioning admins. Capitals00 ( talk) 10:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Compassionate727

First off, I've never commented at anything related to the Arbitration Committee, both from lack of need and because the whole process seems rather complex in a way only bureaucracies can be. Hopefully, I did this correctly.

I became aware of this enforcement request because I watchlisted SPECIFICO's talkpage (along with several others') following a rather heated discussion at MfD. It appears that SPECIFICO's outstanding sanctions are topical rather than behavioral in nature, which I interpret to mean they are prescriptive rather than punitive in nature. I am personally glad that this is the case, because SPECIFICO seems to me to be editing in perfectly good faith, although I confess I have a history of assuming too much of it.

The problem to me seems to a general conduct one rather than a specific issue with political or economic topics. See personal attacks [239], sarcasm [240] [241], and otherwise unnecessarily-escalatory rhetoric [242] [243] that all occurred at the aforesaid MfD.

However, he seems to me to also be perfectly capable of engaging calmly and constructively [244] [245]. Even this seems to me to be an apology, though he never calls it that. To me, the difference between his civil and uncivil responses seems to be merely a matter of how he is engaged, where he responds quite constructively provided he is engaged in a calm and civil manner. Unfortunately, my experience with Trump-related articles here is that civility and especially calmness are altogether lacking.

Obviously, the MfD links are outside the scope of his current sanctions, and my opinion here doesn't really matter anyway. Nevertheless, I would appreciate it if any remedies were interested in attempting to isolate SPECIFICO from tense and uncivil situations, insofar as reasonable remedies can accomplish this. — Compassionate727 ^{( T· C)} 13:33, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Mr. Daniel Plainview

My limited interactions with this person have been largely negative to date, and I don't see a lot of value that SPECIFICO brings to these pages. I do see this warning at the top of the page where some of this behavior has occurred: Civility restriction: Users are required to follow proper decorum during discussions and edits. Users may be sanctioned (including blocks) if they make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith. Indeed, I have witnessed personally (in addition to the above examples) an ongoing pattern of incivility [246] and assumptions of bad faith. SPECIFICO acknowledges and is aware of this restriction: [247], and has made it clear that he or she does not hold discretionary sanctions in high regard, suggesting that editors should be "comfortable" with personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith. [248] [249] The reason why some of these pages are a right mess is because the warnings at the top of the page are simply not enforced, or if they are, I have not seen it. I understand administrators are likely overwhelmed with little dust-ups at all times, but I think there should be some stricter enforcement of policies and less tolerance of blatant contempt for them in order to clean things up a bit. Mr. Daniel Plainview ( talk) 18:01, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Factchecker_atyourservice

I've had numerous interactions with SPECIFICO that I would describe as "bizarrely antagonistic", and although he has repeatedly sought to have NeilN block me (e.g. here), I just want to talk about this one specific exchange that helps illustrate what I mean by "bizarrely antagonistic".

This exchange began when I posted the following, referring to breaking stories about Trump's upcoming interview with Mueller and NYT editorial board views about what this means for the investigation. Specifico responded with a withering series of replies that I still don't understand. As far as I can tell, his only purpose was to be heard saying I was wrong about something, except he didn't want to explain what was wrong, and in fact all of his comments revolved around alleged defects on my part.

Yes, I repeatedly and very very bluntly told him to shut up in response, using uncivil language, but it was eminently clear he wasn't trying to discuss anything, and instead just wanted to make personal comments about me.

The exchange continued later, when another editor proposed some content mentioning this same list of questions.

I replied linking the issue to some recent arguments about other news reports, and I referred to the list as "Mueller's leaked wish list of interview questions". SPECIFICO came back with another maddening series of responses in which he simply contradicted me and said I was wrong, and said I hadn't read the sources, again without explanation, even though I requested explanation.

Once it became clear to me that he was just trying to antagonize me rather than actually discuss something, I confronted him about it directly on his user talk page, and he only persisted in the same pattern of calling me wrong, refusing to explain why, and pretending not to understand my request for clarification.

On both the article talk page and his user talk, although my patience had already worn thin I still requested, politely enough, that he clarify what he meant by saying he was wrong, or to cite a source, or give any explanation at all what he was talking about. Instead he was gleeful that he was succeeding in upsetting me, and attempted to do it even further while still refusing the requested explanation (e.g. here and here.) So again, this behavior which I described as "bizarrely antagonistic" was nothing more than an ongoing effort to goad me into making an angry response so that he could then complain to an admin and get me blocked for it—which I fully realize I am risking by bringing my own blunt comments to admin attention. I'm well aware of boomeranging and I'm fresh off a block myself. But I just don't know how to respond to someone so intent at harassing others. Factchecker_atyourservice 20:23, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

My very best wishes refers to an incident in which he says I showed up "uninvited" to make an "inflammatory comment" because I wanted to "ensure the development of a conflict on the talk page" as part of a "set up", but he omits that the reason I showed up at Bull's talk page was to complain about PA's in that very same section that he and SPECIFICO continued to make at usertalk. In fact, comment he linked shows me making that exact complaint. When NeilN confronted him about it, SPECIFICO responded by playing dumb, pretending he had no idea that the comment would be perceived as an insult, when that was actually the SPECIFIC intent. Factchecker_atyourservice 16:28, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Casprings insists that my showing up here to complain about SPECIFICO is hypocritical given my conduct at the Trump dossier page. But, I only complained about a single narrow aspect of his behavior and cited a single incident where he engaged in deliberate antagonism while deliberately refusing to discuss the article content at issue, instead playing a strange word game where he simply replied non-responsively over and over again. I've never done anything like that. What's more, I could have cited more such incidents, but my goal isn't to bury him in "evidence" of unprovoked sniping and and not-hearing-that, but just to illustrate this one fairly unique tendency that is problematic, and the one example does that pretty well I think. Factchecker_atyourservice 05:40, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Objective3000

I think that Specifico clearly should provide a contrite response indicating that she will act more collegially. But, realize the difficulty faced in the DS articles. Two of the respondents in this filing have, and continue to have, exhibited far more (far more) BATTLEEGROUND behavior in the last week than she. I am concerned that any bans will encourage continuation of such behavior. Apologies for not being specific. I’m not trying to cast specific aspersions or totally excuse any acts. I’m only trying to explain causes of frustration. As I’ve said before here, editing DS articles is like dancing the tango in a minefield. That said, I think Specifico needs to deal with the situation in a better manner and respect that she has held back in responding thus far. O3000 ( talk) 00:51, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Shock Brigade Harvester Boris

This whole topic area is already a mess and it's getting even worse. You guys (i.e., the admin corps) should start handing out blocks and topic bans like Halloween candy. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 01:55, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Geogene

I've been looking at these diffs, and find them extremely underwhelming. If you're going to penalize SPECIFICO for sarcasm, I assume you're planning on enforcing that standard equally. And when you do, pretty soon nobody will be left to edit AP2. Probably not even Shock Brigade Harvester Boris, who I have previously noticed cries out for martial law to be declared in subject areas where he appears to have no other interest or involvement (GMO comes to mind). Oh, except for the sockpuppets/SPAs, who will always be with us, no matter what you do. I don't see how this benefits the project. Geogene ( talk) 03:07, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Struck because I can't find that diff, which makes it doubtful it happened. Who was it that proposed to block everyone? It might have been some other dispute. This is going to bother me now. Geogene ( talk) 03:48, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by (Atsme)

I'm pretty much on the same page as Sandstein in this case - I want to evaluate the response by SPECIFICO - primarily because I don't take pile-ons at face value. My association with SPECIFICO dates back to 2015 but I don't have any animosity toward this editor. We disagree most of the time but I see my pragmatist perception as a net positive; i.e., show me the facts...but I'm not sure of SPECIFICO's position. I think it (her statement) is cleary worthy of inclusion in an effort to get the full picture. ^{Atsme 📞 📧} 03:24, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Seraphimblade, just the sound of "low level misbehavior" has a chilling effect. I'm thinking it may be rather easy to gather enough diffs on any seasoned editor to demonstrate low level misbehavior, perceived or otherwise. I also foresee instances of levity being misconstrued as low level misbehavior, or possibly when trying to present a convincing argument to gain consensus when dealing with disruptive STONEWALLING, the latter of which isn't always obvious when an article is under 1RR/Consensus restrictions. Blocks and TBs are supposed to prevent disruption of the obvious kind, like real PAs not petty annoyances. I'm also concerned that it may impede free expression. ^{Atsme 📞 📧} 03:46, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Gandydancer

First I want to say that I give my thanks to any editor willing to edit most of the Trump articles, those that I agree with and those that I don't. But as much as I am very concerned that our encyclopedia truthfully record the Trump administration, I don't have the time and patience to work on most of the articles, even though I am by nature quite a patient person and time is not a problem since I am retired. Considering the present divided state of our union, it is not at all surprising that our Trump article pages should reflect that division. Of course editors working on such a difficult topic are going to lose their patience, be sarcastic, and such. Admins may need to monitor the talk pages more closely, but I strongly object to sanctions for editors such as SPECIFCO. Plenty of Trump editors have certainly irritated me and tested my patience but I've always found SPECIFCO to be insightful, fair, and witty to boot, something that perhaps some others are irritated with and see as spitefully sarcastic but for me is more a tad of lightness in a very difficult editing situation. IMO if we start barring people like SPECIFCO from the Trump articles we can expect them to begin to cave in to a string of biased pictures of this administration. I worry about that since I know it could happen. Gandydancer ( talk) 04:37, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by Reissgo

My main problem with SPECIFICO is his/her reluctance to take part in the "discuss" part of Bold-Revert-Discuss. I.e. I make a bold edit, SPECIFICO reverts my edit. I start a discussion but then SPECIFICO does not respond. The net result being that I have to seek support from some third party for all the edits I make. I have complained to SPECIFICO about this on multiple occasions, for example here [250] and here [251].

There is also plenty of incivility, like this "Don't push your luck" vague threat [252] when I pointed out the he/she was breaking their topic ban. And a general drip feed of sarcasm and put downs like "Have you considered other hobbies?" here [253]. Reissgo ( talk) 11:44, May 19, 2018‎ (UTC)

Response to SPECIFICO's statement. I was surprised to see the claim "And I always invite editors to come to my talk page with complaints and venting, unlike many who “ban” other users from their talk pages." - this is simply not true. SPECIFICO banned me from his/her talk page: (see here and here).

After a while I decided to ignore the ban but later noticed that he/she would often archive my comment immediately. Reissgo ( talk) 07:53, May 20, 2018‎ (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

I did not really follow these discussions, but interacted with the users. Consider something like this (link by NeilN). SPECIFICO makes a comment on a talk page of BullRangifer. Not sure if I understand the meaning of her comment, but this is something they would friendly discuss with BullRangifer, without any disruption to the project. Now, Factchecker_atyourservice comes uninvited to the talk page of BullRangifer, with an inflammatory comment: " BullRangifer: if you honestly expect me to abide by your "banning" me from your talk page..." (note that the inflammatory comment by Factchecker_atyourservice was not a response to the previous comments by SPECIFICO and BullRangifer on the talk page). This comment by Factchecker_atyourservice ensured the development of a conflict on the talk page. Now, very same Factchecker_atyourservice argues on this page to sanction SPECIFICO. This looks to me as a set up by Factchecker_atyourservice, whose involvement on various talk pages [254] must be a matter of serious scrutiny if anyone wants to implement sanctions more serious than merely a "last warning". My very best wishes ( talk) 15:06, 19 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Statement by CASPRINGS

If User:SPECIFICO is to be warned, I would suggest that some of other editors here should also see Wikipedia:BOOMERANG. For example, I think one should look at User:Factchecker_atyourservice. I just don't see how he/she can complain about SPECIFICO and maintain his or her behavior on pages like Trump–Russia dossier. I made a complaint at here at WP:AN.If you are going to warn one editor, you need to look at the other editors who he or she is directly interacting with. Casprings ( talk) 04:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Result concerning SPECIFICO

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

• I've read through all these diffs. I see nothing sanctionable, and I count as friends some people that the comments were directed at. They are sarcastic in some places, but if we're going to be honest, the AP2 topic area is a mess and these are hardly the worst of any offenders in the area: and even if considered individually, I would have a difficult time sanctioning. I would close with no action with a request to SPECIFICO to maybe be a bit lest sarcastic. TonyBallioni ( talk) 04:01, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• I see no talk posts that are sanctionable as BLP violations (and no, they wouldn't be sanctionable if someone brought the equivalent things up on Clinton talk pages, before that is brought up.) TonyBallioni ( talk) 04:15, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• Okay, looking at the diffs NeilN has provided, combined with the above, I see more of a pattern across multiple pages including user talks, which also fall under the sanctions and affect the temperature on these pages. I'm not sure what the best course of action is. I don't think a TBAN or block is warranted at this time, but I do think some action could be taken. If it is a logged warning of some sort to remember to follow the intent of the civility guidelines that would be something. We could also go with something similar to what an arb posted in an unrelated discussion a few days ago: a comment limit per thread. I've found that these are actually some of the more effective restrictions in lowering tensions in other disputes, and allow people to contribute to areas they care about at the same time. TonyBallioni ( talk) 05:19, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ TonyBallioni: It would be marvelous if we could formulate something to cut stuff like this out. Editors are smart enough not to attack each other directly for the most part, so they find ways to unnecessarily annoy each other obliquely. SPECIFICO is by no means alone in this or the worst offender. -- NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Yes, which I think a comment limit per thread might help (your diffs are user talks, but some of the ones above are on article talk pages. This would force getting to the point and make jokes/sarcasm that can get under the skin less of a thing on article talk pages, presuming people would prefer to comment on the content. I’m open to other ideas, but I’d prefer not to see a block or TBAN. Not sure how to deal with the user talk concerns, but maybe a warning and limits elsewhere would help. TonyBallioni ( talk) 05:37, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• I'm not sure a hard comment limit per thread will work in this area. Unlike infoboxes (I assume you're talking about that case), the most hotly disputed content often comes from recent and breaking news reports, with additional details and sources popping up every few hours/days. Any limit would have to be time-based to account for this. -- NeilN ^{talk to me} 09:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Per Seraphimblade, I am fine with a logged warning here, and agree based on the discussion that it would be appropriate. SPECIFICO has responded to the issues. I'd encourage them to take what people have said here to heart, and realize that sanctions would be likely next time if they don't happen as an outcome of this thread. TonyBallioni ( talk) 03:09, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• "AP2 topic area is a mess" - definitely. I'm less enamored with SPECIFICO's behavior than TonyBallioni is willing to let SPECIFICO go with a simple request, with their "who, me??" attitude. They know how to get under other editors' skins but just straddle the line. [255], [256], [257] Probably needs something a bit stronger than a request. -- NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:27, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• Capitals00, many of these pages are already under a tightened civility restriction: "Civility restriction: Users are required to follow proper decorum during discussions and edits. Users may be sanctioned (including blocks) if they make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith." Doesn't seem to do much. I actually had conversation with SPECIFICO where they pushed for tougher enforcement of civility. I warned them that that could backfire (as it seems it has, with this AE request). We can stop ignoring the jabs coming from all sides and discount, "yes, but x is much worse, why don't you go after them?" but admins have to be on board with this. Otherwise it's, "You blocked/topic banned for that? Really?" at the inevitable appeal, especially as these jabs can be oblique in nature. -- NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• Logged warning per TonyBallioni is fine by me. -- NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:44, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• I do think this is potentially actionable and would like to hear from SPECIFICO. Sandstein 18:22, 18 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• In view of SPECIFICO's statement, I believe a warning is sufficient at this time. Sandstein 09:32, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply

• I think it's important for AE to be willing to address repeated low-level misbehavior over time. If anything, I think that's more concerning than a single egregious incident—everyone can have a bad day and do or say something regrettable, but repeated behavior shows a pattern and possibly intent to skirt the boundary. Given that SPECIFICO does seem to be aware it's a problem and willing to change it, I would consider closing this instance with a logged warning, but in general I think that type of issue is one we should be willing to address here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:40, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply
• I've known SPECIFICO for a long time, since the Austrian Economics mess years ago. In the past I remember being very annoyed with their needling of users in the opposite "camp", privately asking admins to place sanctions, while winking at poor behavior of editors on their "side" of the dispute. At the same time I will also grant that behavior like this is very common in the American Politics topic area, and I have noticed that SPECIFICO has been gradually improving over the years. As for the current set of diffs, I have reviewed all of them and found most of them to be pretty innocuous. I appreciate a little humor. I think the ones that bugged me most were the "soapboxing" about Trump being Kim's puppet, which I realize was just joking around, but was also uncomfortably close to running afoul of BLP. SPECIFICO's acknowledgement of the problem above has me half satisfied, and if they were to make a specific commitment to moderate their approach I would take that at face value and be comfortable with a "no action" close here. ~ Awilley ( talk) 09:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC) reply