Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Tuscumbia

User requesting enforcement

Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 15:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

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

# [1], first blanket revert

1. [2] second blanket revert
2. [3] third blanket revert

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

# Not applicable

Enforcement action requested ( block, topic ban or other sanction)

Formally place user under 1RR/week as stipulated and/or the proceedings concluded by ArbCom Armenian-Azerbaijan 2.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I still am uncertain if this is the correct venue to file this complaint but I hope the administrators will indulge me for just a moment. Tuscumbia has most recently violated the 3RR rule on the Zheleznovodsk Communiqué. Rather than discuss the POV problems that I outlined in the article's talk page, he simply reverted each edit I made and showed no general interest to discuss their validity. He has already been blocked for edit warring on the Black January article but I feel that formally placing him under the restrictions of the ArbCom Armenian-Azerbaijan 2 will generally improve the editing environment by encouraging editors to participate on the talk page, rather than head straight to click on the revert button. Thank you.

In reply to the comments made by editors Grandmaster and Brand: the BBC, however notable it is, is written by a single identifiable author (Thomas de Waal, a journalist) and he is simply presenting his personal interpretation of the event, which he more or less elaborated in his 2003 book, Black Garden. Considering that virtually no one else has been able to corroborate Mr de Waal's findings, and taking into account that virtually all sources indicate that the conflict began in February 1988, we have to treat his position as a fringe opinion. And contrary to what Brand contends, I more than amply expressed my desire on the article's talk page to discuss the issue and repeatedly called on Tuscumbia to provide more sources (see here [4]). And please do not mischaracteristize my editing habits in such a misleading, dishonest and one-sided manner again, Brand.

To Grandmaster: the last time I checked, three reverts counts as a violation of the 3RR either way. You yourself were once on 1RR parole and you have since been involved in a number of edit wars over the past few months so your suggestion that the administrators should now take advantage of this opportunity to punish me as well shocks me in its frankness. I'm almost too shocked for words. For that matter, I have been comfortably in compliance of Wikipedia's revert rules and have virtually abdided by my 1RR ever since it expired, with the mere exceptions to revert in obvious cases of vandalism or out-of-control edit wars.

On the matter at hand, I genuinely believe that the BBC article represents a fringe opinion and should not be presented on an otherwise mundane article on Nagorno-Karabakh, especially without any qualification. The dozens of other articles on Nagorno-Karabakh, to say nothing about all the books and articles that have been published on the matter, make no mention or dismiss any notion of the expulsion of Azerbaijani refugees. The version I inserted has been universally accepted elsewhere and so Brand's contention that the section is "disputed" is plain false when only a fringe minority, however weakly, argue against it.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 23:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC) reply

That's the thing, Stifle - I'm asking that he be formally placed under the restrictions of the ArbCom. As I noted above earlier, I'm unsure if this was the correct place to bring it up but he reverted an article 3 times within a period of 24 hours and showed no interest to commit himself to discuss the issue on the talk page. I believe that if such restrictions are in place, it will more than encourage him to discuss his edits rather than just simply revert each edit that he disagrees with. -- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 16:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[5]

Discussion concerning Tuscumbia

Statement by Tuscumbia

I created the article Zheleznovodsk Communiqué based on valid sources. The text that MarshallBagramyan ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) changed and kept reverting does not refer to the sources of the actual declaration. In other words, the very Declaration/Communiqué the article is about claims (in 1991 when it was signed) the conflict started "4 years ago", i.e. in 1987, clearly referring to first petitions collected by Armenians of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and subsequent mutual hostilities committed in Karabakh and Armenia (specifically mentioned in BBC article [6]). Of course, Marshall Bagramyan denounces the linked article right away as invalid, compiled by one journalist, etc while this is the journalist ( Thomas de Waal) on whose writings a considerable part of Karabakh conflict articles are quoted and based on. In other words, the user is being selective just because this particular quote from BBC approved text does not suit his edits and reverts. Moreover, I asked him and directed him to discuss his edits on the talk page ( [7], [8], [9]) and reach consensus before making the intended changes. As can be seen from this article about the helicopter shootdown related to Zheleznovodsk Communiqué, I reviewed his changes and came to consensus [10]. As for the Black January page, all changes made by unknown IPs were POV and I attempted to get them reach consensus on the talk page too before making those edits (if needed I'll provide all diffs to show the attempts). Tuscumbia ( talk) 16:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC) reply

As a response to MarshallBagramyan and to attention of Stifle:

It's obvious that MarshallBagramyan is doing his best to draw me into the ArbCom restrictions for no reason whatsoever. During the reverts, he was urged to discuss the intended text on the talk page before reverting the text to his version, but he kept on going until I reverted the third time, at what he suddenly stopped and reported me. It's pretty obvious that this was done to try to pull me into the restrictions. I am aware of the editing rules including one WP:3RR which clearly indicates no more than 3 reverts on the same page within 24 hr period. I feel this request is not based on anything less that getting me blocked, banned or placed on restrictions MarshallBagramyan is himself a party to Tuscumbia ( talk) 16:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Comments by others about the request concerning Tuscumbia

From what I see, in this diff, which was the first revert, Tuscumbia urged MarshallBagramyan to discuss, but he proceeded further, ignoring subsequent invitation to talk. For me the basic problem is that Marshal pushes a disputable background section, sourced with BBC News instead of more specific book, offered by Tuscumbia. Brandmeister t] 17:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC) reply

I don't see that Tuscumbia violated the 3RR rule on Zheleznovodsk Communiqué. Tuscumbia made 3 rvs, so he remained within the limit. At the same time MarshallBagramyan reverted the article twice, obviously without consensus with the other party. So if Tuscumbia is to be placed on restriction, so is MarshallBagramyan, considering that his previous 1 year parole [11] only expired in January this year, and he again is involved in an edit war. Grand master 18:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC) reply

MarshallBagramyan, I suggest you check WP:3RR. Making 3rvs is not a violation, however the admins may consider the reverting to be excessive, even if the 3RR was not formally violated. In this case I don't see that Tuscumbia was the one to be blamed, because your reverting was not justified either. It was clearly a content dispute, and you should have tried to resolve the dispute by WP:DR before repeatedly reverting. Grand master 06:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Tuscumbia cannot be placed on notice right away, according to the arbcom ruling:

Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines. [12]

Was Tuscumbia given a warning with a link to the arbcom page? Grand master 16:53, 16 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Tuscumbia

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

• Please provide a link to where Tuscumbia was put on notice of the restrictions before committing the alleged violations. Stifle ( talk) 15:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC) reply
• As no link has been forthcoming, this request for enforcement is summarily denied. I have, however, advised Tuscumbia of the existence of the discretionary sanctions, so any future request is not liable to denial for this reason. Stifle ( talk) 09:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Request concerning Hittit

User requesting enforcement

Sardur ( talk) 09:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement

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

2 reverts on Armenian Genocide, an article suject to this: "Under the discretionary sanctions imposed at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2, this article has been placed on a one-revert rule. Any editor who makes more than one revert (and this revert must be discussed on the talk page) in a 24-hour period will be blocked. Please edit cooperatively, and seek consensus and compromise rather than edit-war."

1. [13]: 1st revert
2. [14]: 2nd revert

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

Not applicable due to the warning on the talk page of the article, which is reproduced in top of the article itself when you edit it.

Enforcement action requested ( block, topic ban or other sanction)

I trust admins as for the appropriate enforcement action. I would however think that a topic ban may be appropriate given the tone of Hittit's comments (example: "THE TERM "GENOCIDE" WAS "COINDED TO DESCRIBE THE HOLOCAUST" ANY RELATION TO THE ORIGING OF THIS TERM WITH ARMENIANS IS SHEER MANIPULATION AS ATTEMPTED IN THE ARTICLE AND I WILL REVERT IT RIGOROUSLY. ENOUGH MANIPULATION."). It is imho a clear evidence of treating Wikipedia as a battleground. Sardur ( talk) 09:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

See above. Sardur ( talk) 09:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply
I'm not Armenian. Hittit should stop this kind of nationalistic and personal attack. Sardur ( talk) 09:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Sandstein, this sanction has been applied several times already; last case (a very similar one, btw) was about TheDarkLordSeth. Sardur ( talk) 10:38, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[15]

Discussion concerning Hittit

Statement by Hittit

I find this complaint highly absurd. The question is of one revert in which a sourced clarification I added was reverted by MarshallBagramyan. Furthermore, filing complains against those who contribute to the article with a range of sources and try to correct statement such as insinuating a relation between the invetion the term Genocide and the Armenians is childish. See my sources, the term was coined to refer to the Holocaust, attempts to suggest otherwise is manipulation and needs to be rapidly corrected. This complaint is unjustified and should be effectively ignored. Moreover, Wikipedia cannot be a hostage to Armenian editors deleting, reverting or filing compalains against those who want to correct the level of POV in the article. Hittit ( talk) 09:16, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Comments by others about the request concerning Hittit

Result concerning Hittit

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

I believe that this request is not actionable because the sanction by Moreschi displayed at the top of Talk:Armenian Genocide is likely invalid. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement does not appear to allow for article-level sanctions of this sort; it appears to direct that sanctions must be directed at individual editors following individual warnings. If article-level sanctions are desirable, the Committee should be asked to amend their decision to provide for such sanctions.  Sandstein  10:28, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Wouldn't "any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project" probably cover this? Angus McLellan (Talk) 12:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Conceivably, yes; but the wording of the remedy, "... impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere ...", leads me to believe that any sanctions are intended be targeted at specific editors, not at articles as a whole.  Sandstein  12:54, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Requested clarification from the Arbitration Committee. NW ( Talk) 16:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC) reply

The clarification notwithstanding, has Hittit been put on notice of the existence of discretionary sanctions? Stifle ( talk) 10:10, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply

I have warned Hittit with the generic {{ uw-sanctions}} template. If he takes the advice, good; if not, a new report can be filed. Sound good? NW ( Talk) 18:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Agreed; this should be closed as no action. Stifle ( talk) 10:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Marekchelsea

User requesting enforcement

M.K. ( talk) 16:57, 18 April 2010 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren

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

As WP:DIGWUREN case concluded editors working in EE topics should demonstrate wiliness to cooperate and work in those topics. I see user:Marekchelsea's practice of masking his controversial edits as minor ones (despite request to stop such practice), revert warring and other disruption as a direct threat to Wikipedias integrity (more details below) and a breach of principles outlined in WP:DIGWUREN. Marekcheslea is not a newcommer, he is editining for two years now, and is well aware of the rules he is breaching as he was also warned by admins and other users multiple times before and there is absolutely no progress in his behavior – only viable option left is the restrictions under WP:DIGWUREN.

Disruptive editing

Undiscussed cut’n’ paste move marked as minor edit [16] [17] Another undiscussed cut’n paste move marked as minor edit [18] [19] And another one undiscussed cut n paste move parked as minor edit [20] [21]

Undiscussed move marked as minor edit with misleading edit summary “change name according to belarusian wiki)“ – while claiming that the change was made “according to belarusian wiki“ Marekchelsea was doing the opposite – moving the article from the name that is used in Belarusian wiki to the name that is not even mentioned in the Belarusian wiki.

Just a "few" more undiscussed cut‘n‘paste moves [22] [23]; [24] [25]; [26] [27]

User never discusses his moves or controversial edits despite being asked to do so, and thus promoting his personal agenda.

The user was warned already in 2008 [28] twice [29] against removing text, without edit summary and was asked to discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page, but no progress in his behavior can be seen so far.

Just now I asked him kindly to stop this disruptive practices [30] but after this, Marekchelsea instead simply deleted previous admin warning [31], and continues to make undiscussed controversial changes marking them as minor edits non stop [32]; [33] also continuing his stale revert warring at Jan Czeczot article [34] (prievious reverts [35], [36], [37])

Revert warring

Marekchelsea was warned to avoid revert warring a couple times before.

After being warned to avoid revert warring and obey WP:3RR, [38] and asked to discuss controversial changes at the talk pages [39], Marekchelsea continued his ways – most telling example is this article [40]

Just at this article alone Marekchelsea made at least 17 reverts, multiple times breaking 3RR rule, of which he was aware by now, by making 4, 5 or even more reverts in 24 hours [41], [42], [43], [44], [45] and so on.

Disruption during CfD and personal attacks

After this CfD [46] that went not the way Marekchelsea desired – according to Marekchelsea consensus was simply wrong [47] - he created POV fork category which was soon nominated by uninvolved admin for deletion [48]. During this CfD Marekchelsea breached rules of WP:No personal attacks by attacking editor just because he expressed opinion opposing his views [49]

Also CfD related revert spree accompanied by offensive edit summaries („this is sick“) aimed towards at least three wikipedia editors [50] is also worth noting.

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

# [51] Warning by LAAFan ( talk · contribs)

1. [52] Warning by Xeltran ( talk · contribs)
2. [53] Warning by meco ( talk · contribs)
3. [54] Warning by M.K ( talk · contribs)
4. [55] Warning by BrownHairedGirl ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
5. [56] Warning by Renata3 ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Enforcement action requested ( block, topic ban or other sanction)

Block or EE topic ban

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

• Most of the disruptive actions such as revert warring are actionable by itself under general WP policies especially if being repeated after multiple warnings (with no stopping signs). Regarding WP:Digwuren I would ask for a firm notice that further disruption such as undiscussed controversial cut'n'paste moves, controversial edits marked as minor with no explanation neither in edit summary nor in talk page, misleading edit summaries, revert warring without participation in discussions on the talk page, and other disruption will not be tolerated. M.K. ( talk) 17:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply
• Why this request is not processed yet? Any particular reason? M.K. ( talk) 07:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC) reply
• Thank you, Stifle , for placing notification to Marekchelsea. I have further request concerning this issue:
  • a) please, consider adding Marekchelsea's name on this list, because next time, somebody may argue about this.
  • b) by closing this request please address, do documented Marekchelsea's behavior here is consistent with good editing practice or not (I am not talking about sanctions as such). I fear, that otherwise, by simply archiving case without such unambiguous note, bad signal may be sent and individual in question may see it as encouragement of such behavior. Also it would serve as a good preventive measure, that such disruption would not be tolerated in the future. Thank you. M.K. ( talk) 16:20, 22 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

notice delivered on 2010-04-18T17:03:45

Discussion concerning Marekchelsea

Statement by Marekchelsea

Comments by others about the request concerning Marekchelsea

Result concerning Marekchelsea

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

• Please provide evidence that User:Marekchelsea has been put on notice of the general sanctions by an administrator, as required by remedy 12, paragraph 2, of WP:DIGWUREN. Stifle ( talk) 11:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply
  • The request has not been further processed because nobody has provided evidence that an administrator placed Marekchelsea on notice of the general sanctions prior to the events linked above. If there is no evidence posted within the next day or so, this request will be summarily denied. Stifle ( talk) 10:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC) reply
    • I have notified Marekchelsea of the existence of the general sanctions. If the matter is sanctionable under other Wikipedia policies it can be raised at WP:ANI, although as the user has not edited in three days and blocks are meant to be preventative rather than punitive, I doubt any further action would be taken there. This will be closed with no action. Stifle ( talk) 08:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC) reply
      • Closing this thread down, per Stifle: not actionable. AGK 16:51, 22 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Lihaas

User requesting enforcement

O Fenian ( talk) 07:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Final remedies for AE case

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

2 reverts in less than 24 hours.

1. [57] First revert
2. [58] Second revert

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

[59] Warning by O Fenian ( talk · contribs)

Enforcement action requested ( block, topic ban or other sanction)

Block

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

In addition there was also a third revert, totalling three revrets within a period less than 30 hours. While List of terrorist incidents, 2010 as a whole may not be covered by the "Troubles" case, adding claims about Republican Action Against Drugs do make those edits covered by the Troubles case. He has been reverted by three different editors and I have patiently explained that the edit is in violation of three different policies, but he just keeps making it. To show how disruptive Lihaas is being on this article, he keeps adding this as a "terrorist incident", amongst others. This is against the agreed inclusion critera (which Lihaas ignores saying "ignore all rules") as it is not labelled as "terrorism" by the source. It is quite feasible that a pipe bomb blowing up a telephone box is youths experimenting with bomb-making, to label it as a terrorist incident in the absence of sources doing so is disruption. O Fenian ( talk) 07:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[60]

Discussion concerning Lihaas

Statement by Lihaas

Comments by others about the request concerning Lihaas

Result concerning Lihaas

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

• Blocked 8 hours. Stifle ( talk) 11:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Kedadi

User requesting enforcement

Athenean ( talk) 18:31, 27 April 2010 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/ARBMAC#Editorial_process

Kedadi is a sterile revert-warrior on any topic related to Albania, a sort of self-styled "gatekeeper". Virtually all his article space edits consist of reverts [64], often with a hostile [65] or deceitful [66] edit summary (the version he reverted to is anything but stable). He has been particularly disruptive lately, always joining in whatever edit-war involving Albanian editors is going on [67] [68] [69] [70]. Whenever the other Albanian editors reach their 3RR limit, Kedadi is always there for that extra revert. He also almost never participates in talkpage discussions, except only to cast a !vote. Seeing how he appears to be a revert-only account, with minimal content building and causing considerable disruption, some sort of sanction, whether a revert limitation or topic ban seems appropriate. This has been going on far too long.

Diffs of prior warnings

His talkpage is a graveyard of warnings, notifications, conflict, and hostility, generally reflecting his contributions [71] [72] [73] [74]. He has been topic-banned before [75] as well.

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction)

Revert limitations or topic-ban.

Additional comments

The situation on Albania-related topics has reached boiling point of late, causing an administrator to issue the following warning [76]. I am content to heed this warning. It appears Kedadi is not [77] (revert is after the warning was issued).

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[78]

Discussion concerning Kedadi

Statement by Kedadi

Athenean, thanks for letting me know about your request. Below I'll try to respond to your request and to the comments you made below.

>"Kedadi is a sterile revert-warrior on any topic related to Albania ..."

• Sterile? <sarcasm>Leave aside that my wife is not loving me for quite some time now, but those even are not my kids</sarcasm>.

>"Virtually all his article space edits consist of reverts ..."

• It happens that I spend a lot of time in front of the computer by being a software engineer, and yes I am a recent changes patroller on Albania and Kosovo related articles, and a lot of times I revert biased edits (like this one and this one) but always in good faith (Kosovo related articles tend to have much more biased edits because of the political status).

>"often with a hostile [79] ... edit summary"

• What about this one?

>"His talkpage is a graveyard of warnings, notifications, conflict, and hostility, generally reflecting his contributions ..."

• I have to admit, you are really picky on choosing words when you want to depict something in the most terrific way possible.

>"He has been topic-banned before as well."

• Yes I was, in Kosovo and Talk:Kosovo. Almost all editors engaged in that discussion at that time got something similar because of a heated and never ending discussion regarding the political status of Kosovo.

>"The situation on Albania-related topics has reached boiling point of late, causing an administrator to issue the following warning. I am content to heed this warning. It appears Kedadi is not."

• Did you check the time stamps. My revert was roughly one day before the warning.

>"Kedadi has done nothing but revert, revert, revert, since he joined in 2005."

• See my response above.

>"Never discusses, never compromises, never stops."

• Here is some proof that I've discussed: Talk:Vjosë#Article_name (apparently discussing with you).

---

@ Admins dealing with this case: as Fut.Perf. ☼ stated, there probably are other editors who deserve a sanction a lot more than I do.

Cheers. kedadial 16:52, 28 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Comments by others about the request concerning Kedadi

I just checked one of the latest performances of the reverting circus between the Greek and the Albanian crowds: Dardani. For crying out loud. Aigest ( talk · contribs) removes some alleged fact-bites, giving clear reason for the removal.( [80] and subsequent edits.) Megistias ( talk · contribs) reverts him with an accusation of "vandalism" [81]. Aigest explains on talk [82]. Nevertheless, Athenean ( talk · contribs), Alexikoua ( talk · contribs) and Megistias [83] [84] [85] revert him in tag-team four or five times, in what is apparently a kind of automated knee-jerk reaction for them. On the other side, Kedadi joins in the fray, reverting once [86]. Until, finally, the Greek team makes an effort to actually understand Aigest's point, and belatedly has to admit that he was right all along [87]. I can certainly see a list of people who need some kind of sanctions here, but Kedadi isn't necessarily on top of that list. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Comment: Kedadi has done nothing but revert, revert, revert, since he joined in 2005. Never discusses, never compromises, never stops. That's the difference. I heeded the warning given on Talk:Dardani. Kedadi chose not to. And for the record, the reason I reverted Aigest is because he clearly has no idea what he's talking about [88] (blame it on poor English comprehension), as is immediately obvious to anyone who actually bothers to consult the source [89] (which apparently does not include Future Perfect at Sunrise). And no, removing relevant, sourced information is not removal of "alleged fact-bites" (whatever that means), the reason given is not "clear" at all, and the only "automated knee-jerk reaction" is this [90]. Contrast my posting on the talkpage with Kedadi's sterile, WP:NINJA-style reverting. No response to my talkpage post, not even an edit summary, just an undo. Athenean ( talk) 20:24, 27 April 2010 (UTC) reply

The passage in the source reads: A corrupt passage in Strabo which was probably derived from Hecateus, may help us; for it seems to record the combination of the "Peresadyes" and the Encheleae to create a powerful state. If so, the Peresadyes was the name of the dynasty at Trebeniste. The name suggests they were Thracians...

Please observe the conjectural nature of this: If a corrupt passage is correctly reconstructed, then there was a dynasty called Peresadyes; the name suggests that they were Thracians. In the most recent revert war, this becomes a plain statement of fact: that there was such a dynasty and that they were Thracian; a distinct over-reading.

In any case, this appears to be settled (Athenean standing out), on the grounds that none of these were Dardani, and therefore the edit is also off topic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:18, 28 April 2010 (UTC) reply

The content dispute on that article is indeed settled, Athenean included, if only because I couldn't care less whether the Peresadyes and Dardani are Illyrians, Thracians, or Paphlagonians. I have removed that article and others form my watchlist just in case. My only reason for reverting Aigest was that I assumed his edits were based on faulty understanding of the passage in his part, though in good faith. Considering the atrocious English of some of his other edits, I can be forgiven for thinking so [91]. I was going to copyedit the article for grammar, but God knows I will probably be reverted even for that by the doughty tribal warriors that zealously guard this piece of what they believe is their heritage. Which brings us to the point of this AE report: Until revert-only accounts like Kedadi are sanctioned, articles in this area will remain in the sorry state they are currently in. 04:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with FutureP and frankly I don't see any policy being violated by kedadi. In fact he has been very helpful in many projects like maintenance of WikiProject Albania. Like FutureP said he has made just 1 revert, while other users work in a kind of automated knee-jerk reaction without even trying to understand the situation. Kedadi made 1-2 reverts and Athenean who has made 3 reverts on Polyphonic song of Epirus reports him and asks for him to be topic-banned? For the record kedadi's last block was in 2006 (while Athenean's just a month ago), so the statement "his talkpage is a graveyard of warnings" is a harrasive attempt to convince the community that kedadi needs to be topic banned.-- — ZjarriRrethues —  ^talk 09:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC) reply

As FutureP noticed before what bothers me more is the automatic reverse by the above users especially Athenean and Megistias, without even trying to understand what actually others are saying. In Dardani article, Peresadyes (whatever their ethnicity might have been) were described as the forerunners of the dynasty of Bardyllis, and they were Thracians supported by Cambridge reference. After checking out the reference [92] it was clear that Peresadyes had nothing to do with Dardani, just like my comment while doing changes to the article. The reference is about Encheleae joining Peresyades, not Dardanians. Please be careful with the sources [93] [94]. As everybody can see from both my comments in these two changes, my concern was about their relation with Dardani which was not supported by the reference. I was automatically reverted by Athenean here [95] and just have a look at our comments. Mine was "Again the reference has nothing to do with Dardani, but it speaks about Encheleae joining Peresyades. Please don't misuse the sources" and Athenean comment was "No, the Cambridge Ancient History clearly states that the Peresadyes were Thracians. Please don't misuse the English language". Apparently Athenean doesn't have a clue about how the sources should be used in an article. With the excuse of bad English [96] he still continued to argue about the ethnicity of Peresadyes while my concern was the link between Dardanians and Peresadyes and not the ethnicity of Peresadyes. I had to cite a full page from the book here [97] and still I had the same problem [98] which were solved later [99]. What is more sad than funny is that the same problem existed before [100] and Megistias response was the same [101] rv vandalism while the other user (Lontech) made the same comment as mine "Your reference says nothing about dardani predecessors and your reference is not related to your writing" the response was again a revert [102]

Seeing the whole story of Dardani we can notice that the worst things are:

1. The misuse of the sources by Megistias (Reference not even did not supported the claim, but had nothing to do with it)
2. The conjectural being said for sure (As Septentrionalis noticed)
3. the automatic reverse by the above users mentioned users (tag teaming), without even trying to understand what actually others are saying.

I don't see any fault of Kedadi in this case and like FutPer said others may need some sanctions here. Aigest ( talk) 12:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC) reply

I endorse all previous statements made from users that know well Kedadi's work: FPS, Aigest and ZjarriRrethues. I have never had a problem with user:kedadi. He is extremely communicative and his reverts are well founded. He performs an excellent job in maintaining the Albania Task Force and uses NPOV. I think that without him the Albania country Task force would have had no Albanians to maintain it in the last 5-6 months. Rather than trying to kick out excellent users, like user:kedadi, user:athenean should focus on building articles and improving them. I still have to see one single article started by this user and brought to Start status, however I have seen at least 20 reports of all colors initiated by him (and the target of which are Albanian users). These reports have several times attempted to boot from Wikipedia good users, such as Kedadi. Many times admins fall into the traps of these reports and Wikipedia ends up losing valuable contributors. Reporting users and asking for their topic ban is the last resort and should not be used losely otherwise it falls under wp:harassment and wp:Tendentious editing. I have been reported too many time by user:athenean and I have noticed that in the talk page of Arbac Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Macedonia#Statement_by_sulmues. I would invite FPS to publicly mention those users who make unfounded reverts and I would also invite the admin to read closely the true edit warriors with close attention to the content. Again Kedadi's reverts are well founded and content based and he is far from deserving anything asked as outcome in this report. Thank you for your attention. -- _Sulmues ^{Let's talk} 13:40, 29 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Just so people don't misquote me: I certainly didn't say I find Kedadi unproblematic. What we need is a measure against the rampant tag-teaming on both sides and across many articles. My suggestion: apply 3RR (or 1RR?) collectively to the two teams. I propose the following:

Whenever any member(s) of the following two groups:

• Alexikoua ( talk · contribs), Megistias ( talk · contribs), Athenean ( talk · contribs), The Cat and the Owl ( talk · contribs), on the one side
• Sulmues ( talk · contribs), Kedadi ( talk · contribs), Aigest ( talk · contribs), ZjarriRrethues ( talk · contribs), on the other side

are engaged in a dispute against any member(s) of the other group, reverts made by all editors within each group will be added up and counted together towards 3RR (or 1RR, if admins prefer to make it stricter.) Freshly created socks, IPs or single-purpose accounts that turn up to continue any revert war initiated between members of these two groups (such as Stupidus Maximus ( talk · contribs), TinaTrendelina ( talk · contribs), 92.75.21.131 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) etc.) can also be counted in the same way. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Let me get this straight, even if I am right at removing or adding smth to the article (just look at the Dardani example above), that will be dangerous because somebody might continue to not follow the rules?! One person should be accountable for its own actions and that is a fundamental principle. Assuming that everybody is the same within a specific nationalistic group, smells (excuse me FP) like racism. Returning to the example above I wouldn't put in the same level Alexikoua ( talk · contribs), Megistias ( talk · contribs) and Athenean ( talk · contribs). While Megistias ( talk · contribs) and Athenean ( talk · contribs) didn't bother to get my concern, Alexikoua ( talk · contribs) made only one rv and continued to talk in the talk page and after we agreed that I was right [103] and right now the article is more correct(ref and facts are related). This is a good example that going nuclear on all participants regardless of their actions (right or wrong) is very wrong and unproductive. Aigest ( talk) 15:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC) reply

In case I didn't make myself clear: I am, of course, not proposing that actual blocks for revert-warring should automatically be applied to the whole team indiscriminately. What I am saying is that if, for instance, you make two reverts and then Sulmues makes two more reverts over the same issue, Sulmues should be considered to have broken 3RR. Not you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:13, 29 April 2010 (UTC) reply

I see but still I am not fully convinced, situations can be very complicated indeed. In the above example Athenean made two rv, Megistias one and Alex one so Megistias is the third rv and Alex is the fourth rv by the Greek team (sorry guys):). Sulmues made one, kedadi one and me also one [104] mine being third from Albanian team:) and after agreed with Alexi on talk page [105] I made fourth rv [106] (if it can be called rv) and the things were solved [107] [108] before administrators entered into scene later [109]. So in the end of the day by the proposed solution the persons ( Alexikoua ( talk · contribs) and Aigest ( talk · contribs)) who tried to understand each other [110] found a consensus [111] and improved the article, should be punished?! That's why I think that one person should be accountable for its own actions and punishments should be for its own behavior. Aigest ( talk) 15:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC) reply

I can guarantee that user:Athenean will file reports after reports until the last serious Albanian contributor that disagrees with the Greek side will be out of the Wikipedia project. I see that he is trying to gather evidence of my contributions in the Albanian project to file his next report against me (see my talk page where he asks me to translate what I have written in the Albanian project). I, Kedadi, Aigest and ZjarriRrethues are in his list and he won't stop until someone will ban user:Athenean from Balkan topics. His persistence of reporting as a sock or as incivil or as tendentious every Albanian contributor is noted. He has harassed many Albanian contributors with false reports and also admins who have to read his marathon accusations. On the Albanian side we are extremely poor in articles and all we think about is to write articles and improve them, since none of us has the time to report user:Athenean for harassment. User Athenean does not contribute, he thinks of reporting and has mastered that pretty well. The Greek task force has 20k articles the Albania TF has 2k. One of the reasons is that the Albanian editors get blocked and banned after reports of user:Athenean, which are often not carefully weighed by closing admins. If the closing admin does not take the time to fully understand the problematics of the Greek-Albanian issues, and it seems like FPS is the only to do it, Wikipedia will keep losing Albanian contributors and the Albanian topics will be covered only by the Greek team. I agree with FPS's proposal of imposing a 1RR rule per 24hrs, for the 8 contributors that he mentioned (I am one of them), and I find that reasonable. -- _Sulmues ^{Let's talk} 17:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC) reply

This AE thread is not a forum for launching into diatribes against other users. You have once again crossed the line. And you are completely misunderstanding the essence FP's proposal. Athenean ( talk) 17:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC) reply

Note: this still requires action. The reverting circus is still travelling; currently it's at Greeks in Albania and Anastas Avramidhi-Lakçe. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:57, 1 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Kedadi

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

• Please provide evidence that the user has been duly warned of the existence of the discretionary sanctions prior to the alleged infractions. Stifle ( talk) 10:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC) reply
  • [112]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC) reply
    • I propose to place Kedadi on 1RR for articles on Balkans-related subjects for two months. I will activate this sanction in a couple of days unless I see good subsequent reason not to. Stifle ( talk) 15:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC) reply
      • That's fine and dandy, but we still also need action on the more general issue, the whole travelling circus. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC) reply
        • Have the other editors been served with the decision and notified of this thread? Stifle ( talk) 19:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC) reply
          • Notified of this thread: yes, all. Warned of ARBMAC in general: I'm pretty certain they are all no strangers to ARBMAC, but I'd have to go collect diffs first if you insist. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:56, 1 May 2010 (UTC) reply
            • I have never been under editing restrictions or warned of editing restrictions that may apply to me.-- — ZjarriRrethues —  ^talk 20:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC) reply
          • Okay, here's the list:
            • Megistias ( talk · contribs): Multiple entries in WP:ARBMAC log between Jan 2008 and October 2009
            • Alexikoua ( talk · contribs): 3RR block and ARBMAC warning in July 2009 [113]
            • Athenean ( talk · contribs): was on 1RR parole between August and November 2009, see ARBMAC log
            • The Cat and the Owl ( talk · contribs): warned in July 2008 [114], blocked in Nov 2008
            • Sulmues ( talk · contribs): multiple previous sanctions logged; most recent logged warning on 19 March
            • Kedadi ( talk · contribs): logged warning on 8 April; previously topic-banned
            • Aigest ( talk · contribs): warned June 2009 [115]
            • ZjarriRrethues ( talk · contribs): the only one without a formal warning, apparently, but has been deeply involved in reporting and being reported on all the noticeboards since he started [116], [117], [118], [119], [120]

Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Right, that doesn't seem to work. Therefore, Megistias ( talk · contribs), Alexikoua ( talk · contribs), Athenean ( talk · contribs), The Cat and the Owl ( talk · contribs), Sulmues ( talk · contribs), Kedadi ( talk · contribs), and Aigest ( talk · contribs) are all limited to one revert per rolling 24-hour period on all articles relating to Balkans subjects, widely construed, until the end of June.
• Furthermore, they are required to discuss any reverts they do make on the talk page in a minimum of 50 words within 30 minutes of the revert. Breach of the one-revert restriction or failure to discuss reverts adequately shall be grounds for blocking for an appropriate period at the discretion of any administrator.
• All discussions required under this remedy must be posted in English.
• ZjarriRrethues ( talk · contribs) has not been previously served with notification of ARBMAC so is not eligible for this sanction, but if he, or any other new user, shows up at relevant articles and starts reverting, they should be served with notification of ARBMAC and will thereafter be liable to be subjected to these sanctions without further notice.
• Appeals may be made to me, to WP:ANI, or to ArbCom. Stifle ( talk) 10:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• Points of clarification:
  • Reverts of obvious vandalism (that is to say, edits which any editor who had never seen the page before would say are vandalism) are exempted as with all revert restrictions, as are reverts of obvious BLP violations.
  • Reverts of banned users are not exempted. If one of the editors affected by this discretionary sanction finds an edit of a banned user somewhere on an affected page, they can either use their one daily revert or report the matter to WP:ANI.
  • If any new meatpuppets show up and start reverting, they are to be served with {{uw-sanctions|topic=b}} by any user (the ARBMAC decision doesn't require that users be served by an administrator, unlike some other discretionary sanction remedies). If they make any further reverts in the area, open a new AE thread or notify me, and they will be added to the list of users subject to this discretionary sanction.
• Anything else? Stifle ( talk) 18:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning MarshallBagramyan

User requesting enforcement

Grand master 06:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement

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

# [140] revert to this version: [141]

1. [142] 2nd rv
2. [143] 3rd rv

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

# [144] MarshallBagramyan was placed on 1 rv per week restriction for the period of 1 year by Moreschi ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

1. [145] He was warned again about AA arbitration remedies by AGK ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Enforcement action requested ( block, topic ban or other sanction)

Indefinite 1rv per week revert limitation

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

On 19 January 2009 MarshallBagramyan was placed on 1 rv per week restriction for the period of 1 year for edit warring on Armenia - Azerbaijan related topics. He violated this limitation twice, and was blocked correspondingly (see his block log). The revert restriction expired in January 2010, but unfortunately MarshallBagramyan continues the same behavior that resulted in his first restriction. From what I can see, the AFD on Genocide of Ottoman Turks and Muslims was closed as no consensus (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genocide of Ottoman Turks and Muslims). However MarshallBagramyan instantly proposed to merge the article into another one [146], and merged it the same day, without allowing sufficient time for discussion of merge, and made 3 rvs on this article. Plus, I don't find his comments on talk to be quite civil. In addition, he also was involved in edit warring on Caucasian Albania article, which I believe requires that his 1 rv per week restriction be reinstated for unlimited duration. Grand master 06:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

But is it Ok to merge the article the same day as AFD was closed as no consensus? One would expect that at least one week should be allowed for everyone to express their opinions about the merge, to form a fair consensus. This situation probably also needs to be assessed. Grand master 19:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[147]

Discussion concerning MarshallBagramyan

Statement by MarshallBagramyan

How extremely rude of you to jump out of the blue and seize this occasion to report me for a supposed infraction on an issue which you have never involved yourself in, Grandmaster. The violations that you allege are inaccurate: my first "revert" was simply re-adding a tag which had been removed at a time that a normal discussion was taking place ( here). My second "revert" was not a revert at all: after achieving a consensus on the talk page and after receiving a go ahead from another editor on the talk page, I redirected the article to it's proper location. The only actual edit that can be counted as a revert would be the last one, and even then, I was acting on consensus. How very shameful of you Grandmaster, This board's purpose here isn't simply to wait for an opportune moment to report and try to block your opponents; it's to report on actual vandalism and disruptive editing. I have been complying by the rules of the ArbCom to the best of my abilities.To advocate that the most stringent measures to be taken against me for this nonevent speaks very poorly on your part. To whoever is assessing this case: please go through my recent contributions and see how active I have been on the talk pages of articles to bring forth resolutions without resorting to constant, endless edit wars. -- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 06:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

DarkLord, as a matter of fact, you are indeed violating your topic ban by placing your comments here.

Hittit, the decision of the administrators was not to keep the article in its current form. Please read DGG's comments once again to understand that even he had concerns in maintaining the status quo. For that matter, I did not delete the article but I redirected it because it was an obvious FORK and SYNTHESIS of material. Responsible editors achieved a consensus on the talk page and the only person who has since challenged the redirect has been the only one who have yet to offer any sources or sound arguments to keep it in its current state. And even after I redirected it, I asked very kindly on the article's talk page that everyone help out in transitioning its pertinent material to other relevant articles. None of the data were deleted; anyone who wishs to add some of it to another, more relevant article is free to do so. Also, constantly blaming a certain ethnic group or "clique" for rationally opposing your edits helps achieve anything nothing but creates a noxious battleground atmosphere which is unwelcoming for all us editors.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 16:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Darklord, I thought that this frivolous case had been put to rest, but your restless agitation and insistence to have the administrator mete out some sort of punishment against me seems to show that you share Hittit's battlefield mentality. Even though you have not participated one iota in this recent issue, you have over the past few days still shown a combatative attitude when discussing it on your talk page. You advise Hittit to essentially play games with the article all so that it would then "make all the opposition shut up." Earlier on, you essentially tell him to bait other editors in reverting his edits so that he can report them and so the logical step would then result in topic bans or blocks. You are treating Wikipedia as if its a battleground by speaking in the framework of strategies and tactics. While I hate having to dignify your unruly comments, your constant attempts to try to paint me as a disruptive editor, on the other hand, is belied by simply looking at my past contributions. I always source material with reliable sources and if a discussion is to be had, I am more than eager to join it and discuss the differences in a cordial manner.-- Marshal Bagramyan ( talk) 01:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Comments by others about the request concerning MarshallBagramyan

• The user obviously violated the delete request result by deleting the article more than once. The result of the request was a no consensus. After a very brief discussion between 3 members who are known to oppose any edit that doesn't fit their view of history the article is deleted. This is an obvious unilateral action that ignores the failure of the delete request and participation by other members. It also fails the AGF policy of Wiki as the article was requested to be deleted right after it was deleted. It's a very clear act of imposing ones behavior on to wiki. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 07:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• I completely support MarshallBagramyan's analysis, and things are more than clear for anybody who would read the talk page of the concerned article. On top of this, I note that TheDarkLordSeth is violating his topic ban with his comment here on an article clearly linked to the subject of this topic ban. Sardur ( talk) 09:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Nope, it's not a violation. There is nothing that says that I can't input on such an arbitration enforcement request. It's not a subject on the topic I'm unjustly banned for which I'm explicitly avoiding participation on but on the malpractice of fellow editor. I am simply observing how some editors are behaving in Armenia related articles. It's surprising to see the same kind of behavior continuously going on for months without being noticed much. I simply expect more AGF from such members. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 09:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

"and other content (including talk pages and process discussions, except only for legitimate and necessary dispute resolution involving yourself), broadly construed". Sardur ( talk) 12:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Still doesn't apply, though I do appreciate your effort to silence any opinion that goes against yours. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 13:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Mind WP:AGF. Sardur ( talk) 13:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

"This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence. Assuming good faith does not prohibit discussion and criticism, but instead editors should not attribute the actions being criticised to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice." If you have any personal quarrel with me please do it in my own talk page as it's neither relevant to the discussion here no the place to do so. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 14:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I don't - it's obviously you who think I have one. Sardur ( talk) 15:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• As one can easily follow under what attack the article Persecution of Ottoman Muslims and Turks 1821-1922 has been during the course of day and the total disrespect of MarshallBagramyan towards Wikipedia policies and fellow editors speaks for its self. After first proposing the article for deletion MarshallBagramyan did not respect the outcome of the AfD, he did not follow the advice of the admins on the course of action and immediately moved to delete the article under the pretext of article merge. The merge “edit summary” states “next best move”, clearly indicating that his sole aim is to remove the article form Wikipedia using article merge. Another of his “edit summaries” sates “This article is an abomination and there is no way it is going to stand in its current state”. The same people that instigated the AfD (+ one possible sockpuppet) then decided on the same day among them selves in a “concenssus” to delete the page and merge the topic (clearly it was not a consensus and not in line with the article merge rationale). I attempted restoration however the article was deleted at least on two occasions by MarshallBagramyan and the article topic redirected towards Persecution of Muslims disposing effectively of the original contents. From what I see the article was deleted at least once also by user Sardur after the article restoration. Such actions can be called the least “disruptive editing” if not pure “vandalism”. -- Hittit ( talk) 14:17, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Non-sense: nobody deleted the article: it was redirected. Sardur ( talk) 15:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Marshal Bagramyan, nope. My ban does not cover commenting on your misuse of Wiki tools. It's rather laughable how you label 3 editors who share the same clear agenda as "responsible editors." The right thing to do would to give few more days for participation of other users and not everyone is sitting behind their computers waiting to edit Wiki. If I'm not wrong though I might very well be you're under a one revert rule and deleting or if you wanna call it "directing" twice against an action of someone else which violates the one revert rule and the conclusion of the deletion request. The conclusion in no way refers to redirecting of the article but calls for a change of the parameters of it. Thus, you acted against the conclusion of the AfD. I advise you to read the conclusion of the AfD once more to eliminate any misunderstandings. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 16:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Stifle, I beg you to reconsider your verdict. The merge was an obvious POV action. The claimed discussion among "responsible" editors was done in 22 hours. I need to ask you to tell me if 22 hours and only 3 people known to be sharing the same opinions is enough to merge an article into a much larger one? The article was really new and was being developed and I don't think we expect an article to mature in a few days. It's a work that takes weeks if not months and I feel that this article is not given a chance to mature and instead silenced by Marshall. In addition, I remember a wiki rule to divide long articles into seperate modules. This article could very well serve as the Prosecution of Ottoman Turks and Muslim in the last century of Ottoman Empire history. Moreover, he went against the AfD discussion. The reason I'm posting here is not just to defend the article but to point out the non-neutral act by Marshall bordering vandalism. Hittit did not call it vandalism because it was against his POV but Marshall merged it because it was against his POV and that is vandalism. I want to emphasize the point that I'm not here for the article but against the unilateral and provocative non-neutral acts being committed by him. I believe this to be outside of my topic ban though if you're assuming I'm here in bad faith you can of course remove me. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 18:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• Stifle based on your comment are we to conclude that the actions of MarshallBagramyan ( talk · contribs) are not contradicting WP:MERGE or WP:VANDAL? Are you encouraging editor WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT behaviour in Wikipedia? You can find my answer to your commnet on my talk page. I concur your decision to hear other uninvolved admins on this matter. -- Hittit ( talk) 19:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Thank you Stifle for clearing it out. The reason the complaint is grounded on revert-warring is because Marshall reverted twice as listed above. The first one is ok but the second one starts a revert war as he himself have been banned for over a year last year from this topic and put under one-revert-rule. If it's ok I want to give my own ban as an example. You can very easily see from my contribution page that I have very few edits but I was banned the first time I involved in a revert-war. When I checked the contribution page of Marshall I was surprised to see that he's been involved and warned or punished for many edit/revert warring cases. I was more surprised to see that he haven't calmed down and usually leads the reverts of edits by certain members. Moreover you can check his reverts and see they're not based on facts but simply on his point of view. The reason I mentioned my own in the start was because one reason I was banned was that some admins felt that I was to continue a disruptive behavior where I neither did committed such disruptive act before the revert war incident and after getting warned. On the case of Marshall it's overwhelmingly obvious that he will continue the disruptive his continuous disruptive behavior. The BOLD seems like a nice policy. The problem is that I have seen it failed against me even when the edit was not bold. Weeks ago, I simply fixed a sentence which was using its reference inaccurately and after fixing the problem I was called a denialist and my edit got reverted multiple times which lead to my revert war. Now I look at the history of the deleted article. I see that Marshall deleted/merged the article and then his delete/merge got reverted. According to BOLD he should have discussed it first but instead he reverted the revert. I hope that I made it clear why Marshall is disruptive for such articles and discussions and that I can't understand how Hittit should be banned for sometime when he doesn't even a single record of a ban or a block in his past. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 22:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Four things:

  • I do agree, editors should try to move on productively. That was already my point of view when I posted on the talk page of the concerned article "As nobody raised substantial (i.e. not personal) arguments against the merge, I would suggest to go on".
  • On Hittit: please note this: he warns me about edit war though it's more than clear that I edited the concerned article only once. Side note: this is still valid for the moment.
  • On TheDarkLordSeth: I raised that as a side point, but as the admins took this point on board, I think that I have to stress his discussion with Hittit on his own talk page about the article, where he recognizes that "due to my ban I'm not allowed to edit on any of these articles"; in other words, he recognizes himself the link between the topic ban and the concerned article. And excepting this on his talk page, TheDarkLordSeth was not involved in the dispute on the article. Admins will do whatever they think is right with this.
  • On Grandmaster: MarshallBagramyan has (imho) clearly shown how much bold Grandmaster's request was. Imho, Grandmaster should be warned about such bold requests (not a first time, as far as I can see).

  Sardur ( talk) 23:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

  Oh, and a fifth one on TheDarkLordSeth about his topic ban: when I see such a comment, I definitely think the topic ban was right. Sardur ( talk) 23:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Beucase? TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 23:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Sardur, the disruptive behavior by Marshall is not limited to this article but also to past incidents which I'm also a part of. Plus I don't really have to be a part in this conflict. I should be able to express my opinion based on my observations. Nice find though. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 23:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

  Nice try, but 1) misrepresented, and 2) no link with this case. Sardur ( talk) 23:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Everyone is entitled to their opinions of course. You only need to his records. There is a link as it shows that such behavior is his common way of conduct. It's important for the appropriate punishment if the admins see it fit. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 23:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I disagree: what can be seen is that MarshallBagramyan sticks to reliable and specialised sources - what you and Hittit clearly (last example, the AfD on the concerned article, and your talk page) don't.

Remember your topic ban, which, btw, you're here circumventing?

Oh, and battleground for admins. Sardur ( talk) 00:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Reliable and specialized sources in your opinion. Even when the very same sources are used when they pointed something different then the POV of Marshall or the others those very same sources were dismissed as either lies or propaganda. It gets really hard to assume good faith after that. I would ask you for those apparently non-reliable and non-specialized sources that I use but it's not the place. I need to advise you not to make unfounded claims.

What does my topic ban have to with this? Especially after two admins, one of them being the one that issued the ban, said that it's ok here for me to participate. Please do not dilute the discussion and stick to your comments concerning Marshall, not me. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 00:47, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I said this is a side point. But that's quite obvious, from your talk page. Sardur ( talk) 00:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Interested people can check my talk page, thank you for your concern. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 01:06, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Marshall, the case is hardly put to rest. Stifle simply pointed out his opinion and then his openness to hear other editors and admins on the subject. If stating opinion on a arbitration request is treating wiki as a battleground then I'm afraid I need to advise you re-examine this page you're in. Moreover, people are people and they act in accordance with certain mentality. I simply advised Hittit to take a one step backward and exhaust all options of good faith and improve the article in the most professional way to counter any biased opposition. I'm sorry but you're simply twisting what I advised him to personally attack me. On the subject of your use of sources and way of conduct, you repeatedly labeled people as "denialists" and even at one point argued that the article doesn't need to be accurate depending on sources as long as it tells your POV. Once again this arbitration is not for you to accuse or attack others but defend yourself. I advise you to stick to your own actions. If you have any personal quarrel with you're free to file a complaint with me. TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) 02:06, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Stifle, I read WP:BRD the actions against the article are everything but what WP:BRD is about, or did you mean only the Bold part?:

BRD is not a justification for imposing one's own view, or tendentious editing without consensus...

BRD is not a substitute for prior research which would support the initial edit or a reversion of it...

BRD is not a process that you can require other editors to follow...

BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes...

BRD is not an excuse for reverting any change more than once...

Based on Stifle’s comments I will assume WP:BOLD and continue work on the article. I find it absurd that after some one makes an article disappear from Wikipedia without the mandated to do so he is referred to have followed WP:BOLD. -- Hittit ( talk) 04:08, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• I do not see any reason or goal to be discussing other issues than the Arbitration is about. The Arbitration request is filed as a breach of the [[ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement by MarshallBagramyan. There is yet only 1 "valid" argumentation on it: by the filing user:Grandmaster 3 "proofs" for the user having the ban violated were brought. There is clearly only 1 action by the answering editor to be called "a revert". That is [148] as a repetition of [149] action after a change by an other user.

There are no more reverts by the answering editor made and so the ban was not violated by him.

If there are any RELEVANT to this very Arbitration request arguments (concerning the very ban in question), then they better be presented and linked. Otherwise there was clearly no violation of the ban and the enforcement request should be judged accordingly. Aregakn ( talk) 14:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Result concerning MarshallBagramyan

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

• Nothing actionable against MarshallBagramyan. The only edit which could be construed as a revert is the third one. I am, however, minded to place Hittit on a two-week topic ban from the area for treating Wikipedia as a battleground, mischaracterizing edits with which he disagrees as vandalism, and incorrectly describing mergers and redirections as deletion. I will hear editors and other uninvolved admins on whether this is a proportionate action. Stifle ( talk) 18:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply
  • To TheDarkLordSeth: The complaint is grounded on an allegation that MarshallBagramyan is revert-warring, and I have found that he is not. There is no remedy saying that people aren't entitled to have an opinion, nor that they are not allowed to follow WP:BOLD in good faith.
  • To Grandmaster: Principally, WP:BRD. The edits on Caucasian Albania are, however, disheartening (from, all parties) and I've protected that page for two weeks to encourage productive discussion rather than a slow-burning edit war.
  • To Hittit: WP:MERGE is not a policy, and yes, I find from the evidence tendered that MarshallBagramyan did not commit vandalism.
  • For the avoidance of doubt, I find that DarkLord is not violating his topic-ban, as this page is not a discussion related to Armenian Genocide, or in the alternative, this is necessary dispute resolution involving him.
  • I would urge editors to try to move on productively. Stifle ( talk) 20:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply
    • I disagree that this is necessary dispute resolution involving DarkLord (my intention was that that phrase includes only appeals of his topic ban, or defending himself against charges that he violated his ban), but I do agree that this discussion does not fall within his topic ban, from a brief review of the dispute here. No comment on other matters. Tim Song ( talk) 20:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Alright, I normally wouldn't edit this section with a mere warning, but it seems I need to use my administrator voice. Do not abuse any part of Wikipedia as a battleground. That means, leave your grudges on the other side of the keyboard and shut the hell up. If this nonsense continues, I will start issuing editing restrictions, or if the disruptive behavior continues, simply indef the lot of you. No more fighting, no more bickering, no more childish displays. -- Tznkai ( talk) 05:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• As it was i who closed the recent AfD as no consensus, I did so without any opinion on whether or not the article should be retained, but on the basis that the discussion was so largely devoted to inappropriate over-personal exchanges on matters having no relation to WP policy that no conclusion about consensus could be formed there. I did not rule out a merge or redirect; i did not recommend one. I did recommend that some consideration be given to the proper scope of the article as a possible way of resolving the issue. DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 8 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Request concerning Biruitorul

User requesting enforcement

Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 18:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Wikipedia:EEML#Biruitorul_topic_banned

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

All edits are clearly within the scope of an Eastern European topic ban.

1. [150] - Forced labour camps in Communist Bulgaria
2. [151] - Romanian politician
3. [152] - Romanian city
4. [153] - Romanian politician
5. [154] - Romanian journalist
6. [155] - Romanian politician
7. [156] - Romanian artist and Christian apologist
8. [157] - Romanian director
9. [158] - Romanian politician
10. [159] - Romanian filmmaker
11. [160] - Romanian politician
12. [161] - Romanian philosopher
13. [162] - Demographic history of Romania
14. [163] - Armenians in Samtskhe-Javakheti (nationalist issues)
15. [164] - Armenia–Portugal relations
16. [165] - Romanian city
17. [166] - Romanian politician

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

# Not applicable

Enforcement action requested ( block, topic ban or other sanction)

The editor is already under a topic ban, so a block is now in order.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Biruitorul has been ignoring the topic ban since January 2010, and has increased his breaches of the topic ban in recent days. Many of the edits are judgement calls on his part, and as User:Sandstein has stated in the past (to me actually), topic ban means topic ban, and other editors are available to take care of such things if they are required. There are no Wikipedia:EEML#Amendments_by_motion, so one can only assume that Biruitorul has no good nor sound reason to be blatantly ignoring his topic ban since January.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[167]

Discussion concerning Biruitorul

Statement by Biruitorul

Comments by others about the request concerning Biruitorul

Russavia, could you please briefly annotate your list of diffs with what article they concern, and why that article falls within the topic ban? For example, for your second listed diff : Andrei Pleşu, Romanian politician" would suffice.-- Tznkai ( talk) 19:38, 5 May 2010 (UTC) reply

It appears the only question is whether Bulgaria(ns), Romania(ns), Armenia(ns) or Georgia(ns) would fairly fall under the topic "articles about Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about same, widely construed, for one year. This topic ban is consecutive with any editing ban." A wide construction of Eastern Europe suggests that all reasonable interpretations of the term would be used, and according to our own Eastern Europe article, there are several competing definitions, many of which include some combination of Bulgaria Georgia, Armenia, and Romania, especially the Eastern Europe as Eastern Bloc definition. The diffs cited above run from February to May of this year. It is my conclusion that there has been a clear violation of the topic ban, and Biruitorul knew, or should have known he was violating the topic ban. Based on the length of the violation, I am leaning towards a 1 week block, and would like to hear from Biruitorul on this matter quickly.-- Tznkai ( talk) 21:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Most of the diffs in the list above are uncontroversial cleanup edits, such as removing spam ( [168], the majority are in fact a series removing this one link), or removing misplaced opinion pieces [169]. With such edits, I personally don't care if they fall under the letter of the law; I just couldn't be bothered enforcing a ban on those. What might be more problematic is content edits like this [170], regarding the relations between Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guards, something that likely has some potentially contentious ideological import. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Note concerning the Ion Antonescu edit: what Biruitorul did there was not a contentious ideological import under any definition. He effectively reverted an edit which had several manifest problems, only one of which touched the Antonescu-Iron Guard relationship. Before the diff, another editor had manipulated sourced content in various (good-faithed) ways, including by claiming youtube as reference for the relationship in question, by adding a Jewish wife that Antonescu only had in conspiracy theories started by his adversaries in the same far right pool (knowing that many nonpolitical but non-attentive readers will take at face value), and by replacing commas in numbers with dots (because he simply was not aware of the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and continental systems). The edits in question did degrade the article as Biruitorul's edit summary notes, and no political spin on his part can be deduced from that. Whether or not one is right to perform such edits under a topic ban, I'd argue that they too fall under your (Future Perfect's) definition of "uncontroversial cleanup edits". Dahn ( talk) 21:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I disagree, at least in this case. Some topic bans are wide because they are trying to totally evict an editor from a topic area, because their judgment is suspect, or their presence is inherently disruptive. The desired attitude and behavior is for topic banned editors to realize that anything that occurs within those articles is no longer their problem, and should be ignored.-- Tznkai ( talk) 21:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I agree with your assessment and the proposed block. Taking into account the number and duration of the ban violations, I also suggest restarting of the one year topic ban from now, under the discretionary sanctions provision of the Digwuren decision.  Sandstein  21:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Hangon, Biruitorul had previously requested an ArbCom clarification, and the Committee expressed some flexibility. -- Martin ( talk) 00:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• I'm flattered to see my edits are being so closely monitored! (I suppose WP:STALK doesn't apply against me.) Allow me to attempt to justify them. Edits 2, 4-12 and 16 do indeed fall under the general vandalism/spam exception ArbCom recognized and that Martin pointed out. Regarding edits 14 and 15, I did not know Armenia and Georgia were in Eastern Europe; I thought they were in the Caucasus. Regarding edits 1, 3, 13 and 17: well, they're a grayer area, but they're not really substantive, more undoing edits by generally inexperienced editors, and the only goal was to stop the articles from deterioration. I suppose undoing the fabrication of data counts as a substantive edit, but one can't say it doesn't improve the encyclopedia either. (And no, I'm not invoking IAR as a blanket excuse to stray outside the ban, just as a way of undoing immediate and obvious damage.) Like I've told the Committee, there are numerous articles only I care about, and it'd be a shame to keep them up in damaged form for months on end.
• If those gray-area edits did indeed manifestly breach the topic ban in the view of the reviewing enforcer, I sincerely apologize for my efforts there, and I will henceforth stick to truly obvious cases of spam and vandalism, rather than using my judgment as to what constitutes more subtle damage to the project. - Biruitorul ^Talk 02:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• Oh, and one other point. "Biruitorul has been ignoring the topic ban since January 2010... blatantly ignoring his topic ban since January" — really?? I January I reverted vandalism: [171], [172], [173], [174], [175], [176], [177], [178]. In February I wasn't here much. In March, I reverted more vandalism: [179], [180]. In April, more of the same: [181], [182], [183], [184], [185], [186], [187]. The May stuff is pointed out above. So in sum: no, I have not been "ignoring the topic ban since January 2010"; I would ask Sandstein to take a closer look at my record before threatening to add four months to an ignominious topic ban against someone who, Tznkai should know (since we haven't really interacted in the past), was never suspected of poor judgment while active in the EE area, and was never disruptive either — certainly not to the extent that the productive contributor I was needed to be banished from the area completely. (I'm not saying this out of vanity; several of the individuals who have commented on this thread could attest to that.)
• Anyway, I've apologized; I've shown there's a plausible defense for my edits; and I've stated I'll be more careful in the future. Can we now close the book on this chapter? - Biruitorul ^Talk 02:57, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I am skeptical of any line of reasoning that asks us to block, or not block, based on judging whether or not the edit was substantively helpful to the encylopedia or not. A topic ban is a topic ban. That having been said, Biruitorul did in fact go to ArbCom for clarification, and what was stated was "...editing policies and restrictions inherently include an exception for obvious vandalism, blatant BLP violations, and clear cut copyright violations." (emphasis mine) and "but be smart about, save yourself the potential trouble and report to the appropriate forum."

The vandalism policy specifically lists spam as a type of vandalism, and I am willing to assume, barring evidence to the contrary, that the links removed are in fact spam, or could be reasonably construed as such. Likewise however, Biruitorul would have been well to at least ask for help via an appropriate forum (A wikiproject, any one of half dozen different noticeboards) for someone else to take care of it, out of prudence alone.

Excluding spam removal I find the following diffs still troubling: this edit to Forced labour camps in Communist Bulgaria, this edit to Demographics of Romania, this edit to Armenians in Samtskhe-Javakheti, and more importantly its edit summary and this edit to Ion Atonescu. While I do not disagree with the substance of any of these edits, they do not fall within the vandalism exemption. Of these diffs, 1 concerns Bulgaria, 2 concern Romanians, and 1 concerning Armenians within Georgia. A review of the edit history confirms that the first three articles had very little editor activity outside of Biruitorul and one or two other users, presumably the problematic ones (s)he was worried about. [[Ion Atonescu on the other hand, currently has 60 watchers, and a decently active editor history, so there is no reason why Biruitorul could not have waited for someone else to take care of it.

I believe, on balance that Biruitorul has violated the topic ban, but with considerably less severity than previously thought. The most reasonable interpretation of Eastern Europe, broadly construed, covers all of the countries and articles at issue here. I am somewhat sympathetic to the problem where there are edits that need to be made, and no one else is making them. There are ways to work around that, however cumbersome it is to ask for help and this is a collaborative project, we should get into the habit of asking for help. However, Biruitorul had, and continues to have the option to to asking for an amendment to the case - a request I would be inclined to support if properly limited.

It remains however, to decide what must be done. The topic ban has been breached, and it seems to me, that on balance some sort of response is justified. I am unsure exactly what the best response is, so I'd like input on that matter.-- Tznkai ( talk) 03:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Tznkai, I appreciate your measured response, and have a few points in reply:

1) I truly was operating under the assumption that Eastern Europe means the countries in red on this map, plus the Baltics and the former Yugoslavia. I honestly never thought of Georgia and Armenia as being in any continent but Asia, as they are south of the Caucasus Mountains.

2) Regarding the Ion Antonescu article, I have two things to say. First, it did sit unchanged for 28 hours. I did wait for someone else to come in. And second, I did then feel obliged to intervene because, although the modifications may have been in good faith, they were not only in poor English (seen by some 300 people a day), but they also repeated the rumor that he was married to a Jewish woman, which has been used on the Internet to discount his participation in the Holocaust. ("He was married to a Jew, so it's impossible he could have killed so many of them.") I really did not want too many readers exposed to that fabrication.

3) Regarding this edit to Demographic history of Romania, not only did my edit undo months of degradation, it probably undid vandalism as well. Not only vandalism, but subtle vandalism — the kind that changes numbers which no one then notices. I assumed I could undo IP vandalism.

4) Finally, about Bulgaria. Well, what can I say? It's a five-day-old account I was dealing with, one that has already done a fair share of edit-warring, and I thought it would be unwise to let his rather POV-ed edit stand for another eight months. Particularly when no one else seems to be looking at the article. And really, there was nothing very substantive to my edit, just a footnote added to satisfy him.

About the noticeboards: true, that's an option, but I assumed talking about EE subjects there isn't allowed for me. And about the appeal to ArbCom: well, I did send them an e-mail in January talking about how content is suffering, and it's true they urged me to appeal, but I guess I assumed an appeal would be futile. Not that I took it as an excuse to "blatantly" ignore the ban: on the contrary, I've been quite scrupulous about it, and there are many, many articles I've wanted to improve but didn't because ArbCom in its wisdom decided not to allow that. Believe me, I've conditioned myself to stay away from the EE area except for the narrow parameters allowed by the Committee. However, like I've said, if I've taken one or two liberties, I will be much more careful in the future. Given this promise, given that " blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users", and given that I neither intend to perform gray-area edits like those that started this thread, nor to in any way damage or disrupt the project (which I do care deeply about, in spite of everything), I do hope we can move on. - Biruitorul ^Talk 03:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

And if I could add one more quick point, I find this edit summary ("sigh, add yet another topic ban breach by eeml'er") to be extremely incivil. A lot of bad blood has been created around this topic area (I, personally, was not responsible for that — I've barely had any interaction with the user filing this complaint), and it would be great if we could at least treat each other with a minimum level of decency in our public interactions. I'm not simply "eeml'er", I'm someone who's worked hard on this project for four years, who's used over 99.9% of his nearly 65,000 edits for constructive purposes, and who would appreciate my pride and dignity being respected, as called for by official policy. How about simply "add complaint"? - Biruitorul ^Talk 06:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I am unimpressed by Biruitorul's statement in his defense. A topic ban means "you are forbidden to edit", period, no matter whether your edits are good or bad. A "widely construed" topic ban most evidently includes all countries that fit any accepted definition of Eastern Europe, that is, it includes all former Eastern Bloc countries. Even assuming reverts of obvious vandalism are exempt, most edits at issue here are not reverts of obvious vandalism (that would be stuff like page blanking, or adding crude expletives to the article). The evidence shows that Biruitorul has in essence decided to ignore his topic ban wheever it suits him (for instance, even after this request for enforcement [edited: two days ago], he reverted Forced labour camps in Communist Bulgaria and reverted Cluj-Napoca). Absent admin objections, I will implement the sanction I proposed above (1 week block, reset of topic ban).  Sandstein  06:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Sandstein, I'm really not trying to quibble on this point, but see Eastern Bloc: I can see that Russia, the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova are in Eastern Europe; I cannot see that the Central Asian republics or the Caucasus republics belong to that region. Relatively few definitions place Armenia and Georgia in Eastern Europe, and that is a fact.

Moreover, this request had not been made when I made those reverts, which I have both attempted to justify and pledged to avoid in the future. As you can see, the second of those was made at 20:39 on 4 May, and the report was made at 20:57 on 5 May.

Finally, regarding the claim that I "in essence decided to ignore his topic ban wheever it suits him", this is absolutely false! Have I written substantively on my beloved cathedrals, towns, parks, rivers, politicians, writers, revolutionaries and the like? No. I have scrupulously tried to confine myself to a very narrow exception allowed. Perhaps it would be best to cease altogether, but one cannot simply aver that I'm "ignoring" the ban. - Biruitorul ^Talk 11:54, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

You are correct about the dating. I've amended my comment above. This does not change my assessment, though. The status of Central Asia and the Caucasus is not of great importance here since most diffs submitted as evidence concern Romania, which is a former Eastern Bloc country. As noted above, all or most of the diffs given in the evidence are not covered by the sole exception to your block ("obvious vandalism").  Sandstein  12:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

All I can say is I thought I could make those edits. I now see I was mistaken, but note two things. First, I have been very careful to avoid substantive edits that could not be seen as allowable. Second, given that, and given my clear intention of abiding by the ban (if not heretofore to the letter of the law), I would note that I could very easily have evaded being identified. (Routine edits of that sort don't tend to raise red flags.) That I didn't, and that I chose to make those edits openly under my sole account, I think shows a misinterpretation on my part, but an honest one, without pernicious intent. I believe this, together with my pledge to be much more careful in the future, should be taken into account before further indignity is heaped upon me. Blocks should be for ongoing disruption, not good-faith mistakes that will not be repeated. - Biruitorul ^Talk 14:54, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I will point out that there was this edit which I did not include in the report, as it was clearly reverting vandalism, and even if there are admins who would believe that they shouldn't even be doing such edits, I support their technical breach of the topic ban for such edits, and wouldn't even attempt to include such edits in a report of a topic ban violation. However, the rest of the edits are clearly judgement call edits, and are regarded as being violations of topic bans - that is in fact the point of topic bans. A note on the spam links removed; they are not all the same links which have been removed, but are different links to different interviews with the subjects of the articles, conducted and published by what appears to be a Romanian business oriented publication. It could very well be a valid external link to place in an article, and that is a judgement call that editors who are not under a topic ban should be making. Hope this clarifies somewhat why I have brought this here in the first place. -- Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 08:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I'm not going to close this with a decision, but I'll say that I for one will not impose sanctions here, and would recommend the same to other admins – although evidently I couldn't stop them from applying the letter of the law if they insist. However, the rule of "preventative, not punitive" does apply to AE sanctions too, and given Biruitorul's latest statement above, and the overall positive nature of the edits (on which I fully trust Dahn's judgment), I really don't see what good a block would achieve. The fact that Biruitorul made these edits over a substantial period of time has been cited above as an aggravating factor. To my mind, it is the opposite: if he could make such edits for such a long time, without anybody raising objections, this just goes to show how non-disruptive they were, and the longer he did the more he had reasons to believe in good faith that it was allowed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

This discussion is threatening to run away from us very quickly, so if I could refocus our attention? The most relevant factors to my mind are, some ambiguity in the topic ban, a disagreement about what "obvious vandalism" is, and general policy preferences on blocking. When topic bans are "broadly construed" I think that means all ambiguity goes towards violation - not the way around. As for what "obvious vandalism" is, we have no solid definition, but spam is still vandalism, and it may well be sufficiently obvious to anyone who can read the appropriate languages. I am not entirely a fan of the vandalism exemption existing at all because of the problems it causes in enforcement but it was asked for properly and granted, and it isn't our job to override the committee's prerogative on this point. I have no intention of hamstringing the arbitration process, or the seldom used clarifications.

Between the proposal for a week and no sanctions at all, I don't think either is particularly appealing, or likely to be productive in any useful way. What I'd prefer here is a a deferred 5 day block, on the condition of no further violations in the meantime, as well as any 10 items on the backlog. Alternatively, Biruitorul could create a proposal that would allow Biruitorul to monitor low activity pages but allow others to fix them.-- Tznkai ( talk) 19:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Can one please clarify that if Biruitorul would like to create a proposal should he not do so at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment? As I stated above, the removal of external links which could in all likelihood give further information may be valid for inclusion, and are not necessarily spam as has been claimed. Surely, it is not for a topic banned editor to be making such judgement calls? Or is it? -- Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 20:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Before someone other than myself clarifies this, let me just note that an IP who added 15 external links to the same commercial site within a period of two hours certainly struck me as spammy. Twice, it even caused alarm for an anti-spam bot. - Biruitorul ^Talk 21:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Me too. In fact, I have to wonder why a bot didn't revert it by default (my edit summary was in expectation of that). Dahn ( talk) 22:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Tznkai, I know you like Latin phrases, and I think an important question is: was I in a state of mens rea at the time of the questionable edits? In other words, did I knowingly and intentionally set out to violate the topic ban? The answer is no, absolutely not. I thought, wrongly, that what I did was permissible, and of course this has served as a dramatic alarm bell which will prevent such mishaps in the future. Another point I'd like to raise is the paucity of controversial edits: fewer than half a dozen over the course of four months, and those few potentially justifiable, hardly constitutes a crime spree. And I'd like to introduce a new piece of evidence in my defense, if I may. On my computer hard drive, I have a list of articles I plan to modify for the better once this utterly pointless topic ban is lifted. Let me give a few examples:

Zoltan Teszari will be moved to Zoltán Teszári, the spelling of his name with the proper diacritics.

The Romanian Church United with Rome,Greek-Catholic from Boian will be moved to some less horrid title, and possibly nominated for deletion.

At Alina Puscau, the link to [[Romanian]] (which leads nowhere) will be changed to [[Romania]]n (the correct link).

At Template:Speaker Chamber of Deputies Romania and Template:Chairman Senate Romania, I shall either add the words "since 1990" or add in missing officeholders from prior to 1990.

At Sergiu Natra (written by his son), I shall at least remove the blue color.

At Ljubljana#Demographics, I shall change 276.091 to 276,091.

The point is this: there are many things I have seen that need fixing, but since they in no way to my mind constitute vandalism, I have not done so. That I thought my edits were a form of undoing vandalism I now see was in error, but it was by no means an intentional defiance of the topic ban.

So do give me a strong warning — after this episode, I've learned a very clear lesson. Do assign me backlog-cleanup tasks. Do monitor my edits if you wish. Do know that I shall be going to ArbCom to request further clarifications, and working much more closely within the parameters they set, always erring on the side of caution. But also, do keep in mind that I never intended to ignore the topic ban and I think very carefully before I edit — I shall be doing so even more stringently from now on. Given these facts, and given there is zero further possibility of trouble from me (trust me, I don't enjoy being hauled before this body), I would submit that a block is not warranted. - Biruitorul ^Talk 21:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

The link by Dahn is especially telling. Note the edit summary....maybe this is spam, but let someone else be the judge of that. If a non-topic banned editor is leaving it up to someone else to be the judge of, I fail to see why a topic-banned editor thinks they are able to make that judgement call. Biruitorul knew he was topic banned, and as a member of the WP:EEML, he was privvy to the big party on the list when I was topic banned (he made comments on it himself in the emails), so he would have known what a broadly construed topic ban entailed, so there is no reason to buy into the "I didn't think" routine that is being put here. I think it is about time that editors are made to take responsibility for their edits, and the time is about now. -- Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 23:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

If I must spell out in excruciating detail what happened here (and, really, this is getting absurd), I first saw the links added and did nothing. I then saw Dahn's first edit and proceeded to note that in other articles this constituted " possible spam". I suppose the purpose of those edits was to highlight it for other users to decide what to do. Once Dahn removed the link from the Rebengiuc article, I thought "hmm, this does look like spam" and went ahead and removed the links. As I noted before, there's good reason to call them spam.

As to speculations about what I knew and did not, I've already commented. This is not a "routine that is being put"; it is an honest summation of my thought process coupled with a pledge to do better. Can we stop the witch-hunt now? Surely we all have better things to do. We're amiable colleagues building an encyclopedia here, not schoolyard enemies desperately throwing mud at each other and trying our hardest to take down other people. - Biruitorul ^Talk 23:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Oh, and yet another example of the sort of edit I've learned to condition myself to avoid undoing, from 4 hours ago: this one, where an IP unfamiliar with how categories work removed a category improperly. Had it not been for this silly thread, I'm sure it would have sat there unchanged till the end of the year. Which is pretty perverse, but that's what ArbCom in its wisdom has decided, and I'm not one to go against that intentionally. This notion that I'm "blatantly" ignoring their diktat is absurd. - Biruitorul ^Talk 23:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Russavia, I will repeat the relevant part of my post that you seem to have missed in your assessment of what is "telling": "In fact, I have to wonder why a bot didn't revert it by default (my edit summary was in expectation of that)." To add my own "excruciating detail" and clarify what I believe is already quite clear, this means that I was expecting all the articles where the link surfaced to be bot-reverted, but, just in case this didn't happen, I decided to copyedit the entry in the one article I could be bothered to care about at that precise moment. Eventually, I would have very likely done what Biruitorul did, all over the articles, only I am a remarkably slow starter when it comes to repetitive editing. If anything, this proves that what Biruitorul did was routine work, and we would all normally thank him for it. Dahn ( talk) 00:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Also, I believe when the suggestion was made for you to do some backlog work, that it was on articles outside of your topic ban.

Therefore, I propose that Biruitorul expand the following articles from Category:All articles to be expanded:

1. Australia – Papua New Guinea relations
2. Austria–Turkey relations
3. South Africa – Zimbabwe relations
4. Belgium–France relations
5. Andorra–France relations
6. Argentina – United Kingdom relations
7. Malaysia – Singapore relations
8. Australia–Nauru relations
9. France–Morocco relations
10. Argentina–Spain relations

All of those articles are quite thin on detail, and there is a wealth of information on each of those relationships. As an example, he thought Kuwait–Russia relations (pre-expansion) should have been merged, and look at it now with a bit of expansion. If an article on a lesser relationship can be expanded to such a length, imagine what the above could be expanded to. This would help clear the backlog too. -- Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 00:35, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I removed the Mozambique-Portugal article from the list, as it would prob involve breaking the no-Soviet (EE) topic ban, and that brings it down to the ten suggested backlog clearance anyway. -- Russavia ^{I'm chanting as we speak} 00:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

As to the first point, I'd be glad to help out with those articles. Of course, a user blocked and with his topic ban extended isn't likely to feel motivated to contribute to the project, so whoever closes this thread should keep that in mind, as well as the thorough explanation of my conduct that I have given, and the ironclad pledge to avoid this sort of trouble in the future. Regarding the second, I don't know why we're bringing up arcane stuff from last July, but a) someone else did the merger and b) I merely removed a heading for a section that hadn't been filled, using good logic (diplomatic relations are between two states, not between a state and a bit of another state, unless placed in that context by reliable sources). Once the section was expanded, I left it alone. - Biruitorul ^Talk 00:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Biruitorul

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators and is not to be used to conduct discusson or debate. Comments by non-admins, and any discussion or debate will be moved to the section above.

Since admins disagree above about whether a block is required here, I am not imposing one at this time. However, Biruitorul ( talk · contribs) has repeatedly and over an extended period of time violated his topic ban and has provided unconvincing reasons for doing so. For this reason, I am resetting his one year topic ban to begin anew today. Even if one assumes good faith about his claims that he believed he was acting within the scope of exceptions to his ban (which he was not), he has at least shown that he is unable to correctly determine the scope of any such exceptions. Therefore, the topic ban shall henceforth have no exceptions.

For these reasons, under the authority of WP:EEML#Enforcement by block (second sentence) and WP:DIGWUREN#Discretionary sanctions, Biruitorul is hereby sanctioned as follows: He is banned from the topic of Eastern Europe, broadly interpreted, for one year or until the concurrent arbitral topic ban is lifted (whichever happens earlier). The topic ban imposed here has no exceptions with respect to edits considered to be vandalism, WP:BLP violations or otherwise problematic, but any explicit exceptions that ArbCom may in the future make to its topic ban (such as the permission to edit specific pages) shall also apply to the topic ban imposed here. For the avoidance of doubt, the topic ban imposed here covers all discussions, pages or parts of pages related to the topic, with the sole exception of participation in necessary dispute resolution (e.g., defending oneself against requests for sanctions, or appealing this decision); and "Eastern Europe" for the purposes of this decision includes any territory within the former Eastern Bloc.  Sandstein  19:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC) reply