I am rather new to this Wiki-ing thing but would welcome some clarification. I hope I am writing my query in the right place. I have added a few updates to articles to do with Azerbaijan/Armenia to try to balance what seem to be biassed viewpoints. I notice that in at least one case my corrections were simply reverted which seems disingenuous without at least further fleshing out the subject (in this case Khachen). I think that the issues of controversy surrounding such historical passages are important for readers and that it is thus useful that my text stands or at least forms the basis for an improved coverage of such subjects. I do of course realise that passions run high on such subjects. Malikbek 08:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't think there is a whole lot the arbitration committee can do about the seemingly interminable issues that surround articles on Western Asia. This is an issue that goes beyond Hajji Piruz, Atabek, et, al. and (of course) beyond Wikipedia. Ultimately, from what I have witnessed, the issues here seem to come from persistent assumptions of bad faith. Instead of merely talking calmly to other editors, there is a tendency to ascribe issues to their nationality or personality. Someone has to bring up alleged ulterior motives. And alleged cabals of [insert common trait here] editors. This should never have arrived at this point, but alas there are some who just cannot see a trivial matter for what it is – trivial. Unfortunate indeed. -- tariqabjotu 19:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Arbitrators' opinions seemed to indicate that this would merely be a review of the original case, but instead it's been opened as an entirely new case? hbdragon88 21:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
VartanM, please do not remove your former user names. It is relevant to this case, as this was the name you were using before you officially changed it. -- Grandmaster 04:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Gradmaster, I'm not gonna fall into your provocations, this actually made me laugh. Go ahead you have my permission to add the userlinks back. I don't care anymore VartanM 07:24, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
What is it that you actually wanted me to do? Remove it? So you can tell me not to touch your evidence space? Or report me for removing your evidence? -- VartanM 07:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Can someone change AndranikPasha's status. He was unblocked and is under a supervised editing. VartanM 16:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
At [3] the text states that remedy 2 will apply to articles which relate to Armenian and Azerbaijan and related conflicts, i.e. conflicts which relate to Armenian and Azerbaijan.
However, the template that Seraphimblade has placed on my [ [4]] talk page has text which, in its scope, far exceeds what was decided in that remedy 2. Under the wording of the Armenia-Azerbaijan2 RfA remedy, articles conected to Turkey would only fall under that particular RfA remedy if the article was in some way related to either Armenia or Azerbaijan. However, Seraphimblade has used the RfA remedy to apply to an edit I made in a talk page of the entry on [Occupation_of_Istanbul], a subject which is completely unrelated to either Armenia or Azerbaijan. Moreover, this remedy was not applied by Seraphimblade as a result of an edit made to an article but as a result of a comment on the article's talk page. Where did the template text applied by Seraphimblade come from? What discussion and voting preceeded its composition? Why is it connected to Armenia-Azerbaijan2 RfA given that it far wider in scope than the actual remedy 2 decided on in Armenia-Azerbaijan2 RfA? I've asked Seraphimblade these questions a number of times but he has declined to give me an answer. Meowy 18:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I must also note that Meowy’s block log shows that he has 2 blocks for 3RR violations and another 2 for harassment of other editors, [9] the last one dated 22 September 2007, i.e. after the end of the last arbcom case. I don’t think that the technical issues should be used as a pretext to avoid the application of arbcom remedies, while it is clear that the scope of arbitration was never limited to Armenia – Azerbaijan related articles and the title is misleading. Both arbcom cases covered the articles concerning wider region than those 2 countries. Grandmaster 06:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm requesting a review on my placement under supervision by User:Ryan Postlethwaite for the following reason. The AA2 remedy #2 states: "Any editor who edits articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area in an aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility may be placed under several editing restrictions." Ryan Postletwaite claims that "Although I don't see any incivility, the scope of the remedy was supposed to cover disruption via incivility or edit warring". I don't see the word OR, which Ryan felt so strong about that he made it appear bold.
This is what Thatcher131 told me month ago: "So far, no admin including myself has found that you yourself have edited these articles in an "aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility" and so you have not yet been placed under the restrictions described here. Thatcher131 01:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)" [48]
Am I being compared to E104421 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? Previously indef banned for edit warring, who was simultaneously edit warring with me and another user [49], [50], [51], . Who breached WP:3RR [52], [53], [54], [55], Who kept insisting (by reverting) that its gonna be his way and no other? even by reverting my minor edits [56]. Who generally disregarded the talkpage and is yet to give justification for most of his POV reverts. Was I wrong, when I tried to compromise and only reverted partially? Was I wrong when I tried to keep the article as neutral as possible? As I said before, even though I was not under the restriction and supervised editing, I never reverted without justification, always explained and justified my edits in the talkpage. Most importantly my edits were not marked by incivility.
In fear of turning this board into another "he said she said" I request that only administrators respond to this request. VartanM ( talk) 05:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Kirill, User:VartanM is violating Users national background and neutrality principle by engaging in edit warring and POV pushing across several articles without restriction. We are yet to see how you address that by giving him a green light to continue doing what he is doing. And if VartanM's behavior was not marked by incivility, then how did the ArbCom address these [58], several counts of incivility not ever supervised, restricted or paroled? And if the VartanM's continuous editing conduct allows for interpretation against supervised editing, then how would supervised editing apply in case of the other user User:E104421, whose edits were not incivil. Based on POV pushed by User:VartanM throughout Wikipedia without any review or restriction, and paroles being deliberately applied only to contributors of certain one side, lifting the supervised editing is a delibreate violation of neutrality. Atabek ( talk) 09:22, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Kirill, if I get this right, the remedy implies that the editors are free to edit war on topic related articles as long as they remain civil? If not, what the arbcom remedy proposes to stop edit wars, which were the reason to 2 arbcom cases in the first place? Thanks. Grandmaster ( talk) 05:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
It looks like nobody is going to comment. But I would be really interested to know the opinion of the arbitrators about how the remedies passed under the second Armenia – Azerbaijan arbcom are supposed to stop disruption on topic related articles, if they limit the application of the remedy 2 to incivility only, while disruption on topic related articles was never limited to incivility? The Armenia – Azerbaijan 2 case specifically mentions among the principles that edit warring, disruptive editing and sockpuppet abuse are considered harmful, but now it turns out that the editors placed on parole for those specific abuses should be relieved of their parole, because the remedy in fact provides for only one specific form of disruption. It seems like Armenia – Azerbaijan 2 case might not be the last one. It would be nice to get additional comments from the arbitrators with regard to how this remedy is supposed to stop disruption by new users, not restricted by any measures from the 1st case, and who are now free to edit disruptively as long as they remain civil? Thanks in advance for any comment. Grandmaster 11:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Per the discussion regarding a new case for Armenia-Azerbaijan articles, I'd like to make a proposed remedy extension for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case. We're at the point now where it's clear the the previous remedies do not go far enough and administrators should be given greater authority to deal with the disruption in articles relating to this case. It's important that the committee make it clear that any form of disruption (not just limited to incivility with edit warring) will no longer be permitted on these articles. My proposal is as follows;
Ryan Postlethwaite 18:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
“ | Any editor who edits articles which relate to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts in an aggressive point of view manner may be placed on revert limitation, civility supervision, and supervised editing by any uninvolved administrator, such restrictions to take effect after a notice has been placed on the editor's talk page and logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Log of blocks and bans. | ” |
The remedies and enforcement provisions of Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 are replaced with the following:
Clerk note: there are 13 active non-recused arbitrators, so the majority is 7 for this motion to pass. Daniel ( talk) 02:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
The remedies and enforcement provisions of Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 are replaced with the following:
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
It is not clear to me whether the "area of conflict" for ARBAA2 is solely Armenian-Azeri articles, or whether it includes Azeri-Iranian/Iranian/Turkish articles, as I think it should, given it was these Perso-Turkic disputes that was partly responsible for kicking off the arbitration case in question. Going back over my little list I find a good number of Perso-Turkic arbcom cases: given this, I don't think it's unreasonable to extend, if necessary, the Armenia-Azeri discretionary sanctions to include Azeri-Iranian/Armenian-Turkish/etc. Just to clarify, I think the "area of conflict" for discretionary sanctions should be "articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area". This accords with {{ Armenia-Azerbaijan enforcement}}, but there seems to be dispute over the matter, not to mention confusion. So, do the discretionary sanctions apply only to Armenia-Azeri articles, or are we permitted a broader scope? Moreschi ( talk) 09:44, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem broadening the "area of conflict" to include Turkey and Iran. The only reason I brought up this issue was because Moreschi reworded the AA2 remedy without consultation or clarification from ArbCom. In response to bainer's comments, I must disagree with his interpretation of the two areas of conflicts. To me, "Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts" just refers to Armenia and Azerbaijan, while the other area of conflict covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran. The latter is not the same, as it addresses topics covered in separate ArbCom cases. Nishkid64 ( Make articles, not love) 01:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
My understanding is that the sanctions should apply to Iran and Turkey too as they involve related conflicts (particularly the Persian-Azeri/Iranian-Turkic edit war and issues relating to the Armenian Genocide). One user, ChateauLincoln ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), has already been restricted under these sanctions simply for edit-warring on an article about an Iranian city which has little to do with Armenia-Azerbaijan. I think the AA2 remedy should be reworded in line with the template to clarify matters. -- Folantin ( talk) 08:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I am against broadening the scope of the remedies. The intended scope of the arbcom and remedies was always Azerbaijan and Armenia and related issues, while there might be problems on Turkey and Iran articles but they were outside the arbcom scope. If we include Turkey and Iran we get a huge geographical and historical areas covered by a very few (often tendentious) editors. If we include it to the scope we could easily get all the active editors there banned on a whim. We should also remember that the buck does not stop here. We have huge Turkey-Greece, Turkey-Kurdish, Kurdish-Arab, Iran-Arab, Iran-Afghanistan problems so why not include Arabic, Greek and Afghani editors as well, then we would notice Arab-Israeli, Greek-Macedonian, USA-Arabic editorial conflicts and we would broad the scope of the remedies to the half of the wikieditors. Lets not extend the scope of the remedies on a whim we need a line here Alex Bakharev ( talk) 00:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the arbcom remedies are far too harsh. There currently is a martial law in the articles covered by this case making it very unpleasant to make any kind of edits. Particularly in experienced new users are bitten to death. Also good users avoid these articles due to the near-malicious attempts to abuse the remedies. So you are pretty much left with a group of disruptive users battling each other editing from multiple sockpuppet accounts. Of course this is an oversimplification of the issue but still something to think about.
Really disruptive users do not obey the arbcom remedies and edit through sockuppets. While reviewing logs for the case below I noticed the block log of Fadix which was quite recently reset making it the 4th reset. Such users should perhaps be indef banned for good. I gave Fadix as an example pretty much randomly, any other ban evaders should share the same faith.
Rather that expanding the scope of the case, users that edit disruptively should be penalized for gaming the system. The second you expand the scope disruptive users will find a new topic to disrupt, away from the remedies in question.
Also, based on my experience I feel several of the involved admins are far too involved and are unable to make sound judgments. It might be necesary to review their conduct.
-- Cat chi? 21:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Andranikpasha ( talk · contribs) has exceeded his one (nationalistic) revert on the Hayasa-Azzi article. [62]
Meowy ( talk · contribs) just reverted back to Andranikpasha ( talk · contribs)'s nationalist version of the Hayasa-Azzi article, claiming "not to know the subject" in the edit summary. [63]
Initiated by NW ( Talk) at 16:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Moreschi, acting under the discretionary sanctions authorized under Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan_2#Amended_Remedies_and_Enforcement, placed Armenian Genocide on WP:1RR about two years ago. Sandstein is disputing the fact that Moreschi had the authority to do so, as he believes that discretionary sanctions were meant to be applied per-editor and not per-article. I request that the Arbitration Committee please clarify if Moreschi's action was appropriate and enforceable. NW ( Talk) 16:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree that ArbCom clarification would be helpful here. I have explained the reasons why I have doubts whether the remedy covers this type of sanction at the AE thread. Sandstein 16:53, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
If there are no further questions, I believe this section can be archived in 48 hours. Risker ( talk) 19:54, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan#Remedies, a number of editors were placed on 1RR/week for 1 year. In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Remedies, they were then placed on the equivalent of supervised editing for the topic area. A later motion authorized discretionary sanctions, but noted that it did not affect the old remedies.
A number of editors to this case have been listed on Wikipedia:Editing restrictions as being on "Revert limitation, Probation, Civility restriction" indefinitely. My (and Ed's) question is this: does the 1RR/week still apply? I would think no, but I am not sure. NW ( Talk) 15:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
If the committee agrees that there are no 1RRs still in effect, except those applied due to enforcement action, then I believe that the entries in WP:RESTRICT for the users placed on revert parole by name in WP:ARBAA#Remedies should be removed. For example, the entry for Atabek/Atabəy, whose case was recently discussed at WP:AE#User:Atabəy. That entry shows him to be indefinitely restricted, which appears to be a mistake. EdJohnston ( talk) 23:37, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
My edits were clerical in nature. I was merely transcribing info from all the old cases to the new WP:RESTRICT page that User:Kirill Lokshin had created and which I populated with content. It was not my intention to create any new restrictions or expand any existing ones. Jehochman Talk 16:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
A motion has been proposed that would amend a sanctions remedy in this case. It would replace the remedy in this case that allows administrators to unilaterally apply sanctions to editors within the designated topic area with a standardized remedy that essentially allows for the same thing. Any extant sanctions or warnings made according to the older wording found in those decisions (as applicable) remain unaffected. To comment on this proposal, please go to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions. NW ( Talk) 20:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Initiated by Gatoclass ( talk) at 07:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Although I do not usually adjudicate disputes at WP:AE, I decided to assist on the recently filed Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Nagorno-Karabakh_article. Since I have had no prior involvement in Azerbaijan-Armenian articles, I assumed I was entitled to participate. However, I have experienced a growing unease about my participation in this case, based on the fact that I have had some involvement (albeit long ago) on East European articles (which I believe are covered by WP:DIGWUREN). While most sources appear to place Azerbaijan and Armenia in Western Asia, some seem to place these countries in Eastern/Southeastern Europe, in which case, ARBAA2 might be considered a subset of WP:DIGWUREN. On the other hand, it appears that DIGWUREN is concerned mostly with disputes between Russians and other East Europeans, while ARBAA2 concerns a national dispute between Azerbaijanis and Armenians. ARBAA2 contains no reference to DIGWUREN that I can see, but nonetheless, I think this issue needs clarification. A quick response would be greatly appreciated since the AE case concerned is still active. Regards, Gatoclass ( talk) 07:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Shall Gatoclass' comments in on the recently filed AE request Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Nagorno-Karabakh_article be removed since the community believes that his participation in this and similar cases is objectionable? Dehr ( talk) 02:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I may have come across this too late, as five members of ARBCOM have already shared their thoughts, but nevertheless I feel obliged to point out something ARBCOM may be overlooking. NYB states that Gatoclass may be construing "involved" greater then necessary as pertaining to EE in general. He is probably right, but he and Gatoclass are overlooking the involvement in Arab-Israel related articles, and how his involvement in A-I disputes may effect his involvement in EE disputes.
In addition to regular content disputes at A-I related articles, Gatoclass frequently comments at AE threads concerning editors involved with the Arab-Israel conflict (almost always favoring one side of the general dispute). More pertinently, he files AE reports on other editors involved with the Arab-Israel conflict and has had reports filed against him by editors involved with the Arab-Israel conflict (he was sort of blocked once for edit warring, [67] FWTW).
If Gatoclass never found himself at AE in connection with the Arab-Israel conflict there would be no problem. However as Gatoclass is frequently a participant, the potential for conflict is clear. Gatoclass shouldn't be making determinations together with the same few admins that are arbitrating his disputes in another forum.
To put in a legal framework, a judge sitting on a panel cannot practice before the panel even on matters unrelated to their panel for which they sit together. I am not aware of any editors faced with this similar conflict so I don't know if this came up before. I would like to hear ARBCOM's position on this. Thanks, -- brew crewer (yada, yada) 19:57, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Initiated by — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. at 22:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
{{
Warning}}
template has been applied to
Talk:Armenian Genocide with the following text: "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."I seek explicit clarification whether this applies only to that article, or also to other related articles, should the need arise. I raise this question in particular about the article Van cat, especially (as of the article structure right now) the lead, the infobox, and the section Van cat#Naming controversy, recently merged in from Van cat naming controversy, a highly contentious article used for PoV-pushing of all sorts, pro/anti-Armenian, -Turk, and -Kurd. I would like to apply the same Talk:Armenian Genocide warning to Talk:Van cat only if/when necessary; my interpretation of the the ArbCom cases with regard to Armenia-related topics suggests that would be permissible. A housecat article seems an unlikely place for this sort of ethnic feud, and it's been quiet lately in the wake of two ArbCom cases about Armenia-related edit-wars, which involved blocks that put a damper on some participants for a while, but I have no doubt that the issue will come up again. It's an article about a variety of cat that is claimed as a major cultural symbol by all three ethnicities, so it will be targeted for PoV-pushing in the future, guaranteed. I would like to know whether the "1RR" imposed by ArbCom on "Armenia... and related disputes" can be extended to this article when the tooth-gnashing inevitably begins again. I have no political stake in the question; in this, I'm just a WP:CATS editor trying to reduce racialist "noise" in a cat article that's been repeatedly hijacked for WP:GREATWRONGS purposes. The related article Turkish Van has seen some of this too, but but I think the split-off of Van cat and the subsequent merger of Van cat naming controversy into Van cat will "concentrate the fire" on that article when the "its OUR cat!" issue pops up again. Nonetheless, should the need arise, I include the article Turkish Van and potentially also Turkish Angora, and any results of splits, mergers or PoV-forks of any of these articles, and any cat-related sections in other relevant articles (e.g. Turkey, Armenia, Lake Van, etc.), in this request for clarification. I'm posting this because other cases are clearer. E.g. Template:ARBPIA says "All articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict broadly construed are under WP:1RR", but the equivalent for Armenia disputes does not include such "broadly construed" language. PS: Count this as a "vote" for more consistent enforcement and remedies wording. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 22:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Ergo, if an editor makes edits to the cat article pushing an ethnic/national POV they can be warned under the discretionary sanction, and if they have already been warned, can be blocked as an enforcement." – That's what I thought. I'm about 80% done preparing and WP:AN/I (or maybe WP:AE would be better in this case) and concomitant WP:SSI case about this, but holding out some hope that further discussion with the user in question will render that unnecessary. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 21:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
The original remedy covered "all articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area". [68] Now this was replaced by Standard discretionary sanctions, which cover "topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted". In my understanding, broadly interpreted "topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts" are the same as "articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area". Am I getting it right? Grand master 10:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Leave this section for others to add additional statements
Initiated by TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) at 20:47, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
More than two years ago, I made a minor edit on the Armenian Genocide article (my editing history was quite minor to nonexistent before this one) and it was reverted pretty quickly without any discussion. I reverted it back. Various members kept on reverting it without any input in the discussion as well(at least till a few reverts went back and forth after which I myself opened the discussion though people kept reverting without any input). In the end I ended up reverting 9 times. Back then I was not aware of the 3RR rule. Anyways, I received a warning at 16:00, 6 April 2010 [70] which I stopped reverting afterwards. My last revert was at 14:58, 6 April 2010. I received a block for 31 hours at 23:23, 6 April 2010 [71]. I was not happy about the way my edit was treated and I took the reverts as few members ganging up on me. It was the first time I faced such a treatment. Some of my not so bright moments that were used for evidence in the ban were pointing out that Armenians were trying to force a POV in the article, calling an attempt to label my criticism as insult as "pathetic", pointing out that a lot of edits are reverted with no discussion right away because it goes against the POV of Greek and Armenian editors, or calling the block decision "retarded".
Four days later I received an indefinite topic ban for the same violation at 05:14, 10 April 2010 [72] [73]. Needless to say I was a bit upset about receiving a second penalty for a violation that I've committed just once in ignorance. What was frustrating is that I felt like a target due to certain comments and the way my appeals were handled. My language was given as a supporting role for the ban, mostly in line with what I listed above. When I tried to explain my choice of wording and arguments to the admins I was accused of trying to blame others. If I knew back then how to deal with a hostile environment I wouldn't feel the need to defend myself and get into a cat fight with other editors. I'd simply report uncivil activity.
The appeal
[74] was prematurely shut down while an admin who did not have the same opinion as the others was asking for diffs of my claimed disruptive edits. He received none. I was accused of causing revert wars even though before this incident I had only reverted once and edited about 8 to 10 times including every minor edit. When I put a proposal to make the article fully-protected one of the admins was quick to note under it that I was about the get banned (this was posted before the punishment was given) as if it had anything to do with the article itself
[75]. I was accused of claiming that one of the admins is a liar because I said to him that he wasn't there to help me. I was also insulted for lack of comprehension and harassed using my past posts.
I know I'm probably missing some stuff as it's been 2 years and I don't have the best memory so if you see anything that I miss don't please ask me to clarify. It's been two years now and I don't know whether the ban is still on. I don't see my name on the Wikipedia:List of banned users. The reason why I find this topic ban unfair is per Wikipedia:Topic_ban#Community_bans_and_restrictions where it says "If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Wikipedia..." which I don't believe that it applies to me as my case is about a single incident.
In short, was it wrong to revert 9 times? Yes. Was it wrong to refer to others using their ethnicity or nationalities? Yes. Was it wrong to use uncivil language? Yes. Is a topic ban due to a single incident fair and justified? I don't think so.
As one of the active AE admins, I'll say this in two parts. One, about the last thing we really need is more contentiousness surrounding the Caucasus countries. We've only recently gotten a lid on the shenanigans at Nagorno-Karabakh, and even that's tenuous at best right now. More generally, I've been dealing with a lot of threads surrounding Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in various capacities, and they're all very thorny problems that take a good working knowledge of the subjects involved to get to the right solution; said knowledge is something very few people on the English Wikipedia have, and fewer still are willing to use it to resolve these disputes. Adding more problematic editing to this area would be exceptionally unhelpful.
Secondly, in what's likely the most congruous topic area, the Holocaust, we don't give people topic bans for openly attempting to foist Holocaust denial onto articles; we block them, sometimes with direction to go find friends at Stormfront instead. I see little reason why we should do anything different here, but in the absence of that there's no reason to allow people who've attempted to push Turkish government propaganda into articles on this topic as fact (which is more or less what TheDarkLordSeth tried to do) any access to said articles. Setting aside (with great difficulty) my personal distaste for said attempts, while the Turkish government's denials are certainly worth mentioning, they're clearly not based in reality and shouldn't be treated in any capacity as if it is; that it occurred is undisputed fact, and any reputable historian, or frankly anyone who's ever read a book on the subject, knows this. Presenting it as anything else is disruptive and should (as it rightly did in this case) lead to sanctions.
Taking those two points, combined with the distorted version of events given above, I see no reason to remove the topic ban in place. If this was at AE I'd probably push for an indefinite block, but I also recognize the current topic ban is accomplishing much the same effect. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 04:27, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
The situation was a bit weird, if I recall correctly. TheDarkLordSeth was reported to both AE and AN3 for hitting 9RR on the article. While the AE discussion was ongoing, I blocked TDLS for 31 hours based on the AN3 report, not knowing about the AE report. In the mean time, an indefinite topic ban was proposed by NW. KC initially suggested another chance, but when, even after the block expired, TDLS continued his battleground conduct, it totally exhausted the patience of AE admins and led swiftly to a consensus to indefinitely topic ban, which I then implemented.
I see no reason why this could not have been appealed at AE, but judging from the request, I suspect that AE would have declined it anyway, so I guess going directly to arbcom is OK too.
On the merits of this appeal, I essentially agree with SilkTork, below, and recommend that the committee decline this appeal. T. Canens ( talk) 14:47, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
As one of the admins involved with the original case, I initially suggested we give a second chance to TheDarkLordSeth, but when I tried to reach out and explain why his approach was probelmatic, [81] his lengthy response [82] was all excuses and exceptions - why his ethnic comments weren't objectionable, why his 3RR violation wasn't actionable, and why his use of the word "retarded" (labeling a fellow editor) was justified. He stated the fact that he hadn't tried to get the article deleted was proof he was NPOV. When I attempted to again to explain the issues with his approach, he responded poorly [83] and rejected the information given. I do not see any positive results coming from removing the topic ban. As for sending this to AE; if that is the decision, then so be it, but I don't see any potential for TheDarkLordSeth to have the ban reversed there. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua ?!? 13:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Initiated by Sandstein at 13:39, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Question: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Standard discretionary sanctions provides that "Topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted, are placed under discretionary sanctions." Does this mean that
are placed under discretionary sanctions?
Explanation: A recent enforcement request concerned the application of a topic ban from "topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts", i.e., using the same wording as in the abovementioned decision. The defendant argued that his edit at issue did not violate the ban because it concerned a topic only related to Armenia, not to "Armenia-Azerbaijan". In the event, the question presented above did not become relevant, as the enforcing administrators agreed that the edit at issue did relate to the conflict between the two countries and so was covered by the topic ban in any case. However, the question may become relevant in future enforcement requests. It would therefore be helpful to know how the scope of the topic covered by discretionary sanctions is to be interpreted.
My view is that the Committee likely intended the second interpretation (either Armenia or Azerbaijan), based both on the "broadly interpreted" clause and the finding at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan#Context, which refers to the countries separately, in defining the affected area as "articles related to Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as a wide variety of related topics." However, because the wording of the decision is ambiguous, an explicit clarification (and perhaps an amendment of the wording) would be welcome. Sandstein 13:39, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
In my view the key word here is "conflict". Edits that have no bearing on any conflict should not bring this ruling into play, regardless of what countries they involve. If any sort of conflict is involved, the ruling should be construed broadly. Looie496 ( talk) 16:09, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Looking over the second arbitration case, it seems the dispute extended to other areas involving Armenians and Azeris. Most notably matters concerning Armenia-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Iran were brought up in the opening statements of the case. I think it was intended to focus on conflicts broadly construed. The editor Sandstein mentions, clearly violated the topic ban explicitly because some of the content being removed was about Nagorno-Karabakh and most of the fund's activities noted in the article concerned the NKR. Perhaps what needs to be clarified is that the discretionary sanctions concern the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts broadly construed.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 16:37, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, I think it's worth pointing out that the same ambiguity probably exists regarding all ethnic or national conflicts covered by discretionary sanctions, not just the Armenia-Azerbailan conflict, so it would be better to resolve this question for all such topic areas rather than this topic area alone. Secondly, I'm inclined to agree with Sandstein because I have seen topic banned users in other topic areas just switch their problematic editing from articles relating directly to the conflict to articles relating to their political opponents' countries, culture or religion and so on for the duration of their ban, which in my view is just WP:GAMING of their topic ban. I would only add the caveat that I think some editors could probably be allowed to continue editing articles about the nation or ethnic group they support, at the discretion of the adjudicating AE admins, because I think some topic banned editors can still add worthwhile content of this nature. Gatoclass ( talk) 17:01, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
@Sandstein: Regardless of the actual wording pertaining to the various national or ethnic conflicts that are subject to discretionary sanctions, there is a broad principle at stake here that needs to be recognized, otherwise we will end up with one standard for one such topic area and a different standard for others. Gatoclass ( talk) 18:26, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Comment: Use caution; slightly vague is not necessarily a bad thing. If we're too specific, we'll get editors who complain that their edits aren't covered because the exact conditions were not spelled out on the sanctions page. Any attempt to make it too specific may cause more problems than it resolves. One puppy's opinion. Killer Chihuahua 17:12, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
As is apparent from the AA2 case, that arbitration meant to cover not only Armenia-Azerbaijan related topics, but also topics related to Armenia-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Iran relations. This is why it mentions "related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted". As an example, there was previously a request for clarification regarding whether Van cat was covered by AA2 remedies: [84] But I agree with Sandstein that the wording is a bit vague, and a more precise description of the scope would be advisable. Grand master 18:50, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Since we are talking a bit abstract now, I will provide a concrete example. User:Konullu was "topic-banned indefinitely from all edits to articles or discussions relating to Armenian–Azerbaijani conflicts, broadly construed". [85] Soon after he was blocked for 2 weeks for violation of his topic ban by editing an article about Azerbaijani politician Ilgar Mammadov. [86] While the article Konullu edited was Azerbaijan related, it was not related to AA conflict, and Konullu's edits were not controversial. So here's the question. Was Konullu banned from everything Azerbaijan related, or was he banned only from anything related to AA conflict? Grand master 20:11, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Normally if there is a combination of subjects, like Israel/Palestine, or in this case Armenia/Azerbaijan the contentious edits are the ones that only concern both subjects. That being said, it can be difficult to tell where one topic ends and the other begins. In this case, though, our article Armenia–Azerbaijan relations states that the two countries are technically still at war, so I would define the only edits within the ban to be edits that affect both countries, and that any edit about either country that does not affect the other country is acceptable. As I read it the sanctions are quite clear "Topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts". Adding broadly construed I would not construe to mean and all ethnicities and both Armenia and Azerbaijan. I would say the editor in question is correct that they should be able to freely edit Armenia articles, but not any section or sentence that deals with the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan or with the related ethnic conflicts. For example, someone native to either country might be well suited to add useful information but would be unsuitable to add information about the conflict due to their extreme bias. Apteva ( talk) 04:48, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
It must be "either Armenia or Azerbaijan", because of the scope of AA2, as noted by Grandmaster. I posit that this was not only intentional at the time, it's a good situation to maintain, because those who will rant for or against Armenia and Armenians, Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis, etc., are also prone to making pro- or anti-Turk, pro- or anti-Kurd, etc. rants and POV-pushing edits. I have used the applicability of AA2 to very good effect in curtailing editwarring of this sort at Van cat, Turkish Van and Turkish Angora over the last year+, and ethnic viewpoint-pushing will surely return to these articles almost immediately if AA2 is suddently no longer applicable simply because these cat articles touch on Armenian–Turkish and Armenian–Kurdish relations but don't also involve Azerbaijan. If it were interpreted as "both-and" not "either-or", then "related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted" would have virtually no meaning or applicability. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 02:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Proposed: That the section entitled "Standard discretionary sanctions" in the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case be replaced with the following:
Previous or existing sanctions, warnings, and enforcement actions are not affected by this motion.
I just express my ideas. And talk pages are reverted back. If we can't talk even in talk pages, where is the place for freedom of expression. Now i'm in notified section. I just said my idea and i have references. Reverting a talk page is cruel i think.-- Kafkasmurat ( talk) 01:58, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
I was wondering whether one-revert policy can be applied to the page Battle of Shusha (2020) - an NKR-related article where currently massive revert warring is going on. Regards, Armatura ( talk) 01:50, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
I am rather new to this Wiki-ing thing but would welcome some clarification. I hope I am writing my query in the right place. I have added a few updates to articles to do with Azerbaijan/Armenia to try to balance what seem to be biassed viewpoints. I notice that in at least one case my corrections were simply reverted which seems disingenuous without at least further fleshing out the subject (in this case Khachen). I think that the issues of controversy surrounding such historical passages are important for readers and that it is thus useful that my text stands or at least forms the basis for an improved coverage of such subjects. I do of course realise that passions run high on such subjects. Malikbek 08:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't think there is a whole lot the arbitration committee can do about the seemingly interminable issues that surround articles on Western Asia. This is an issue that goes beyond Hajji Piruz, Atabek, et, al. and (of course) beyond Wikipedia. Ultimately, from what I have witnessed, the issues here seem to come from persistent assumptions of bad faith. Instead of merely talking calmly to other editors, there is a tendency to ascribe issues to their nationality or personality. Someone has to bring up alleged ulterior motives. And alleged cabals of [insert common trait here] editors. This should never have arrived at this point, but alas there are some who just cannot see a trivial matter for what it is – trivial. Unfortunate indeed. -- tariqabjotu 19:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Arbitrators' opinions seemed to indicate that this would merely be a review of the original case, but instead it's been opened as an entirely new case? hbdragon88 21:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
VartanM, please do not remove your former user names. It is relevant to this case, as this was the name you were using before you officially changed it. -- Grandmaster 04:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Gradmaster, I'm not gonna fall into your provocations, this actually made me laugh. Go ahead you have my permission to add the userlinks back. I don't care anymore VartanM 07:24, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
What is it that you actually wanted me to do? Remove it? So you can tell me not to touch your evidence space? Or report me for removing your evidence? -- VartanM 07:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Can someone change AndranikPasha's status. He was unblocked and is under a supervised editing. VartanM 16:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
At [3] the text states that remedy 2 will apply to articles which relate to Armenian and Azerbaijan and related conflicts, i.e. conflicts which relate to Armenian and Azerbaijan.
However, the template that Seraphimblade has placed on my [ [4]] talk page has text which, in its scope, far exceeds what was decided in that remedy 2. Under the wording of the Armenia-Azerbaijan2 RfA remedy, articles conected to Turkey would only fall under that particular RfA remedy if the article was in some way related to either Armenia or Azerbaijan. However, Seraphimblade has used the RfA remedy to apply to an edit I made in a talk page of the entry on [Occupation_of_Istanbul], a subject which is completely unrelated to either Armenia or Azerbaijan. Moreover, this remedy was not applied by Seraphimblade as a result of an edit made to an article but as a result of a comment on the article's talk page. Where did the template text applied by Seraphimblade come from? What discussion and voting preceeded its composition? Why is it connected to Armenia-Azerbaijan2 RfA given that it far wider in scope than the actual remedy 2 decided on in Armenia-Azerbaijan2 RfA? I've asked Seraphimblade these questions a number of times but he has declined to give me an answer. Meowy 18:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I must also note that Meowy’s block log shows that he has 2 blocks for 3RR violations and another 2 for harassment of other editors, [9] the last one dated 22 September 2007, i.e. after the end of the last arbcom case. I don’t think that the technical issues should be used as a pretext to avoid the application of arbcom remedies, while it is clear that the scope of arbitration was never limited to Armenia – Azerbaijan related articles and the title is misleading. Both arbcom cases covered the articles concerning wider region than those 2 countries. Grandmaster 06:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm requesting a review on my placement under supervision by User:Ryan Postlethwaite for the following reason. The AA2 remedy #2 states: "Any editor who edits articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area in an aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility may be placed under several editing restrictions." Ryan Postletwaite claims that "Although I don't see any incivility, the scope of the remedy was supposed to cover disruption via incivility or edit warring". I don't see the word OR, which Ryan felt so strong about that he made it appear bold.
This is what Thatcher131 told me month ago: "So far, no admin including myself has found that you yourself have edited these articles in an "aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility" and so you have not yet been placed under the restrictions described here. Thatcher131 01:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)" [48]
Am I being compared to E104421 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? Previously indef banned for edit warring, who was simultaneously edit warring with me and another user [49], [50], [51], . Who breached WP:3RR [52], [53], [54], [55], Who kept insisting (by reverting) that its gonna be his way and no other? even by reverting my minor edits [56]. Who generally disregarded the talkpage and is yet to give justification for most of his POV reverts. Was I wrong, when I tried to compromise and only reverted partially? Was I wrong when I tried to keep the article as neutral as possible? As I said before, even though I was not under the restriction and supervised editing, I never reverted without justification, always explained and justified my edits in the talkpage. Most importantly my edits were not marked by incivility.
In fear of turning this board into another "he said she said" I request that only administrators respond to this request. VartanM ( talk) 05:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Kirill, User:VartanM is violating Users national background and neutrality principle by engaging in edit warring and POV pushing across several articles without restriction. We are yet to see how you address that by giving him a green light to continue doing what he is doing. And if VartanM's behavior was not marked by incivility, then how did the ArbCom address these [58], several counts of incivility not ever supervised, restricted or paroled? And if the VartanM's continuous editing conduct allows for interpretation against supervised editing, then how would supervised editing apply in case of the other user User:E104421, whose edits were not incivil. Based on POV pushed by User:VartanM throughout Wikipedia without any review or restriction, and paroles being deliberately applied only to contributors of certain one side, lifting the supervised editing is a delibreate violation of neutrality. Atabek ( talk) 09:22, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Kirill, if I get this right, the remedy implies that the editors are free to edit war on topic related articles as long as they remain civil? If not, what the arbcom remedy proposes to stop edit wars, which were the reason to 2 arbcom cases in the first place? Thanks. Grandmaster ( talk) 05:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
It looks like nobody is going to comment. But I would be really interested to know the opinion of the arbitrators about how the remedies passed under the second Armenia – Azerbaijan arbcom are supposed to stop disruption on topic related articles, if they limit the application of the remedy 2 to incivility only, while disruption on topic related articles was never limited to incivility? The Armenia – Azerbaijan 2 case specifically mentions among the principles that edit warring, disruptive editing and sockpuppet abuse are considered harmful, but now it turns out that the editors placed on parole for those specific abuses should be relieved of their parole, because the remedy in fact provides for only one specific form of disruption. It seems like Armenia – Azerbaijan 2 case might not be the last one. It would be nice to get additional comments from the arbitrators with regard to how this remedy is supposed to stop disruption by new users, not restricted by any measures from the 1st case, and who are now free to edit disruptively as long as they remain civil? Thanks in advance for any comment. Grandmaster 11:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Per the discussion regarding a new case for Armenia-Azerbaijan articles, I'd like to make a proposed remedy extension for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case. We're at the point now where it's clear the the previous remedies do not go far enough and administrators should be given greater authority to deal with the disruption in articles relating to this case. It's important that the committee make it clear that any form of disruption (not just limited to incivility with edit warring) will no longer be permitted on these articles. My proposal is as follows;
Ryan Postlethwaite 18:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
“ | Any editor who edits articles which relate to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts in an aggressive point of view manner may be placed on revert limitation, civility supervision, and supervised editing by any uninvolved administrator, such restrictions to take effect after a notice has been placed on the editor's talk page and logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Log of blocks and bans. | ” |
The remedies and enforcement provisions of Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 are replaced with the following:
Clerk note: there are 13 active non-recused arbitrators, so the majority is 7 for this motion to pass. Daniel ( talk) 02:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
The remedies and enforcement provisions of Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 are replaced with the following:
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
It is not clear to me whether the "area of conflict" for ARBAA2 is solely Armenian-Azeri articles, or whether it includes Azeri-Iranian/Iranian/Turkish articles, as I think it should, given it was these Perso-Turkic disputes that was partly responsible for kicking off the arbitration case in question. Going back over my little list I find a good number of Perso-Turkic arbcom cases: given this, I don't think it's unreasonable to extend, if necessary, the Armenia-Azeri discretionary sanctions to include Azeri-Iranian/Armenian-Turkish/etc. Just to clarify, I think the "area of conflict" for discretionary sanctions should be "articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area". This accords with {{ Armenia-Azerbaijan enforcement}}, but there seems to be dispute over the matter, not to mention confusion. So, do the discretionary sanctions apply only to Armenia-Azeri articles, or are we permitted a broader scope? Moreschi ( talk) 09:44, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem broadening the "area of conflict" to include Turkey and Iran. The only reason I brought up this issue was because Moreschi reworded the AA2 remedy without consultation or clarification from ArbCom. In response to bainer's comments, I must disagree with his interpretation of the two areas of conflicts. To me, "Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts" just refers to Armenia and Azerbaijan, while the other area of conflict covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran. The latter is not the same, as it addresses topics covered in separate ArbCom cases. Nishkid64 ( Make articles, not love) 01:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
My understanding is that the sanctions should apply to Iran and Turkey too as they involve related conflicts (particularly the Persian-Azeri/Iranian-Turkic edit war and issues relating to the Armenian Genocide). One user, ChateauLincoln ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), has already been restricted under these sanctions simply for edit-warring on an article about an Iranian city which has little to do with Armenia-Azerbaijan. I think the AA2 remedy should be reworded in line with the template to clarify matters. -- Folantin ( talk) 08:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I am against broadening the scope of the remedies. The intended scope of the arbcom and remedies was always Azerbaijan and Armenia and related issues, while there might be problems on Turkey and Iran articles but they were outside the arbcom scope. If we include Turkey and Iran we get a huge geographical and historical areas covered by a very few (often tendentious) editors. If we include it to the scope we could easily get all the active editors there banned on a whim. We should also remember that the buck does not stop here. We have huge Turkey-Greece, Turkey-Kurdish, Kurdish-Arab, Iran-Arab, Iran-Afghanistan problems so why not include Arabic, Greek and Afghani editors as well, then we would notice Arab-Israeli, Greek-Macedonian, USA-Arabic editorial conflicts and we would broad the scope of the remedies to the half of the wikieditors. Lets not extend the scope of the remedies on a whim we need a line here Alex Bakharev ( talk) 00:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the arbcom remedies are far too harsh. There currently is a martial law in the articles covered by this case making it very unpleasant to make any kind of edits. Particularly in experienced new users are bitten to death. Also good users avoid these articles due to the near-malicious attempts to abuse the remedies. So you are pretty much left with a group of disruptive users battling each other editing from multiple sockpuppet accounts. Of course this is an oversimplification of the issue but still something to think about.
Really disruptive users do not obey the arbcom remedies and edit through sockuppets. While reviewing logs for the case below I noticed the block log of Fadix which was quite recently reset making it the 4th reset. Such users should perhaps be indef banned for good. I gave Fadix as an example pretty much randomly, any other ban evaders should share the same faith.
Rather that expanding the scope of the case, users that edit disruptively should be penalized for gaming the system. The second you expand the scope disruptive users will find a new topic to disrupt, away from the remedies in question.
Also, based on my experience I feel several of the involved admins are far too involved and are unable to make sound judgments. It might be necesary to review their conduct.
-- Cat chi? 21:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Andranikpasha ( talk · contribs) has exceeded his one (nationalistic) revert on the Hayasa-Azzi article. [62]
Meowy ( talk · contribs) just reverted back to Andranikpasha ( talk · contribs)'s nationalist version of the Hayasa-Azzi article, claiming "not to know the subject" in the edit summary. [63]
Initiated by NW ( Talk) at 16:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Moreschi, acting under the discretionary sanctions authorized under Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan_2#Amended_Remedies_and_Enforcement, placed Armenian Genocide on WP:1RR about two years ago. Sandstein is disputing the fact that Moreschi had the authority to do so, as he believes that discretionary sanctions were meant to be applied per-editor and not per-article. I request that the Arbitration Committee please clarify if Moreschi's action was appropriate and enforceable. NW ( Talk) 16:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree that ArbCom clarification would be helpful here. I have explained the reasons why I have doubts whether the remedy covers this type of sanction at the AE thread. Sandstein 16:53, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
If there are no further questions, I believe this section can be archived in 48 hours. Risker ( talk) 19:54, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan#Remedies, a number of editors were placed on 1RR/week for 1 year. In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Remedies, they were then placed on the equivalent of supervised editing for the topic area. A later motion authorized discretionary sanctions, but noted that it did not affect the old remedies.
A number of editors to this case have been listed on Wikipedia:Editing restrictions as being on "Revert limitation, Probation, Civility restriction" indefinitely. My (and Ed's) question is this: does the 1RR/week still apply? I would think no, but I am not sure. NW ( Talk) 15:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
If the committee agrees that there are no 1RRs still in effect, except those applied due to enforcement action, then I believe that the entries in WP:RESTRICT for the users placed on revert parole by name in WP:ARBAA#Remedies should be removed. For example, the entry for Atabek/Atabəy, whose case was recently discussed at WP:AE#User:Atabəy. That entry shows him to be indefinitely restricted, which appears to be a mistake. EdJohnston ( talk) 23:37, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
My edits were clerical in nature. I was merely transcribing info from all the old cases to the new WP:RESTRICT page that User:Kirill Lokshin had created and which I populated with content. It was not my intention to create any new restrictions or expand any existing ones. Jehochman Talk 16:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
A motion has been proposed that would amend a sanctions remedy in this case. It would replace the remedy in this case that allows administrators to unilaterally apply sanctions to editors within the designated topic area with a standardized remedy that essentially allows for the same thing. Any extant sanctions or warnings made according to the older wording found in those decisions (as applicable) remain unaffected. To comment on this proposal, please go to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions. NW ( Talk) 20:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Initiated by Gatoclass ( talk) at 07:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Although I do not usually adjudicate disputes at WP:AE, I decided to assist on the recently filed Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Nagorno-Karabakh_article. Since I have had no prior involvement in Azerbaijan-Armenian articles, I assumed I was entitled to participate. However, I have experienced a growing unease about my participation in this case, based on the fact that I have had some involvement (albeit long ago) on East European articles (which I believe are covered by WP:DIGWUREN). While most sources appear to place Azerbaijan and Armenia in Western Asia, some seem to place these countries in Eastern/Southeastern Europe, in which case, ARBAA2 might be considered a subset of WP:DIGWUREN. On the other hand, it appears that DIGWUREN is concerned mostly with disputes between Russians and other East Europeans, while ARBAA2 concerns a national dispute between Azerbaijanis and Armenians. ARBAA2 contains no reference to DIGWUREN that I can see, but nonetheless, I think this issue needs clarification. A quick response would be greatly appreciated since the AE case concerned is still active. Regards, Gatoclass ( talk) 07:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Shall Gatoclass' comments in on the recently filed AE request Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Nagorno-Karabakh_article be removed since the community believes that his participation in this and similar cases is objectionable? Dehr ( talk) 02:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I may have come across this too late, as five members of ARBCOM have already shared their thoughts, but nevertheless I feel obliged to point out something ARBCOM may be overlooking. NYB states that Gatoclass may be construing "involved" greater then necessary as pertaining to EE in general. He is probably right, but he and Gatoclass are overlooking the involvement in Arab-Israel related articles, and how his involvement in A-I disputes may effect his involvement in EE disputes.
In addition to regular content disputes at A-I related articles, Gatoclass frequently comments at AE threads concerning editors involved with the Arab-Israel conflict (almost always favoring one side of the general dispute). More pertinently, he files AE reports on other editors involved with the Arab-Israel conflict and has had reports filed against him by editors involved with the Arab-Israel conflict (he was sort of blocked once for edit warring, [67] FWTW).
If Gatoclass never found himself at AE in connection with the Arab-Israel conflict there would be no problem. However as Gatoclass is frequently a participant, the potential for conflict is clear. Gatoclass shouldn't be making determinations together with the same few admins that are arbitrating his disputes in another forum.
To put in a legal framework, a judge sitting on a panel cannot practice before the panel even on matters unrelated to their panel for which they sit together. I am not aware of any editors faced with this similar conflict so I don't know if this came up before. I would like to hear ARBCOM's position on this. Thanks, -- brew crewer (yada, yada) 19:57, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Initiated by — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. at 22:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
{{
Warning}}
template has been applied to
Talk:Armenian Genocide with the following text: "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."I seek explicit clarification whether this applies only to that article, or also to other related articles, should the need arise. I raise this question in particular about the article Van cat, especially (as of the article structure right now) the lead, the infobox, and the section Van cat#Naming controversy, recently merged in from Van cat naming controversy, a highly contentious article used for PoV-pushing of all sorts, pro/anti-Armenian, -Turk, and -Kurd. I would like to apply the same Talk:Armenian Genocide warning to Talk:Van cat only if/when necessary; my interpretation of the the ArbCom cases with regard to Armenia-related topics suggests that would be permissible. A housecat article seems an unlikely place for this sort of ethnic feud, and it's been quiet lately in the wake of two ArbCom cases about Armenia-related edit-wars, which involved blocks that put a damper on some participants for a while, but I have no doubt that the issue will come up again. It's an article about a variety of cat that is claimed as a major cultural symbol by all three ethnicities, so it will be targeted for PoV-pushing in the future, guaranteed. I would like to know whether the "1RR" imposed by ArbCom on "Armenia... and related disputes" can be extended to this article when the tooth-gnashing inevitably begins again. I have no political stake in the question; in this, I'm just a WP:CATS editor trying to reduce racialist "noise" in a cat article that's been repeatedly hijacked for WP:GREATWRONGS purposes. The related article Turkish Van has seen some of this too, but but I think the split-off of Van cat and the subsequent merger of Van cat naming controversy into Van cat will "concentrate the fire" on that article when the "its OUR cat!" issue pops up again. Nonetheless, should the need arise, I include the article Turkish Van and potentially also Turkish Angora, and any results of splits, mergers or PoV-forks of any of these articles, and any cat-related sections in other relevant articles (e.g. Turkey, Armenia, Lake Van, etc.), in this request for clarification. I'm posting this because other cases are clearer. E.g. Template:ARBPIA says "All articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict broadly construed are under WP:1RR", but the equivalent for Armenia disputes does not include such "broadly construed" language. PS: Count this as a "vote" for more consistent enforcement and remedies wording. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 22:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Ergo, if an editor makes edits to the cat article pushing an ethnic/national POV they can be warned under the discretionary sanction, and if they have already been warned, can be blocked as an enforcement." – That's what I thought. I'm about 80% done preparing and WP:AN/I (or maybe WP:AE would be better in this case) and concomitant WP:SSI case about this, but holding out some hope that further discussion with the user in question will render that unnecessary. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 21:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
The original remedy covered "all articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area". [68] Now this was replaced by Standard discretionary sanctions, which cover "topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted". In my understanding, broadly interpreted "topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts" are the same as "articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area". Am I getting it right? Grand master 10:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Leave this section for others to add additional statements
Initiated by TheDarkLordSeth ( talk) at 20:47, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
More than two years ago, I made a minor edit on the Armenian Genocide article (my editing history was quite minor to nonexistent before this one) and it was reverted pretty quickly without any discussion. I reverted it back. Various members kept on reverting it without any input in the discussion as well(at least till a few reverts went back and forth after which I myself opened the discussion though people kept reverting without any input). In the end I ended up reverting 9 times. Back then I was not aware of the 3RR rule. Anyways, I received a warning at 16:00, 6 April 2010 [70] which I stopped reverting afterwards. My last revert was at 14:58, 6 April 2010. I received a block for 31 hours at 23:23, 6 April 2010 [71]. I was not happy about the way my edit was treated and I took the reverts as few members ganging up on me. It was the first time I faced such a treatment. Some of my not so bright moments that were used for evidence in the ban were pointing out that Armenians were trying to force a POV in the article, calling an attempt to label my criticism as insult as "pathetic", pointing out that a lot of edits are reverted with no discussion right away because it goes against the POV of Greek and Armenian editors, or calling the block decision "retarded".
Four days later I received an indefinite topic ban for the same violation at 05:14, 10 April 2010 [72] [73]. Needless to say I was a bit upset about receiving a second penalty for a violation that I've committed just once in ignorance. What was frustrating is that I felt like a target due to certain comments and the way my appeals were handled. My language was given as a supporting role for the ban, mostly in line with what I listed above. When I tried to explain my choice of wording and arguments to the admins I was accused of trying to blame others. If I knew back then how to deal with a hostile environment I wouldn't feel the need to defend myself and get into a cat fight with other editors. I'd simply report uncivil activity.
The appeal
[74] was prematurely shut down while an admin who did not have the same opinion as the others was asking for diffs of my claimed disruptive edits. He received none. I was accused of causing revert wars even though before this incident I had only reverted once and edited about 8 to 10 times including every minor edit. When I put a proposal to make the article fully-protected one of the admins was quick to note under it that I was about the get banned (this was posted before the punishment was given) as if it had anything to do with the article itself
[75]. I was accused of claiming that one of the admins is a liar because I said to him that he wasn't there to help me. I was also insulted for lack of comprehension and harassed using my past posts.
I know I'm probably missing some stuff as it's been 2 years and I don't have the best memory so if you see anything that I miss don't please ask me to clarify. It's been two years now and I don't know whether the ban is still on. I don't see my name on the Wikipedia:List of banned users. The reason why I find this topic ban unfair is per Wikipedia:Topic_ban#Community_bans_and_restrictions where it says "If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Wikipedia..." which I don't believe that it applies to me as my case is about a single incident.
In short, was it wrong to revert 9 times? Yes. Was it wrong to refer to others using their ethnicity or nationalities? Yes. Was it wrong to use uncivil language? Yes. Is a topic ban due to a single incident fair and justified? I don't think so.
As one of the active AE admins, I'll say this in two parts. One, about the last thing we really need is more contentiousness surrounding the Caucasus countries. We've only recently gotten a lid on the shenanigans at Nagorno-Karabakh, and even that's tenuous at best right now. More generally, I've been dealing with a lot of threads surrounding Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in various capacities, and they're all very thorny problems that take a good working knowledge of the subjects involved to get to the right solution; said knowledge is something very few people on the English Wikipedia have, and fewer still are willing to use it to resolve these disputes. Adding more problematic editing to this area would be exceptionally unhelpful.
Secondly, in what's likely the most congruous topic area, the Holocaust, we don't give people topic bans for openly attempting to foist Holocaust denial onto articles; we block them, sometimes with direction to go find friends at Stormfront instead. I see little reason why we should do anything different here, but in the absence of that there's no reason to allow people who've attempted to push Turkish government propaganda into articles on this topic as fact (which is more or less what TheDarkLordSeth tried to do) any access to said articles. Setting aside (with great difficulty) my personal distaste for said attempts, while the Turkish government's denials are certainly worth mentioning, they're clearly not based in reality and shouldn't be treated in any capacity as if it is; that it occurred is undisputed fact, and any reputable historian, or frankly anyone who's ever read a book on the subject, knows this. Presenting it as anything else is disruptive and should (as it rightly did in this case) lead to sanctions.
Taking those two points, combined with the distorted version of events given above, I see no reason to remove the topic ban in place. If this was at AE I'd probably push for an indefinite block, but I also recognize the current topic ban is accomplishing much the same effect. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 04:27, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
The situation was a bit weird, if I recall correctly. TheDarkLordSeth was reported to both AE and AN3 for hitting 9RR on the article. While the AE discussion was ongoing, I blocked TDLS for 31 hours based on the AN3 report, not knowing about the AE report. In the mean time, an indefinite topic ban was proposed by NW. KC initially suggested another chance, but when, even after the block expired, TDLS continued his battleground conduct, it totally exhausted the patience of AE admins and led swiftly to a consensus to indefinitely topic ban, which I then implemented.
I see no reason why this could not have been appealed at AE, but judging from the request, I suspect that AE would have declined it anyway, so I guess going directly to arbcom is OK too.
On the merits of this appeal, I essentially agree with SilkTork, below, and recommend that the committee decline this appeal. T. Canens ( talk) 14:47, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
As one of the admins involved with the original case, I initially suggested we give a second chance to TheDarkLordSeth, but when I tried to reach out and explain why his approach was probelmatic, [81] his lengthy response [82] was all excuses and exceptions - why his ethnic comments weren't objectionable, why his 3RR violation wasn't actionable, and why his use of the word "retarded" (labeling a fellow editor) was justified. He stated the fact that he hadn't tried to get the article deleted was proof he was NPOV. When I attempted to again to explain the issues with his approach, he responded poorly [83] and rejected the information given. I do not see any positive results coming from removing the topic ban. As for sending this to AE; if that is the decision, then so be it, but I don't see any potential for TheDarkLordSeth to have the ban reversed there. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua ?!? 13:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Initiated by Sandstein at 13:39, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Question: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Standard discretionary sanctions provides that "Topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted, are placed under discretionary sanctions." Does this mean that
are placed under discretionary sanctions?
Explanation: A recent enforcement request concerned the application of a topic ban from "topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts", i.e., using the same wording as in the abovementioned decision. The defendant argued that his edit at issue did not violate the ban because it concerned a topic only related to Armenia, not to "Armenia-Azerbaijan". In the event, the question presented above did not become relevant, as the enforcing administrators agreed that the edit at issue did relate to the conflict between the two countries and so was covered by the topic ban in any case. However, the question may become relevant in future enforcement requests. It would therefore be helpful to know how the scope of the topic covered by discretionary sanctions is to be interpreted.
My view is that the Committee likely intended the second interpretation (either Armenia or Azerbaijan), based both on the "broadly interpreted" clause and the finding at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan#Context, which refers to the countries separately, in defining the affected area as "articles related to Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as a wide variety of related topics." However, because the wording of the decision is ambiguous, an explicit clarification (and perhaps an amendment of the wording) would be welcome. Sandstein 13:39, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
In my view the key word here is "conflict". Edits that have no bearing on any conflict should not bring this ruling into play, regardless of what countries they involve. If any sort of conflict is involved, the ruling should be construed broadly. Looie496 ( talk) 16:09, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Looking over the second arbitration case, it seems the dispute extended to other areas involving Armenians and Azeris. Most notably matters concerning Armenia-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Iran were brought up in the opening statements of the case. I think it was intended to focus on conflicts broadly construed. The editor Sandstein mentions, clearly violated the topic ban explicitly because some of the content being removed was about Nagorno-Karabakh and most of the fund's activities noted in the article concerned the NKR. Perhaps what needs to be clarified is that the discretionary sanctions concern the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts broadly construed.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 16:37, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, I think it's worth pointing out that the same ambiguity probably exists regarding all ethnic or national conflicts covered by discretionary sanctions, not just the Armenia-Azerbailan conflict, so it would be better to resolve this question for all such topic areas rather than this topic area alone. Secondly, I'm inclined to agree with Sandstein because I have seen topic banned users in other topic areas just switch their problematic editing from articles relating directly to the conflict to articles relating to their political opponents' countries, culture or religion and so on for the duration of their ban, which in my view is just WP:GAMING of their topic ban. I would only add the caveat that I think some editors could probably be allowed to continue editing articles about the nation or ethnic group they support, at the discretion of the adjudicating AE admins, because I think some topic banned editors can still add worthwhile content of this nature. Gatoclass ( talk) 17:01, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
@Sandstein: Regardless of the actual wording pertaining to the various national or ethnic conflicts that are subject to discretionary sanctions, there is a broad principle at stake here that needs to be recognized, otherwise we will end up with one standard for one such topic area and a different standard for others. Gatoclass ( talk) 18:26, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Comment: Use caution; slightly vague is not necessarily a bad thing. If we're too specific, we'll get editors who complain that their edits aren't covered because the exact conditions were not spelled out on the sanctions page. Any attempt to make it too specific may cause more problems than it resolves. One puppy's opinion. Killer Chihuahua 17:12, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
As is apparent from the AA2 case, that arbitration meant to cover not only Armenia-Azerbaijan related topics, but also topics related to Armenia-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Iran relations. This is why it mentions "related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted". As an example, there was previously a request for clarification regarding whether Van cat was covered by AA2 remedies: [84] But I agree with Sandstein that the wording is a bit vague, and a more precise description of the scope would be advisable. Grand master 18:50, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Since we are talking a bit abstract now, I will provide a concrete example. User:Konullu was "topic-banned indefinitely from all edits to articles or discussions relating to Armenian–Azerbaijani conflicts, broadly construed". [85] Soon after he was blocked for 2 weeks for violation of his topic ban by editing an article about Azerbaijani politician Ilgar Mammadov. [86] While the article Konullu edited was Azerbaijan related, it was not related to AA conflict, and Konullu's edits were not controversial. So here's the question. Was Konullu banned from everything Azerbaijan related, or was he banned only from anything related to AA conflict? Grand master 20:11, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Normally if there is a combination of subjects, like Israel/Palestine, or in this case Armenia/Azerbaijan the contentious edits are the ones that only concern both subjects. That being said, it can be difficult to tell where one topic ends and the other begins. In this case, though, our article Armenia–Azerbaijan relations states that the two countries are technically still at war, so I would define the only edits within the ban to be edits that affect both countries, and that any edit about either country that does not affect the other country is acceptable. As I read it the sanctions are quite clear "Topics related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts". Adding broadly construed I would not construe to mean and all ethnicities and both Armenia and Azerbaijan. I would say the editor in question is correct that they should be able to freely edit Armenia articles, but not any section or sentence that deals with the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan or with the related ethnic conflicts. For example, someone native to either country might be well suited to add useful information but would be unsuitable to add information about the conflict due to their extreme bias. Apteva ( talk) 04:48, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
It must be "either Armenia or Azerbaijan", because of the scope of AA2, as noted by Grandmaster. I posit that this was not only intentional at the time, it's a good situation to maintain, because those who will rant for or against Armenia and Armenians, Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis, etc., are also prone to making pro- or anti-Turk, pro- or anti-Kurd, etc. rants and POV-pushing edits. I have used the applicability of AA2 to very good effect in curtailing editwarring of this sort at Van cat, Turkish Van and Turkish Angora over the last year+, and ethnic viewpoint-pushing will surely return to these articles almost immediately if AA2 is suddently no longer applicable simply because these cat articles touch on Armenian–Turkish and Armenian–Kurdish relations but don't also involve Azerbaijan. If it were interpreted as "both-and" not "either-or", then "related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted" would have virtually no meaning or applicability. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 02:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Proposed: That the section entitled "Standard discretionary sanctions" in the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case be replaced with the following:
Previous or existing sanctions, warnings, and enforcement actions are not affected by this motion.
I just express my ideas. And talk pages are reverted back. If we can't talk even in talk pages, where is the place for freedom of expression. Now i'm in notified section. I just said my idea and i have references. Reverting a talk page is cruel i think.-- Kafkasmurat ( talk) 01:58, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
I was wondering whether one-revert policy can be applied to the page Battle of Shusha (2020) - an NKR-related article where currently massive revert warring is going on. Regards, Armatura ( talk) 01:50, 27 December 2020 (UTC)