Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive132

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education#Conflict of interest, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education#Hgilbert. With regard to the Waldorf schools topic, Hgilbert was found to have a conflict of interest, to engage in original research, and to use inadequate and inappropriate references. Hgilbert and any other editor with an identified conflict of interest was instructed to follow the guideline at WP:Conflict of interest, which states that COI editors may not perform controversial edits to articles. Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

1. 10 March 2013. Removal of "Pseudoscience" category, with the edit summary of "controversial category", which confirms Hgilbert's knowledge of the disputed nature of this change. Two minutes after he made this change, Hgilbert initiated discussion of the issue at Talk:Waldorf education#Categorization, rather than first engaging in discussion and gaining consensus.
2. 10 March 2013. Removal of negative summary text from the lead section, in support of new editor Vittoria Gena (who has contributed only on three articles, all of which touch upon Waldorf, including a book that likens non-Waldorf schools to Nazism.) Discussion of this material was underway on the talk page, at Talk:Waldorf education#Undue material. The negative information was a summary of negative points described in greater detail in the article body, so it was appropriate per WP:LEAD guideline, but open to discussions of undue weight. Hgilbert acted to remove the disputed text but consensus had not been reached.
3. 9 March 2013. Removal of an image of the human heart, with negative text in the caption. No discussion.
4. 5 March 2013. Introduction of inappropriate reference to K12academics.com which includes, in its text, the editorial bracketed note "citation needed". This indicates that K12academics.com is not reliable, that its contributors do not agree on content.
5. 4 March 2013. Removal of Sean Esbjorn-Hargens' ReVision reference as "non-peer reviewed journal". One minute later, Hgilbert opened a discussion about this reference, rather than discussing it first and gaining consensus for change.
6. 1 March 2013. Removal of several article alert templates, including POV and COI. The POV tag was discussed on the talk page between Hgilbert and Jellypear at Talk:Waldorf education#Tags, but nobody agreed, or even discussed with Hgilbert, the removal of the COI tag which applied specifically to himself. Nevertheless, he removed it.
7. 13 February 2013. Removed negative information from cited to professor Edzard Ernst and education expert Richy Thompson of the British Humanist Association. No discussion.
8. 10 February 2013. Added a reference about Waldorf governance. The reference is about the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), but the text that it purportedly supports pertains to global Waldorf/Steiner practices, not just North America. No discussion.
9. 9 February 2013. Removal of cited text, that makes Steiner look more like a kook. Hgilbert summarizes, "rem. jargon, simplify." No discussion.
10. 9 February 2013. Removal of the word "pseudoscience" from a section header. No discussion.

Correction 10: 9 February 2013. Hgilbert added "Science" to the header of the "Pseudoscience" section. He removed the list of examples found by Jelinek and Sun; ones which reflected very poorly on Waldorf. Binksternet (talk) 02:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

1. Warned on 11 March 2013 by Binksternet (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

After receiving the warning on 11 March, Hgilbert replied that he thought the ArbCom determination of 2006 had been superseded by a new one (a motion passed on 30 January 2013: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education#Modified_by_motion). As far as I can tell, the conflict-of-interest determination remains in place with regard to editors. The findings about Hgilbert also remain in place. The amendment looks like it replaces only one section of the 2006 ArbCom case, changing "article probation" to "standard discretionary sanctions". I think that Hgilbert is in violation of COI and the 2006 finding naming him specifically, and has been for some weeks now.

After I warned him, Hgilbert did not revert the two edits I pointed out as being in violation. This unwillingness to follow the 2006 finding is typical of his behavior. For instance, on 28 November 2012, Alexbrn warned Hgilbert about COI [1], which Hgilbert removed from his talk page [2] but answered at the article talk page: [3]. There, Hgilbert argued against the 2006 finding, saying that he was "no more or less conflicted than an employee of the public school system would be in editing an article on public education." Because this has been a long-running problem, I propose that Hgilbert be topic-banned from Waldorf education article space, broadly construed, but not banned from talk pages, which are not the locus of the problem. Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• Notification of Hgilbert. Binksternet (talk) 00:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

I'm happy to have this looked at. At Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Continued_conflict_of_interest_at_Waldorf_education the claim was made that I have made massive prejudicial changes since early February, when Alexbrn last edited the article. We could start with this diff of all the changes between Alexbrn's last contribution on Feb. 3rd, and the present state of the article as of March 11th. What massive removals of negative material and additions of positive material have been made over this time frame? (Note that many of the mostly minor changes that have been made were made by other editors.) Also: Note that there was also a review of the original arbitration.

Also: if arbitrators examine Talk:Waldorf education, I think they'll see harmonious discussion on a range of issues, and a readiness to compromise.

In response to the concrete diffs above (from Binksternet):

1. WP:Category clearly states that categories should not be controversial. See the extensive talk page discussion here, which makes it clear that this category is very controversial. Summarizing: There is extensive controversy over WE's relationship to pseudoscience, as documented in the article; many educationalists believe that it is a solid educational approach, and some of those who are cited on the pseudoscience side (e.g. Jelinek) support the education generally, but dispute some curriculum content. The discussion deserves to be presented fairly, but it clearly falls foul of the category criteria. In any case, the category was initially removed by another editor, Vittoria Gena here. I supported this when the change was reverted.
2. I summarized the material in the lead more concisely, trying to preserve the primary discussion themes; see also here where I added more material. The body of the article retains a full discussion of all the topics. The only issue I removed from the lead was the immunization issue, as per a (still undisputed) suggestion of another editor on the talk page.
3. The image of the human heart was not closely related to Waldorf education. It had previously been critiqued for this reason.
4. The citation critiqued here is solely used to support the uncontroversial fact that there were 12 Waldorf schools in North America in 1968. This is not a controversial question; though the article is actually cogent, I would not use the source for other purposes, and would have been happy to have looked for a better source had the choice been questioned at any point after I added this text. (In response to concerns raised here, I have now replaced the citation.)
5. Why would we want to keep material not supported by its own citation? See discussion about this on the article talk page Talk:Waldorf_education#ReVision, where another editor points out that the article text for which this citation was used turned out to be not remotely supported by it, indicative of a larger problem with whoever added this text originally.
6. See the talk page discussion of tagging here. Neither in the week and a half of discussion prior to the removal of the tags, nor in the week and a half that have passed since, have any objections been made indicating that the tags should be kept. Further: the COI issue had been brought to an arbitration proceeding recently; the conclusion of this proceeding is here. The arbitrators consciously emphasized that the focus should not be on COIs, but on the policy on reliable sources as a path toward resolution. This distinction has also been raised by an administrator in the current discussion. After this arbitration proceeding, neither this nor the other tag was under current discussion, which I understand is meant to be a requirement for the tagging.
7. This is the only place of all those cited where I actually removed content critical of WE. I have to confess, the theme seemed adequately covered; two paragraphs of material drawn from a single TES article seems to be a violation of WP:UNDUE, but I am open to discussion of this.
8. This diff shows me adding a single phrase stating that the role of boards of Waldorf schools includes "formulating strategic plans and central policies," with a supportive citation. WP:RS states that organizations are reliable sources for information about their own workings, so long as this is not controversial. If this is highly controversial, feel free to explain why. If you believe it to be particular to North America and want to qualify the sentence to say so, this would be fine. (What's the big deal??)
9. The use of jargon was criticized repeatedly by a wide spectrum of editors: Talk:Waldorf_education/Archive_11. Responding to that, I changed this terminology, the meaning of which was unlikely to be easily accessible to the general reader, to more easily comprehensible terminology. It's a little unfair to request that jargon be removed and then criticize when it is removed!
10. Rather amusing. The diff indicated shows me adding the term pseudoscience to the section header, not removing it. hgilbert (talk) 01:08, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In response to IRWolfie's diffs:

1. The first diff removed an image which had been contested on the talk page as being unrelated to Waldorf education. This question had been taken to the reliable source noticeboard; the response by an outside editor was that the image was unrelated to the article, and that the source it was drawn from was an unreliable source. The second diff is removing material referenced the same article, critiqued as not a reliable source by outside editors. Incidentally, this material was later reinstated when we accepted -- despite the outside editor's critique -- that the article, though not peer-reviewed, had some claim to reliable source status. Perhaps this should be reviewed again. IRWolfie further criticizes me for trying to ensure that "all sources have to be peer reviewed"; the requirement that in this and related articles, sources for any controversial material be peer-reviewed, stems from the last arbitration proceeding. I find a critique of my following WP guidelines a little odd.
2. This is actually a diff of changes made to a different article. The claim for BD was sourced to an organization named ISIS, which as far as I understood is notable in organic agriculture circles. There was further discussion of this at the time; I believe the material was removed as a result.
3. This diff shows a change that kept all relevant text, including the author of the citation, and only took out the name of the book cited, which is easily found in the reference. This follows standard WP practice; we don't usually mention (inline) the name of the books or journal articles referenced in discussions of this source.
4. These are critiques of my attempting to remove material sourced to a blog, in accordance with clear WP policy. Again IRWolfie critiques me for trying to ensure that sources for controversial material are peer-reviewed, in accordance with the very clear arbitration guidelines laid down for this article. (I am puzzled.) Incidentally, if you read the diff claimed to be calling for "tag teaming", I had made an erroneous reversion (to the wrong version) and was requesting help to sort this out.
5. IRWolfie is right here; the citation contains an extract from a WP article, which I had not noticed, and should be removed. (I will do this.) Done

In response to A13ean:

1. According to WP:RS, sources are not less usable merely because they are "difficult to access academic sources" (!!) Nor does a source's being written in a foreign language have any bearing. Much was made about using only very high quality sources about WE, and some of these will tend to be in German by the nature of the beast.
2. authors with some connection to Waldorf education were not excluded by the original arbitration proceeding, which required that, regardless of the author, works be peer-reviewed, rather than published by Waldorf publishers, but emphasized that this would especially be true for those involved in the movement. Peer review and the general standards for RSs are the point.
3. Steiner's own writings were explicitly excluded by the original arbitration proceedings however, at least when controversial; we were required to use secondary sources evaluating his thinking instead, for reasons that were amply clear at the time.
4. I will not respond to each diff, but as an example of the misrepresentations presented here, the claim that I changed "Biodynamic agriculture has been characterized as pseudoscience by scholars" to "Biodynamic agriculture has been the subject of serious scientific study" is false. I changed a "criticism" section to a "reception" section in line with WP guidelines on WP:Criticism sections, and added additional text without removing the pseudoscience attribution. hgilbert (talk) 20:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More generally: I have been striving to bring a neutral point of view in a situation that has been historically, and continues to be, highly polarized. There are a number of editors who seem primarily interested in bringing negative critiques into the article, and others who primarily interested in positive views. There are virtually no neutral voices. I have been trying to keep to the RS policy as the path forward. As a result, a number of questions have been brought to the RS noticeboard recently; Looking at the talk page, it seems clear that the mood is generally of fruitful discussion. I believe I consistently seek a positive solution and am willing to use consensus and compromise, respecting all points of view. hgilbert (talk) 02:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Images

The two images (of Lemuria and the human heart) were added by User:Alexbrn, following a persistent pattern of POI-pushing on the critics' side.

• COI tag

In defense of the removal of COI tagging--which I grant is not normally a good idea:

1. since the tagging there had been an arbitration which had found that the COI I was accused of was not relevant to the case (pointing us to RS policy instead)
2. after I proposed removing the two tags, NPOV and COI, there had been a week and a half of discussion in which no one spoke up against this removal (nor has anyone questioned the removal on the talk page since)

Nevertheless, I clearly should have requested others to remove it rather than removing it myself. I apologize. hgilbert (talk) 10:27, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

1. The recent arbitration discussion I refer to is [4] (see second half of page). Though COI issues were raised by editors offering opinions, not one of the arbitrators mentions these issues in either the Arbitrator views and discussion or Motion: Waldorf education discretionary sanctions. They urge us to focus on reliable sources: "the original ruling has long been overtaken by our evolving policies on reliable sourcing".
2. As Nil Einne mentions below, s/he had also explicitly stated at WP:ANI that "the thing to concentrate on why the edits were bad or controversial, not whether or not the editor has a COI. Concentrating on the COI misses the point because someone is not going to be blocked simply because they were editing when they had a COI, even if the edits were controversial and many question whether the COI should even come in to the block (perhaps the length of the block only). As Hgilbert mentioned, this has been reaffirmed in other cases." I assumed from Nil Einne's contribution at ANI that this editor is an administrator and took his/her comments on the case to be clear direction that we should focus on issues such as RS, NPOV, and working on consensus.

Due to the above rulings and comments by admins, and the complete lack of dissent to the removal of the COI tag when I raised this, I understood that the removal was both in line with the current understanding of the article sanctions and undisputed. I'm shocked that users who had a chance to question the suggested removal on the talk page, and did not, are raising this as an issue here. (Having said this, I still recognize that someone else should have been the one to take the tag off.) hgilbert (talk) 13:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Discretionary sanctions

The text of the discretionary sanctions states: "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working on a page within the area of conflict (or for whom discretionary sanctions have otherwise been authorized) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to a topic within the area of conflict or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; imposition of mandated external review; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project."

I believe I have adhered to the purpose of Wikipedia, consistently followed consensus processes (look at the talk page for confirmation), and applied the RS policy at a high standard. Again, I ask: examine the diff over the relevant period, and the discussions on the talk page over this time (or before): what in this constitutes any contravention whatsoever of the discretionary sanctions? hgilbert (talk) 10:18, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Use of sources

1. Not to drag this on, but as an example of the real issue here, a number of the above diffs relate to removal of material from an article by Jelinek and Sun. See the talk page discussion of the use of this article as a primary source, in which outside editors called in through a RSN appeal stated clearly that this should not be treated as a reliable source for the article. This confusion is exemplary. hgilbert (talk) 12:25, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
2. See Talk:Waldorf_education#ReVision for an ongoing example of various approaches to introducing and sourcing statements. Draw your own conclusions. hgilbert (talk) 17:00, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• On point 4 raised by Binksternet. [14] used here [15] by Hgilbert, is a copy and paste of History of Waldorf schools. That Hgilbert didn't spot that the source he was citing, which was probably his very own words since he wrote the initial Waldort history article, was copied off wikipedia should speak volumes about Hgilbert's use of sourcing, IRWolfie- (talk) 01:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Hgilbert, if you did make an erroneous revert, why didn't you just revert yourself? Or do you acknowledge that you were bypassing 3RR by asking another editor to do it for you? I am also aware that the diffs don't exclusively cover Waldorf, my point is that you are problematic with edits related to Steiner broadly construed (which should fall under fringe DS). IRWolfie- (talk) 10:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @Sandstein, he non-Waldorf diffs I've shown here show a pattern of behaviour within fringe science, perhaps Hgilbert could be officially warned about discretionary sanctions within Fringe science and pseudoscience broadly construed (under this case Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary_sanctions)? IRWolfie- (talk) 10:47, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Hgilbert, showing a diff over an extended period is meaningless. If I had shown, for example [16] and said that people should spot the problem in the text, it would ignore the fact that someone went 3RR in that same period. A single Diff grouping actions from many editors won't show anything here if the other editors have been dealing with the problems you have caused, we have to look at your edits, IRWolfie- (talk) 15:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Jellypear, I'm not sure why you were addressing this comment, I didn't comment on the specifics of the case which I will leave to others; I was just why showing a single diff does not mean anything, IRWolfie- (talk) 22:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, blogs are reliable for the opinions of the author. If they are not used in the wikipedia tone, then they are reliable for the text they cite. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More diffs showing long-term POV pushing. Hgilbert's edits are a constant lapping tide, continually eroding the article's neutrality:

• diff removing text that bears on the crucial question of whether Waldorf education is religious (crucial, from a COI perspective, because American state funding relies on it not being). When challenged Hgilbert stated this had been an error and reinstated this text.
• diff inserting into the lead a claim of universal fact, that research has found Waldorf education to "to foster a high degree of social competency", ignoring the express caveats and limitations of the sources (discussion here).
• diff making another claim of fact about the "conclusion" of a research report, ignoring the tentative and caveated nature of the original's (inconclusive) text (discussion here).
• diff removing a {{rs}} tag from a data analysis claim sourced to the Waldorf Today web site on the grounds that it is a "well-established news outlet".
• diff inserting (in 2006!) a claim that UNESCO had praised a Waldorf organization as being "of tremendous consequence in the conquest of apartheid", and sourcing it to a UNESCO document and to a polemical piece in a non-RS publication. The problem: the quotation appears to have been completely fabricated by the non-RS source - it's not in the UNESCO document.
• diff inserting (in 2007!) a claim of fact that Australian Waldorf students have been found to outperform all others at University (Hgilbert also recently re-inserted this content). On investigation it turns out this brave claim is sourced to an interview with a Masters student on an Australian local radio station who "sounded as if [he] was about to publish his thesis".

Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 05:51, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is mostly an aside to the case and I pointed it out at WP:ANI but it seems it's not getting across so I'll mention it again. Our COI policy does not forbid people with a COI from making controversial edits. Rather it strongly discourages people with a COI from making edits (for a number of reasons), particularly those who can be regarded as paid avocates, but says making uncontroversial edits may be okay. This was basically what the arbcom case said as well. When we say 'strongly discourage' we mean it, we strongly discourage it but we don't forbid it. This isn't like a political case where someone says 'strongly discourage/encourage' but what they actual mean is 'do or don't do this or else'. This is an important distinction because as I also remarked in the ANI, the thing to concentrate on why the edits were bad or controversial, not whether or not the editor has a COI. Concentrating on the COI misses the point because someone is not going to be blocked simply because they were editing when they had a COI, even if the edits were controversial and many question whether the COI should even come in to the block (perhaps the length of the block only). As Hgilbert mentioned, this has been reaffirmed in other cases. Nil Einne (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have attempted to condense the following points raised previously as a courtesy to editors and administrators.

In the approximately two months that I have been following the Waldorf education page, Binksternet has been involved in trying to apply sanctions to hgilbert twice already. It seems the preferred method of dealing with hgilbert on the part of some editors is not to deal with his edits in a timely manner but to collect a list of grievances and see what sticks. I view the wide-ranging nature of the discussion here (over an indefinite period of time, a range of issues and over multiple pages) as part of a continued attempt to get hgilbert banned from editing in this area. One would think asking for sanctions is a "last resort" kind of measure and that we would see clear evidence of editors trying to work out specific problems with hgilbert themselves before asking for sanctions. I think part of the issue is that some editors seem to believe that hgilbert is subject to unique COI restrictions. Binksternet and other editors who don’t claim real life participation in PLANS - the other organization specifically named in the Arbcom decision – seem to feel that if they find hgilbert’s edits to be controversial he is violating the Arbcom decision. In other words, the COI only works one way and all disagreements are presumably grounded in him being "tainted" by COI. I agree with Nil Einne’s views on this. COI can exist in many ways and so conversation should concentrate on why edits are bad and not the possible motivations of editors. In the month leading up to the request, there was little discussion in talk, no issues taken out to noticeboards, and only two reverts of hgilbert’s edits. The two reverts were once by me [[17]] and once by Binksternet [[18]]. Hgilbert accepted both of these reversions without discussion or conflict. This stands in contrast to the month prior, wherein multiple n/or and RS issues had to be discussed and referred out and some edit warring occurred. As messy and difficult as that process was, it did work and no editors were referred here for their behavior. Up until the filing here I thought things were working (more or less) smoothly given the lack of discussion and reversions. However, now the same WP:SYNTH, WP:PERTINENCE and WP:RS issues that had to be referred to noticeboards are being brought up again as evidence of hgilbert’s individual bias without that proper context being included. [[19]] [[20]] [[21]]

Unfortunately, these reliable source issues are ongoing. Binksternet feels that the pseudoscience page categorization is warranted by presenting papers self-published by two advocacy organizations and/or by making a synthetic argument in which he even admits that the reliable sources do not make the explicit claim that Waldorf education is pseudoscience. [[22]]. Of course, these are questions that ought to be discussed on the basis of what the reliable sources say rather than being brought here. It is Binksternet who has actually disrupted the project's progress by not letting this work itself out through normal channels.

All in all, the period involving the diffs presented by Binksternet, shows the opposite of someone "repeatedly or seriously [failing] to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process." The project was working as designed---at least as measured by the lack of disputes, controversies, reversions, edit warring and major problems in the diffs binksternet provided. All that being said, hgilbert’s removal of his own COI tag was wrong, even if other editors had ample opportunity to object before and after it happened. The lack of commentary was not a sufficient basis for action. There should have been some affirmation that it was time for it to be taken off. Thank you. Jellypear (talk) 08:41, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hgilbert seems like a pretty nice guy, and over the past eight years and (at the time of writing) exactly 10k edits, has made many positive contributions to wikipedia. However, he has also continually and consistently pushed a POV at pages related to the works of Rudolph Steiner, which he almost exclusively edits.

Not all the complaints brought here have merit; the heart and Lemuria images in particular shouldn't have been in the article (although there's other images in the article with even less context). Similarly not everyone here has clean hands with regard to editing in this area, and anyone is of course welcome to investigate my conduct in this area. However, Hgilbert in particular has continued to inappropriately push a POV despite repeated warnings. I previously laid out my concerns here and include my selection of diffs below for reference. HGilbert's response at that time can be seen here.

Of particular concern to me is misrepresentation and cherry-picking of positive material from sources, especially foreign-language and difficult to access academic sources; compare for example the article in Die Welt linked above to what it was used to source. Removing tags, misleading edit summaries, and canvassing ([29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34]) are also a continued concern as noted above and by others. I am sure he could contribute positively to wikipedia in other areas, but I feel that his edits to these controversial areas have not, in net, helped build a better encyclopedia.

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

I haven't yet made my way through all the evidence, but I might make a couple of initial observations. Firstly, topics concerning pseudoscience are problematic IMO not only because there are advocates on one side of the fence who try to promote their favoured theories, but also because there are sceptics on the other side who actively try to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for discrediting the same. Both approaches violate core policy and are potentially sanctionable, and a preliminary look at the evidence suggests a degree of problematic editing on both sides in this particular article, though I am yet to form an opinion as to whether any of it is sufficiently serious to warrant sanctions.

Secondly, while Hgilbert was found to have a COI at the original case, there is a difference between COI and paid advocacy, and no-one has accused Hgilbert of the latter. AFAIK there is no compunction on editors with a mere COI to discuss changes to articles prior to making them, so Binksternet's calls for sanctions based on that criterion alone don't appear to be actionable.

I expect to have more to say about the particular diffs a little later. Gatoclass (talk) 06:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I have finished a preliminary review of the evidence. Some of the diffs are very old and not actionable. A lot of others involve discussions about reliability of sources which would be difficult to resolve here in a timely manner, if at all, and with regard to most of these diffs no evidence of edit warring has been presented. That leaves a relatively small number of diffs to take a closer look at.

Firstly, this diff where Hgilbert removes a COI tag from the Waldorf education article. I can't think of any good reason why a user found by ARBCOM to have a COI in a given topic area should be taking it upon himself to remove such tags from an article in that topic area on which the user in question is or has been active. That alone I would consider to be a sanctionable offence. Secondly, this diff where Hgilbert adds content from a source which labels that very content with a "citation needed" tag. Hgilbert was cited for use of questionable sources in the original case, though that occurred a long time ago, and he needs to ensure that content is properly cited per WP:RS. Since Hgilbert has not previously been blocked or banned for inappropriate editing in the six years since the original case, I think a warning would probably suffice here. For removing the COI tag, I would suggest a one month topic ban for a first offence, with a warning that escalating sanctions may apply for future offences.

One further comment: while some of Hgilbert's edits may indeed be problematic, so too IMO is some of the content he has been removing, for example, an image of a human heart[35] and an image of the "mythical continent of Lemuria".[36] Misuse of images, quoteboxes etc. to highlight prejudicial content as a method of circumventing WP:UNDUE is a typical tactic of POV-pushers, and these images also strike me as violations of WP:SYNTH as their immediate relevance to the article topic is questionable. Some of the other diffs also indicate similar problems. I don't know who added these images or when they were added, but warnings might also be appropriate here. Anyway that pretty much summarizes my initial response to this request; I invite further commentary from my colleagues. Gatoclass (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Hgilbert: You would have to point me to the case in which "an arbitration" found your COI was not relevant before I could reconsider the above recommendation. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 11:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After checking only whether the formal requirements for arbitration enforcement are met, it appears that all edits submitted as evidence were made prior to the warning of 11 March 2013 by Binksternet that is cited in the request. In my view, this rules out imposing sanctions based on these edits. Additionally, the diff of that warning does not meet the requirements of WP:AC/DS#Warnings, because it does not contain a link to the decision authorizing sanctions. (Yes, Hgilbert was a party to the original case, but the wording of WP:AC/DS does not make an exception to the requirement for a warning for such editors.) Accordingly, it seems that, based on the situation as described in the request, the most that we are authorized to do is issue correct warnings to all who may need them. (I also note that the request is 739 words long and needs to be shortened.)  Sandstein  18:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding the date of any proper warning of the DS to Hgilbert: I would nominate this post by an Arbcom clerk to Hgilbert, notifying him of the motion just passed. This edit happened on 30 January 2013. EdJohnston (talk) 19:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Well... yes, but that is a "courtesy notice" about a motion imposing discretionary sanctions, not a "warning" as required by WP:AC/DS#Warnings. Sorry if I appear to be splitting procedural hairs here, or in the request concerning Soosim above, but I feel that is important that we are conservative in interpreting the boundaries of the wording of the provisions that authorize us to impose wide-ranging sanctions at our own discretion.  Sandstein  20:17, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have always assumed that WP:AC/DS#Warnings was intended to apply to users not party to the original case. This is because the warning in effect formally notifies users that discretionary sanctions apply. For users party to the original case, the warning is not necessary because they obviously already know that discretionary sanctions apply. Gatoclass (talk) 04:59, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is a reasonable assumption. (In this case, DS were added later, but Hgilbert was notified of that, as EdJohnston mentioned above.) It's just that I personally prefer to err on the side of caution. I understand that AGK (talk · contribs) is working on motions to clarify that DS require only a notification rather than a warning about the case. I prefer to wait on that clarification, but you are of course free to proceed as you deem appropriate.  Sandstein  05:41, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Considering that the request and the statements (notably that by IRWolfie-) are grounds for concern about the neutrality of Hgilbert's editing, I've issued formally correct warnings concerning Waldorf education and pseudoscience at [37]. I noted that this is without prejudice to the definitive disposition of this request, in the event that any of you are of the view that there is a basis for sanctions even prior to these warnings.  Sandstein  18:56, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• By virtue of being party (thus knowing the Article Probation remedy) to the original case - which caused him to be notified when the Article Probation was superseded by DS - it is reasonable to assume that he understands the remedies. Also, these days findings such as this would probably earn him a remedy or 2 against him directly (instead of article probation across the board - this is just my opinion, though). Thus, I would think this is grounds for sanction as he probably should know better. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 23:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Perhaps I should clarify at this point that I am still assessing the evidence here and hope to offer some conclusions some time over the next few days. There are a lot of diffs to look at and a number of issues to consider, so it's not the type of request that lends itself to a quick resolution. Gatoclass (talk) 11:26, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the delay in getting back to this, I have had a busy week with little time for Wikipedia. Tonight I went back through the supplied diffs above alleging misconduct by Hgilbert, and while many of them are old and many others concern what I would probably characterize as legitimate content disputes, I nonetheless found a number of diffs that are of concern. In brief, they are as follows:

• Embellishing source: [38] as discussed here: [39] Summary: Hgilbert adds "research reports have found lower levels of harassment and bullying in Waldorf schools but the source states that in a study of just one Steiner school "Its findings suggest that there may be lower levels of bullying in Steiner schools".
• Embellishing source: [40] Summary: Hgilbert adds "A review of studies of Waldorf education concluded that the education is "successful in its aim to educate human beings ...", but the source says "[One] study, however, does suggest that Steiner education is successful in its aim to educate human beings ...".
• Embellishing source: [41] Summary: Hgilbert adds Waldorf education has been found to foster a high degree of social competency to the lead, but when challenged on the talk page backtracks to the position that the schools seek to foster social responsibility.

• Citing source[42] which turns out to originate from wikipedia (although not identified as wikipedia-based in the source).[43][44] The original wikipedia text was actually written by Hgilbert himself in 2006,[45] so he was in effect citing to himself, although he or somebody else did eventually add an (offline) source for the original wikipedia text.[46]
• Apparent canvassing,[47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] although if Hgilbert can show me evidence he canvassed editors on the other side of the debate these diffs might be considered legitimate.
• Invitation to tag team: [53] (May 2012).

These diffs mostly cover a period of the last three months, and indicate to me a degree of problematic editing in the topic area, at the very least a carelessness in citing sources that is not appropriate for someone previously cited in an Arbcom case for precisely this kind of misconduct. These edits may well result from an excess of enthusiasm for the topic on Hgilbert's part rather than an intention to mislead, but that is why we have a policy on COI. Then there is the apparent canvassing, which is infrequent but does indicate a persistent difficulty in abiding by the relevant policy. The tag teaming invitation is totally inappropriate and cynical (witness the edit summary), but is a rather old diff. Added to the above is the removal of the COI tag I mentioned above.

On the other hand, the original Arbcom case is pretty old now and Hgilbert has avoided sanctions for the last six years. Neither has he had a warning in that time, although a recent AN/I thread might be considered a reminder to exercise caution. Nor, it must be said, has any evidence been presented that Hgilbert has attempted to edit war over the above misstatements. In summary, I'm not sure what to do here. I should add that the conduct of some other editors may also require scrutiny, but I haven't found the time to do that yet and probably won't be able to do so until Tuesday at the earliest. Gatoclass (talk) 13:55, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that we're talking about enforcing ArbCom sanctions made as long ago (2007) as these is a bit of a concern. I don't know if ArbCom itself has intended to make sanctions of this type really infinite, but that seems to be what is being thought here. The fact that Hgilbert was named specifically in that arbitration would however lead to me to think that some sort of sanction against an editor specifically discussed in that arbitration would not be inappropriate. He's gone without sanctions for years, which is wonderful, but the behavior which seems to have led to the sanctions at least in part seems to be maybe returning again, which isn't. I haven't, and probably won't, review the edits of the others involved, but I can see that there is in my eyes rational grounds of some sort of sanction against Hgilbert, although I would lean to shorter rather than longer sanctions which are, if reasonable, more or less consistent with those leveled against any other editors who have recently engaged in dubious activity here. But, whether ArbCom specifically intended the sanctions to be indefinite or not, the fact that six years later the problems have persisted is to my eyes sufficient grounds to treat them as such. John Carter (talk) 18:49, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment John. This request has been open for quite a while now and I really don't want to spend any more time on it or keep it open any longer than necessary. I took another look through the article history tonight and I think I have probably seen enough at this point to make some recommendations. In addition to the diffs relating to Hgilbert above, I found a number of diffs from Alexbrn that are of concern. I did previously mention his addition of images containing prejudicial content of questionable relevance and in probable violation of WP:UNDUE, here and here; he later edit warred to retain the images in the article[54][55] in spite of an apparent lack of consensus for the inclusion of at least one of the images on the article talk page.[56] As with the images, the addition of content likely to lead a reader to a prejudicial view of Waldorf education seems to be a hallmark of Alexbrn's approach to this page.[57][58] Some edits that are of particular concern, however, are a number which added opinions as statements of fact in plain violation of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV and WP:YESPOV; [59] [60][61]; the same edits also look like examples of WP:CHERRY (see original sources: [62][63]). Alexbrn is clearly aware of the YESPOV policy because he himself cited it in reverting someone else's edits.[64]

With regard to Binksternet, he has made only a handful of edits to the article, but did support on the article talk page the return of a questionable image added by Alexbrn.[65] Binksternet also repeatedly added some arguably UNDUE content to the lead.[66][67]

To summarize then: for Alexbrn, given that he has not previously been cited for misconduct in the topic area, I propose a formal warning. For Binksternet, probably nothing more than a reminder to edit according to policy would be necessary at this point. That leaves Hgilbert, and I am still unsure about the best course of action there. While Hgilbert's misstatements of sources are problematic, none of the diffs are all that recent, and the other issues might be described as relatively minor. Regardless, I can't help but feel reluctant to topic ban an editor who has managed to avoid sanctions for six years. Additionally, given that the conduct on the other side of the fence has hardly been exemplary, a topic ban might be seen to be rewarding inappropriate conduct there. For these reasons I am leaning toward a warning for Hgilbert as well. The alternative would probably be a one month topic ban. Some input on this would therefore be welcome. Gatoclass (talk) 20:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If nobody else wants to comment on the above, I will close this request after 24 hours with a warning to both Hgilbert and Alexbrn and a reminder to Binksternet, as indicated. Gatoclass (talk) 06:33, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The proposals above sound reasonable. While it might be true that Alexbrn's edit history might not be quite as troubling as Hgilbert's, that isn't saying they're good. We probably would be better off without any sanctions to either, although, it additional comments support Hgilbert being sanctioned, then it would probably make sense to sanction Alexbrn as well, if maybe for a shorter time. John Carter (talk) 16:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Nyttend (talk) 15:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Doncram#General editor probation

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

1. Entire discussion here as of right now, where he says to an IP user in dispute "to me you seem somewhat like a series of previous editors who have arrived and taken interest in dab pages". One of many allegations without evidence; the same page accuses me of being the same person, although we're nowhere near to each other geographically
2. Yesterday, with edit summary "seriously, do you care about accuracy?"
3. Entire discussion here as of right now, when he's obstructing a process out of misunderstanding something that's easily understood with a few minutes of reading

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

1. Warned on 25 March by me; note that he replied to the thread, so he's obviously aware of it

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

diff

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

I've received notice of this discussion of edits on a disambiguation page and see what has been said. I'll just say: I have reason to be a bit "paranoid", if that means thinking that people are following and might be pushing/testing in order to raise contention, such as by opening an Administrative Enforcement proceeding. And, as I said at the linked page, i am honestly puzzled by how to deal with an anonymous editor who started by restoring what I considered a bad edit, and seems to be possibly very experienced in Wikipedia. And, that editor was "weirded out" by the odd behavior of other editors there, too, not just by my questions. Seems resolved by the editor being weirded out and dropping the possibility of discussing disambiguation policy and practice more thoroughly, which i offered to do.

I am open to having a big discussion in an RFC, about disambiguation policy and practices regarding place lists that include NRHP-listed places, and I urge participants here to consider if that would be useful. I don't think that revisiting disambiguation page policies is a great use of many editors time, but I would prefer to engage in that rather have a bunch of separate scattered discussions.

My comment is later than, and I have read all comments through, Sandstein's 3rd comment at 10:14, 31 March 2013 and the later comment by The Devil's Advocate at 17:25, and I will consider all that has been said here. Thanks. --doncram 21:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm disappointed to see the talk-page exchange (now grown much longer: [68]) flagged by Nyttend. Doncram's statements are an example of the kind of behavior toward other contributors that has been problematic in the past. The initial 3 paragraphs of accusations against the IP user and Nyttend are expressions of paranoia (the assumption that anyone who reverts his changes or questions his edits is someone he has identified as having a personal animus against him) and article ownership. In his later post asserting that he is an authority and suggesting that the IP should pursue mediation if he disagrees with Doncram's authority -- and by posting 10 paragraphs (a veritable wall of words -- and all about an inconsequential disambiguation page!) in slightly more than 5 hours, Doncram was (in effect, if not conscious intent) telling the IP to get out of his way and stay away. The parting words of the IP ("..This is getting way too weird. ...I'm not touching this page again") are a fine summation of the effect of Doncram's behavior on the IP -- and why this behavior is a problem. I wish Doncram could be made to understand that people like Nyttend and me aren't conspiring against him. I don't hold out hope of convincing him that we aren't out to get him, but he does need to recognize that this behavior toward other users is intimidation that will not be tolerated. --Orlady (talk) 18:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This pattern of (1) commenting on the contributor rather than the content, (2) asserting his superiority (and implied article ownership), and (3) overwhelming other talk participants with a disproportionately long outpouring of words ("wall of words") is behavior that I have been seeing in Doncram since 2008. He has accused me of bullying and intimidation (but did not provide evidence), but he has been consistently and persistently engaging in behaviors that demonstrably intimidate other users. Furthermore, his request for mediation with another user over an incredibly trivial disagreement is a behavior that I've experienced in the past (and is included in evidence in the Arbcom case) that I believe is intimidating in its effect, if not necessarily its intent. --Orlady (talk) 15:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Sandstein's suggestion of a topic restriction related to NRHP makes much sense. The issue here is behavior, not content. Almost all of Doncram's edits are related to the NRHP, so it's logical that that's where almost all of his behavioral issues arise. Restricting him from that topic might be a good recipe for making him upset and angry, but it's not a good recipe for addressing his behavior. --Orlady (talk) 20:02, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gatoclass suggests that an RFC might be appropriate. Considering that discussions that include Doncram tend to balloon way out of proportion to the issue, and in view of my observations of Doncram's disambiguation activities over several years, I don't believe that an RFC is called for. Doncram has undertaken a laudable -- and often thankless (meaning unappreciated) -- long-term project to create disambiguation pages for National Register properties. He has endured a lot of criticism over the years for failing to abide by the clearly documented guidance at WP:Disambiguation, for issues that at various times have included (but are not limited to) (1) listing disambiguation entries that don't contain any bluelinks, (2) in an attempt to resolve issue 1, adding bluelinks that point to pages that don't cover the title supposedly being disambiguated, (3) creating disambiguation pages that list only two items, (4) including two or more bluelinks in a single disambiguation entry (this typically happened when he converted a redlink into a bluelink shortly after creating the disambiguation page), and (5) creating disambiguation pages for items that contain similar words but are incredibly unlikely ever to need disambiguation. To "defend" his disambiguation pages, he got into a habit of creating exceptionally minimal stub-article pages so that there would be a bluelink to display on the page (these stubs were one of the big issues discussed in the Arbcom case). To "defend" listings of redlinks, he got into a habit of adding a link to an NRHP list-article at the end of every entry on his disambiguation pages; this habit has apparently become so thoroughly ingrained that he now often adds the words "NRHP-listed" (or something similar) after every blue-linked entry for an NRHP-listed property, as illustrated at O'Connor House. The "See also" section of that page also is an illustration of the issue I enumerated as "(5)". I think the best resolution of the content-related aspects of the issues that arose at "O'Connor House" would be for an uninvolved administrator who is knowledgeable about the ins and outs of disambiguation pages to advise him on crafting disambiguation pages that conform with both the specific guidance at WP:Disambiguation and the philosophy behind that guideline page. I also think that would be consistent with the "general editor probation" remedy imposed by Arbcom. --Orlady (talk) 16:01, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Gatoclass: (It took me some time to decide what I really did mean.) The main issue in this request is behavioral and has essentially nothing to do with WP:Disambiguation. Disambiguation is only a side issue, but larger issues possibly could be avoided in the future if the disambiguation issue was addressed now. I think this could be addressed under authority of the general editor probation sanction. However, there's probably no benefit from having an uninvolved administrator "require" Doncram to conform to WP:Disambiguation unless the requirement is accompanied by specific advice on what he needs to do differently in order to conform. This is because he apparently is convinced that he fully conforms now. An uninvolved administrator could advise him about possible reasons why various other editors persistently perceive problems with his disambiguation pages, and how he should/could edit those pages to avert future criticisms. --Orlady (talk) 00:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's too bad the arbitration didn't give Doncram the article-locking capability that he's apparently wanted. By the way, when he says he welcomes constructive input on his articles, he really means it's OK for other people to edit his articles only if they say something he agrees with. That's why I reverted the IP edits to the O'Connor House article, because sometimes an office building or a glassware factory can be confused with a house. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 20:15, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, can I get a ruling on whether it was OK for me to add a link to the National Register nomination for Durham School (Durham, Arkansas) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? It could be argued that I was violating WP:POINT to support a discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 March 21#Category:Bungalow/Craftsman architecture in the United States. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 20:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so Arbcom doesn't want to provide a ruling on the Durham School edit. Could I get a ruling from Doncram himself? --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 03:41, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

TDA: Maybe you can tell me exactly which one of my contributions is a violation of policy, and bring it up here. Then you could get me blocked for a time, or perhaps banned. (I'm sure you and your friends at W-------ocracy would entirely love to see that happen.) To be honest, I don't know what sort of things I might say that might upset Doncram. If I mention that the start date of a building is often after the start date of the organization that built it, do I have to walk on eggshells when saying so, because Doncram might get upset? Is it a matter of arbitration that adding a National Register nomination form link to an article might make Doncram upset? Sometimes I can't figure that sort of stuff out on my own. I was really hoping that Arbcom would provide an exact answer on when it's OK or not OK for me to edit articles that Doncram has ownership of.

Regardless, I think I get your point that I absolutely must not say anything that disturbs Doncram. Meanwhile, I'm assuming it's still perfectly OK with you if Doncram insults my work, implies that I do inaccurate and insufficient work, and asserts that I don't operate with quality and integrity. I can be quite certain that you don't have any qualms about insulting me, personally, judging from this message. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 04:39, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a second statement, since Sandstein asks for clarification from me. First off, the request is for a block; I didn't know that there were any options here other than "block" or "no sanction". Go with Orlady's and Elkman's diffs and comments, plus note that he accuses me of doing the editing, without basis (and as noted by Orlady, he's driven the IP off), and here characterises an attempt to get a community-approved process put into practise as being "railroaded" through without notification to him — this despite his non-involvement in anything related to the community approval. In the diff that Orlady calls "asserting that he is an authority...", Doncram even says "You probably do not see all of this, you don't see yourself as a rogue editor causing problems, but to me you seem somewhat like a series of previous editors who have arrived and taken interest in dab pages...". In other words, "You don't think of yourself as causing problems, but I know better, and you look like a sock in disguise" — an accusation of sockpuppetry without evidence. Finally, please look at the entirety of Talk:O'Connor House — not to read it, but simply glancing over the comments to see how long they are. Doncram's frequently clogged things up with TLDR statements (and objections when people tell him that they're too long), even doing this at the arbitration request. None of the things mentioned are sanctionable by themselves, just like none of his actions before the case were by themselves sanctionable, but all of them put together are problematic. These actions are some of what the arbitration ruling was supposed to stop; since he's acting the same way as beforehand, we need to use the arbitration ruling. Nyttend (talk) 03:13, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe there is anything of concern here. Nowhere do I see an indication that Doncram's conduct "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any normal editorial process or any expected standards of behavior and decorum." This is just seizing on trivialities and technicalities to get Doncram sanctioned for no apparently constructive purpose. These editors (Nyttend, Orlady, and Elkman) should just leave Doncram well enough alone. If they don't need to interact with him they shouldn't. I don't think any of them should be able to go to some page Doncram created or edited, make some edit they would have every reason to believe will lead to some amount of tension with Doncram, and then use any resulting tension as cause for getting him sanctioned.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:06, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The simple fact is that nothing happened here that is even worth acknowledging. An IP with clear experience on Wikipedia began reverting changes to a dab page after Nyttend had made a similar revert. For Doncram to suggest there was a connection is not obscene as most editors would be suspicious. People can get all bewildered at Doncram reacting defensively over a dab page, but why is anyone insistent on removing a few harmless links from a dab page in the first place? It is not excessive and there is certainly a logical basis for the inclusion of those links. Nyttend and Doncram have negative history, including a recent attempt by Nyttend to have another of Doncram's legitimate dab pages speedily deleted, and Nyttend obviously would be aware that Doncram may not react well to him deleting material from a page Doncram created. He is now using that reaction to push for sanctions. This sort of conduct towards someone in a dispute should not be rewarded with anything, even a warning.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:25, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the edit summary to a disambiguation page[69], Doncram accused an anonymous IP, whose edits he twice reverted, of being a logged-off editor subject to an interaction ban with him. The only such editor is SarekOfVulcan. On the talk page, however, Doncram suggested in a long paragraph that the IP was Nyttend, who had edited the page a few days beforehand.[70] Even when told this was not the case by Nyttend and the IP, Doncram continued using the talk page for making general allegations concerning Nyttend.[71][72] This was uncollegial editing and a violation of the remedy of general editor probation.

Of those commenting here, Nyttend, Orlady and Elkman are experienced editors in the NRHP area. Although all three were named parties in the recently closed Doncram case, none of them were mentioned in the final decision of the arbitration committee. In particular, none of these editors is subject to any kind of interaction ban. General editor probabtion applies to all articles Doncram edits. These are almost exclusively short stubs, lists and disambiguation pages. Any edit to this kind of page could be described as trivial. However, the conduct on the talk page, with unjustified bad faith accusations of sockpuppetry, was out of all proportion. The arbcom case contained numerous examples of bad faith accusations of an extreme kind, verging on paranoia. This is no different. Mathsci (talk) 08:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is no point at all in an RfC. The problems were identified in great detail in the arbcom case. There is no need to repeat that lengthy and painstaking process. Doncram was given the benefit of the doubt in that arbcom case. If he resumes the kind of conduct that was pinpointed there (personalized attacks out of all proportion), some concrete short term measures, such as one week-long blocks, are the way forward. Topic bans serve no purpose as they would effectively be sitebans, given the nature of WP:NRHP and Doncram's specific interests. Doncram certainly has enough self-awareness to know when he is crossing a line. If not ... Mathsci (talk) 16:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the assessment by Gatoclass and Sandstein. Doncram's main offense here is his repeated focus on the editor(s) instead of on the content, as well as a lack of collaborative spirit and ownership. I don't believe the behavioral issues rise to the level yet where strong action is needed and a series of gradual restrictions is a good idea. However, if Doncram keeps going on the current path he/she will eventually be banned from WP and rightly so. However, I am hoping that a series of increasingly severe sanctions will be a wake up call to amend his/her behavior and eliminate the current situation whereby their productive edits are negated or even overshadowed by their misbehavior. Doncram would also be wise to note that not all Admins will be as patient as Sandstein and Gatoclass, especially as the situation progresses and if he/she wants to continue on WP the time to shape up is now. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 14:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[The following was a reply to this edit and was moved here by another editor]

Hasn't he already been 'advised' to that effect? More than once? Note also his comments at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RileyBot 9, made after his statement above (1; 2; 3; 4). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[The following was a reply to this edit and was moved here by another editor]

That is indeed a dispute about Doncoram's concern about content. But as the bot isn't changing the content in question, his comments are inappropriate, and yet despite having this pointed out to him several times he persists, casting aspersions the editors who address him there. Unlike him, I have talked about an editor's actions, not their personality or supposed motivations. As such your thinly-veiled attempt to silence me trough threat is both unwarranted and inappropriate. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:57, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

Elkman, sorry: because your conduct is not covered by arbitration remedies, its assessment is, I believe, outside the scope of this noticeboard.  Sandstein  21:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Diffs are certainly preferable, though I'm not averse to links to full discussion threads where they provide useful context. I agree that Nyttend's evidence is a little vague though. Orlady's diffs and commentary are more helpful IMO. In this diff, for example, doncram proposes to document past behavior and tendencies, to inform a current discussion, if that is you Nyttend. "Document[ing] past behaviour and tendencies" of an editor to "inform a current discussion" doesn't sound like a very collegial, or productive, approach to talk page discussion. Doncram's response to an IP also strikes me as excessive and arguably intimidatory, or likely to have an intimidatory effect on a new user (although the IP in question doesn't actually sound like an inexperienced wikipedian).

On the other hand, doncram was cited in the original arbcom case specifically for incivility, and I don't think these diffs reach to that level. The apparent tendency to comment on contributor rather than content, however, is troubling. I'm not sure whether we should be broadening the scope of sanctions based on just a couple of diffs, but I guess one option, if this kind of behaviour persists, would be to prohibit doncram from commenting on contributor (with the usual exceptions), thus encouraging him to keep his comments focussed on content. Gatoclass (talk) 00:16, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After reviewing the evidence, I tend to agree with Gatoclass. Doncram's editing isn't so problematic as to call for immediate action, but it is troublesome nonetheless. His contributions are confrontative, sometimes address contributors rather than content, tend to assume bad faith on the part of others and seem to reflect a sense of ownership as well as grudges about past conflicts. Gatoclass is right to say that this is not a collegial or productive approach to talk page discussion, and I can well understand why the IP editor left the discussion saying that they were weirded out by this. I suggest warning Doncram that if they continue participating in discussions in this vein, we will ban them from making edits related to the National Register of Historic Places, which seems to be the topical nexus of this problem.  Sandstein  10:14, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm concerned about here, is that looking at the issues with this editor, we're just papering over the cracks in the dam. We're banning them specific articles where there's a problem, but sooner or later it springs a leak somewhere else. SirFozzie (talk) 08:03, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by that SirFozzie, but if you mean doncram's behavioural issues are not confined to one topic area, you may have a point.

This request reminds me somewhat of the recent SMcCandlish case in that doncram appears to be an editor whose value to the encyclopedia is generally acknowledged (correct me if I'm wrong), but whose approach to discussion tends to alienate other users. I'm always reluctant in such circumstances to go straight to topic bans or blocks, preferring to try other options first. At this point, not much evidence of misconduct has been presented, so I'd prefer to start at the milder end of the scale. My suggestion would be to start with an advisement to doncram to avoid gratuitous comments on contributor, if the problem persists, we can try an outright prohibition on such comments, if that doesn't work we can then start considering blocks and bans. Another possible option might be to require him to abide by consensus; ie, if he is reverting in defiance of consensus, that could be seen as grounds for sanction. I mention this because he appears to have reverted two users over the same issue at this page. Gatoclass (talk) 13:33, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, if there is a meta-issue here, that potentially affects thousands of pages, as indicated by the talk page discussion, would a content RFC be helpful in reducing tensions? Gatoclass (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We seem to agree that there's a problem, but we don't seem to be certain that it requires immediate action (and if so, what). Without objection, I'll close this with an advisement to Doncram that if the problems identified here continue (e.g., confrontative attitude, ownership, commenting on contributor rather than content, assumptions of bad faith), then he may be made be subject to more or less wide-ranging restrictions.  Sandstein  13:59, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pigsonthewing: Although I don't understand why exactly Doncram objects to the task proposed at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RileyBot 9, it seems to me that this (notably the diffs you provide) is primarily reflective of a content dispute (about how certain infobox fields should be formatted) rather than of a conduct problem. That content disagreement is not subject to arbitration enforcement. That is, Doncram may not be sanctioned for his opinions, but only for how he expresses them. But I note that in said discussion, you are also arguing confrontatively and, in part, aimed at the contributor rather than at the content. Please also take the advice given to Doncram here, or we may need to ask ArbCom to extend the remedy to encompass additional editors or the whole topic area.  Sandstein  15:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So done.  Sandstein  07:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Nableezy 14:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction

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

1. 14:41, 3 April 2013 Revert of this
2. 19:20, 3 April 2013 Revert of this
3. 08:49, 4 April 2013 Partial revert of this, source misrepresentation

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

1. Warned on 1RR here, prior to last revert listed

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The user has been claiming that a new edition of the cited source does not contain the material currently cited. That is demonstrably false. In the last edit, the user changes what has come to be known as the Lydda Death March. to The event has come to be known as the 1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramle and has also been referred to as the Lydda Death March when the cited source says 'On 12 July, the Arab inhabitants of the Lydda-Ramle area, amounting to come 70,000, were expelled in what became known as the 'Lydda Death March'. The user has edit-warred, misrepresented sources, and lied about other sources. He has also been edit-warring on the talk page of the article, repeatedly blanking or modifying another user's comments (eg [73], [74], [75]). I have a hard time believing that this is not a reincarnation of the past collection of sockpuppets of a banned user that has plagued that page, but even without that being taken into consideration he or she is violating the 1RR and lying about sources.

Sandstein, the source misrepresentation is in the article. nableezy - 16:14, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

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

First, my English is not polished. I make many efforts to ensure my edits to articles are grammatically correct. When I put on the talk page I dont make sure as much. But for this to be called me a vandal or disruption is wrong. I have improved the article. I think Nableezy says I violate 1rr by saying that ANY edit of the site is a revert, but this isn't true. I made an edit, it was reverted, so I went to the talk page. When I say what he said (no other user contested the content) I am called a 1rr violater. I am reading about Wikipedia policy. I tried to make edits that make concensus. You can see by above, he is making me intot he devil when I am working to make a better encyclopedia. No edit I make to an article is bad grammar, I make hard to ensure the article has good grammar.

Also, I have read many Wikipedia policy. I am sure I not know all, but I have the good faith. I think Nableezy's problem is our cultural difference. He is American and I am Chinese. If administrator think I not know enough about scholarship (Western scholarship?) to make edits, than I accept.

But, what I think is Nableezy is politically minded, not for Wikipedia.Dasixiaoriben (talk) 18:09, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The editor doesn't have a 'limited command of English'. They are writing in a way that they imagine resembles the way a Chinese person with a limited command of English would write, because it serves their purpose to do so, presumably for stimulation rather than deception given that it is inept and inconsistent. Doing whatever serves their purpose, irrespective of rules and norms, has been this person's prime concern for over 2 years. They'll either be blocked as a Lutrinae sock at some point or like their Luke 19 Verse 27 sock they will be blocked for disruption. Either way, it's inevitable that they will be blocked eventually and more time will have been wasted because of this person inability to control their behavior. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

I've previously offered the opinion that WP:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction is not enforceable in this kind of situation, because it has not been imposed by Committee vote and is therefore not a binding ArbCom remedy; and if it is considered a discretionary sanction then Dasixiaoriben has not received the specific type of warning required by WP:AC/DS (not even in an edit notice). As such, the most we could do under AE authority would be to issue that warning. But in view of the "cow pie" type of vandalism engaged in by this very new account (which does give some credence to the suspicion of socking), combined with the edit-warring and their apparently limited command of English, I'm not sure whether we shouldn't just indef-block the account under normal administrator authority for disruptive editing and not being a net benefit to Wikipedia. – Just a note concerning "source misrepresentation": In my view this should be reserved to mean making false statements about a source's contents in an article, rather than (as here, allegedly) in a discussion.  Sandstein  16:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've username blocked. That username in pinyin basically translates to "beat Japs to death". T. Canens (talk) 19:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks – I'll close this as moot, then.  Sandstein  19:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

My very best wishes (talk) 04:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Standard_discretionary_sanctions

Clarification: This user is already under personal editing restriction from October 2011 as stated here and logged here. According to this restriction, he is placed under an indefinite revert limitation on all Ukraine-related edits: not more than 1 revert per 48 hours per article, with the extra slowdown condition that before they make any content revert (obvious vandalism excepted as usual), they are required to first open a discussion on talk, provide an explanation of their intended revert and then wait 6 hours before actually making it to allow time for discussion.

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

1. April 3. [76],[77],[78],[79]
2. April 1. [80]
3. March 30. [81],[82]
4. March 18. [83]
5. March 16. [84][85]
6. March 17.[86]
7. March 14 [87]

And so on, and so on. Every single diff was a violation of his editing restriction because: (a) all of them are Ukraine-related, (b) he never started discussions at talk pages of these articles prior to revert as he suppose to do per restriction; (c) none of these reverts is simply a vandalism fixing, as clear from his own edit summaries ("POV", sourcing, etc.). In essence, Galassi simply decided to ignore his restriction.

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

March 17 Warning by admin about edit warring in Rus' people - related to Ukraine

October 18 2012 Edit warring warning by two admins in Little Russia - this is Ukraine

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

He apparently also edit war in ARBPIA area.

His problem is actually not the Ukraine-related topics, but a tendency to quickly revert edits by other contributors without talking. No, he does not follow WP:BRD cycle.

I run into this problem while editing articles that are not on Ukrainian subjects, but fell in EE area. He made this and this edits. This is a pretty strong statement (first diff) that "Although the case was officially declared as "completely fabricated" and all victims rehabilitated by Russian authorities in 1992 (ref) [from previous version], the later research has shown that there was in fact a conspiracy, and Gumilev did take part in it (another ref) [his addition]. He tells "in fact". How come? This claim simply contradicts most RS. Hence I reverted both changes per WP:BRD and started discussion at talk pages: here and here.

Galassi responded only by telling this in one of the talk pages, and then immediately reverted here (his edit summary: "not what sources say..") and here (edit summary "per recent reliable research"). This is the same problem as with Ukrainian subjects. But more important, as became clear from our later discussions ("POV" here and on his talk page), he did not even read any of the sources he refer to in his reverts.

I did not want to submit this request and therefore talked with Galassi [88] to ask if he understands that reverting others without talking and without even checking the sources is not a good idea, and that editing restrictions must be respected, but without any success.

@Galassi. According to log in WP:DIGWUREN, this editing restriction is still active, and there is nothing about expiration date in the original statement [89]. However, just to make sure, I asked you yesterday if you think the restriction has expired [90], and you responded "no" [91]. Moreover, this is not the first time when we are talking about this [92], and you never said this restriction is no longer active. My very best wishes (talk) 12:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Volunteer Marek. As I already said above, the problem of Galassi is not Ukrainian subjects, but rather his tendency to quickly revert edits by other contributors not only without talking, but sometimes even without looking at sources. And he starts edit warring (rather than BRD cycle) after making humiliating comments like this or no comments at all. That is why FPS made such unusual sanction. And when it comes to discussions, Galassi is not responsive. I asked him four times if he read a source, but he did not respond. For example, if he said me on his talk page that he understands the problem with his editing style, will improve it, and self-revert (self-reverting is simply a test showing that someone is ready to compromise), then I would never report him here. Therefore, I think the most sensible approach would be to extend this existing sanction by FPS to all EE subjects, rather than making the Ukrainian topic ban.

Please also see my additional explanation here.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

here

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

User User:My very best wishes and are involved not an edit war but in a content dispute, in which he relies on a single dated source. None of my edits were controversial (Ukraine related or otherwise). My topic bans are Ukrainians and the Battle of Konotop and my 6month restrictions have long lapsed.

In the case of Nikolay Gumilev's execution: I am translating the corresponding section from ru-wiki which is thoroughly sourced, as I stated in the relevant discussion.

User:My very best wishes's POV tendencies are evident also in his edits on the Yakov Agranov article, where he squarely lays blame for the Stalin's era repressions on Agranov, which to me sounds rather antisemitic, and I simply toned down the unencyclopedic tone of the article. In the case of Ilya Ehrenburg article, again, User:My very best wishes is intent on showing a "bloodthirsty Jew" by manipulating quotes and taking them out of context.--Galassi (talk) 10:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Fut.Perf. ever informed me of any indefinite blanket Ukraine restrictions. I was only told of the 6month 1R, and there weren't any situations where that would have arisen. And as Volunteer Marek has noticed none of my edits were controversial, and there were no complaints for 2 over years. Certainly there weren't any issues with Fut.Perf. who, I assume, would have been watching what I do, as he has in the past. I think Best Wishes is seeking to "neutralize" me in retaliation for catching him in several instances of antisemitic POV.--Galassi (talk) 11:35, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From Galassi's comment above, it's my impression that he thought the revert restriction was related only to the articles Ukrainians and Battle of Konotop, not anything to do with Ukraine, or for that matter, any topic what so ever (which the wording of the restriction seems to suggest if interpreted broadly). Add on top of that that most of his edits since that restriction have been non controversial, with only an occasional revert here or there, and basically nothing has happened since October 2011 to make him think otherwise. I would definitely advise against a topic ban on Ukrainian topics in general. Even if there's a violation here it seems like a idiosyncratic lapse two years after the sanction was imposed so he might have simply forgotten about it (yes, the edit warring's problematic but it looks like just somebody getting caught up in the heat of the situation - short term block for that is the usual remedy). Additionally, while it may not be obvious for a user who's devoted to a particular topic area an indefinite topic ban is essentially equivalent to a site ban. Way way too harsh. I think even My very best wishes would agree that that's going over the top.Volunteer Marek 22:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comments:

As far as I can tell Galassi hasn't been brought to WP:AE since December 2010, and in particular, not since the sanction was put in place. So I'm assuming this is the first violation of the sanction (after two years) of significance. As a result I don't think an *indefinite* topic ban from Ukraine-related topics is appropriate. Some kind of sanction, maybe. But the way it usually works is that the first offense results in a short term block or a limited time topic ban, and the sanctions are only escalated with subsequent infringements. Basically, immediately jumping to an indefinite topic ban is way out of proportion here.Volunteer Marek 07:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Diffs brought up by My very best wishes clearly reveal that Galassi violated the restrictions. My very best wishes is also right when he states that Galassi is too quick to push the revert button. Instead of discussing with his opponents (like My very best wishes attempted to do), he simply chose to revert. I also resent the fact that Galassi is once again using the 'antisemitism accusation' ([93]) as a killer phrase when having a dispute. The accusation he presented on his comment here (″is intent on showing a "bloodthirsty Jew" by manipulating quotes and taking them out of context.″) runs contrary to our rules. Despite this, Galassi is a generally constructive contributor, he should just (1) drop the accusations of antisemitic (or Russophile) bias (2) stop edit warring and seek consensus instead. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 12:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The only real issue I see that he has occasionally violated the "explain first" aspect of a complicated year-and-a-half old restriction. In the first five reverts noted above Galassi is reverting an IP editor who is making disruptive, nonsensical changes to an article. Although not vandalism per se, I think we should give a little consideration to the nature of those edits. The 1RR in ARBPIA actually exempts reverts of IP editors from such restrictions and for good reason. IP editors can and do make appropriate changes, but then you have instances like above where the IP adds some tendentiously-worded gobbledygook and is persistent in edit-warring in their nonsense. We shouldn't thump an editor for keeping that type of content out. Outside of those edits you basically have some occasional technical violations from March. These are far from justifying an indefinite topic ban.

As for Sandstein's talk about rollback, there is nothing untoward in Galassi's use of Twinkle. That tool is not the same as the rollback tool for a variety of reasons and is thus not subject to the same restrictions as the rollback tool. Anyone can get Twinkle by enabling it in their account settings so it isn't necessary for an admin to determine someone is a trusted editor before they can use Twinkle, and it allows for options that do not involve vandalism. It is not appropriate to suggest that Galassi should be barred from using Twinkle and not allowed to get rollback rights on the basis of the edits above.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 16:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

In addition, the reverts cited as evidence are problematic in and of itself: The series of 3 April 2013 violates WP:3RR. Several inaccurately characterize the reverted edit as vandalism ([94], [95]), or were made without an explanation in the edit summary ([96], [97], [98]), and one was made with the misleading summary "restoration of sourced content", when in fact it re-added unsourced content, including content tagged with "citation needed|date=May 2011". This constitutes disruptive editing.

Because these edits were made to articles related to Ukraine, which was also the scope of the original restriction, I am of the opinion that an appropriate reaction to this violation would be to ban Galassi indefinitely from editing anything related to Ukraine. Additionally, because in some of these reverts Galassi used an automated rollback tool (Twinkle) to rollback edits that were not vandalism, which violates the rollback guideline, they should be indefinitely prohibited from using Twinkle or another rollback tool, or from requesting rollback permission.  Sandstein  12:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree that this behavior violates the restriction imposed by FP and that it's time for an indefinite ban of User:Galassi from anything related to Ukraine. Since Galassi is not a new editor he would surely know how to behave better than what is documented here. If Future Perfect does come here to comment maybe he will consider lifting his original restriction (requiring discussion) and accepting this one in its place. Complex restrictions are hard to remember and hard to enforce. EdJohnston (talk) 22:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems that Future Perfect at Sunrise doesn't want to comment here. Contrary to what Galassi says, he was informed about the restriction. It also doesn't help his case that he repeatedly accuses the editor who made this request of antisemitism ([99], [100]). Accusing others of racist bias is a very serious charge, and making it (as here) without convincing evidence is in and of itself highly disruptive. I've taken into account what others have said above, but the general picture I get from Galassi based on this report is that they do not have the understanding or self-discipline required to contribute to highly contested topics in a constructive and collegial manner. They should limit themselves to editing in areas where they are not likely to enter into conflicts with others. Consequently, I'm imposing the topic ban discussed above. This does not supersede, but complement, the previous editing restriction; such that if this ban is lifted, the editing restriction remains in force. There's insufficient evidence for any action in the WP:ARBPIA area, but that can be the subject of a separate report if needed. I'm not implementing the rollback restriction, as there's no evidence of rollback misuse outside the area that is now to be subject to the topic ban.  Sandstein  11:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

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

Appealing user

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

User imposing the sanction

The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Sanction being appealed

Rumiton’s indefinite ban from all Prem Rawat related articles.

Log of Blocks, Bans and Restrictions

Here (scroll to bottom.)

Reason for the appeal

1. Indefinite bans without evidence of wrongdoing are against the Wikipedia ethos and seem to set a dangerous precedent.

2. I am a Guild Member, with over 10,000 edits to 1300 pages in 6 years. I have played a major role in bringing articles (Sinking of the RMS Titanic, German battleship Bismarck, Ernst Lindemann and Attack on Sydney Harbour) to Featured Article status, helped put out fires at Jesus Army, and fought a long and mostly losing battle to keep Sathya Sai Baba honest. Admittedly, none of these was as contentious as the Prem Rawat pages, where a battleground mentality has proved resistant to change, but I believe I have been a moderating influence there also. See [101], [102], [103], [104], [105], [106], [107], [108], [109],

3. As a result of a Decision Amendment Request, this article has now been brought under Standard Discretionary Sanctions. There are eight SDS criteria, [110] this action clearly fails:

i. No misconduct was identified that could “spill over to other areas of Wikipedia.”

ii. Additional input in this sanction does not appear to have been sought.

4. Blade’s comment, ‘‘I honestly hate to have to do this, but I think that the only way to stop the endless deadlock on the article is to go nuclear.’’ [111] is controversial. Rather than an “endless deadlock”, the article was steadily improving. A flurry of minor and discussed edits had recently been made, some of which I politely objected to. [112] Most of the other objections seemed focused on denigrating the subject and other editors, culminating in the outing of an editor and the blocking of the outer. [113]

5. Re article neutrality, I believe the article has improved. Littleolive oil (uninvolved) wrote in Rainer P’s appeal: ’’I...now...sense that Rawat is controversial, has detractors and supporters, and I have a sense of what his tenets are. I no longer feel I am being manipulated to see Rawat in any particular way. The slant when I came in was pejorative.’’ [114]

6. Blanket banning has not helped this article. Arguably this article has gone backwards since November.

7. While I admire Prem Rawat’s perspectives and perseverance, I have never held any official position in any of his organisations and have certainly never been paid to edit. I have no COI.

I believe The Blade of the Northern Lights has made a mistake in applying this sanction to me, and I respectfully request that it be lifted.

Notification of the administrator

[115]

OK, it took me a while to refresh my memory of all this, so here goes. First off, here is when I lifted the ban in August; I thought that Rumiton had done a considerable amount of good, neutral editing in a very tough article (2012 Assam violence was a gigantic mess and getting hit with all kinds of unhelpful garbage, and I commend him for the work he put in there). I thought it demonstrated his ability to keep neutral in a hard area, and figured it wouldn't hurt to allow him another chance at Prem Rawat. This is the statement I made on the matter in mid-December after I imposed the bans, when ArbCom decided to switch over to standard DS without vacating the sanctions I imposed. Since that time, my stance has not changed. As I alluded to, there's no one diff which can sum up what I was seeing, but it's the overall pattern which was the problem. I extensively talked this over with User:Steven Zhang (who I will notify now that I've mentioned him), who did a huge amount of mediation in the topic area, and he saw exactly what I did. Immediately after I imposed the bans several respected editors- including Jimbo personally- stepped in to undo several edits Rumiton had either done or supported; some of this can be seen at Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 50#Massive revert of content, and the rest can be seen in the article history from that time.

With regard to Rumiton's statement above, my view essentially echoes IRWolfie-. To the extent that this appeal is directed at me, I decline it, and to the extent it's directed at others I encourage others to decline it as well. If the ban was lifted I would have the same view I expressed in December about how monopolized the article was before my intervention, and the statement above does not allay those concerns. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Richwales; here are the series of edits which ultimately made me go through with the bans. The edits were all made by Momento, but Rumiton repeatedly expressed his support of them, starting at Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 50#Undue weight and moving through the next several threads. The edits were plainly tendentious and slanted, and Rumiton's total support of them indicates to me that he would pick up right where Momento left off. I explicitly talked about this with Steven Zhang, and he concurred based on the comments and his past experience working with Rumiton. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:46, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This ban should be investigated based on two issues, one on whether appropriate Wikipedia processes were or were not followed and two as a subsection of that what indications are there that the talk page processes on Prem Rawat were failing and a ban should be implemented. I came to the Prem Rawat article in August 2012 [116] because of this comment [117] on Jimbo Wales' talk page. I was an uninvolved editor with no knowledge of Prem Rawat or his organization. I idealistically hoped to help foster appropriate processes on the talk page and as someone uninvolved to quiet the incivility I found on the page. Simply, the talk page processes began to work and were on going and productive, (which I don't take credit for, but my intent was to help with this process). There was little or no edit warring although Pat W tended to degrade the process with incivility. In this atmosphere where editors had improved in their relations and progress was being made, Blade of the Northern Lights made a surprising and extreme move banning 4 editors, without diffs that illustrated problematic behaviour. Given the ongoing improvement in the article environment, the ban is puzzling to say the least. Not only where there no diffs, there were no diffs showing individual editor misbehaviour and nothing that I saw then indicated Rumiton should be removed from the article. Each editor on editing this article is an individual and while Wikipedia processes allow a single admin to ban or block based on discretionary sanctions, Wikipedia processes also indicate editors can expect to be told why they have been banned. I know that the Prem Rawat article is highly contentious and has been the subject of several arbitration. Unfortunately, the progress that was being made in term of collaboration was abruptly ended with this ban.

• • My concern with this whole issue is the continued focus on the past rather than on the present, and on viewing this article from one side and not holistically. When I went into this article, I knew nothing about Rumiton, Momento, or any of the other regular editor on the PR with the exception of Will Beback now banned from all NRM articles. What does that ban say about the dynamics of this article? Does it say the problems were all on one side. On the contrary, yet I went into this article with the assumption that certain editors must be at fault. Frankly that's not what I found. I found levels of aggression and incivility that eventually forced me to leave the article, and I found editors attempting to discuss perfectly acceptable points of contention and being attacked for doing so. Tendentious editing is a highly abstract idea. Better to lay out specific instances of concern than sweep the whole situation into the one bag of tendentious editing. Better to see who is doing what, and especially why without the added baggage of presumptions.

My sense is that like me, others came onto this article with a predisposed view of the situation based on the past arbitrations. There may well have been concerns as the arbitrations outlined. I am however, inclined to look at those arbitrations with fresh eyes given the input a now banned editor had in them and to look at the talk page of Prem Rawat from more than one angle What is needed now is not to look at the past, but at what really is happening now, and to remember on Wikipedia narratives about editors are easy to create, and easier still to perpetuate and grow until they become the accepted reality. Its not easy for an editor to undo such a narrative and its easy for the rest of us, by far, to assume that the narrative, by the time it reaches us, is the right story , rather than to change how we think and look at other people. That's as true in life as it is here. I'm convinced given my experience on the talk page of PR there's much more here than meets the eye and that these editors, specifically Rumiton in this appal, based on the improvements I saw pervious to the ban, deserve a chance to continue to evolve as editors hopefully leaving the past behind. If they don't the article, is under discretionary sanctions. If there is a next time, I hope clear diffs will used to show problems which should save time for everyone.(olive (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

• • I am concerned respectfully . My vote was forgotten and and clearly supports a lifting of the ban. I hope the result of this request will be reconsidered.(olive (talk) 14:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Thanks for moving/removing my comment since it seems to be in the wrong place.(olive (talk) 14:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

• • Sandstein. My position and comments on that page were clearly not in support of any one side, and I came into the article in more of a mediation position rather than with any view or POV. Using one edit that was added to create perspective for Jimbo's undiscussed addition does not by any standard define the work I did on that article mostly in discussion. I hope you are not using one diff as reason to exclude my vote. If the admins need more diffs to explain my position on that page please let me know, But as is, this seems an unfair exclusion of my vote. I will however concede to the decision if there is no change and encourage Rumiton to pursue clarification.(olive (talk) 14:54, 10 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

• • Add: If my vote is ignored because I have more involvement than the other "uninvolved" editors and some invisible line has been drawn, fine. If its because a POV is perceived, that is incorrect . Probably only a un biased reading of the threads would bear me out. I imagine I'll be ignored, but this is for the record.(olive (talk) 15:50, 10 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

@Sandstein. I know there is a lot of stuff to follow in this case, or cases. Here is where Blade's first ban on me was lifted, in August on Sept 5, 2012. Should this lifting have been advised on the Noticeboard? Rumiton (talk) 10:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Richwales. Thanks for giving me this opportunity. Every question merits an essay, but I will be as concise as I can.

1. Briefly, what do you think are the best aspects of the Prem Rawat article as it currently stands?

I think the article is reasonably well-balanced. The flurry of ridicule and mockery that greeted his arrival in the West is acknowledged neutrally and the sources given. The positive reception he has received is also acknowledged.

2. Briefly, and without going into excessive detail or becoming confrontational, what do you think are the worst aspects of the article as it currently stands?

The article shows the scars from previous bitter disputes, deals and unworkable compromises. I hope this doesn’t confront anybody, but the lead currently says, to paraphrase: ‘’Prem Rawat was the leader of the Divine Light Mission which has been described as a cult, and he has been described as a cult leader by writers who oppose cults.’’ This was obviously inserted without discussion by editors who do not view him favorably and wanted to get their message across. The article suffers accordingly.

The article is also light wrt the post-1980’s, and the bar for sources for new material has been set very high. I can give specifics and diffs if required.

3. How do you feel the core Wikipedia content policies (WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:BLP) should guide the content of the Prem Rawat article and related articles? In particular, to what extent do you believe the BLP policy may limit our ability to write a fair, balanced, and neutral article here?

I was a Navy and Merchant Marine officer for a lot of years. During this time my life was largely governed by 38 rules for preventing collisions. But the most important rule was never put to paper: Rule 39, “Do not have a collision.” In other words, if you follow all the rules doggedly and still create a catastrophe, you will at least partially get the blame for it. I think Wikipedia is the same. The rules are good; far-sighted, well-evolved and necessary, but there is something overriding them. That something might be called “intelligent kindness.” If we follow rules blindly and produce an article that does not honestly inform the reader, or that is unfair, or reflects the aims of bad journalists in manipulating readers’ feelings into self-righteous indignation or false intellectual superiority, we have created a shipwreck, and we have no one to blame for it but ourselves.

4. How should the Wikipedia community handle situations where various people have widely differing views on what the Prem Rawat article should contain and how it should be written? Do you believe it is possible for editors working on this article to reach a balanced consensus that is neither a whitewash nor an attack piece? To what extent (if any) do you believe the logjams can be resolved only by banning certain people (possibly you, possibly others, but don't name names here) from working on the article at all?

I am not going to say it’s easy. Last year I decided all the soapboxing and personal attacks made it too hard, and I would walk away permanently and concentrate on several hundred other articles: [118] Somehow I ended up back editing. The answer I think is in more editors with a good grasp of these principles getting involved in content and responding to informal requests for comments. Perhaps a summary of principles might be placed on a banner on the talk page. Unfortunately previous high-level input has reinforced the notion that in this article, negative stuff is neutral, and positive stuff can only be from a biased cult member.

Yes, I do believe it is possible to achieve consensus, but highly POV’d editors occasionally need an official reminder that that is what we are working toward. “The article that none of us might have chosen, but with which we all can live.”

I think banning is a radical procedure, really a last ditch action. Long after the dead editors have been hosed out, the smell of blood remains on the talk page, and whether banning an editor without supplying sufficient cause is classed as a personal attack or not, [119] I can assure everyone that it feels like one. I think it does nothing for Wikipedia.

5. To what extent (if any) do you feel you are willing to accept content in the Prem Rawat article with which you are not personally comfortable?

I accept nearly all the current content, though I have some issues with emphasis and weight. I would have to deal with suggestions for new content case-by-case, like everyone else.

6. Do you believe you are able (and willing) to write in a way that fairly, accurately, and neutrally presents views regarding Prem Rawat with which you personally disagree?

Perhaps I cannot do that, but neither can anyone else. That is why I have always tried, and if reinstated will continue to try, to get input from as many other editors as I can (as I did here) [120]. In the past it has rarely been forthcoming (apart from kneejerk opposition) and I do not understand why, as plenty of people seem to be watching the talk page. Too hard, perhaps. Rumiton (talk) 16:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Steven Zhang. Steve, your mediation efforts were appreciated and I am sure would have born more fruit were it not for the participation of one particular editor. Looking at the 2008 discussion of Cagan as an example, 153 posts were made by editor Will Beback, about twice as many as those from all other editors combined. At the time Will was still presenting as a neutral administrator, but time has shown him to have been an implacable foe of this subject and a number of similar subjects. There was no possibility of reaching an agreement with Will that did not involve total surrender to his POV, and I feel it is unfair to hold our past difficulties against me now, especially as a number of contesting editors on both sides of the fence no longer edit Wikipedia. Rumiton (talk) 02:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Sorry, it looks like I initially posted this in the wrong section. My mistake. Thanks for shifting it.) Rumiton (talk) 08:04, 13 April 2013 (UTC) @Mastcell. May I ask if you actually looked at my edits? I have mainly been accused of supporting tendentious editing, but not one diff supporting this has been shown. On the contrary, I believe my editing shows a pattern of trying to ameliorate extreme views on both sides. Re my banning history, perhaps I should have appealed my previous topic bans first (I think they were similarly flimsy) but I was told this appeal would be taken on its merits.[reply]

This is indeed a difficult area to edit in, but the reasons for that lie in the history of the subject. As a teenager, Prem Rawat was largely jeered at by the lightweight press of the 70's, but taken much more seriously by academic sources. Since the 80's, much of his coverage has been in in-house, (tertiary education, health care and penal institutions etc) or foreign language, sources. It is a hard situation, but I don't think you have been fair in saying I "essentially admit I am unable to neutrally present views with which I disagree". I have said that nobody has been able to fairly represent all the available sources, but I think my strategy of wide consultation is the best. If permitted to edit again, I would use RfC, 3d Opinions, and other noticeboards more fully, and this would be a benefit to the article. No doubt I would be watched closely to make sure that I did.

If an appeal against a topic banning that cannot be justified by evidence is dismissed because the banning admin and one mediator still thought it was justified, then is there any point to having an appeal process in place? Rumiton (talk) 15:43, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. My experience with the Prem Rawat articles spans back to 2008, where I have served as a mediator a few times over the years. Like all long-running disputes, this is a difficult one to resolve, and while there has progress over the years it has predominantly slow. Over the years, various involved editors have been topic or site banned, and the editors that have been involved for many years on the article has whittled down. Now, I'm not an admin and I'm not going to tell y'all how to do your job, but my assessment of the situation is this is an intractable dispute that no amount of dispute resolution can resolve. For disputes to be resolved, it is required that all parties have a desire to work together and move forward, and be open to compromise. From my experience, this does not exist, which leaves the article (which is a BLP) unstable, and prone to NPOV and edit warring issues.

I believe that The Blade has taken a precautionary approach in this situation, noting previous issues with editing that took place in the past. Rumiton had been topic banned three times from Prem Rawat in the past, for a period of one week, one year by ArbCom, and then indefinitely by The Blade (though this was lifted in September for 2 months). I agree with the reasoning of The Blade - in the past Rumiton and Momento have supported each other in the edits they made, even when these were in breach of policy. As pointed out, this continued at the time shortly preceding the topic ban, and I agree with his assessment that if Momento was topic banned, it would have been very likely to be picked up in some way by Rumiton. This isn't a sure thing of course, but based on the history of the article this seemed very likely, and thus a topic ban being a reasonable measure.

It is my opinion that the topic ban should not be lifted - of course it is not my decision, but I have a strong feeling that the article will become unstable if topic bans start to be lifted. I'd encourage the uninvolved adminsistrators to review the past dispute resolution attempts for Prem Rawat (below) and understand how intricate this dispute is before deciding how to act. I acknowledge that it is not the role of AE administrators to resolve content disputes, but your actions may make it easier or harder for us to do so, and it's a tough enough job as it is. Please think carefully. Regards, Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 14:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the DR attempts include - Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Prem Rawat all the way to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Prem Rawat 6, the MedCab case I took (with the proposals for changes and associated discussions - one page alone amounted to 500k)

There is only one issue here and Rumiton has identified it, if vaguely, in his first point. As clearly expressed in ArbCom's "Burden of proof and personal attacks", "the onus is on the sanctioning editor to provide the evidence to prove his claim. (And) failing to do so may constitute a personal attack. The longstanding "No Personal Attacks" policy states that "serious accusations require serious evidence". [121] BotNL offered no evidence at all. BotNL needs to provide "serious evidence""citing supporting diffs where appropriate" of Rumiton's "battleground behaviour over the last several months" prior to his banning. Irrespective of the evidence, or lack of it, a member of a minority "religion/group" like Rumiton will never win a Wikipedia popularity contest and the only way this sanction will be overturned is "with the written authorization of the Committee".Momento (talk) 22:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not that my edits have anything to do with Rumiton but here is a synopsis of the 17 edits I made that caused BotNL to ban Rumiton. [122] You'll note that 17 editors were editing the article at that time and none objected to my proposals or my edits when I made them. The edits are not tendentious or slanted, they were accepted without objection by the 17 editors editing and the 446 editors who have Prem Rawat on their watch list. A direct contradiction of BotNL's above claim that "the article was monopolized before (his) intervention". Momento (talk) 02:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly I will note that significant consensus is required for an overturn: Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Reversal_of_enforcement_actions. I will also note that I have never edited an article about Prem Rawat as far as I am aware. Now a point by point look at the appeal:

1. This reason for the appeal does not cite any specifics to the case.

2. Work at other article is entirely irrelevant to the current case.

3. I see no eight SDS categories. What I see is a summary of discretionary sanctions provided in 8 bullet points. Your quote, wherever it is from, is not a quote of WP:AC/DS. No additional input is required for any administrator to impose discretionary sanctions.

4. Subjective, unsubstantiated and irrelevant. It does not mention the specifics of why the topic ban was put in place.

5. Calling olive, an editor who has a keen interest in meditation, and who perhaps works for a meditation related institute (I was unable to confirm or refute this from what I can see on-wiki, see the COIN archives) and who made many edits to the page and about the page, uninvolved is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. I don't hold this particular editors opinion (one of many opinions) there in high regard, and I'm not sure why you do.

6. This is entirely subjective and unsubstantiated. It is also irrelevant, but shows that you haven't moved on.

7. Where was a COI mentioned?

In summary, no substantive reason to do anything. Rather a lot of erroneous points and arguments have been thrown about. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Olive, I am merely noting that you are involved, not uninvolved as initially claimed in the appeal. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is unclear if Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/TimidGuy_ban_appeal#Burden_of_proof_and_personal_attacks is meant to apply to WP:AC/DS (which makes no mention of it, and where the appeal process is markedly different from other appeals). IRWolfie- (talk) 22:29, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Olive, Momento highlighted it as possibly relevant. It does not just apply to TM, but is meant to reflect a general principle of wikipedia. That is why it is in a section called principles. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Editing a talk page supporting tendentious editing is as disruptive as making the edits, IRWolfie- (talk) 11:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Richwales: Restoring a comment which was a violation of an editors topic ban seems an extremely unusual step. Doesn't that essentially reward violating the topic ban? IRWolfie- (talk) 00:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the note from Rumiton on Littleolive oil's talk page and thought I'd wander over. I've never edited the PR page but I have 19 edits to the talk page as a consequence of two RfC's on that page back in 2010 and 2011. I've been watching the goings on there, off and on, since then and I'm interested in this mass topic ban. There were no diffs given in Blade's initial post explaining Rumiton's topic ban here And when it was brought up at ArbRequestsEnforcement only one diff was provided and that was for an edit made by Momento not by Rumiton Each editor is an individual person and deserves to be treated as such. I look forward to the presentation of evidence in the specific case of Rumiton.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Having been asked now three times, in various venues, for examples of Rumiton's edits that would justify a topic ban, not a single diff has been provided. The rationale for the ban was what Rumiton might do: "Rumiton's total support of them [edits by Momento] indicates to me that he would pick up right where Momento left off" is not a justification for including him in a mass topic ban. I find this unacceptable and feel strongly the ban should be lifted.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal should be granted per Sandstein below. (I used to edit the topic area, but it's been more than a year that I've set foot there.) Andreas JN466 03:05, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

POV pushing on a talkpage is also grounds for action being taken against you. It's disruptive IRWolfie- (talk) 19:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

• I'm awaiting a statement from TBoTNL but the area was covered by an ArbCom mandated probation at that time and it is within administrator discretion to impose sanctions. The bans were explained by TBoTNL on the article talk page[123] - further clarification could have been sought directly from the imposing sysop. Furthermore Rumiton was also indefinitely banned in April 2012 from this topic area after an AE thread, and was previously banned from it in 2008. I haven't been able to find where the April 2012 ban was lifted - it would be useful if a link to this could be posted--Cailil ^talk 11:41, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I've looked at Rumiton's edits to Prem Rawat over the two months prior to his topic ban, and I'm sorry, but nothing in his edits to this article during this period strike me as substantial enough to support a conclusion that Rumiton was engaging in disruptive or "battleground" behaviour at that time. With all possible respect to others who may have a different view, I'm not a fan of collective punishment, and I'm not inclined to support a major sanction (such as a long-term block or topic ban) on an individual editor based on a gestalt reading of an overall situation. If TBotNL, or others supporting his actions, are aware of specific actions by Rumiton in the few weeks or days prior to mid-November of last year which would justify an indefinite / permanent topic ban, please show us the diffs; otherwise, I would favour a lifting of Rumiton's topic ban now. And even assuming for the sake of argument that the topic ban was originally justified, over four months have passed since then, and I believe it's worth seeing what happens now if he is allowed back in. If Rumiton (and/or any other editors involved in this same incident) do get unbanned, his/their actions are surely going to be subject to increased scrutiny; and if Rumiton does start or resume engaging in disruptive editing, I may well be inclined to block him myself next time. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 01:30, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @TBotNL, I read the material you cited at Talk:Prem Rawat#Archive 50. Assuming for the moment that Momento was in fact being tendentious here, this talk page discussion still doesn't establish to my mind that Rumiton was being (or was of a mind to be) similarly tendentious. I'm much more interested in what Rumiton actually did to the article — which, as I said, does not seem to me to rise anywhere near the level of "battleground behaviour". As for Steven Zhang and his agreeing with you, I would really prefer to hear from Steven Zhang directly and understand what he thinks of all this from his own fingers on his keyboard. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have posted a request on Steven Zhang's talk page, asking him to come here to this AE request and give us his views directly. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @Rumiton, I have some questions to ask you regarding the way you view the condition of the Prem Rawat article and how you would conduct yourself in the event your topic ban were to be lifted.

1. Briefly, what do you think are the best aspects of the Prem Rawat article as it currently stands?
2. Briefly, and without going into excessive detail or becoming confrontational, what do you think are the worst aspects of the article as it currently stands?
3. How do you feel the core Wikipedia content policies (WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:BLP) should guide the content of the Prem Rawat article and related articles? In particular, to what extent do you believe the BLP policy may limit our ability to write a fair, balanced, and neutral article here?
4. How should the Wikipedia community handle situations where various people have widely differing views on what the Prem Rawat article should contain and how it should be written? Do you believe it is possible for editors working on this article to reach a balanced consensus that is neither a whitewash nor an attack piece? To what extent (if any) do you believe the logjams can be resolved only by banning certain people (possibly you, possibly others, but don't name names here) from working on the article at all?
5. To what extent (if any) do you feel you are willing to accept content in the Prem Rawat article with which you are not personally comfortable?
6. Do you believe you are able (and willing) to write in a way that fairly, accurately, and neutrally presents views regarding Prem Rawat with which you personally disagree?

I believe it is important for us, as we consider your ban appeal, to hear and understand your views regarding these questions. Basic, general principles are what I'm hoping to see here. As you write your answers, please don't go into so much lengthy detail that someone might be tempted to impose sanctions against you for violating your current topic ban (which, of course, still remains in effect until and unless it gets lifted). However, as long as you are making a good-faith effort to explain your current views and to give us a good idea of what we should expect to see from you if you do get unbanned, I will actively support your right (per WP:BAN#Exceptions to limited bans) to express yourself on this subject and in this forum, and I trust that others will also give you the benefit of the doubt on this point as long as you are reasonably trying to express yourself in a helpful way.

Since the section of the page in which I am writing this is reserved for comments by uninvolved admins, please put your comments in your section above, along with other editors' statements. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 18:30, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @IRWolfie-: You ask a reasonable question (regarding my reinstatement of Momento's comments), but I believe I did the right thing here. First, I waited to do this until after Sandstein (the admin who had blocked Momento and deleted his comments) indicated he would not object. Second, I consider Momento's comments to be relevant to our discussion — to help us put Rumiton's topic ban in its proper context, and to see an important part of the material which apparently prompted TBotNL to impose the topic ban. As for the propriety of restoring edits made in defiance of a ban (assuming that is in fact what Momento did — Sandstein and I will apparently have to continue to "agree to disagree" on this question), the banning policy (WP:BAN) does not demand that such edits should be reverted. And I really don't see what I did as "rewarding" Momento for his misconduct, because the block Sandstein imposed on him is still in effect. Since Momento's comments are back in play, I trust people will read them, check out the link he provided to his synopsis of the edits leading up to the topic ban, and decide for themselves what bearing (if any) this material may have on their view of Rumiton's topic ban. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @Rumiton, thank you very much for your reply to my list of questions. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 20:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• @Steven Zhang, I looked at the failed mediation efforts you referred to, and I'm concerned that almost all of them appear to be very old. The most recent mediation effort I could find which specifically included Rumiton happened in 2010 (the most recent effort, in 2012, didn't involve Rumiton, so I really don't think it should be considered here). While it may very likely be the case that Prem Rawat and other articles have always been problematic and will always continue to be so, that isn't a good enough reason (IMO) to permanently topic-ban someone on the basis of general worries that don't explicitly and unambiguously involve that specific individual editor's recent misdeeds. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 20:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Momento's statement above violates their own topic ban. I'm removing the statement and blocking Momento, in enforcement of the ban, for a week.  Sandstein  07:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I question whether this action really is appropriate under the circumstances. Momento is at least somewhat involved here, since he was topic-banned along with Rumiton. And the information Momento posted (and which has now been deleted) included a link to material that is relevant to our discussion. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 07:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll unblock Momento if they want to appeal their own ban rather than discuss the ban of others (see User talk:Sandstein#Blocking Momento?).  Sandstein  07:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Even if Momento remains blocked, though, I believe the material he posted here prior to the block (including a link to one of his subpages in which the editing activity leading up to the ban are described) is relevant to our discussion, that the deletion of this material was/is not required by Momento's topic ban, and that Momento's comment should be restored to our discussion. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 17:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If a non-banned editor considers the material useful for the purpose of this discussion, they are welcome to restore it.  Sandstein  20:08, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've done this. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:14, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• On the merits, based on the explanation given by The Blade of the Northern Lights I consider that the ban of Rumiton was likely made in error. I do not think that discussion page statements in support of tendentious editing merit the same sanction (let alone an indefinite topic ban) as that received by the editor, Momento, who actually made the allegedly tendentious edits. In particular, I'm not aware, in the statements made by The Blade of the Northern Lights in support of the sanction, of seeing a diff of even one allegedly problematic edit by Rumiton.

  Nonetheless, for procedural reasons, I'm not yet convinced that I should support removing the ban. As Cailil points out, Rumiton had already been topic-banned in April 2012, also by The Blade of the Northern Lights. That ban is still in force, and no argument has been made here that it was made in error. As such, unless the April ban is also appealed and overturned, appealing and overturning the November ban (at issue here) appears pointless.  Sandstein  08:31, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Rumiton points out, above, that The Blade of the Northern Lights did lift the April ban in September. This was not logged on the case page; I've now done so. As such, I tend to be of the view that the appeal should be granted and the ban lifted, unless The Blade of the Northern Lights can more clearly explain, on the basis of specific edits made by Rumiton at the time, why the ban of Rumiton needed to be reinstated in November.  Sandstein  10:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with Sandstein's block of Momento. Regarding Rumiton, frankly I can see where Steven and TBotNL are coming from. The re-imposition of the April 2012 ban in November for a return to previous bad behaviour (supporting tendentious edits by Momento) makes perfect sense to me - its a failure to abide by unban conditions (which were loosely laid-out in that discussion about the ban being lifted[124]). It should also be noted that these actions were undertaken while a second RFAR was in progress, i.e misbehaviour during RFAR is a very bad idea. That said I think this ban and the lifting of the April ban were sloppy. AE and AC/DS bans need to be clear, unbanning conditions need to be clear also. I don't however see this as grounds for over-turning. My reasoning on that is based on the actual appeal above which fails to take account of any wrong doing in the past regarding this topic nor does it outline how this user will avoid a return to actions that twice led to indefinite topic bans. That said given that 6 months has elapsed and given that no specific edits by Rumiton have been or were the cause of this ban I would be open to a conditional (and clearly explained/defined) unban, on the basis that if these conditions are broken the ban will be re-imposed--Cailil ^talk 16:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems that discussion about this appeal has stalled. My assessment is that several administrators (including me) as well as other editors have voiced concerns about this topic ban, while others support it, but that we do not have the "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" that is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. As such, if there are no objections, I'll close this appeal as unsuccessful, while advising Rumiton that they may still appeal the ban to the Arbitration Committee.  Sandstein  06:05, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I object. My reading of the discussion so far is that there is a clear consensus in favour of lifting Rumiton's topic ban. There is disagreement over whether TBotNL was right to have imposed the ban in the first place, but most comments appear to me to support the idea that the ban can and should end now. Some want to go a bit further, cautioning Rumiton to be especially careful, and reminding him that Prem Rawat remains under discretionary sanctions and that disruptive editing by Rumiton or anyone else will not be tolerated. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:16, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Hm, among uninvolved admins, we three (you, I and Cailil) seem to favor some sort of lifting of the ban, but among the other editors that label themselves (rightly or wrongly) or appear to be uninvolved two (Jayen466 and Keithbob) support lifting the ban and two (IRWolfie-, Steven Zhang) oppose it, in addition to the sanctioning administrator. I agree that this amounts to "normal" consensus among administrators and perhaps among contributors more broadly, but by proportion and number of contributors (less than a dozen) it does not seem to be the "clear, substantial, and active" kind of consensus required for the exceptional step of overturning an enforcement action per Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Reversal of enforcement actions. However, that page also instructs that "if consensus in such discussions is hard to judge or unclear, the parties should submit a request for clarification on the proper page." Accordingly, I suggest that this thread be closed with the result that the parties (Rumiton and/or The Blade of the Northern Lights) may file a request for clarification to determine the outcome of this appeal.  Sandstein  07:53, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  P.S. As concerns Littleolive oil, they have made contributions to this topic area that indicate an association with one side of the underlying content dispute (e.g., [125]), such that I am not ready to count their opinion as that of an uninvolved editor.  Sandstein  14:11, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with Sandstein in order to lift/reverse a discretionary sanction the consensus needs to be much stronger. AC/DS are based on sysop discretion, and thus we HAVE TO allow for fuzziness on occassion and as above I can see where Steven and TBotNL are coming from with this ban. As a positive suggestion perhaps we should close this without prejudice to an appeal sooner rather than later. As long as that appeal actually deals with how Rumition will abide by policy rather than on the more WP:NOTTHEM aspects of this one--Cailil ^talk 14:22, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Would it be possible for us to bring in a couple of outside, so-far-completely-uninvolved opinions regarding the situation before closing this? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 14:43, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I wouldn't object to asking for further admin input at e.g. WP:AN.  Sandstein  15:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks. I have made a request at WP:AN for additional opinions. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 18:04, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• (Responding to the request for additional input at WP:AN) I hate to complicate the lack of consensus further, but after reviewing this request I'd be concerned about lifting Rumiton's topic ban. The Rawat articles are among the longest-standing and most-problematic trouble spots on Wikipedia. Rumiton has been topic-banned at least three times previously (including a year-long ban by ArbCom), so we're not talking about a second chance here; more like a 4th chance, so the bar is pretty high. An admin and mediator (BotNL and Steven Zhang) with deep experience in the area have grave concerns about lifting this topic ban. I'm inclined to respect their reservations, particularly since the troubled history of this topic area creates a pretty high bar in my mind for lifting the sanction. I'm not seeing anyone articulate a clear benefit to the project in having Rumiton back on these articles (he essentially admits that he's unable to neutrally present views with which he disagrees), whereas it's quite easy to see the potential downside to the project of lifting the ban given Rumiton's past history in the topic area. MastCell ^Talk 18:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• OK, considering that the consensus has not become clearer, I again suggest that this thread be closed with the result that the parties (Rumiton and/or The Blade of the Northern Lights) may file a request for clarification to determine the outcome of this appeal.  Sandstein  14:45, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I think that sounds reasonable--Cailil ^talk 16:38, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• As this has now been moved to the archives, I'm so closing the thread.  Sandstein  14:50, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Xodabande14 (talk) 02:25, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Ebrahimi-amir (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

ARBAA2 [126]

Allegations of misconduct removed by an administrator; these belong in the subsequent sections.  Sandstein  12:01, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

1. 7 April 2013 Inserted self-made map (made by Ebrahimi Amir) without engaging in discussion (violating terms set by admins for his block removal. Slow revert warring which he was called out specifically to stop as well)

1. 29 April 2012Inserted self-made map (made by Ebrahimi Amir) without engaging in discussion (violating terms set by admins for his block being removed.)

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

1. Warned on [127] by Admin Khoikhoi (warned of AA Arbcomm sanctions)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

• User Ebrahimi Amir was originally banned from Wikipedia for being an SPA and making nationalistic edits. Later on, he apologized and his ban was lifted. He got some more blocks for nationalistic edit warring and reverting. However, the condition for the lifting of his ban was discussed by administrator Khoikhoi and another administrator. Please note this stern warning for his behavior when his last block was removed: [128]. I will quote exactly from the link(from the admin who banned him once for SPA and gave him an AA warning): Slow motion edit warring is still considered edit warring. I'm advising you now to seriously re-examine your pattern of behavior at this encyclopedia, or you will be subject to editing sanctions. Any potentially controversial changes that are disputed by other editors need to be discussed, and you must cite your sources. Thank you. .

• The second block by User:Atama: "Editor has pledged not to engage in further edit wars" [129].

• Note also his last unblock and the admin User:Tiptoety who sanctioned him: "Slow moving edit warring at Hamadan Province & Kurdish people after unblocked with agreement to cease edit warring"[130]

• User Ebrahimi_Amir ignored (after AA sanction warnings) the terms made by the admin Khoikhoi and the other admins by this edit: [131] whereby he inserted his own self-made map (his own creation) in the article after it was reverted. On both diffs he failed to discuss as conditioned by terms of his last warning. Specially this is clear on his 2013 diff. He simply re-inserted the map (he has created) forcefully without feedback from other users. Other users who are on good Wikipedia terms disagreed with his self-made map [132]. Yet Ebrahimi Amir inserted his self-made map (the first diff above), knowing it was controversial, without any discussions. This map has been reverted several times [133][134][135] by different users since it is POV, and it is a pattern of slow revert warring in the article that Ebrahimi Amir was admonished for to stop. I note a user who is not from the area of region of conflict who removed the map made by Ebrahimi Amir and who noted: minus POV map, this language map is more NPOV) [136]. In short: Ebrahimi Amir engaged in slow revert warring, and did not discuss his revert to his self-made map (which falsifies sources) as mandated by admins who have blocked and unblocked him. He also did not cease his edit warring as his non WP:RS self-made map has been reverted multiple times in the article.

The rest of my old comments on why the map is self-made and ethno-nationalist can be seen here: [137]. I suggested administrators look at this as well as the two are connected. In a nut-shell: User creates baseless non WP:RS ethno-nationalist maps and inserts them in Wikipedia, and then reverts other users without engaging discussion. I also suggest administrators look at his userpage [138]. Despite the fact that there are WP:RS maps, the user reverts other users and inserts his own nationalistic made maps without discussions (something he was warned before on his last block to stop)--Xodabande14 (talk) 12:52, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The remainder of this statement has been removed by an administrator for exceeding the 500 word limit indicated above by a lot.  Sandstein  14:28, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

The red color in the map does not mean that other people do not live there. you can see all talk about the maps in here.--Ebrahimi-amir (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thim map was drawn based on "Geography and population of Turkish people in Iran" Alireza Sarrafi, Journal "Dilmaj", No. 2, 2004, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Azerbaijani_people_in_Middel_East.jpg this map was drawn based on several sources that list in map page--Ebrahimi-amir (talk) 21:29, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that this case is due to a personal dispute. Here you can read about these activities.--Ebrahimi-amir (talk) 21:33, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where did you realize that Alireza Sarrafi is a nationalist? Do you have a valid source WP:RS for this statement? Or the personal opinion do you say this?WP:ORIGINAL "He is from the same ethnic group and nationalistic, so it should not be used in Wikipedia" The author belongs to a nation. Are all writers are the nationalists? Map drawn by Alireza Sarrafi corresponded with Ahmad Kasravi's writings. Do Kasravi was an Azeri nationalist?

• According to Ahmed KASRAVI (November 1922):

Source: THE TURKISH LANGUAGE IN IRAN By Ahmed KASRAVI,latimeria: Prof. Dr. Evan Siegal, Journal of Azerbaijani Studies, 1998, Vol. 1, No 2, [6] , Khazar University Press , ISSN 1027-387 --Ebrahimi-amir (talk) 22:03, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The remainder of this statement has been removed by an administrator for exceeding the 500 word limit indicated above by a lot.  Sandstein  14:29, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ebrahimi-amir (talk) 11:48, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's a bit of confusion here about the discussion at Commons:File talk:Turkic people in Iran.jpg. I translated a comment by now-inactive (here at least) User:SLFAW which the editor hadn't signed, and I didn't sign it for him or format it so that it was clear it was a separate comment and I was only translating it. Then another editor, ماني replied saying the map was exaggerated. The comment " احمق باباي جناب عالي " was aimed at that editor. The only editors who have posted and are still active are myself and Ebrahimi-amir. I am not an expert in the history or geography of the area but will take a look at the Wikipedia issues later. Dougweller (talk) 06:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was asked to comment, but I see admins are already taking good care of this. My comment is this: we cannot ban an editor just for inserting an unreferenced map, but if an editor had already been banned for their nationalism-fuelled disruption and they pledged to stop this, and then they go ahead and re-insert unreferenced maps motivated by a nationalistic agenda, I would strongly agree that permabanning such an editor for good is doing everybody (the project, all active admins, all involved editors, and not least the offending editor himself) a favour. I don't care if an editor is a nationalist as long as they are willing and able to follow WP:RS and build whatever case they want based on honest representation of quotable sources. If they cannot or will not do this, we, as a project, simply are not interested in their participation. --dab (𒁳) 11:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

The comments accompanying the request are excessively long. I've removed them because they are not useful in this form. Xodabande14 may resubmit new comments within the constraints of 500 words and 20 diffs indicated above. Please recall that AE requests should in principle be limited to a list of dated recent diffs and a short explanation why each diff violates which policy or guideline or other rule of conduct. Additional comments should be limited to very briefly outlining relevant context, such as previous sanctions, but not contain allegations of misconduct apart from those which are the subject of the AE request itself. Note: Khoikhoi isn't an administrator.(sorry, my mistake)  Sandstein  12:03, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, my initial assessment is that we can't really consider sanctions for edit-warring (slow or otherwise) on the basis of only the two diffs submitted as evidence. But we can examine whether the insertion of File:Azerbaijani people in Middel East.jpg instead of File:Azerbaijanilanguage.png, and of File:Turkic people in Iran.jpg instead of File:Iran-Ethnicity-2004.PNG constitutes tendentious editing (violating WP:NPOV) and/or a violation of WP:V because the first of these two self-made maps does not cite any sources. While these are conduct issues, we must take care not to confuse them with the underlying content disputes, which we may not adjudicate. I therefore invite comment by other users about these matters, and I urgently invite Ebrahimi-amir to address them in a response. I'm also contacting the two admins who have previously taken action with respect to Ebrahimi-amir, Khoikhoi and Tiptoety, to invite them to comment here.  Sandstein  18:33, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ebrahimi-amir's usage of File:Azerbaijani people in Middel East.jpg is obvious tendentious editing, in my opinion. His map shows no Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. He gets extra credit for misspelling both words of 'Middle East.' This map looks like cartoonish POV-pushing, especially when contrasted with a respectable academic map such as commons:File:Iran ethnoreligious distribution 2004.jpg. I would recommend that Ebrahimi-Amir be topic banned from AA for at least six months. EdJohnston (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with this analysis and the proposed sanction.  Sandstein  08:08, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So closed, then, before this devolves further into a content dispute.  Sandstein  14:33, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]