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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Momento

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

• Momento (talk · contribs) / Momento (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) / The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Notification of User imposing sanction

• I have informed The Blade of the Northern Light of this appeal.

Sanction being appealed

• Indefinite topic ban since November 16th 2012 from all articles and discussions related to Prem Rawat for persistent battleground behaviour

Correct link to the notification: Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs)

Thank you.MOMENTO (talk) 09:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Momento

On November 15th 2012 I was indefinitely topic-banned by The Blade of the Northern Lights, for “persistent battleground behaviour” but he provides no evidence or diffs to support that charge or any other.

HISTORY In the second half of 2012 the Prem Rawat article resembled a battleground but I did not instigate it nor did I participate in it. On the contrary the main reason for that situation is the behaviour of one editor, PatW who has been warned for incivility and battleground behaviour nineteen times on his talk page and countless times on the PR talk pages.

In the three months before I was topic banned PatW was warned twice by The Blade of the Northern Lights for his incivility. On August 25th - ‘'everyone, especially you PatW, needs to cool it. I get that each "side" here is frustrated with the other, but it's not that hard to review what you're saying and remove the invective from your post before hitting the save button”. And again on September 3rd on PatW's talk page - “(Pat) you have to be more tactful in your approach. I came very close to banning you from the topic, but I've decided I should give you at least one personal note to alert you to the fact that you're on my radar screen" but to no avail.

On the same day on the Prem Rawat talk page a new uninvolved editor had this to say - “I came to this page to see if the allegations being made about Memento's editing were true, but what strikes me as more egregious are the constant personal attacks by PatW and Surdas. Because of the hostility and unconstructive comments by those two, I'm unwilling to get involved at this point.

And on September 9th a new uninvolved editor had this to say - “PatW's incivility and accusations are somewhat beyond the pale. What he has done in the discussion…is attack”.. “Pat I don't like being attacked, don't appreciate it at all…Attacking other editors out of hand whatever the history on that article will only bring you problems”. And “Lets be clear (Pat). You have insulted me from the moment I stepped on the PR page…I removed myself from the PR article , but you continue to attack me as if the article and its problems are my fault…I won't continue to work on a page where I am consistently attacked".

On November 14th 2012 PatW expanded his battleground to Jimbo Wales talk page calling me an “unconscionable idiot” Rather than take exception to PatW’s disgraceful attack on a very public page The Blade of the Northern Lights decided to ban me. And then, after telling Rumiton that it wouldn't be fair to topic ban him since Rumiton hadn't returned "to what got him banned” in April, TBOTNL banned him anyway despite seven months of non-battleground editing. PatW described his banning as “I have managed to get myself 'blown up' by my own bomb”. Exactly, PatW has been hurling bombs for years.

Despite being Topic Banned, PatW continued his war on Jimbo Wales talk page and on November 20th 2012 he was blocked "for deliberately attempting to link a Misplaced Pages editor to his real life identity".

• SUMMARY: No evidence was presented that shows me involved in “battleground behaviour” or incivility. No evidence was presented that show me editing in a POV or inappropriate way. In fact, no evidence of any sort justifies this ban.

Statement by Blade of the Northern Lights

My wiki-syntax is a little rusty right now, so I apologize in advance if my diffs are a little tough to navigate. When ArbCom looked at the bans I implemented in the days immediately afterward, in my statement there I pointed to a series of edits made in the days immediately before the topic ban; they're linked at said talkpage, I'll put them here for convenience. I'm not especially familiar with Rawat, but it's extremely obvious that these edits were removing criticism from reliable sources and slanting the article in a very pro-Rawat direction. The first several threads of Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 50 contain the discussion on the talkpage, and it makes it yet more obvious that this was the intent. If you click a few diffs ahead, you'll see DeCausa (talk · contribs) wholesale reverted said changes here and, later that day, Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs) re-added some more criticism which Momento et al. had moved and removed. In his capacity as an editor Jimbo has spent some time handling the Prem Rawat article, which is an extremely long-running problem area, and the day that I implemented all the topic bans there was a fairly brief thread at Jimbo's talkpage wherein he expressed serious concerns about the state of the article as it was at the time.

As with Rumiton's ban, I discussed this with @Steven Zhang:, who has years of experience mediating at this article. He and I saw pretty much eye to eye on the intractability of the problem, and he too agreed the edits referenced above were obviously not neutral. And just as a quick note to any admins unfamiliar with the situation, the article at the time was under article probation and not the standard AE sanctions. When ArbCom looked at the situation they explicitly noted that what I did was in keeping with the sanctions in place, and several of them expressed their own concerns about the editing which was occurring before implementing the topic bans. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll see if I can pull everything apart in my big diff above; note that I'm not giving my own point of view on the truth or validity of any additions or removals. This is a removal of a well-sourced point of view that Rawat's movement was only to line his pockets. This is an edit which Momento agreed to on the talkpage, which obfuscates factual information regarding some customs issue Rawat got caught up in. Here is another removal of concerns people have expressed about Rawat being a cult leader, which is a widely discussed matter on the topic. And in addition, I have much the same concerns that MastCell below does—namely that WP:OWB#9 is applicable—and after reading Momento's statement I see nothing which indicates that he has any intention of changing his editing if allowed to edit Rawat articles again. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:18, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Statement by olive

What is the issue here -asking that the sanction be reviewed or lifting the sanction? We should not use past sanctions to muddy the water on what the issue is here, but should deal with behaviour since the last sanction unless WP is indeed punitive.

Disclaimer: I had very little prior knowledg of Prem Rawat or his organization but saw a comment on a talk page which led me to the article talk page where I then thought an uninvolved voice might be useful. These were my observations. My experience although short was that Momento was making good attempts to work collaboratively on the talk page. The battle ground sensibility and tone was not created by him but by two other editors. Blade's sanction was sweeping and did not delineate specific behaviours per specific editors. Jimbo Wale's addition was and should have been considered controversial, but he made that edit immediately editors were sanctioned so they could not discuss it with him, and he made the edit with out any discussion on the talk page, as I remember. What is happening here seems to me is that the lack of discrimination then, is necessary now. (Littleolive oil (talk) 20:55, 6 February 2014 (UTC))

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Momento

In the message with which they imposed the ban, The Blade of the Northern Light did not link to evidence of misconduct by Momento that would justify the ban. I would ask them to submit such evidence now in order to allow us to review this appeal. As concerns the rest of Momento's statement, what other editors may or may not have done is entirely irrelevant here because editors are sanctioned based only on their own conduct, not because of the conduct of others (see, by analogy, WP:NOTTHEM). The conduct of others should therefore not be discussed further here.  Sandstein  06:46, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

You cannot understand the situation at Prem Rawat without discussing the actions of the editors.MOMENTO (talk) 09:45, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Momento, your presentation of the case above makes it sound as if the conflict with PatW was some very recent situation. In reality, PatW was apparently blocked in November 2012, a few days after your topic ban. Can you please (a) reword your exposition so as to make the timeline more clear for the newcomer; (b) say something about how you expect your renewed involvement will play out in the present situation on that article; and (c) add some documentation of previous blocks, sanctions and attempted appeals in this matter? There seems to have been a quite extensive backstory of previous sanctions and blocks. Is it true that when you were topic-banned in Nov 2012, you had just previously come back from an earlier one-year topic ban imposed in Nov 2011, during which year you were repeatedly blocked for ban evasion, and that you had even earlier Arb sanctions on Prem Rawat in 2008 and 2010? Also, since your text above sounds as if you originally composed it shortly after the 2012 ban, did you in fact file this as an appeal previously? Thanks, – Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

How would you like me to format my replies?MOMENTO (talk) 09:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

a) Done. Thank you for that suggestion.

b) I think the most pressing issue is to open a discussion about the 50+ undiscussed edits made by FrancisSchonken in July 2013 that undid months of painstakingly discussed collaborative editing, introduced bad grammar and removed important material from an expert source.

c) I have not appealed this sanction previously but have asked TBOTNL to un block me immediately after I was banned and at six months and after one year but he didm't reply..

d) My previous topic banned was for a year on February 4th 2011 by Sandstein on the application of WillBeBack. It expired February 2012 and I was not "repeatedly blocked for ban evasion" during this period. I have been given numerous undeserved sanctions at the instigation of the now disgraced WillBeBack and his cronies and I have ample evidence to prove it. This appeal was compiled in the last month.MOMENTO (talk) 01:44, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Your current statement appears to focus on the idea that you want to appeal the original sanction. As in, you are attempting to argue the sanction should never have been applied. Given the previous failed appeals, this is unlikely. I suggest you reword this as a request to repeal the sanction. As in, you wish for the indefinate period of the sanction to end. To do that, stop focusing on why you think the sanction was invalid and focus on why you think the sanction is no longer necessary. Proof of non-disruptive edit hat ting would help. 204.101.237.139 (talk) 17:41, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'm arguing the sanction should never have been applied and that is why I am arguing that it should be lifted.MOMENTO (talk) 01:48, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Momento

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

• This series of topic bans was already examined by the Arbitration Committee in December 2012 at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat 2#Amendment request: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat 2. Momento advanced their arguments in favor of lifting the ban(s) at that time, and the Arbitration Committee chose not to act on these arguments or on the appeal by another similarly banned editor. I think that this (non-)action by the Arbitration Committee prevents a review of the ban(s) at the community level, because this would amount to a community review of Arbitration Committee actions, which is not allowed. The appeal should therefore be procedurally declined, with a note that it may be submitted to the Arbitration Committee instead.  Sandstein  16:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
  • @Sandstein: Per the motion at the bottom of Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat 2#Amendment request: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat 2, the committee has decided to let the editors they originally sanctioned appeal their bans at AE. So they have allowed us to address the problem. EdJohnston (talk) 16:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
    • That's true, thanks. In their statement, The Blade of the Northern Lights refers to an earlier statement in which they say that they imposed the ban because of "edits clearly gave the article a very pro-Rawat slant". While violating WP:NPOV is among the grounds for imposing discretionary sanctions, The Blade of the Northern Lights refers only to one consolidated diff which is not at a glance recognizable as non-neutral. I think that The Blade of the Northern Lights should explain more precisely how this diff violates the neutrality policy to such an extent as to constitute sanctionable misconduct.  Sandstein  19:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
• I have a question for @Momento: you have made nearly 9,000 edits to Misplaced Pages over 9 years. As best I can tell, virtually all of those edits involve either Prem Rawat or wiki-litigation related to Prem Rawat. You have accrued multiple blocks and other sanctions for edit-warring and disruption. The overall picture I'm left with is that of a single-purpose agenda account whose actions strongly suggest an inability to edit neutrally or productively in the area of focus. Do you have any other interest in this project besides our coverage of Prem Rawat? If your topic ban is lifted, why should we believe that your conduct will be better in the future than it has been in the past? MastCell  20:09, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm receptive to hearing positive reasons why we should expect productive editing from Momento. But so far this exercise seems to be simply another complaint about the technical and legalistic aspects of the original topic ban, coupled with a continuation of combative battleground behavior. The topic ban in question has already been reviewed and heavily scrutinized, and it's unlikely that simply repeating the same complaints of unfairness at six-month intervals is going to help. I'm opposed to granting this appeal as framed, although I remain open to hearing arguments based on actual likelihood of productive future contributions rather than continued demands for shrubberies. MastCell  18:49, 7 February 2014 (UTC)