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Nagorno-Karabakh article

Request concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

Relevant article

Nagorno-Karabakh (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Misplaced Pages:ARBAA2#Standard discretionary sanctions

Notes

Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Xebulon/Archive#08 February 2012 has a fuller description of the issue, courtesy of Golbez (talk · contribs). See also #Nagorno-Karabakh, above. Opening a formal report to allow for fuller discussion as to potential sanctions to address this situation. T. Canens (talk) 10:48, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Notification

Discussion concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

I have two objections against this idea, and one proposal.

1. The text of standard discretionary sanctions says
   (i) that the subjects of discretionary sanctions are some particular users, not articles;
   (ii) that the sanctions are applied after the user has been properly warned.
   In connection to that, the very idea to impose editing restrictions on some article as whole is not in accordance with the discretionary sanctions concept, because
   (i) that means that all users (not only those who edit war in this area) appear to be sanctioned, and
   (ii) the Sandstein's sanctions had been applied without proper warning. For example, if we look at the Mass killings under Communist regimes and at the WP:DIGWUREN, we see that I had never been formally warned (I have never been mentioned on the WP:DIGWUREN page). Nevertheless, my editorial privileges (as well as the privileges of overwhelming majority of the Wikipedians) appear to be restricted. That restriction of my editing privileges is almost tantamount to topic ban and I do not understand why have I been placed under such topic ban. Similarly, although I have no interest in the Karabakh area, however, I cannot rule out a possibility that I may decide to edit some Karabakh related area in future. In connection to that, I do not understand why should my editing privileges to be restricted in advance, despite the fact that I committed no violations of WP policy.
2. Whereas the Sandstein's sanctions made the admin's life dramatically easier, the result is by no means satisfactory. The article appeared to be frozen in quite biased state, and tremendous work is needed to fix a situation. If we look even at the very first opening sentence, we will see that it starts with the data taken from The Black Book of Communism, arguably the most influential, and the most controversial book about the subject. Do we add credibility to Misplaced Pages by using such sources without reservations? My attempts to move this statement to the article's body and to supplement it with necessary commentaries had been successfully blocked by the users who, by contrast to myself had been already sanctioned per WP:DIGWUREN, and the only reasons they appeared to be able to do that was masterful usage of formal nuances of the Sandstein's sanctions. As a result, I (as well as other reasonable editors) decided to postpone our work on this article, because the efforts needed to implement even small improvements are not commensurate with the results obtained. As a result, we have the article, which appeared to be frozen in totally unsatisfactory states. This fact does not bother the admins, because there is no edit wars any more, but the fact that some article gives a totally biased picture (and that this situation cannot be fixed) is extremely dangerous for Misplaced Pages. Yes, there is no visible conflict, however, the most harmonious place in the world is a graveyard.

By writing that, I do not imply that no sanctions are needed. However, these sanctions should be in accordance with the discretionary sanctions' spirit, i.e. they should be directed against the users who had already committed some violations in this area, and who had alrfeady been properly warned. In the case of WP:DIGWUREN, we already have a list of such users, so it would be quite natural to restrict only those users (more precisely, those who had been warned during last 2-3 years). For other users no restrictions should exist (although, probably, article's semi-protection to exclude IP vandalism would be useful). For Karabakh articles, I suggest to create a similar page (if no such page exists yet): starting from some date, every user committing 3RR or similar violation is added to this list, so s/he cannot make any edit to this article until the change s/he propose is supported by consensus as described by Sandstein. I fully realise that that may initially create some problem for the admins, however, that will allow us to develop Karabakh related articles, which is much more important.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
PS. In addition to the MKuCR, we have other articles that were placed under restrictions (such as Communist terrorism, which is under 1RR). This is also not in accordance with the discretionary sanctions spirit: nowhere on that page can you find a statement that the admins are authorised to place unspecified number of users under edit restrictions without proper warning. I think by applying these sanctions the admins exceeded their authority. In my opinion, such a restriction may exist only for some concrete users, and should be implemented in a form of the list which is being permanently modofied by adding those who abuse their editing privileges, and by excluding those who committed no violations during, e.g. last 2-3 years.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I see you point, and understand your concerns. But the problem in this article is caused not by the established editors. Those are known very well, and more or less behave. The problem here are new and recently created accounts with very limited history of contributions, which pop up one after another just to rv or vote. Some are quacking very loudly, but nothing is done. For instance, I mentioned in the CU request the account of Spankarts (talk · contribs), which was created only to vote for deletion of an article. Do we need a CU for such accounts? As for sanctions, those affecting only the established users are not effective, because such measures benefit only those who use socks to evade restrictions. For instance, the sanctions imposed on Caucasian Albania clearly did not work. The edit warring there was waged by User:Vandorenfm and User:Gorzaim, both of whom eventually turned out to be socks of the banned User:Xebulon (btw, the edit warring on Nagorno-Karabakh was started by the same 2 accounts). At that time Sandstein imposed a sanction that read: All editors with Armenia/Azerbaijan-related sanctions are banned from editing this article and its talk page. For the purposes of this ban, these editors are all who have at any time been the subject of remedies, blocks or other sanctions logged on the case pages WP:ARBAA or WP:ARBAA2, irrespective of whether or not these sanctions are still in force or whether they were imposed by the Arbitration Committee or by administrators. But since all long time editors in AA area were at some point under some sort of sanctions, this pretty much opened the doors for sock and meatpuppetry, since new accounts were not under any prior sanctions. The result is that the article reflects the views of the sockmaster, who was free to make any edits he wished, and established editors could not remove even unreferenced OR claims. This is why the article about Caucasian Albania is in such a poor condition now. The sock account even managed to place an established user on a 1 year topic ban: Note the complaint of the sock: The immediate concern is his editing of the article on Caucasian Albania, where User:Twilight Chill continues waging an edit war against 5 (five) other unrelated editors (Aram-van, Gorzaim, Vandorenfm, MarshallBagramyan, Xebulon). 4 of 5 accounts that he mentioned turned out later to be socks (User:Aram-van, User:Gorzaim, User:Vandorenfm, and User:Xebulon). Nice, isn't it? I have a reason to believe that the sockmaster is happily editing under a new account now, and having a good laugh at arbitration enforcement. Something similar is now going on in Nagorno-Karabakh. I don't know whether they use socks or not, but clearly a lot of SPAs are being engaged. Therefore I think the solution implemented by Sandstein on Mass killings under communist regimes is much better. At least something should be done to prevent mass edit warring with the use of new accounts. Otherwise this is not going to work. Grandmaster 18:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

No. You simply don't understand what those sanctions mean. Such sanctions may work well only if they are directed against a limited set of users who, despite being warned, continue their disruptive activity. It is ridiculous to effectively block WP community from editing of some particular articles simply because a limited amount of users appear to be unable to collaborate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

But I'm not proposing to block the whole wikicommunity. I believe well established users should be allowed to edit freely any article. However the activity of new and recently created users should be limited on contentious articles. I agree with the proposal that the user should have at least 500 edits, preferably outside of AA area, to be allowed to edit an article like Nagorno-Karabakh. Otherwise you will get a bunch of SPAs which turn up only to rv or vote. Grandmaster 21:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

@ T. Canens. Thank you for providing a link to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 discussion. Unfortunately, I overlooked this discussion and was not able to present my arguments timely. Let me point out, however, that Kirill's idea that "(a) that the editnotice on the article constitutes a sufficient warning as required by ¶2" is not fully correct: ¶2 implies that a warning is issued to the editor, who "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages". In other words, the full sequence of the events that lead to discretionary sanctions is:

1. Some editor working in the area of conflict "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages";
2. A warning has been issued for him (obviously, this warning is supposed to contain a reference to some wrongdoing)
3. If violation continues, sanctions are imposed.

However, in a case of article wide sanctions the edit notice is being issued to everyone and in advance, so the user appears to be sanctioned simply by virtue of his interest to this topic. That is a blatant violation of our WP:AGF principle. Moreover, whereas one can speculate if 1RR itself or block for its violation is the actual sanctions, the article's full protection is already a sanction, which has been applied to whole WP community. I have a feeling that the idea of a possibility of article wide sanction should be re-considered as intrinsically flawed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

@ T. Canens. Re you "we have never required evidence of "repeated or serious" misconduct before a warning may be issued." Well, my # 1 was probably too strict. However, you have to agree that some misconduct is supposed to take place before the warning is issued. The discretionary sanction text says

"Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning..."

In other words, according to this text a warning is issued to the editor, whose behaviour seems problematic. A typical example of such warning contains a reference to some concrete example of misconduct by the user in question. Alternativelly, the warning may be issued as a result of the AE request , however, I am not familiar with the case when some good faith user appears to be arbitrarily warned for no reasons. Nowhere in the sanction's text can you find allowance of a blanket warning to everyone who just happened to express interest to Eastern Europe, Karabakh or Palestina-Israel. Therefore, the edit notice is just information, not a formal warning.

Moreover, you forgot one more important fact. Per WP:DIGWUREN, the Mass killings under Communist regimes article is fully protected, so the editorial privileges of all users appeared to be revoked before they got a chance to commit any violation. That means that sanctions have been applied even before the user got a change to read the "warning" (which, as I have demonstrated, is not a warning at all). Do you see any logic here? --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

PS Re you "in fact, the provision does not require any misconduct before a warning". If that is the case, then that such warning simply becomes a new rule that all Wikipedians are supposed to observe, i.e. a new policy. Does that mean that we have different policies for different fields within the same Wikiproject? And if this is a local policy, then why only admins/arbitrators are allowed to participate in its creation? As far as I know, admins and ordinary users have equal rights to write and modify policy...--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I would like to ask admins to have a look at the most recent SPI request by an uninvolved user on one of the accounts engaged in Nagorno-Karabakh article: While there's no technical evidence to prove sockpuppetry, behavioral evidence provided by The Devil's Advocate is pretty alarming. There are user accounts that only act as revert machines. What are we supposed to do with those? The fact that 3 unrelated editors, including an admin, filed SPI requests mentioning the same accounts I believe demonstrates that there are reasons for concern. Grandmaster 16:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a reason for concern and that is Grandmaster/Tuscumbia/TheDevil'sAvocate own disruptive sock-machine that continues churning foul-faith SPI reports which are now disregarded and closed without much ado . See my full comments. Dehr (talk) 20:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That's quite an interesting accusation. If you check, The Devil's Advocate is registered in 2007 and has about 4000 edits, and almost none of them in AA area. I never knew this user before I encountered his name on Xebulon's SPI request. If you still believe that we are each other's socks, you are more than welcome to file an SPI request.Grandmaster 21:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a clear problem with User:Grandmaster. He invents policies but does not want such policies be applied to him. One can argue that The Devils Adv is part of your sock-farm but you conspired to hide him so well that SPIs would not help. So, let's then disregard SPIs and ban you both on charges, as Dehr suggested, for WP:TROLL, WP:AGF and WP:BATTLEGROUND. Winterbliss (talk) 05:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Nice. So I've been hiding him for 5 years, but we've never edited the same article, and our paths only crossed now? Compare that to all those accounts that popped up since September 2011, after the previous bunch of Xebulon socks were banned, and who all edit the same articles, and some appear only to rv or vote. I would like to ask admins here a question. Are there any reasons to consider the accounts of Oliveriki (talk · contribs) or Spankarts (talk · contribs) to be good faith accounts? I think the latter account is the most blatant one, other than deredlinking his user page, it only made 3 edits, all of which are votes for deletion of contentious articles at AFDs. If it is not an SPA, then what is it? Grandmaster 10:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Both of them seem rather blatant to me. Oliveriki's only significant contributions have just been to get involved in edit wars to support Xebulon or his socks. The January 24th revert restoring a 28k Xebulon sock edit that had been reverted months before was pretty damn disruptive.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:25, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the comment by WGFinley, but I want to ask a question. Is it Ok to create SPAs just to rv or vote? Should the votes by such accounts count, and the rvs in highly contentious articles amidst heated disputes not considered disruptive? Everyone can ask his friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc create accounts to promote a certain position. How can disruption by SPAs be stopped? Shouldn't the activity of new accounts be restricted on contentious articles? As for SPIs, admins are involved in filing them as much as everyone else is, see for instance this: , the very first SPI was filed by the advice of the admins. And later SPIs were filed by unrelated users, some of whom do not even edit AA articles, and a wikipedia admin. That shows that there are serious reasons for concern that make all these people file the SPI requests. When one sees new accounts that pop up one after another to rv contentious articles or take part in AFDs, it makes him think that it is not just a mere coincidence. And also, filing SPIs is pretty useless nowadays. There are so many mass puppeteers (Paligun, Xebulon, Hetoum I, Ararat arev to name just a few), that figuring out who's who is almost impossible. But something needs to be done to stop disruption. Grandmaster 17:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I find certain statements by Winterbliss to be a rude violation of WP:AGF. For instance, a generalizing statement like "Azerbaijanis are not interested to develop the article Nagorno-Karabakh because academic sources are not on their side" are unacceptable. He implies that a user cannot be a good contributor to an article because of his ethnicity. And secondly, there's no consensus at talk for the edits of the banned user, who was using a number of socks to have the article his way. Please note that the edits by Bars77, Vandorenfm, and Gorzaim were made after their master (Xebulon) was banned, so the sock accounts were editing in defiance of the ban, which justifies the revert. Not a single established editor supported the edits of the banned user. Those supporting are all recently created accounts. Vandorenfm and Gorzaim were banned as socks on 15 and 18 September 2011, and here are user creation logs of all accounts currently supporting the edits of the banned user at talk of NK article:

October 1, 2011 Dehr (talk | contribs) created a user account
November 11, 2011 Sprutt (talk | contribs) created a user account
November 16, 2011 Zimmarod (talk | contribs) created a user account
November 19, 2011 Winterbliss (talk | contribs) created a user account
January 9, 2012 Nocturnal781 (talk | contribs) created a user account

I find it highly unusual (to say the least) that all those editors created accounts and flocked to a certain page to support edits of a certain editor, who happened to evade his ban using multiple sock accounts. Grandmaster 22:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

First, it is clear from the context that I never meant to generalize about ethnic Azerbaijanis but meant instead users who declared themselves to be from Azerbaijan on their talk pages and who participate(d) in tendentious editing in the AA2 area. I should have been more clear on that though. Secondly, Grandmaster's position that above mentioned accounts are socks has been argued out WP:Ad nauseam by repeating the same points over and over again, a method of filibustering a consensus on talk pages and applying psychological pressure on administrators in this talk. That is a rude violation of WP:AGF. You have been warned and are way over your head on that already. You created this discussion in bad faith and it should be closed immediately. Furthermore, I believe that some previous accounts were blocked as sockpuppets under similar pressure/brainwashing as per WP:SOAP. This tactic might have numbed the judgement of admins so that they developed prejudicial position visavis the victims of bad-faith SPIs filed by you, User:Tuscumbia and other users banned in RusWiki as meat-machine. User:Gorzaim and Vandorenfm might have been targets of such pressure tactics and could have been blocked unfairly. You placed a sock tag on User:Gorzaim in violation of the fact that User:Gorzaim was NOT a confirmed sock of User:Xebulon. Please be aware of WP:TROLL, WP:AGF, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:SOAP and WP:NPA as per where it is said: a personal attack are accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Grandmaster should also understand that he is engaged in a campaign to drive away productive contributors as per , a disruptive tactic described in Misplaced Pages:Disruptive editing. Winterbliss (talk) 04:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

First off, I did not accuse the above accounts of sockery, I just drew attention to their user creation logs, which strangely coincide with the period following the ban of 2 sock accounts, Gorzaim and Vandorenfm. And I find your arguments in defense of the socks of the banned user to be unconvincing. You repeatedly said that Gorzaim and Vandorenfm became innocent victims of misjudgment and prejudice by the admins. But if one looks at the SPI requests that resulted in their ban, the CU showed that Vandorenfm was the same as Bars77: , and Bars77 was a CU confirmed sock of Xebulon: Can you see any prejudice here? As for Gorzaim, the result of CU on him was " Likely. He edits from different ISPs, but they geolocate to the same general area. There are many overlaps with user agents as well. J.delanoy." Please note that sockpuppetry is established not just on the basis of a perfect IP match. Eventually, it is up to the admins to decide on the basis of technical and behavioral evidence if an account is a sock. In this case we had 2 users with the same geolocation making identical edits to the same pages. Their IPs might have not been absolutely identical, but the behavioral evidence showed that this could have been home/work situation, so the evidence available to the admins allowed them to rule that Gorzaim was also a sock. And wikilawyering is pointless, you said that I "created this discussion in bad faith and it should be closed immediately", but I started this AE request because I was advised to do so by the admin who handled the SPI requests. This is yet another violation of WP:AGF on your part. Grandmaster 09:24, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Grandmaster, given that you have filled your above posts with "tuscumbiaobsession"-style allegations about sockpuppets, and that you have cited my name, I now consider myself free to be involved in this RfA. Meowy 14:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't make any rules here, so you are free to do what you want. But I don't think that I ever brought up your name. The only time that I mentioned you was when I responded to Winterbliss reposting your post from another board. I thought that it was resolved at that thread. But I don't see that this particular discussion has any direct relation to you. Grandmaster 15:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

As part of your case (rather than just as a warning of a possible restriction like you did earlier) you cited my name using a wikilink that is the post that is above the one I just made. Because you also initiated this arbitration request, I consider that this means I am now part of the subject of your request and so I am free to comment (though I have not yet decided if I will). Meowy 21:08, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

According to your restriction, you must be a subject of the request to be able to comment. However I don't see your name in any post above, so I don't see how you can have any involvement in this matter. Of course it is up to you whether to comment or not, and up to the admins to decide whether your appearance here is a violation of your topic ban. Grandmaster 21:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

You did not make specific editors the subject of this request. But you are now giving, to support the request you initiated, a long list of editors that you seem to want blocked, most of which at one time or another, as you know, were falsely accused by Tuscumbia of being sockpuppets of me. And when doing this you made an explicit connection by placing a link to a page about me. So I am included. Given Tuscumbia's obsession, I think many people are now included. Meowy 22:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I would like to propose a solution that could possibly reduce the disruption on the article in question. As one could see from the evidence posted here, this article attracts a lot of sock and meat puppetry, and it is not a recent problem. This happened in the past as well: I think we need a solution that would bring to minimum the disruption that could be caused. There was a proposal here that I think made a lot of sense. To decrease sock/meatpupetry, the accounts that have less than 500 edits, including substantial number of edits outside of AA area, should not be allowed to revert the article. This would prevent accounts like Oliveriki from coming out of nowhere and reverting the article back to the 5 months old version created by the socks of banned user. If new users have any ideas, they are free to propose them at talk. Also, no large rewrites should be allowed without the general consensus on the talk of the article. And by consensus I mean not the agreement reached by 5 recent accounts among themselves, but the consensus reached by both sides of the dispute, or when that is not possible, consensus reached with involvement of a larger Misplaced Pages community in accordance with WP:DR. At present what we see is that the article is still being reverted to non-consensus version, sometimes with misleading edit summaries: Grandmaster 17:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Winterbliss

This report filed by User:Grandmaster represents yet another spasm of endless bad-faith, baseless complaints pushed over, over, and over again by a tightly-knit team of Azerbaijani users who target unrelated accounts in a coordinated fashion with the purpose of limiting editing activity on specific pages. They falsely accuse unwanted editors in sockpuppetry and try to discredit their productive work by making false statements about their editing practices. Now these efforts are getting really desperate and disruptive because Grandmaster’s earlier pranks to discredit his opponents and filibuster consensus-building on talk Nagorno-Karabakh pages are failing. But regardless of Grandmaster's filibustering and manipulating (e.g. WP:WL) discussion and consensus building on Nagorno-Karabakh talk pages proceeds as planned and according to Golbez's earlier recommendations (despite his declared exit from the scene). Various issues and parts of the texts are discussed one by one, and neutral, third-party and high-quality sources are used to support write-ups. This may not be am super-ideal process but most people involved seem to try hard to comply with the earlier guidelines set by Golbez. All participants were CU-checked and are unrelated. Golbez asked to "re-own" earlier texts and one of the participants (Zimmarod I beleive) did that promptly, explaining rationale of every good-faith addition that was deleted → .

Grandmaster’s report is based on lies, and he came to AE forum with unclean hands. One is that User:Xebulon “has been disrupting Wikepedia for years.” Xebulon’s account was created 10.24.10 and closed on 7.7.11, and no connections between him and earlier accounts were established.

Grandmaster filed and SPI request accusing as many as 9 (!) editors of being sockpupptes but not only his effort went bust but his SPI was categorized as disruptive when CU showed lack of any relation among the editors by User:Tnxman307. Furthermore, per User:Tnxman307’s comment “As far as I can tell, the same group of users accuse the same opposing group of being sockpuppets. Nothing has ever come of this. Frankly, I think it's disruptive and pointless and am inclined to decline these on sight.”

It has been known that Grandmaster was coordinating editing of a large group of Azerbaijani user in Russian wiki from here information on meta-wiki and here by being the head of 26 Baku Commissars. There is also evidence that Grandmaster uses off-wiki coordination on the pages of English wiki as well: take a look at this curious exchange - , , which are requests of off-wiki communication between Grandmaster and User:Mursel.

In the recent past such reports, mainly AE and SPI requests, were routinely filed by Grandmaster’s friend User:Tuscumbia, who got recently topic banned for one year on the charge of WP:BATTLEGROUND and racist comments about ethnic origin of academic references . Just a few examples of Tuscumbia's fishing trips: , , , , . That is how Tuscumbia’s practice of harassing SPIs was described by an independent Lothar von Richthofen:

• "Checkuser is not for fishing. If you can present actual evidence other then "they make edits that I don't like and it makes me mad so I want to harass them with SPIs on the offhand chance that they will turn up to be the same people, then maybe a new Checkuser might be in order. Otherwise, your invocation of phantom sockpuppeteers is borderline disruptive.→

User:Grandmaster who was so far editing on an on-and-off basis with rather long periods of absence from WP suddenly hit the Nagorno Karabakh talk pages one day after Tuscumbia’s removal from AA area, picking up right where Tuscumbia left off . Grandmaster’s and Tuscumbia’s behavior is identical: conspiratorial accusations in sockpuppetry, repeating the same points over and over again, a method of filibustering a consensus used most recently by User:Tuscumbia in talks on Murovdag. User:Grandmaster acts as User:Tuscumbia’s placeholder, if not as his loudly quacking meatpuppet who came to man the post of his banned comrade as soon as Tuscumbia got into trouble.

It is high time to restrict Grandmaster’s disruptive conduct by limiting his access to editing AA-related topics.

"(despite his declared exit from the scene)." I just want to point out that my recovering sanity allows me to take a disconnected view at the topic, rather than avoiding it altogether. So my declared exit was from caring and being involved; I can still observe and perhaps even discuss. --Golbez (talk) 01:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Zimmarod's point of view

User:Paul Siebert said it well above . Sanctioning simply by virtue of someone's interest in a topic, or because of loose suspicions that there are some users who are proven not to be sockpuppets in multiple SPIs but can theoretically be found socks or meats in an unspecified time in the future is a blatant violation of the WP:AGF principle. This is in fact total absurdity. Imagine a court issuing a verdict clearing the accused of charges; but then the complainant pops up and suggests to incarcerate or execute the formerly accused right away simply because of his lingering suspicions or because in the future the accused can be found guilty of something else. It is like I may suggest to run a CU on Golbez or T. Canens accusing them in being Grandmaster's socks, and when it turns out that they are not socks, I will propose to get rid of their administrative powers on WP:DUCK charges simply because I am not happy with the results of SPIs and want to get rid of Golbez or T. Canens anyway. We on the Nagorno-Karabakh article try to be as constructive as possible and work toward a consensual input of edits after discussion. I now own the old edits, not some Xebulon. Many are tempted to restore the old edits at once but we decided not to do that and be selective and work incrementally, discarding non-consensual parts as we go. What is the problem? Ah, I know. All this runs counter to the strategy of User:Grandmaster who is unhappy. Instead of him writing long passages on this topic he could be more succinct, and say honestly: "I want to own the article Nagorno-Karabakh by excluding everyone from editing. I tried to play the old game of accusing a bunch of users in being socks, and that did not work out. Now I want them all excluded on absurd excuses simply because I exhausted my arsenal of disruptive tricks, and my meat-pals like User:Tuscumbia cannot help me since they are (again) banned for racism and wp:battleground." Zimmarod (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by George Spurlin

Reading the above comments I see intense wiki lawyering and users attacking each other. Let me take a different approach and talk about myself. I have been a wikipedian for about 9 months, and this subject area happens to be one of my interests, and if I was limited to participate, most likely I would've found a better place to spend my time. Lets not forget that this is the 💕 that anyone can edit! --George Spurlin (talk) 20:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate

My assessment of this situation is that SPI has proven inadequate at dealing with some of the obvious sockpuppetry going on. Vandorenfm and Gorzaim were two accounts that got subjected to three separate checks before it finally came to light that they were socks of Xebulon once new accounts popped up to compare them with. This suggests these sockmasters have proven very capable at evading detection from checkusers. I am not sure how many of these editors are socks, but there is definitely something shady going on with some of them. Not sure if doing anything about this one page will address that issue.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems that User:Gorzaim's account was NOT found to be a sock of Vandorenfm or Xebulon based on SPIs. It was closed simply because of an arbitrary decision of the administrator HelloAnnyong . I am inclined to believe that since those 3 accounts which were showing as unrelated in so many previous SPIs are truly unrelated and were closed as a result of a mistake or a technical glitch. Dehr (talk) 21:41, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This is alarming but also reveling: same tactics, same phrases. User:Grandmaster and The Devil's Advocate QUACK painfully similar. Both were defending the banned User:Tuscumbia who was editwarring in Nagorno's article and . Both filed similar SPI useless and disruptive reports on the oft-cited user Xebulon. They are coordinating their SPI operations . Dehr (talk) 21:12, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Nothing revealing about that. I saw the case and was planning to comment even before Grandmaster commented at my talk page. The first SPI was filed because an AE case was closed on the basis that accusations of sockpuppetry be taken there and several of the admins commenting at the AE case felt strongly that there was something to the accusations of sockpuppetry against users such as Winterbliss and George Spurlin.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed The Devil's Advocate, please be aware of WP:TROLL, WP:AGF (as per Dehr) and also WP:BATTLEGROUND.

On the Sandstein restriction, one thing I think makes sense is having a 1RR per week limit on the article.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Dehr

This issue has now clearly transformed into a WP:TROLL and WP:AGF concern, when a coordinating cluster of editors attack and harass the other group on highly suspicious pretenses (e.g. the conspiratorial but baseless "SPIs do not show anything but SOMETHING is going on"). The loudly QUACKING User:Grandmaster and The Devil's Advocate shoot one foul-faith SPI after next attempting to disrupt the development of the Nagorno and related articles. One of these SPIs was filed today by The Devil's Advocate. I am calling on the administrative operatives to stop these attacks and deal with the disrupting account User:Grandmaster. Dehr (talk) 21:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment about User:Golbez and WP:CIVILITY

User Golbez has acted as a self-appointed watchman of the article for some time and there are people who believe that his participation had been generally helpful. But as of late he has been outright disregarding WP:CIVILITY which casts serious doubt on merits of his endorsement of this AE request. Some examples of incivil conduct by Golbez:

• See edit summary: “you know what, fuck it, i yield. i don't have time for this petty bullshit, not until arbcom can give us the power to summarily ban every last nationalist on wikipedia.”
• “Sir or madam, you have made my fucking night.”
• “This idiotic revanchism, this useless irredentism, means nothing to me”
• “A pox upon both your houses.” - written in a pamphlet by Golbez which is not too bad in fact, but it shows that he was determined not to develop any subject-matter expertise and wrongfully praised that attitude as impartiality.

It would be helpful if Golbez could act as an arbiter distinguishing filibustering from honest disagreements on talk pages but he failed to be such an arbiter. Instead he chose profanities and sided with disruptive users. So far he supported felonious User:Tuscumbia and User:Brandmeister (each are/were recently topic banned of one year for disruptive conduct), and was freezing the Nagorno-Karabakh article on the versions supported by these two users. He praised User:Tuscumbia as someone who “follows the rules” on the very day (!) when Tuscumbia got banned after exhausting himself in multiple WP:BATTLEGROUNDs . Here Golbez teams up with Grandmaster, supporting his disruptive idea . Just too many inconvenient facts. I would also like to bring you comment by User:Meowy who well characterized Golbez as a careless and failing administrator :

• Regarding the comments by Golbez (who, if my memory is right, I consider to be one of the better-informed administrators and generally OK in his aims and actions): "Shall I start issuing blocks based solely on the duck test?" Is this a warning or is it meant to be ironic? "Since they were found to be unrelated, I am left with few civil options." ....erm .... since they were found to be unrelated you really have no business making further discussion about them in relation to sockpuppetry, and to continue otherwise is an example of bad faith.

Winterbliss (talk) 04:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hold on - since you are pushing my name into this - I did not characterise Golbez as "a careless and failing administrator", I was saying that I was disappointed that he was failing in this instance by refusing to just accept the finding that proved the accounts he thought were related were not related. Meowy 21:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• It is probably worth mentioning that the above mentioned Meowy (talk · contribs) is just back from a 1 year block for sockpuppetry. So his comment at SPI request page is not surprising. Meowy is also indefinitely banned from commenting at WP:AE on AA related matters, so I don't know whether it is Ok to repost his comments here. Grandmaster 10:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  My above comment, made to clarify a misrepresentation of my views, will be the only post I intend make here. If Winterbliss's misinterpretation of what I had written elsewhere were to be removed along with the quote, then my comment about it can also be removed. However, it is just you who say this is an AA2-related thread. The comments from all the unconnected editors indicate that it is NOT that because the powers you wish to see simply do not exist under AA2, and that to make them exist would mean making a fundamental change to the way Misplaced Pages editing works. So it is actually a policy change that would affect all of Misplaced Pages. Meowy 22:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I am amused that my attack on irredentism and revanchism is somehow incivil. Or that thanking you for giving me a good larf is somehow bad.

So, I'm not sure what the point of this subsection is, seeing how I'm pretty much out of the Caucasian clusterfuck at the moment - are you suggesting there be sanctions placed upon me, or are you just filling space? If the former, there's an actual place to go to do that; if the latter, you've at least made me grin. I seriously thought this was going to be about all the time I've characterized the editors of those articles as children, so this really could have been done better. I give it a C-. Also, I've been here a skosh longer than you, so I actually know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I think the fundamental problem here is, for some reason I thought the provisions of AA2 had expired or at least had been tempered; if I knew I could throw any of you kids on a 1 revert restriction, my sanity might still be with us. Is this still the case, anyone who is familiar with the situation? Then again, looking at the list of bans and blocks placed because of AA2, and still no long-term change... clearly it would seem that AA2 has failed.

Meowy, I accepted the finding that the accounts weren't related... that doesn't change the fact that at the very least, Oliveriki should be blocked for disruption - reverting back to a four-month-old version with a blatant lie for an edit summary on an AA-related article should be an instablock. My failure was not in executing it, but actually trying to get people to discuss before going all revert happy.

I guess I've burnt bridges on my way out, so I probably won't be able to go back in with the same cachet I had before (You know, the cachet that got me accused of being both Armenian and Azeri? Those were the days. You don't know how hilarious it is that you accuse me of being pro-Azeri. Oh, newbies, what would life be like without their naivete?), but ... eh. It's Misplaced Pages's loss, not mine. If I really was THE only person holding those articles together, then that appears to be a structural problem that the whole project needs to figure out how to fix. Someone else can pick up the pieces; I have maps to make and governors to list. --Golbez (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Gatoclass

Hello Gatoclass. Thank you for taking the time to take another look at the issue again. However, I regret to notice that you at times misreport on the facts and have taken an approach that is not well balanced.

• First, User:Tuscumbia was recently blocked from AA2 for one full year and not for six months (as Gatoclass misreports). Take a look one more time: . This misreport shows that Gatoclass failed to invest enough time and effort to inspect the entire situation honestly. I do not want to assume at this moment that he intentionally tries to protect users banned for WP:BATTLEGROUND.

• Second, in the bigger order of things, it does not really matter if texts in WP articles are developed by socks, fox, schmocks or frogs. The only thing that matters is the quality of the text itself i.e. if it complies with the WP standards for neutrality and accuracy. I don’t and no one really should care if there were xebulons, babelons or schmebulons writing the text. If it is good, it should be in the article. You are right, however, that since someone was banned (in good or bad faith), it makes re-inputting good quality texts a bit tricky, procedurally speaking, and certain rules should be observed. And some (big or small) parts of the previous writeup can be thrown away. The users were warned about this by Golbez, and they are complying by discussing these issues before they change the article. Please familiarize yourself with the part “Proposed Rewrite” . Per Golbez’s recommendation, User:Zimmarod took a look at the parts of the article deleted last year, looked at sources and assessed the quality of the deleted paragraphs in the section “Restored part of the text discussion by Zimmarod” . Ideas how to develop the article should be discussed on talk pages but there should be a policy punishing repeating the same points over and over again per WP:IDHT and filibustering honest discussions per WP:FILIBUSTER.

• One favorite method of users like User:Grandmaster to disrupt editorial process is to repeating the same points over and over again alleging that consensus is not reached (although it is reached). Please understand that it is WP:TE, specifically subsection “Disputing the reliability of apparently good sources” , “Repeating the same argument without convincing people” and above everything “deleting the cited additions of others” .

• I talked about this before but let me repeat this again: Azerbaijanis Many Azerbaijani WP users are not interested to develop the article Nagorno-Karabakh because academic sources are not on their side. To familiarize yourself with this argument please take a look how User:Tuscumbia was trying to filibuster and stonewall against academic references on talk pages in Murovdag . They try to ban their Armenian opponents as socks so that edits they made would forever be silenced or suppressed. In other words, they try to ban people in order to suppress ideas that these people express. Imagine a situation that there is a WP dispute in the article about the Moon. One group of editors believes the Moon is a pancake hanging in the air, the other thinks it is a natural satellite of the Earth. The group saying it is a celestial object was found to be a sock who gets banned. Does this mean his the notion that the Moon is a natural satellite of the Earth shall be forever removed from and suppressed in the article? Nonsense, right? That is exactly what the Azerbaijani editors want to happen and that is why they harass their opponents with SPIs – they believe this creates pressure on administrators who would eventually get tired and would concede in arbitrarily declaring the opposite group as socks, regardless of actual evidence. This is not an excuse to be biased against them all but is something to keep in mind.

• Your allegations about accusing Zimmarod in WP:SOAP and WP:NPA are unconvincing. There were no personal attacks and no propaganda or advertisements. And what about bad-faith SPIs that were criticized by several administrators??? Gatoclass ignores this entirely. Comparing users from Azerbaijan, which is a nationalist dictatorship indeed, with China or the USSR makes sense. In all three cases, we deal with people who are likely to be brainwashed by state propaganda, and have a lack of understanding of how open-source collaborative projects like Misplaced Pages should work in terms of WP:NPOV.

• One last point about User:Vandorenfm and User:Gorzaim who were accused and banned for supposedly being socks of User:Xebulon. I really did not want to go into that but the more I hear about them the more I am convinced that they these two were banned under pressure and with no or little evidence of sockpuppetry, especially User:Gorzaim, who as someone (Dehr?) mentioned previously, was banned by User:HelloAnnyong without any technical evidence of sockpuppetry. And banning User:Vandorenfm could be a mistake made under the psychological pressure of relentless bad-faith SPIs, which blurred the vision and numbed the senses of the administrators. Winterbliss (talk) 22:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article

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

• The Sandstein sanction (the one used on Mass killings under Communist regimes) is a rather drastic remedy, so I'd like to hear from other uninvolved admins before taking any action on that front.

  Also, the status quo is rather...unsatisfactory, and I have a feeling that this thread will take a while to conclude. I'll be interested in hearing suggestions as to any temporary sanctions on the article while this thread is pending. T. Canens (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what a sanction like that will achieve, because if an article is already in poor shape (and it usually is when it is a BATTLEGROUND topic), then all it's going to do is empower POV pushers to prevent improvement to the page. That certainly seems to be the case with the Mass killings article mentioned - after more than a year under this sanction, I don't think that article could be described as either neutral or well written. In fact, I'd say there's probably a good case for vacating that sanction at this point.

As regulars at this page will probably be aware, I did start work on an alternative "lightweight" AE-type process about a year ago, although other commitments have prevented me moving forward with it. I still think it would be worth a tryout, but it needs a rewrite and I haven't been able to find the time yet.

I'm not sure what else might be done in the meantime to improve articles in contentious topic areas, but one possible option would be to require anyone who wants to edit such pages to have, say, 500 mainspace edits outside the topic area before editing within it, as well as at least half their ongoing contribution outside it. A restriction like that might at least put a break on sockpuppetry, and hopefully encourage erstwhile POV pushers to make positive contributions elsewhere on the project. That is one option.

Another might be to give one or more respected admins draconian powers over particularly troublesome articles, allowing them to make decisions about what content is or is not permissible. An option like that would of course run the risk of the article coming to reflect the particular bias of the admins in question, but an article controlled by a couple of responsible administrators should still end up better than one in the control of POV pushers and their socks. There would still be some problems to resolve however, such as how to choose the admins in the first place, and what method of appealing their decisions might be put in place. Regardless, whatever method might be chosen, I think there must surely be a widespread recognition by now that current methods of dispute resolution are not doing the job and that new approaches must be tried. Gatoclass (talk) 14:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Having now read through the Xebulon sockpuppetry thread linked above, I think Grandmaster's suggestion of permitting admins to simply block any account per the duck test, as Moreschi did on previous occasions, might be the simplest solution for the current problems with this article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you on that last suggestion; that's de facto what happens in some places already (Chinese-Taiwan issues, for instance), so formalizing it might not be a bad idea. I have enough faith in our admin corps to know it when they see it. The other ideas are certainly worth discussing, but I think that would require broader community input. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

That's true. Sandstein's sanction pretty much froze that article because nobody can get consensus on anything, and that is pretty unsatisfactory. DUCK blocks don't need AE authority though; they have always been allowed. We could hand out a bunch of sock/meatpuppetry blocks (which is which doesn't matter since we treat them identically). However, SPI didn't see enough evidence for a block and that does concern me. Another possibility is to put this group of editors under a collective revert restriction. T. Canens (talk) 19:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I must say I have some misgivings about the notion of DUCK blocks, as a possible side effect is the alienation of new, good faith users. A revert restriction that favoured established users would be another alternative. I would like to take a closer look at the article before commenting further however. Gatoclass (talk) 07:36, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• On the technicality issue, article-level discretionary sanctions are permitted under Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Request for clarification: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2. The edit notice serves as the requisite warning; the block for failure to obey the article-level sanction is the actual discretionary sanction. T. Canens (talk) 18:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• @Paul Siebert: we have never required evidence of "repeated or serious" misconduct before a warning may be issued; in fact, the provision does not require any misconduct before a warning. DSN allows for sanctions on an editor who "despite being warned...repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process". Repeated or serious misconduct is required for sanctions, not for a warning. T. Canens (talk) 17:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• I too have concerns about the "Sandstein Option" having the desired effect for the article. The way these folks scrap regarding Nagorno-Karabakh is remarkable though, I've had to admin disputes over an abandoned mosque and the name of a mountain range of all things. The national tensions in this area of the world are profound and, like other areas, those folks want to bring their battles here. I have great concerns about the misuse of SPI as well. Yes, a lot of people sock in this area and there's probably off-wiki canvassing in this area but we can't use that as justification for immediately assuming an editor is from that without proof. I am also having growing concerns about the "SPI Patrol" that is, those who regularly submit largely unfounded SPI requests. Therefore, what I would suggest, is a more stringent approach to single purpose accounts. Simply put, they are politely warned they are editing in a conflict area as an SPA and as such they can find themselves subject to sanction quite readily if they're engaging in TE or causing disruption. This eliminates a lot of the guesswork in socking and just brings them to account for their behavior. There's nothing wrong with being an SPA, it just opens you up to scrutiny in conflict areas. --WGFinley (talk) 15:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Having found the time to do a little more research on the history of the article and the users concerned, it seems the following has occurred:

Between about June and August 2011, the article was gradually taken from about 60k to 95k bytes by several users since banned for sockpuppetry, including Bars77, Vandorenfm, and Gorzaim. After these accounts were banned, Ehud Lesar reverted the article back to the 60k version in September, per WP:BAN. Lesar then found himself in an edit war with several other users, most of whom also turned out to be socks. The article then remained relatively stable on the 60k version for about five months, until January 24, when Oliveriki, a user with only a handful of edits, reverted back to the 95k version with the misleading edit summary "rest references". This triggered a renewed edit war over the two versions, with the participants this time including Tuscumbia (currently serving a six-month one year ban for another issue) Zimmerod, Brandmeister and Winterbliss.

My initial conclusions are, firstly, that Oliveriki renewed an old edit war and did so with a highly misleading edit summary,] also failing to explain his reasons for restoring about 30k of content on the talk page. The fact that this user has only a handful of edits is also a concern. Secondly, Zimmarod restored the contested 95k version three times, the last time justifying his restoration per WP:BAN due to Tuscumbia's ban, ignoring the fact that the content he was restoring was itself originally added by sitebanned users. Zimmarod has also made disparaging remarks on the article talk page about his opponents, in breach of WP:SOAPBOX AND WP:NPA: "Azerbaijani editors always discard anything that runs against the spirit and letter of official state propaganda of their bizarre oil dictatorship headed by the uncrowned KGB monarch Aliyev. Azerbaijani futile fight against Western academia is like the objections of of the state-brainwashed Chinese or Soviets against Western accusations of human rights abuse" and "I think five editors spend a month in empty talk with a stubborn POV-pusher." As a consequence, I think both editors should as a minimum be formally warned of AE sanctions.

With regard to the edit warring, most of the reverts on both sides have been made on the grounds of WP:BAN, presumably from the clause which states that Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. I do not see however, where the policy states that edits made by a user before his ban can be reverted on sight. Regardless, the policy also states that Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and they have independent reasons for making them. From this, I conclude that if an edit originally made by a since banned user is restored by another user in good standing, then that edit should be discussed as a legitimate edit and not simply re-reverted per the first WP:BAN clause.

Finally, with regard to the contested content itself, I agree with Golbez, who suggested that it is not appropriate in such a contested article to add so much content in a single edit without discussion, and that the additions need to be discussed section by section by the parties concerned so that outstanding issues can be properly addressed. Gatoclass (talk) 08:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm concerned that Winterbliss has seized upon a minor error in my conclusions above to cast aspersions on my honesty and integrity. Since his comments were directed at me personally, I think it best to leave it to other admins to decide whether or not such comments are acceptable in the light of the evidence presented in their support. Gatoclass (talk) 08:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Before making any further comments on this case, I intend to wait for resolution of my recently filed request for clarification. Anyone with an interest in the topic area is welcome to comment on the request. My apologies for any inconvenience while this issue is being resolved. Gatoclass (talk) 08:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Chesdovi

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Chesdovi

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

Chesdovi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Chesdovi (talk) 18:34, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

3 month block due to violation of Arab-Israeli conflict topic ban per this AE report.

Administrator imposing the sanction

Wgfinley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

diff.

Statement by Chesdovi

Under the accepted scope of the A-I TB, only edits relating directly to the conflict area are prohibited. The edit in question was not.

• Jeremy, it has been clarified elsewhere that a page like "Template:Mosques in Israel and the PT" is not covered by the TB. Neither is Rachel's tomb off limits to me. Documenting whether the tomb was built as a mosque or synagogue or whether it today functions as a mosque or synagogue is also not covered by the TB. Such things are not deemed sufficiently related to the conflict area to prevent me from editing about them. Chesdovi (talk) 23:15, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Jeremy, while one purpose of a topic ban is to attempt to rehabilitate a users manner of editing, or “sorts of edits”, the topic ban itself does not address editing style, and it only relates to content. The ban only prevents me from making edits directly related to the conflict. You have unfortunately confused editing which may warrant a topic ban with the actual non-violation of a topic ban, as has WGFinley. While it was originally assumed that any page bearing the Template:Arab-Israeli Arbitration Enforcement would be off-limits to those under ban, it was later clarified that such a designation was not in fact the case. I have noted this clarification in a few places, not least here in another attempt by Asad to get me blocked. This is the second time WGFinley has imposed a sanction on me without explaining why I am in violation of my topic ban. He confidently states it is an "obvious" violation, yet, quite clearly he has wrongly blocked me twice under these false pretenses: He said "The standard is "broadly construed", I don't think I even need to go to broad for this one as Rachel's Tomb is in the West Bank!! A holy site that has also been a Muslim mosque and cemetery? You can't really be serious that you don't think this is falls under the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?" Well, for the purpose of the topic ban, as I have mentioned umpteen times before, Rachel's tomb does not fall under the topic ban. I understand he may not have been aware of this, but I cannot continue to assume that he is acting in good faith. He has simply avoided trying discuss this point with me for clarification of my position. This is not fair or what one expects from those given the task of administration. T. Canens stated one can edit in articles that “deal with Israel/Arab, but not related directly to the Arab-Israeli conflict” so long as "edits do not relate to the conflict in any way.” The only way I can suggest is that the issue here is that my edit was seen to be under "content related" in a permissible article or template, while I sincerely contend my edits are not related, that my edits do not stem from partisan positions in the A/I conflict. Chesdovi (talk) 12:12, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Carwil, the fact that Rachel's Tomb is under Arab-Israeli conflict remedies and is located in Israel/Palestine does not mean those under TB cannot edit it. Please review my comments above and the discussion at Archive95. Chesdovi (talk) 16:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Wgfinley: "I'm not certain what source Chesdovi is using to decide this area isn't subject to his ARBPIA topic ban."
  If you are not certain, why on earth have you not asked me to provide it to you until now?! You could not have reviewed the related discussion at Archive95. Please do. The conclusion there reached by the two participating admins (T Canens & EdJohnston) clearly dispels any notion of error on my part. Your interpretation of what is covered by the ban has been shown on numerous occasions to be too narrow. My editing under the ban (issued on 29/06/12) has been based upon these previous digressions at AE. You cannot just come along and issue two successive blocks without providing an explanation as to why my edits to Rachel’s tomb are prohibited, when I have been led to understand that they are fully compliant with my ban. The last AE report was a total sham. So please don’t bring it here as incrimination. You did not get "nothing but cryptic emails" from me. That is a lie. You also did not bother to comment at all at my appeal of that block which I find totally unacceptable. When JamesBWatson did not respond to my explanation, I was under the impression that I was vindicated. You cannot block someone and then stay out of any discussions when the block is appealed. It is not professional of you to continue to assert that “the exact reason Chesdovi is making the changes is tendentious editing in the Palestine-Israel conflict” when I have disputed that suggestion as out of hand. You say "I just can't stay away from TE in this topic area." I find that totally unfair and unacceptable. The two edits upon which you blocked me were 100% NPOV. If you feel they are not, please bother to explain why, instead of leaving me to guess. Besides, it is not for you to implement a block for TE cause I'm under TB. If you feel I engaged in TE, file a complaint elsewhere. You have no right to use my TB as an excuse to block me for a diffrent infraction. By your comments, you are the one who seems to be sure you are in the right and they show how you are not taking into consideration my comments. You do not respond to them, but just announce your take on them. Very wrong indeed. I am sorry if you are upset I have used information from a private email exchange, but that stems from the fact that you have dealt with this in a totally unsatisfactory fashion which causes me to rely on it. Being the blocking Admin, don't you feel you should have done more to put across my view on the matter? And maybe show some willingness to understand my position? This is not encouraging. Incredible that WGFinley is faulting me on my behavior by citing my user page. I have highlighted to anyone who cares that WGFinley blocked me on an unsound basis, dealt with a block appeal in an unsatisfactory manner and implemented an indef-t-ban which was based on factual, and I mean real factual, errors. What else am I to do? I notice he recently linked “recall” on his userpage, but all I am asking is that he deal with the blocks he has implemented in the proper way. WGFinely is not dealing fairly with my case, and more importantly, he is not providing answers. This is wrong. Does he not care that the indef-t-ban he put on me was based on a wrong assumption? A pervious ban was not a violation of a TB, rather an IB. I specifically stated he was to move my email appeal over to AE – he did not. The list goes on and on. Chesdovi (talk) 17:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• The Blade of the Northern Lights, it is all very well you having your opinion on the matter, but can you please understand the fact that I was not basing my edits on your just disclosed view. You cannot fault me as I have been led to believe very clearly months ago by the Admin who implement my TB that editing on pages related to the conflict was allowed. Even if you disagree with them both, you will have to accept that I did not violate my ban as I was following their guidance. Chesdovi (talk) 18:01, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Question for HJ Mitchell: How can you concur with WGFinley's actions when two other admins have indicated to me that editing an article like Rachel's tomb under TB is okay? Chesdovi (talk) 19:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• --Floquenbeam, you refer to an earlier block – but how can you gave that block any credence when my position was firstly not put forward at AE, and secondly, when a discussion was later initiated, there was not input from the blocking admin explain why the block was indeed valid. I don’t believe you have followed the history of these blocks. I’m afraid it is you who does not understand the scope of the topic ban. You are the third admin here to state the words "broadly construed". That definition has been accepted as not extending to articles like Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Western Wall, Dome of the Rock, Falafel, Yarkon River or any other similar subject relating the Israel/Arab. I want you to explain to me why my edit on the template is viewed by you as disruption, or as a biased, skewed edit. I have been the one who has been plying through the sources about the history of Rachel’s tomb. Have you? I know that no Muslim worship takes place inside the tomb. You may want to call a Jewish place or worship a mosque, but I think that rather inaccurate. Please show me where else this occurs, that a place of worship of one religion is called as a place of worship of another, if you expect to take your assertion that I disrupted the template seriously. Chesdovi (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• MichaelNetzer, says "there exists a content dispute about Rachel's Tomb being a Mosque." Admins commenting below have simply not read the discussion that ensued after the previous unjust block issue by WGFinley. Let me set the record straight: There does not exist a dispute about whether Rachel's Tomb is Mosque. A dispute does exist about whether the tomb and ante-chamber ever functioned as a mosque in the 19th-century and in the period between 1948 and 1967. Today there can be no dispute as to what the site functions as. Many East End Jews fondly recollect of what they call Brick Lane Synagogue, but we would not put Brick Lane Mosque in a template about "Synagogues in London", neither would we categorise it a “Synagogues in London.” Plenty of RS may still refer to the building as Brick Lane Synagogue, but for the purpose of the template and category, there is no question that the building would only be categorized as a mosque. Asad does not believe Rachel’s tomb is a former mosque. He thinks it is currently a mosque. I challenge him to explain his position. It is obvious that the term used in the UNESCO text, (which was not a unanimous vote by any means), referred to what Arabs call the site. It did not affirm the current usage of the site. It is so wrong, and I mean so very wrong, of various people here, WGFinley included, to suggest my edits here were based on a partisan slant I wish to enforce regarding the conflict. That is a lie. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I have made clear elsewhere. (It was myself who added the name “Bilal ibn Rabbah mosque” to the lead.) I have no time for people who scan material here without having knowledge of the background to this issue. You are all very good at counting my blocks and bans, but had you a real will to be fair and do what is in the projects best interest, you would first question my actions before passing judgment, and you would not be leaving comments supporting the lamentable actions of Asad and WGFinley. Chesdovi (talk) 20:55, 12 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 00:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC) )

• Floquenbeam , you may be correct when talking about the main article text, but classifying the undisputable current function of a religious building in a category or template, be in in Bethlehem or Timbuktu, should not form part of a conflict area. I understand as you say this is not about content or "truth", but if you would have bothered to read my response to JamesBWatson who raised your very point of non-contentious edits in the conflict area, you will see that I contended that on the basis of a previously concluded AE, I am currently under the impression, vouched by other good admins like yourself, that Rachel's tomb is okay to edit under TB, despite the presence of the ARBPIA template, as it is not sufficiently related to the A/I conflict. This was stated crystal clear at the time. I have not seen it repealed. You must have, please show me where. If I were contesting the number killed in the Deir Yassin massacre, yes, that would be a violation. If I added "it was a sunny day" to Gaza War, yes, that would be a violation. Now, let go into this ARBPIA template that was added by User:Supreme Deliciousness. Who is SD to decide for all of us that this article in its entirety is forms part of the conflict? Shall I remove it and everything will be okay? Shall I add it to Holocaust, since that is what resulted in the favorable UN vote to partition Palestine. What about Ovadia Yosef – did he not once make racist remarks about Arabs? The list will never end. You see, a connection can be found to the conflict in everything, even in humble Za'atar. Users must use their common sense here, and some are refusing to do so. Chesdovi (talk) 21:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 00:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC) )

• Jeremy, I have provided enough information in my comments to other users here. Please read them if you are troubled by "contradictions". There are a few examples I have come across which back my position, here is one: (issued the admin that topic banned me). I don't see how my edit is related to the conflict. You obviously do: Please explain - no'one else has. Chesdovi (talk) 21:42, 12 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 00:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC) )

• In the first paragraph, Asad has not concentrated on the edit at hand, but has introduced his statement with a host of personal recollections. I am a slanderer and up to mischief. He ends off by reminding me of NPA and to comment on “edits rather than the editor,” although I would not call a reference to his “lamentable actions” a PA. I would very much like to respond to Asad’s summary of our checkered relationship, but this is not the place to elaborate on this. (I also personally don’t like my rewords being called “mutilation” – that’s the dreadful result of what happens to the bodies of kids who riot in Syria.) I would mention that it does seem odd that he wrote "I am now starting to find it slanderous and mischievous" and then goes ahead and provides two diffs nearly 1 year old. I mentioned he "complained" of there ever being Jews in Anabta after he seriously questioned the source I added which mentioned there were 6 Jews who lived there in 1931, (I think this was cause his grandmother didn't know them). Sure, I was irritated at the time and should have used a more neutral word, but I did not accuse him of being an anti-Semite. (That is what another user accused me of for describing Isaac Luria as a Palestinian rabbi.) He has now suggested I grossly misrepresented his stance about the current function of the site. He claims he "doesn’t care" what it whether it is a mosque or not. Well, why did he re-add the erroneous category back to the article claiming the fact that it is a mosque is supported by RS? I have challenged him to provide a source which states that this site is a mosque. If it is "supported by RS", let’s have them. If Asad doesn’t care whether it is a mosque or not, why did he add an unsourced and unsubstantiated claim that "Palestinians believe is a mosque." to the lead? All Asad has ever presented is the term used in the UNESCO vote, which I have never had a chance to discuss with him and explain how that wording does not address functionality. And it is functionality which determines what is placed in cats or templates. So both my edits were not tendentious, they did not attempt to insert biased on skewed slant on the matter. Asad has now run to AE on two occasions over this very point without ever raising the point at talk. So we have two AE reports based on an erroneous interpretation of terminology used in one UNESCO vote which was not directly assessing or commenting on the actual site, rather its location alone. The countries did not vote on whether the building is a mosque or not. As the vote was tabled by Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syrian and Tunisia, it is not surprising the term mosque was chosen. Do the opposing votes of the other 13 nations have some bearing on the sites use?! The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (1995) does not call the site a mosque, neither did the British call it such in 1930 , (although they did mention the mosque in Hebron.) Not even the comprehensive 1922 British status quo document ever referred to the site as a mosque. But even if they had done, the matter at hand is dealing not what the building is called by various peoples, but what its use is. Surely that is the most important thing we need to know about a religious site? I don’t think we would add Category:Fortresses just because the tomb has been widely described as resembling one?
  

Yet all is not lost, it seems Asad has had a change of heart. Now, in response to the whole fuss, he says "fair enough." Fair enough: Chesdovi's claim is indeed "fair", just and valid. Yes, we should not be putting synagogues in mosque categories. It is fair that the Umayyad Mosque is not categorised as a church; it is fair that Al-Muallaq Mosque (my creation) is not categorised as a synagogue. If it is indeed fair, why is he opposing a similar classification of the tomb of rachel? He cannot bring proof from Eshtemoa synagogue, it being a deserted ruins known in RS only as a synagogue, (for accuracy Category:Former synagogues in the West Bank or Category:Synagogues ruins in the West Bank could be used). Note that reference to "mosque" in the category does exist: Category:Conversion of non-Muslim places of worship into mosques. This is the same with Jawatha Mosque where I added Category:Mosques in Saudi Arabia long before I knew it was still in use: . Ruins are obviously different from functioning buildings. I guess that is why Gaza synagogue was renamed. Religious buildings are categoriesd after their current function, if the site had been used as a place of prayer by another religion, it is not categorised as both, e.g. Nabi Yahya Mosque where Category:Mosques converted from churches by the Ayyubid dynasty is used. If it is currently shared, then both are used, Cave of the Patriarchs. It is not a “utterly hypocritical and disingenuous argument.” It make good sense. My edits did not touch upon the conflict – I did not remove “mosque” from the article. If Arabs claim “it is a mosque”, that does not mean they claim it functions as one. Again, even if Cathedral–Mosque of Córdoba is known by such a name, it should not be categorised as Category:Mosques in Spain until Mulsim worship is allowed in the building. I sincerely hope Asad repudiates his unfounded allegations of me attempting to circumvent the ban (!) and of POV pushing. Chesdovi (talk) 21:07, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• WGFinley: I had my "appeal denied"? I cannot fathom why that was. I followed the instructions and you called my communications "cryptic". You never responded to my appeal or moved it over to AE. I started emailing you as I wanted you to deal with the block and appeal. You did start to respond, but then when I filed a comprehensive appeal, you changed tact and did not opt review my appeal, as I naturally presumed you would. You instead said you would prefer my email to be transferred to the AE page so everyone is aware of the discussion. I then told you "if you want to duplicate my correspondence at AE, you may now do so." You then told me anything would only happen on your part if I "said the word." Well, I had already said you could move over my appeal – what you had preferred to do. And, nothing. Therefore "appeal denied". Great. And by the way, 5+ is a bit hefty don’t you think? My sanctions not as a novice only started after your blocking error of 22 August 2010. The ones which weren’t mistakes on my part, have been reduced. (It is difficult trying to get admins to admit they have acted unfairly.) I wonder what exactly your position is now. It had seemed I was blocked for merely editing ARBPIA protected Rachel’s tomb. Now it’s the edits themselves ("whether a holy site is a mosque or not") which are the problem. So you have surreptitiously changed your opinion with announcing it. Well, now that it’s clear that Rachel's Tomb, albeit a contested holy site in the West Bank, is not directly related to the ARBPIA conflict (it having a wealth of information dating from 3000BCE), and those under TB can edit that page, we need to assess whether my edit was directly related to the conflict: The conflict is whether the site should be a mosque or not, not whether it is a mosque or not. There a distinct difference – one would violate the TB, the other most certainly does not. I have read the UN on this: They clearly say the site has been turned into an exclusive Jewish place of worship. So you tell me, where is the dispute about whether the tomb "is a mosque or not." You are getting confused about what people call the site – well, what people merely call the site does not determine what the site is categorised as. To accuse me of being a "blatant partisan" is incredible and hurtful. I know the all edits I have made at this page – do you? I suggest you trawl through some of them so you can see for yourself what a baseless allegation you make. If you don't think I am capable of productive and NPOV editing, you should think again. You just read the 50,000kb productive discussion I had before I was blocked without trail, is that your idea of the "space has been disturbed"? Chesdovi (talk) 22:02, 13 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 02:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC) )

• Floquenbeam, things can only be "controversial" if they there is a dispute or "perhaps" regarding that fact. In this case, there is no "dispute" or "perhaps" involved. It is therefore not "controversial." This is important, because it determines what is covered by the ban in permitted articles – i.e. only things related to conflict or controversy. That Arabs don’t want a synagogue to exist at the tomb does not warrant that by classifying it as such, one breaks the TB. That is taking it too far. The Arabs would like a lot of things in the conflict, does that me I cannot make edits about them? It's current status is indeed part of the overall I/P dispute, and so is the current status of the whole of Israel. You suggest a harsh sanctions against me (block indef) in the face of my TB admin specifically saying I can edit on Israel, even though it's current status is part of the overall I/P conflict. Again, you cannot fault me on that. I again emphasise, there is no dispute over the sites current status. That that current status fuels conflict is irrelevant. Chesdovi (talk) 22:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 02:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC) )

I am in the process of putting together a comprehensive account of why I believe the way in which WGFinley implemented the indef-ban was unreasonable, which in turn will allow me to rely on the scope of the original ban issued by Tim. I will not be able to finish it tonight as I have a family occasion to attend. Please bear with me. I would just add that I don't know what type of fool WGFinley takes me for. By his latest comments, does he think I can simply not help myself from purposefully breaking the topic ban? Does he think I would break it intentionally? I have been doing quite okay under ban for 7 months and then WGFinley imposes a block and indef-ban without caring to review or post my appeal. Yet as support for his actions here, he refers to my earlier appeal and claims that it was "denied". That is a 100% bogus claim. Why is it bogus? Because he did not review it. Neither was it posted to AE for consideration. In fact it was not even closed. So who was it denied by? This is shameful. I am no fool and am quite capable of staying within what I have been led to believe is the scope of the topic ban. Something is not quite right here and I hope to clear it up tomorrow. Chesdovi (talk) 17:58, 14 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 19:37, 14 March 2012 (UTC) )

Statement by Wgfinley

I'm not certain what source Chesdovi is using to decide this area isn't subject to his ARBPIA topic ban, it's on Rachel's Tomb again which was the subject of his last AE report and his actions resulted in a one month block. One need not go to "broadly construed" to consider this part of ARBPIA, the exact reason Chesdovi is making the changes is tendentious editing in the Palestine-Israel conflict concerning this disputed site.

90 days is appropriate to prevent further disturbance in the ARBPIA space. His user page seems to reflect he has no interest in changing his behavior, he continues to use information from a private email exchange and thinks he is being wronged here. I'm not even certain 90 days will be sufficient to rectify this but I thought I would give him a chance to remediate. It's too bad because he has made many great contributions, he just can't stay away from TE in this topic area. --WGFinley (talk) 14:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

@MichaelNetzer (talk · contribs) I should point out is fresh off a 45 day TBAN and is currently under ARBPIA probation, it should come as no surprise he will carry it over to here on AE where he will tendentiously edit some more. Comparing this to the "Joseph" issue is ridiculous. Chesdovi was blocked and had an appeal denied on this very topic of Rachel's Tomb, he went and made substantive changes that are directly related to the ARBPIA conflict (whether a holy site is a mosque or not). Again, one need not go to "broadly construed" to deem this battleground beehavior Chesdovi has found himself subject to sanction over for the past 5+ years. At a certain point the space has been disturbed enough with blatant partisans and they need to change their behavior or find another topic. In this case Chesdovi refuses to find another topic, he wants to continue to be involved in this one. The only solution left is to block, it's the only action left. --WGFinley (talk) 18:42, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Fundamental Misunderstanding of TBAN

Gentlemen, please go and review the WP:TBAN policy, and also my very unambiguous statement of what the ban is:

Chesdovi (talk · contribs) banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed across all namespaces indefinitely.....

1. There simply is no debate the article itself is related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, we're talking about whether Rachel's Tomb is a mosque or not.
2. Talk:Rachel's Tomb unambiguously states the article is subject to ARBPIA sanctions.
3. Chesdovi was previously warned and sanctioned for his actions on this article but 60 days ago, 30 of those days he spent blocked.
4. This is the 12th time by 7 different admins Chesdovi has been blocked for ARBPIA violations, he's very familiar with the process and that he is under scrutiny.
5. The only shred of an argument that could be made is if Chesdovi made an edit to the article that was not related to the dispute over the site. His edit is precisely about the disputed nature of the site and is a blatant, clear and obvious violation of his TBAN.
6. Chesdovi has been given numerous opportunities to remediate his behavior and edit in ARBPIA harmoniously, he is clearly unable to do so and 90 days is a light action in light of these clear and indisputable facts. It's become clear to me that perhaps only an indefinite block will rectify this matter.

This is my final comment on the matter, I hope it is concluded soon. --WGFinley (talk) 04:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Statement by asad

I have tried to stay away from engaging with Chesdovi and ignore him as much as I can. I have endured many a personal attack and elitist language that he has thrown at me for the better part of eight months now. But one thing I will not tolerate any more is further distortion of my words by him. Besides just being annoying, I am now starting to find it slanderous and mischievous. He toyed with allegations of antisemitism by claiming I have purposely white-washed Jews out of the history of my hometown and accused me of not knowing how to use English . That's fine, you know, all water under the bridge. But now this thing has come up. The latest accusation is that "Asad does not believe Rachel’s tomb is a former mosque. He thinks it is currently a mosque." . Of course, this is a gross misrepresentation of what I said as well. As in the original report I said, "I frankly don't care if it is a mosque or a synagogue, or was never a mosque, this kind of tendentious editing is getting really annoying, and is a clear violation of Chesdovi's tban.". I ask that Chesdovi by reminded that per WP:NPA, that he comment on the edits rather than the editor.

As far as the synagogue vs mosque thing, I would like to sum up how I understand Chesdovi's arguments. 1) Rachel's Tomb (or at least part of it) may or may not have served as a mosque at some points in the early 20th century 2) It is not "currently" being used as a mosque, so therefore it shouldn't be included in a category/template of "Mosques in the Israel and the Palestinian territories".

Fair enough, so if Chesdovi wanted to apply the same standards all around, he would have certainly omitted the "Synagogues in the West Bank" cat from the Eshtemoa synagogue article, right? Wrong. The article, in which Chesdovi created, states that, "The Eshtemoa Synagogue, located 15km south of Hebron in as-Samu, West Bank, was an ancient synagogue dating from around the 4th-5th century CE." As per Chesdovi, a building that once functioned as a mosque, but no longer does, does not deserve a cat describing it as such, but ruins that were once used as a synagogue, but no longer do, do deserve a cat describing it as such. It is an utterly hypocritical and disingenuous argument.

It is no secret that the something like this would fall under the scope an WP:ARBPIA tban, and the continuous denying of such connection and attempts to circumvent the ban is WP:GAMING and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT on Chesdovi's part. This coupled with the obvious POV pushing and personal attacks, I find a 3-month ban to be incredibly light. -asad (talk) 14:15, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Chesdovi

The topic ban explicitly notes that any edit about or on articles related to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict (broadly construed) is verboten. See , which has been extended to indefinite because of his refusal to abide by it. —Jeremy v^_^v 22:07, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Where has that been said, Chesdovi, and by who? Nothing I have seen thus far suggests any such thing, and you were sanctioned because of those sorts of edits specifically. —Jeremy v^_^v 03:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

1) That's a dodge. Give me a diff. 2) Your statement to Carwil immediately after is such a blatant contradiction in and of itself that I will not respond to it - it speaks for itself. —Jeremy v^_^v 21:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Note that I said, and noted, that edits about or on the conflict are forbidden - as in, no edits about articles in the topic area and no editing pages related to the issue, which it looks like Rachel's Tomb is. No matter how much you try to spin it, there is no way in Creation that that edit was in any way acceptable, no matter what T. Canens says (wishing no offense to the man). —Jeremy v^_^v 21:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Rachel's Tomb is under Arab-Israeli conflict remedies and is located in Israel/Palestine. The fact that the mosques template is not isn't particularly convincing here.

However more importantly (and here is where my interest begins), one of the problems that ARBPIA seeks to address is the continuous exporting of WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior to an increasingly wide swath of Misplaced Pages. If present remedies don't require banned editors to cease and desist in such boundary cases, they should.--Carwil (talk) 14:03, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with your last point, and if you notice the Israel-Palestine conflict being exported to other articles, please do bring it up here—I for one take an extremely dim view of that sort of conduct, and I would have no qualms about sanctioning an editor for it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments by MichaelNetzer

HJ Mitchell and Blade: In the precedent of the archive 45 case that Chesdovi cited, Ed Johnston and T. Canens both agreed that a TB allows editing a page in the topic area if the edit is not associated with the conflict itself. In that case, even the filer of the complaint (the same filer of this complaint) acknowledged this view and withdrew the complaint. In that same case, Chesdovi's previous TB was also "broadly construed". Your statements here about a "broadly construed" TB thus do not seem to reflect the facts in the precedent case, as viewed by the two admins who agreed to close it, and under which Chesdovi made the template edit in question.

The caveat given by T. Canens was that "if the exportation of disputes from Arab-Israeli conflict becomes a substantial problem" then a TB would become more absolute. Given these facts, how can you blame Chesdovi for adhering to this decision in good faith? If admins choose to now decide, due to this case or others, to limit the TB even further, then this should only become enforceable from this point forward (and made accessibly known across the topic area) and not used to retroactively punish Chesdovi for an edit before this conclusion was made.

Admin comments here do not seem to reflect the situation based on the precedent Chesdovi relied on. Chesdovi had no reason to believe there was a problem with his last edit. There exists a content dispute about Rachel's Tomb being a Mosque. To many editors, one UNESCO RS, cannot rewrite a 1500 year history of the site devoid of the Mosque that some claim to be there. But it is a content dispute about a Mosque template - not an issue of violating a TB. And certainly not deserving such a harsh block precipitated by hostile assumptions about the editor that seem to ignore the basis for his edit. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 20:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

How is a holy site within a half-mile of Jerusalem not part of the Palestine/Israel conflict, Michael? And how can an edit that changes a site from a mosque to a synagogue be anything but a proscribed edit? —Jeremy v^_^v 22:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I think you're citing the wrong edit, Jeremy. This edit is the one brought here for sanction. The one you cited is from 7th of January and not under contention here. In the recent template edit that this complaint is based on, Chesdovi only moved the category item listing to "Former mosque". There is no RS, nor any Arab claim that Rachel's Tomb is presently a mosque. The dispute is only about whether it was one during some point in history. Everyone agrees there is no mosque there presently, so it looks like Chesdovi's edit was only to correct a technical issue not related to the wider P/I dispute or conflict. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 23:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Floquenbeam: Chesdovi's edit was not to exclude Rachel's Tomb from the Mosque category, rather only to move it to a new group within that category "Former mosques". There is no dispute that it is not presently a mosque. The edit was only to correct a technicality that is not related to either the wider conflict or the specific dispute over the site. There are no RS, nor any Arab claims that there is presently a mosque there. This is not at all different from the previous case Chesdovi cited about a technicality relating to the Arabic name of Joseph's Tomb, where the filer of the complaint and closing admins all agreed the edit did not violate the topic ban. Your opinion is worthy and respected but Chesdovi operated under a previous AE precedent that he was involved in and that he relied on to make the edit. If admins wish to change the rules now based on diverging admin opinions, it should not be done retro-actively. Perhaps if a clear AE statement is released that Ed Johnston and T. Canens decision on that case is no longer valid, then it can be enforced from this point forward. To apply such a decision retroactively and without warning seems a disservice to the AE process. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 23:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam: A dispute as to the site's more ancient history is not the same as its factual current state. The Palestinian claims about it having been a mosque, that arose in 1996, were respected by Chesdovi by adding the new sub-category "Former mosques". Meaning that he did not engage in the conflict or dispute, but only corrected a technicality that it is not currently a mosque. Again, no RS and no Palestinians claim that it is currently a mosque. It does not currently operate as a mosque and has not done so at least since 1967. The edit only referred to its current state, not to the dispute over its past history. This is the same type of technicality he corrected with the Arabic name of Joseph's Tomb and for which he was acquitted of violating the Topic Ban. There seems to be a reluctance to address this all too important detail. Chesdovi appears to have believed his edit was allowed under the previous case admin decision. Regardless of what needs to be fixed for the future, Chesdovi should be given the benefit of the doubt as to his motives because they are supported by the case history. I appreciate that AE admins are in a difficult spot and can sometimes make mistakes but the block seems extremely unfair to an editor whose contributions have earned him a little better, given the circumstances. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 00:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

@Blade: You are naturally and respectfully entitled to your opinion as to what a topic ban means. Other admins who've given decisions on topic bans do not agree with you. One such case cited here repeatedly (which for some reason is being ignored or dismissed) involved Chesdovi in an almost identical technical edit. Ed Johnston and T. Canens both agreed that although the page he edited carries the ARBPIA template, his edit does not violate the TB. I'm bringing the quoted decision here in hopes that yourself and other admins will at least explain why Chesdovi cannot rely on this decision or why you apparently think it is not valid:

Source: There is now a school of thought that people under an I/P topic ban like Chesdovi are allowed to edit articles with the ARBPIA template on them so long as they don't modify anything related to the conflict. User:T. Canens who issued the topic ban thinks this is OK. The present dispute over the wording of Joseph's name is not directly related to the I/P conflict, so I would not want to apply a sanction. Since the submitter Asad112 is OK with closing this, I suggest we do so. EdJohnston (talk) 03:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It's understandable that not every AE admin agrees with this. But it is certainly enough to have given Chesdovi a green light for a similar edit without fear of sanction. However it most certainly cannot be enough to ignore this precedent and assert contrary opinions about topic bans in this case. Yourself and other admins would need to explain why this previous decision is invalid. But even so, it is extremely unfair (and borders on tendentious arbitration) to apply this block without giving the editor due warning that the previous decision he relied on was invalid. Please take this into consideration. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 15:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

@ Wgfinley (talk · contribs)

1. It was good to see an admin finally address the Joseph's Tomb case. But your comment that the comparison with the mosque template edit in this case is ridiculous, failed to explain why. The reason you gave was Chesdovi's ban history. What does that have to do with the edit he made to the mosque template in this case? Is this case about Chesdovi's ban history or about the edit to the template that user:asad112 filed this complaint about?
2. asad112 (talk · contribs) now concurs that it's fair enough to say Chesdovi's edit was not a violation of the topic ban accurate. He has other issues that Chesdovi just responded to. Asad has displayed an integrity beyond compare by giving due thought to the issues explained here and accepting explanations that seem reasonable to him. Is this not a good example for all of us to consider?
3. I remember the previous block Chesdovi tried to appeal. You stated here that you were in email contact with him and would post his responses. When the time came, you said his emails were "cryptic" and didn't post them. Now Chesdovi claims that you'd agreed to post them, but by failing to do so, along with your "cryptic" comment, it shut the lid on his appeal. Was it fair of you to make that decision alone, being the blocking admin, instead of posting his comments here so other admins could better understand his position also?
4. Assuming you are correct about Chesdovi needing to be stopped, is it proper to judge him unfairly and without due consideration for an edit that's not a violation of the topic ban, in order stop him? If an admin violates WP policy to correct a problem, by misrepresenting a case or refusing to hear it, what kind of an example are they setting for everyone else?
5. You say it's understandable that after a topic ban, I would return to AE for tendentious editing. How is that understandable? Is this a pattern you've noticed by other editors who've been topic banned? Have you looked at my edit history since the ban and seen this pattern? Or is this your personal character assessment of me? And if so, what might it be based on? Is it your opinion that good faith should not be extended to editors who've been previously banned?
6. You seem to comment a lot about editors' past violations as justification for personal attacks that you make against them, like in this case with Chesdovi and myself. The guidelines in this page warn specifically about such attacks against editors who've been sanctioned here. I'm trying, and I believe Chesdovi is also trying, to explain the particular issue of this case, without making personal remarks about anyone, in the face of severe and unfair characterizations by admins, who do not seem to be aware of the specific details of the mosque template. Most everyone, including yourself, is speaking in general terms of past violations and character attacks. Wouldn't it be more productive and efficient to simply comment on the specific facts of this case?
7. I ask these questions because I know you to be a thoughtful and fair administrator. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 04:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Devil's Advocate

Seems to me that this was a clear-cut violation. Rachel's Tomb was under Muslim control until 1967 and I will give everyone three guesses why it changed control in 1967. The exemption above appears to be about a centuries-old issue, as opposed to a recent issue like this one. It also stretches credulity that Chesdovi would not expect this recent edit to be a violation, given that a block was previously issued for the same kind of edit as this one just two months prior. I don't think this requires "broadly construing" the issue as the whole issue of whether it is a mosque or a synagogue arises from its switch from Arab control to Israeli control during one of the Arab-Israeli wars.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by OhioStandard

One of Chesdovi's supporters quoted Timotheus Canens' and EdJohnston's comments from over six months ago, now moved to AE archives, about his edits to a different article. That prompted me to have a look at other, more recent archives of multiple pages. The process revealed the following discoveries, which are new to me, at least:

(1) Chesdovi also appears to be in violation of a set of admin prohibitions and warnings that say, in part:

"You are banned for six months from adding categories to articles having to do with any notions of Palestinian or Israeli, broadly construed. You are allowed to ask neutral questions of others as to the tagging of articles which they have created or meaningfully edited themselves. Otherwise, you must stay silent on this topic." Gwen Gale 20:59, 5 November 2011 UTC ( emphasis in the original )

But Chesdovi has not stayed silent re these kinds of category edits: He's repeatedly added, replaced, and removed such categories. It's hard to imagine that he had merely forgotten these restrictions at the time, since he followed these late February and early March (2012) category edits with a request for a one-time exemption just four days later.

(2) Since EdJohnston's six-months-ago comment was quoted in boldface, above, let's also read Ed's much more recent AE comment:

"Noticing that Chesdovi has been in trouble under ARBPIA so many times and has been constantly at AE, I am surprised that he is not yet under an indefinite topic ban. If past blocks and sanctions were going to improve his behavior, they surely would have done so by now." EdJohnston, 03:58, 12 January 2012 UTC (emphasis added) ( edit summary: Support indefinite ban ).

For the full context of Ed's comment, find the "Result concerning Chesdovi" section in the previous AE request about him. Briefly, Ed's comment was in response to ( and in support of ) admin WGFinley's suggestion that an indef topic ban be implemented.

I've discovered a few other points through this process that are at least as relevant: I'll try to add those later today if I can find the time.  – OhioStandard (talk) 14:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It appears I can be a bit thick, at times: It's only now occurred to me that any reasonable being would construe Gwen Gale's November 2011 unblocking condition (see item 1, just above) as also prohibiting removal of such categories. And, of course, the edit for which WGFinley first re-blocked Chesdovi, and then, with EdJohnston's concurrence, extended his TBAN to indefinite back in January comprises the removal of such a category, viz. "Mosques in the Palestinian territories". So WGFinley, or any other admin, could have sanctioned Chesdovi in January 2012 for that edit on the basis of his having violated Gwen Gale's unblock conditions, as well as for a TBAN violation, if he'd known of those conditions at the time.  – OhioStandard (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

After being blocked for editing Rachel's Tomb in January 2012 in violation ( as admin WGFinley found, and Chesdovi disputed ) of the TBAN imposed by Timotheus, Chesdovi wrote in a block appeal he made on his talk page,

"I understand that I should be staying as far as possible from the A/I area, but in this instance it seems that a debate regarding an 1841 building caused SD to come to an erroneous conclusion about the buildings current designation. I am fully aware about my ban and had no intention to violate it." (emphasis added)

(3) There's simply no "but in this instance" that's admissible in the face of such a TBAN, even if one thinks it was unjust, or sees a statement in article space that one finds erroneous or even outrageous. Chesdovi should have just stayed "as far as possible from the A/I area", to use his own words, rather than again editing content related to Rachel's Tomb, as he did in the 9 March 2012 edit that touched off the action he's appealing here.

Admin JamesBWatson comments similarly, on the January 2012 block and its appeal, observing, in part:

Chesdovi is not just banned unless he/she believes he/she is right... Therefore the arguments put forward are irrelevant: "The edit was rectifying an undisputable fiction", and "It is a fallacy and deception to categorise this site as a mosque"... Chesdovi seems unable to grasp the fact that the ban was for all edits on the topic, not just for controversial ones. (emphasis in original)

JamesBWatson had become aware, the previous day, of Chesdovi's desire to appeal the January 2012 block imposed by WGFinley when he responded to an "adminhelp" template Chesdovi had posted to his own talk page to request assistance in appealing that 30-day block. In that adminhelp response, Watson wrote, in part,

I should also point out that you quite unambiguously violated the terms of your topic ban. If you thought that the topic ban was unreasonable, you could have appealed against it: ignoring it, being blocked as a result of doing so, and then appealing against the block on the grounds that you never agreed with the topic ban is not likely to be successful.

Timotheus says essentially the same thing when he writes, below, "The proper way to challenge a sanction is to appeal it directly, not to violate it and then challenge it when appealing the resulting block." If Chesdovi had simply exercised the humility to accept that administrative counsel back in January, instead of first arguing with it, and then again editing content concerning Rachel's Tomb, two months later, the block he's appealing now would never have been imposed, and the drama and huge time sink over the present matter would not have arisen. This entire problem was eminently avoidable.  – OhioStandard (talk) 10:45, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

( Please note: If you wish to respond to any of the points raised above, kindly add those comments to your own "comments by" section. )

Result of the appeal by Chesdovi

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

• I can't say I disagree with the sanction in question. Rachel's Tomb is rather clearly marked as falling under I/P, and the topic ban is "broadly construed". At the very best, it's pushing the boundaries to their absolute limits, and I agree with the admin who imposed the sanction that Chesdovi not only pushed but crossed said boundaries. Based on that, I wouldn't be inclined to overturn the block or ban extension. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

  @MichaelNetzer; it really doesn't matter if the specific edit was technically not editing for or against one side in the ARBPIA area. It was an article clearly marked with an ARBPIA template on an article that, as Floquenbeam elucidated below and as the article itself says, is the source of contention between Israelis and Palestinians. While topic banned editors aren't supposed to edit anything in the topic area at all. Anything else I'd say here has been written by Floquenbeam, so I'll save the electrons and stop here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:19, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• I concur with Blade, and with WGF's actions. The article is very clearly being marked as being subject to ARBPIA, and even if weren't "directly related" as Chedovi claims, the topic ban is "broadly construed". Nobody could read the wording "broadly construed", see the warnings on that article's editnotice and talk page, and then in good faith claim that editing it was not a violation of Chesdovi's topic ban. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
• When you have been topic banned, and previously blocked multiple times (the latest for nearly a month, ending only a month and a half ago) for violating said ban, it is your responsibility to not test the boundaries of the topic ban, especially one to be "broadly construed". This looks to me to be a clear violation, and the escalation from 1 month to 3 does not seem excessive. In fact, while I've never spent much time at AE, so there is probably some AE-specific culture that I don't understand, I'm rather stunned that this hasn't been upped to indef by now. if this was just "normal" disruption, and not ARBPIA-related, and had been brought to a normal admin board, I'd have blocked them indef long before now. Either Chesdovi just doesn't understand the ban (in which case, block indef to prevent guaranteed future violations), or he's trying to game the system (in which case, block indef for trying to game the system). But the 3 month block is certainly not excessive. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Re to Chesdovi: It is quite possible to make an edit in violation of a topic ban that would not be a problem for an editor not under a topic ban. I haven't looked at reliable sources about Rachel's Tomb because the "truth" about the edit is not what this is about; it is about you editing in an area you've been banned from. It is disingenuous to say that describing something in Bethlehem as a mosque, or not a mosque, is not part of the "Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed". Talk:Rachel's Tomb specifically says that it is part of ARBPIA, and has had that tag for quite a while. If an article is covered by the topic ban, then it's inclusion or non-inclusion in a template of mosques is pretty obviously part of the topic ban as well. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Re to MichaelNetzer: You say "There is no dispute that it is not presently a mosque." That doesn't appear to be correct; the current status of that site appears to be an active area of disagreement between (some) Israaelis and (some) Palestinians . The article says so, the reference in the article says so, and some Googling says so. It's current status is part of the overall I/P dispute. I do not care if it is actually a mosque or not; I do not care how reasonable or unreasonable the claims are. Claiming it is, or isn't, is part of the dispute. If I was participating in a discussion about the content dispute, I would care deeply. But I'm not.

    I suspect it makes more sense in the future to not try to be reasonable, and instead just forbid someone under a topic ban from making any edits, even non-controversial ones, to such articles or about such articles, in order to save time arguing about whether it was controversial or not. But that doesn't matter here, because this is clearly a controversial edit. Perhaps it is obviously right, perhaps not, but it is a part of the IP dispute, and anyone who knows about the subject can't help but know is is part of the dispute, and Chesdovi is not allowed to make edits related to the dispute. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• We should defer to the administrator who imposed the topic ban in the first place on questions about the scope of the ban, unless his construction of it is patently unreasonable, which is not the case here. I therefore agree that this appeal must be declined. T. Canens (talk) 05:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Whether Wgfinley's extension of the topic ban was proper is irrelevant. That would be a proper question if this were an appeal of that topic ban, but it is not. In an appeal from a block applied for violation of a discretionary sanction, the merits of the underlying sanction should be presumed, at least unless it was plainly ultra vires. The proper way to challenge a sanction is to appeal it directly, not to violate it and then challenge it when appealing the resulting block.

    This has been up for a while and there is certainly not the requisite level of consensus to overturn the block. Barring any objections from uninvolved admins, I'm going to close this in 24 hours. T. Canens (talk) 07:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

So so glos

DIREKTOR

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

Request concerning DIREKTOR

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

BoDu (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Misplaced Pages:ARBMAC

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

1. 24 February 2012 Personal attack.
2. 24 February 2012 Disrespectful comment.
3. 2 March 2012 Harassment is alleged without clear evidence.
4. 3 March 2012 Taunting and another allegation without clear evidence
5. 4 March 2012 Taunting.
6. 4 March 2012 Deletion of my comment after I tried to discuss the user's behaviour on his talk page.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

It is clear that there is an unfolding pattern of incivility by User:DIREKTOR.

The statement by DIREKTOR below shows once again why he is an disruptive editor. Instead of talking on-topic (his conduct), he is talking off-topic (my conduct). BoDu (talk) 16:25, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

This request is concerning DIREKTOR. I have no problem discussing my conduct, but this is not place to do so. As you can see above, I said that the statement by DIREKTOR is disruptive, and the consequences of that are obvious in the last 24 hours or so. This request is becoming request concerning myself. I can't believe that the administrators did not warn DIREKTOR to stop talking off-topic and instead submit a request for enforcement against me. I can't believe that the administrators allowed themselves to be drawn into the off-topic discussion.

@Lothar von Richthofen, removing comments from one's personal talkpage is allowed, but the problem here is how it was done. My comment was a attempt to resolve dispute, and his response was the deletion with following statement: "Talk to someone who cares to listen". It's humiliating. BoDu (talk) 17:00, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning DIREKTOR

Statement by DIREKTOR

I would not want to give the impression that I think it "beneath me" to properly answer a WP:AE report, but considering the circumstances of the report and who posted it, I'm having a difficult time taking it seriously. I would like everyone to please note that this seems to be merely the latest installment of a WP:FORUMSHOPPING war conducted by User:BoDu in order to prevail by "alternative" means in a content dispute on Template:Yugoslav Axis collaborationism. After being blocked and literally forced to stop edit-warring against everyone, the user posted a thread on WP:DRN, tried to delete the whole template on WP:TFD, reported me on WP:ANI, canvassed various admins to sanction me, and so on. Now WP:AE. All this because his edits do not have consensus, and he obviously really wants to have his way. Now, I'm biased as hell, but if this charade charade isn't disruptive I have an inaccurate understanding of the term. -- Director (talk) 18:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

@NULL. While others have given the user ideas on where exactly to continue his forumshopping, imo its forumshopping nonetheless. The succession of threads was not posted by the users that suggested this or that, but by BoDu himself - I don't think anyone suggested this sustained campaign. And the fact itself that BoDu was continuously being shown the door really illustrates what I mean about all this being content-related POV pushing. Also, I fail to see the logic of proceeding from edit-warring to ANI to DRN to TFD and then to AE. Is the user trying to resolve a content dispute or address behavioral grievances? Well, I'd say neither. By edit-warring, by blocking opponents, by "winning" the dispute, or by deleting the whole template(!) - he gets to remove the info he's been trying to remove all along. And I think its rather obvious that's what this forumshopping-spree is about. -- Director (talk) 07:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning DIREKTOR

Comment by Lothar von Richthofen

Some of DIREKTOR's comments are heated and a bit uncivil, but nothing really egregious has been demonstrated. I'd also like to point out to the submitter that removing comments from one's personal talkpage is 100% allowed. The evidence provided by DIREKTOR in his statement brings into question the conduct of BoDu. I would agree with him that this report is likely another disruptive forum-shopping attempt. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

@BoDu: Discussion of your own behaviour is completely relevant. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 18:28, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by NULL

Without commenting on the validity of the AE request itself and with no knowledge of the dispute, the allegation of forum shopping is unfounded, or at very least unfair. BoDu raised the matter at ANI first and was told by both GiantSnowman and BWilkins that the appropriate venue was DRN. He then took the matter to DRN, where it was closed as inappropriate for the board and TransporterMan directed him to TFD. He then raised the issue at TFD. The sequence of events here doesn't indicate forum shopping, but simply someone following instructions and being redirected, by others, to more appropriate venues. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 02:06, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Result concerning DIREKTOR

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

• While I may agree that a couple of those comments are somewhat lacking in tact, all of those diffs are at least a week old, some of them more than two. I'm not sure how we can action those. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:13, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
• Direktor has been asked to tone down the rhetoric a few times but I'm not seeing anything severe enough for action here, also agree with Blade they are pretty stale. --WGFinley (talk) 16:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Boomerang?

When I first posted Direktor hadn't responded yet, now that he has I'm thinking he has provided good evidence of a forum shopping boomerang. We may need to take some action regarding that. --WGFinley (talk) 19:59, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• Recommend a three-month topic ban of BoDu from the former Yugoslavia. Constantly filing the same dispute in multiple venues is an abuse of our system. Looking at the conditional unblock given by Salvio after the report at User talk:BoDu#February 2012, it seems to me that BoDu is not living up to Salvio's hopes. It seems to me that if BoDu continues with his recent style of behavior he will be hurting rather than helping an eventual compromise about Template:Yugoslav Axis collaborationism. Since Salvio's offer to BoDu from late February led to bad results so quickly, I don't that any promise of improved behavior from BoDu would be credible. To allow the writing of neutral articles in contentious areas we sometimes need to ban people whose personal loyalties prevent them from working effectively with others. That leads me to prefer a 3-month topic ban. EdJohnston (talk) 17:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

‎Frizstyler

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

Request concerning ‎Frizstyler

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBMAC#Discretionary sanctions

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

• Edit-warring to include polemic POV material on Macedonian language:
• Revert-warring on article talkpage to keep polemic off-topic material that had been speedily archived per long-standing practice on that page:
• Revert-warring on another related talkpage:
• Threatens to keep reverting forever:
• Threatens to resort to canvassing:

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

1. Warned on 16 March by myself

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Stereotypical nationally motivated pushing of POV grievances. Previous anon edits from 94.70.97.22 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) are the same user.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning ‎Frizstyler

Statement by ‎Frizstyler

i initially went to clarify a bit more the disambiguation guide in the top of page http://en.wikipedia.org/Macedonian_language (also changed some title to monkey-donian by mistake , as i'm new in wikipedia,something the guy here is using to harrass me)and as a Greek add to the greek opinion showing the only proof i could find on the internet regarding this. I then after my change was reversed went to the talk page to discuss,but users future perfect ,taivo and dr.k Kept deleting my writings (IN THE TALK PAGE!!) without stating any opinion. and now they move against me here as if they are some kind of order. These internet clowns won't pass. I have let them know i spread it to other Greeks in internet blogs and they will face more people than me stating viable claims against them. To conclude, they also went in a rage of deleting what i wrote in THIS TALK PAGE: http://en.wikipedia.org/Republic_of_Macedonia. Seems they "handle" everything that has to do with FYROM in wikipedia. Really, who ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHO GIVES THEM JUSTIFICATION TO PLAY WITH WIKIPEDIA ON DEMAND? IS THIS THE WIKIPEDIA THAT ASKS DONATIONS EVERY YEAR CLAIMING IT'S OBJECTIVE? and finally, i wonder, ARE THEY WORKING FOR SOMEBODY?? BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO BE HERE AS A FULL TIME JOB!!

Comments by others about the request concerning ‎Frizstyler

Result concerning ‎Frizstyler

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

• I've blocked indef, clearly not here to edit productively. I don't think an immediate indef block is inappropriate, but I'm open to other opinions, so I won't close and hat this quite yet. I'll do my best to log it correctly, but if someone wants to doublecheck, that would be great. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• The naming of Macedonia-related articles is well settled due to decisions by Arbcom and by the community. In his statement above Fritzstyler has asserted that "I have let them know i spread it to other Greeks in internet blogs and they will face more people than me stating viable claims against them." Fritzstyler made this statement after being given a proper ARBMAC warning, so there's no reason to expect him to defer to the consensus on Macedonia in the future. Floquenbeam's action seems correct to me. EdJohnston (talk) 15:55, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

MONGO

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

Request concerning MONGO

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

John (talk) 17:13, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/September 11 conspiracy theories

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

16 March 2012 Not only is MONGO seemingly participating in an edit-war here, something he has previously been warned about, but his edit summary ("revert...he said she said...I say this is wrong article to be agenda pushing...by well established CT POV pusher") is highly combative. MONGO tends to use the label CT ("conspiracy theorist") to discredit those with whom he disagrees. I am at a loss to see how this latest spat, which seems to concern warnings given prior to the attacks, is anything at all to do with conspiracy theories.

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

Warned on 16 February 2011 by Beeblebrox (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I request a topic ban of MONGO from the area of 9/11 articles, broadly construed, in the interests of article improvement. Realistically this will always be a hot button article for many editors, but there is no merit in allowing an editor with this long a history (he was desysoped as long ago as 2006 over similar issues to this) to continue to edit in this area. The recent edit I am highlighting is part of a long-standing and ongoing pattern, and I would argue we are doing nobody any favours by aloowing this to continue.

I also see possible problems here with recent edits by

• The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs) (two reverts on a controversial article)
• Tom harrison (talk · contribs) (seemingly joining the edit war immediately after successfully appealing a topic ban in this area)
• A Quest For Knowledge (talk · contribs) (not only joining the edit war but using his disclosed alternative account AQFK (talk · contribs) in a way that arguably breaches our policy on alternate accounts as it might give the impression that two different users were reverting rather than the same one twice under different names)

Finally, in the interests of disclosure, I disagreed with MONGO and his cohort pretty seriously over this article here. Lest this be seen as some kind of tit-for-tat filing, let it be known that I have no dog in this fight and am completely indifferent as to the details of what this article does and doesn't contain. --John (talk) 17:13, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Here

Discussion concerning MONGO

Statement by MONGO

I've been participating in discussions regarding how much this "advanced knowledge debate" needs to be discussed in the article September 11 attacks...since we already have a daughter article on this advance knowledge debate. I have made very few edits in article space for some time to 9/11 articles. Nevertheless, my edit summary in the link provided by John was uncalled for and it won't happen again.MONGO 17:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick response to The Devil's Advocate...IF I ruled the article, I'd take half the sections there out and just have a series of see also links at the end of the article...that way we could concentrate on just the attacks, in order to maintain focus. This isn't so much an issue (though my edit summary indicated otherwise) about CT as about trying to keep peripheral things that belong in daughter articles out of this one...I don't think Tom, AQFK, Toa, myself or any other editors are trying to cover anything up...we're simply trying to keep the article managable and focused. We have the daughter articles and links to them for a reason...so we can expand on such material THERE. Whenever writing about a subject...what is the title...and the focus should be the title. I have a similar issue going on at the Elk article for example...it's an FA that is losing it's focus since it is starting (I think) to go off in discussion about similar species and subspecies...but I think the article should be focused on the title wiht little or no mention of these other similar animals since we already have other articles about those species.--MONGO 22:20, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I will do all I can to abide by our policies governing civility and NPA...I was out of line in my edit summary but stand by the edit itself. For uninvolved admins, The last time I made an edit to ANY 9/11 related article page (I have made numerous edits to talkpages) was on November 25, 2011......that was over 3 months ago. I also have to take issue with John's closing commentary...

• "Finally, in the interests of disclosure, I disagreed with MONGO and his cohort pretty seriously over this article here. Lest this be seen as some kind of tit-for-tat filing, let it be known that I have no dog in this fight and am completely indifferent as to the details of what this article does and doesn't contain"

which is patently untrue....by "cohort"...who is my supposed "cohort"? Some sort of sanction against me regarding 9/11 articles has been a long standing goal of John...where in just one of many examples, John clearly states "The idea of reactivating the 2008 Arbcom case to have MONGO removed from play is also not a ridiculous one" and prior to that in the same diff states "One possibility some way down the line would be for us (by which I mean the non-partisan editors with an interest in improving the article) to put together a sandbox version then build a consensus to switch to a more neutral and GA-compliant version." which indicates to me that he is most assuredly not "indifferent as to the details of what the article does and doesn't contain". John is attempting to misuse the dispute resoution process to gain an advantage in a content dispute...and his example here is what...one edit in the last 3.5 months? Please do tell me John, do you have further evidence to warrant a topic ban...cause according to you I am a POV pusher, live in a walled garden, and am ignorant...gosh.--MONGO 23:32, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning MONGO

Show a 3RR violation or else I doubt this will be taken seriously. Requesting a full-blown indefinite topic ban without any diffs showing a 3RR violation simply doesn't work and, and I hope this is dismissed quickly because this simply doesn't have much merit.Toa Nidhiki05 17:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

One revert and an uncharitable edit summary doesn't rate a topic ban. Mongo and AQFK aren't the problem; it's TDA's persistent determination to rewrite articles, even when there is a clear consensus against it. Determination in the face of opposition is a great character trait, but it makes The Devil's Advocate a difficult guy to work with. He's been asked before in unrelated areas to drop the stick and step away from the horse. Trying to force in his rewrite at September 11 attacks he ran up to the limit of 3rr yesterday:

• 21:04, 14 March 2012

• 03:17, 15 March 2012

• 14:38, 15 March 2012

Yesterday I tried to work with TDA's edits at September 11 attacks, and came to regret it. He was determined to have his way, even after AQFK expressed concerns. If he'd get consensus first, or make a couple of changes and then let them set for a day or two until people can at least read them and follow up the references, they'd be a lot easier to integrate into the article. Tom Harrison 18:24, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

A Quest for Knowledge/AQFK's accounts are entirely in line with policy, and they aren't going to confuse anyone. Mischaracterizing this as an edit war is unnecessarily inflammatroy. Tom Harrison 18:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

One down, Two to go! How long before our main page just reads "WTC WAS AN INSIDE JOB?" Hipocrite (talk) 18:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

Honestly, this whole dispute is rather petty. MONGO appears to have a problem with having a section that deals with warnings prior to 9/11 about the threat of al-Qaeda attacks in the U.S., something that I think most would honestly agree belongs in the article. What John and Tom are talking about above with regards to my edits are mainly two reverts I made that removed duplicate information AQFK mistakenly inserted and that restored long-standing information he had completely removed from the article, I presume, by mistake. Basically, it seems AQFK tried to manually undo changes I made to the material about said information and goofed by inadvertently deleting the information altogether. As to there being "clear consensus" against my edits, so far no one has actually given a specific objection to the changes I made so the claim of a consensus is misleading. It is honestly hard to see a legitimate reason for undoing my changes when one compares this version of the section before my changes to this version after my changes. All AQFK has provided to justify his revert is a vague claim that the changes "may" not be supported by the sources without pointing to anything specific, which kind of makes it hard to discuss the issue.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:34, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

@Geo I don't think I have been particularly provocative towards MONGO, though his behavior can make it quite difficult for any editor to remain civil. You expressed the desire during a similarly trivial debacle over the first sentence of the cultural impact section for consensus to focus more on making edits and less on reverting and arguing over the details. Unfortunately, when editors revert without providing clear objections discussion becomes quite impossible. I mean if someone reverts a primarily stylistic change full of citations with the comment "change may not be supported by sources" and fails to provide further explanation, as in this latest instance, how exactly can there be any discussion about how to proceed? Of course, the common denominator in those situations is AQFK, not MONGO.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

@NW My edits in this topic area have been in the spirit of making bold edits to improve the articles and provide a neutral point of view. To say I am "one of the key problems" is getting switched around. The key problem is the current state of the 9/11 topic area and the conduct of the "gatekeepers" who patrol its pages. Editors have little room for making bold edits and for a long time there has not been a constructive or encouraging environment. I try to make bold edits and I try to have honest and cordial discussion with other editors, but many editors resist compromise because they feel it is a slippery slope. On some level I think these editors are afraid that allowing any leeway will open the floodgates and as a result many of these articles remain locked in a state of morass for fear of what might happen if people are allowed to make bold edits. There is a "revert first and ask questions later" mentality dominating this topic area that makes achieving a constructive dialogue a battle in itself. Should you want an in-depth listing of all the recent evidence of pervasive problematic behavior by editors in this topic area towards me and others I would have little trouble providing it. Just say the word.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Adding to Geo's comment, the dynamic would actually include Tom, and Toa to a lesser extent. Recently Dheyward stepped into that troublesome dynamic as well, after Tom's topic ban and prior to the AN case.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:20, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Geometry guy

Without prejudice concerning the details of this incident, MONGO makes substantial positive contributions to the encyclopedia, including 9/11 articles, despite the fact that the latter lead him into conflict. MONGO has admitted fault concerning his edit summary, saying "it won't happen again". Unfortunately, based on my experience, I am almost certain something similar will happen again, as the whole CT issue touches a nerve with MONGO, and TDA is a major conduit for that at the moment. Also TDA can be provocative in his approach, which is something TDA needs to address. Anyway, the whole point of AE is to discourage such friction in controversial articles like these, but it isn't always clear how best to achieve that. Perhaps short topic bans (for a week or less) would be a better way to diffuse problems and tensions over minor issues than longer term sanctions. Geometry guy 23:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I have never begun a comment with "@" and I don't intend to start now: user talk is available for direct discussion. Based on my experience, I would concur with TDA that AQFK can be part of the problem as well as part of the solution. There is a complicated dynamic between these three 9/11 editors (MONGO, TDA and AQFK) making it difficult to consider any one behavior in isolation. Geometry guy 01:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Cla68

This Wikiquette discussion may help to give some background here. As you may know, the admin who initially gave Tom Harrison the topic ban gave up his admin tools and left the project after being criticized. The bad blood in this dispute is really causing problems inside and outside of this topic area, and judging by the diffs in the Wikiquette discussion, sanctioning only the Devil's Advocate wouldn't be very fair, or probably very effective. There are several editors who are going way overboard on personalizing this dispute. Cla68 (talk) 02:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment by DHeyward

@TDA - I would like to know what article edit I have made that you believe I have made that is problematic. In fact, I don't think I've made an article edit in that area for quite a while. I've made comments on talk pages mostly because I believe you're "goal" is counter productive to the project but even that has been extremely limited. You can review almost a year or more of my edits on a single page and you will see very edits to anything related to 9/11. As Cla68 has mentioned, this has poisoned my interest. It faded after a long and lengthy battle to get a problematic sock master, Giovanni33 banned and it drained my interest. Fighting the drama TDA creates leaves me with little motivation to actually try to improve articles as there are constant battles over idiocy. It's like trying to deal with someone with OCD, Asperberger, paranoia and infinite time on their hands to constantly disrupt the project. I support a topic ban for TDA --DHeyward (talk) 15:40, 17 March 2012 (UTC).

Result concerning MONGO

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

• I haven't taken as comprehensive a look as I would like to, but I did look in at this issue some time ago and again when I closed a topic ban removal discussion with regards to Tom harrison. Certainly few people in the topic area are free of fault (in fact, basically no one is, and I am not excluding MONGO from that), but it appears to me that The Devil's Advocate is one of the key problems with regards to the deterioration of the editing environment recently. I would propose a topic ban for TDA and a closing of this request without prejudice to refiling if things don't improve shortly. Thoughts? NW (Talk) 23:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)