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Copyvios

Ferhago the Assassin in her recent edits today added 4 illegal images on Commons, claiming dishonestly that the images had been licensed under a Creative Commons license, and then linked them to wikipedia articles. All of these were blatant copivios, I contacted User:Alison earlier today to indicate that there was a problem and then later tagged two of them on commons. All four of them have now been been deleted. All of these linked to DeviantArt. I have no understanding of why Ferahgo the Assassin thought she could upload those images: her actions are inexplicable. She has on previous occasions asserted that nothing on that site concerning her can be examined. Now, however, with these edits she has stepped over a line and placed herself in a sitiation where normally it would be hard to defend her actions or prevent wikipedians from looking at her own participation on DeviantArt. Mathsci (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment My own understanding is that Ferahgo the Assassin has been less than open in what she has written on wikipedia. I also understand that arbitrators, including Roger Davies, have been aware of that for some period of time (probably more than a year). Mathsci (talk) 18:38, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, YOU tagged these images at Commons? I explained the issue fully here. The artists of all four images gave me explicit permission to upload the images at commons. They told me they'd uploaded them at DA under the correct licenses to use at commons, but they apparently failed to understand the difference between CC licenses and just selected DA's default option for CC license. I have been contacting the artists explaining the situation, and they are replacing the license so I can re-upload them correctly. I have already done so with one of them and he has replaced the image himself, after changing the license.

Incidentally, this is exactly the kind of behavior from you that makes me want an interaction ban. I do not need you to police me and follow me around like this, on-Wiki or off. I am quite capable of working out honest copyright mistakes on my own. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

From my point of view, FtA has not been editing wikimedia commons in a responsible way. The files were deleted very quickly without any help from me, as blatant copyvios. Where were FtA's OTRS tickets? In the absence of those, she was just lying. DeviantArt is a site for kids. It has no academic validity whatsoever. She added an image of a dinosaur with blood oozing from its jaws, with no permission whatsoever from the creator. Why did she do that? Just for LULZ? If Ferahgo the Assassin is now claiming that instances of illegal uploading of images to commons have been reported in the past by me, I suggest she support that with diffs. Otherwise it would appear that she is not being particularly truthful (groan). How surprising is that: she is speaking here on behalf of a site-banned user, without even the tiniest flicker of self-doubt. I have not so far seen any evidence at all that she or her boyfriend (is Roger going to scream at me for saying that?) have presented against me. Mathsci (talk) 19:07, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

But you just said "All of these were blatant copivios, I contacted User:Alison earlier today to indicate that there was a problem and then later tagged two of them on commons." So according to you, you both tagged two of the images and contacted an admin about them. And then you say, immediately after, "No, they were deleted vey quickly without any help from me, as blatant copyvios." And then you call me a liar. Ok.

The original artists for these images are currently fixing the licenses and re-uploading them. This would be a complete non-issue if you weren't making a big deal about it. I don't pay attention to what you do on commons, post personal information about you, or insult your involvement in non-Wikimedia communities. The really flummoxing thing here is that you think it's okay to resort to these kinds of reality-distorted personal attacks and character assassination. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 21:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The files uploaded by FtA were deleted as copyvios because she chose to misrepresent three users from DeviantArt on Commons (and wikipedia) with false claims about Creative Commons licensing. In cases like this it's best to follow policy instead of attempting to bend the rules. As far as using images go, in my own case, for the article on Edmund de Unger, I wished in the last two months or so to use 2 images from flickr which specified "no commericial use" (an 11th century Fatimid rock crystal ewer and a 13th century engraved Persian silver dish). Technically both were unusable. I contacted 2 different photographers in private, asking each of them if it might be possible to alter the Creative Commons licenses for those files. Both very kindly obliged. That's the normal way things are done on wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 00:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Let's AGF. According to the many-worlds interpretation, it is entirely possible that Mathsci simultaneously did and did not pursue the deletions. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

These "recreations" on DeviantArt were almost all original research by eager but uninformed amateurs (is WP really the place for recreations with blood soaked jaws?). Uploading them with non-existent creative commons licenses was not particularly helpful and a very odd way to go about things. Mathsci (talk) 00:39, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Most probably aren't original research, unless you consider things like File:BH LMC.png just as objectionable because they involve similar artistic interpretations. WP:OI covers this issue in detail. Image licensing mistakes are common and do not imply that an editor did it for the lulz. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 01:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The main point, as far as this review is concerned, is that FtA's recent editing on wikipedia has necessitated delving into the website DeviantArt, because on wikipedia she has used images not created by her from there. Mathsci (talk) 02:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I never uploaded an image of a dinosaur with "blood-soaked jaws". If you're referring to this image you should be able to tell the red is pigment in the skin of its face, as in the wattles of a turkey (if you're referring to something else, I have no idea what you're talking about). As promised, by the way, the artist has changed the license on that image to the appropriate one at my request. Now to be clear: are you saying that because I made an honest copyvio mistake which I then corrected, you think it's okay to follow me to Commons and DA to keep an eye on me and police my paleontology contribs? That's beyond absurd. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The focus of this case is not on copyvio dinosaur pictures, a situation which has been resolved. The pictures incident has little bearing on why Ferahgo's participation in DeviantArt has been criticized. Look, it's possible to dig up all sorts of information on editors. Ferahgo's DeviantArt contributions are no secret, nor is her real name. Using these, one could find a wide variety of biographical material. But how much of it would actually be relevant to any situation existing on Misplaced Pages? This website is not an appropriate forum for the discussion of the merits of editors personal lives or their choice of company. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 03:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand what Alessandra Napolitana is referring to or indeed why she is commenting here. Files on commons were deleted because they were uploaded with improper licenses. FtA did not seek permission from the three creators on DeviantArt before she did the initial uploadng and she had to be prodded into doing so. The main point, however, was that it was necessary to look in detail at several DeviantArt pages. including her own, in ascertaining what was going on: it is precisely that which she has objected to in the past. It is that fundamental inconsistency that I am pointing out here. (The reliability of DeviantArt as a source is another matter, but it is not a substitute in any way at all for peer-reviewed content in mainstream academic journals or books.) FtA must be aware, having gone to all the effort with CO of lobbying for this review, that her own actions would be under scrutiny. FtA has previously uploaded images with a watermark on Commons (i.e. her own signature): she should remove that signature per WP:WATERMARK. FtA-CO bear sole responsibility for having their actions scrutinized. Together they made the choice of requesting an amendment for the second time and must accept the consequences now. Mathsci (talk) 04:45, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Update header request

Per please update the header to say Estimates instead of DeadlinesNobody Ent 18:58, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

We will consider this suggestion. I suggest the word "target" rather than "deadline" for the proposed decision and comparable dates. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

"What harassment is not" principle

This gives short shrift to the wikihounding issue. All things considered, it is questionable whether regularly scrutinizing all contributions of any nature, across multiple WMF and non-WMF projects, by an editor with whom one has a disagreement for anything that could possibly be used against them is conducive to a collegial environment. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 01:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Apart from Echigo mole (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), during this review no evidence has been produced on wikipedia of wikihounding. The behaviour of Mikemikev also hit rock bottom in March. Mathsci (talk) 02:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Request by Ferahgo the Assassin

FtA is yet again lobbying off the case pages. She seems to be upset that her copyvios on Commons were discovered by me. But those copyvios are her responsibility, not mine. Mathsci (talk) 08:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Unnecessary interaction between Ferahgo and Mathsci

Hi Ferahgo and Mathsci:

Please limit any interaction between yourselves strictly to matters directly concerning this case and limit discussion to the parties themselves. Any further out-of-scope accusations/counter-accusations are likely to be dealt with robustly, by topic bans from case and talk pages and/or short blocks. Enough is enough.  Roger Davies 08:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your intervention, I wanted to request something to this effect anyway. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 11:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Justice delayed

The whole conduct of this case shows up nicely how desperate AC is to find against FTA. The original request was allowed to fester for two months to give Mathsci plenty of time to continue his hounding; Mathsci was allowed to spend two weeks after the close of evidence presenting extra evidence at Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Review/Evidence; the decision slated for the 2nd has been delayed by over a week to allow Mathsci to open up yet another front in his campaign of harassment, now at this page over the last couple of days. A veneer of evenhandedness has been thrown over that by forbidding MS and FTA to interact here - in other words, to prevent FTA from pursuing any complaint about the ongoing campaign of baiting MS has been waging against her. Presumably the decision will continue to be inexplicably postponed until FTA says something which can be construed as uncivil, whereupon the case can be closed against her. What a shambles. 94.196.4.5 (talk) 21:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC) IP sock of Echigo mole. this is the seventm time Echigo mole/A.K.Nole has posted on an arbcom page connected with the Request for amendment (two IPs and three sockpuppets). I've already listed the other occurrences. Mathsci (talk) 01:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The dates for the release of a proposed decision are not definite, they are instead targets. Please be patient. Lord Roem (talk) 21:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• Here is the latest sockpuppet report on Echigo mole connected with the above trolling. Is it entirely surprising within the circumstances that Amalthea and other administrators who man the SPI pages have suggested listing Echigo mole/A.K.Nole under LTA? The wikistalking has been going on since 2009. As I mentioned on the talk page of the evidence page, he already intervened as an IP in the previous arbcom case WP:ARBR&I (as the Sheffield IP) and helped precipitate it both as Zarboublian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (indef blocked as a sockpuppet a few months later by Shell Kinney) and another ipsock. Mathsci (talk) 01:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

Further to what Casliber has written, I do have experience of a CU telling me in private that accounts had been checked and come up negative, when I was hesitating about a sockpuppet report. Certainly when the socking has involved outing me on wikipedia, I make the report off-wiki (that has happened several times when the name of the sock account has included my full name and initials or the sockpuppet has posted my full name on ANI or elsewhere; those reports were made through oversighters/arbcom). Usually I request SPI reports only when there is some hard evidence, even if there are other ambiguities which confuse matters. Occasionally other wikipedia processes such as WP:AE can interfere with SPI reports (that has happened once with me and was stated explicitly at the time). In addition Roger Davies made these informal comments on the PD talk page of the original case: "The purpose of topic ban in this case is mostly to prevent the topic-banned editor from (i) continuing the same disputes (ii) starting new parallel disputes covering much the same ground and (ii) generally pushing the same POV by proxy. As the remedy is broadly construed, it can apply to any article with a significant race and/or intelligence component." Meatpuppetry (by geographically separated editors) is not being discussed here, as far as I am aware; but I have no idea how arbitrators imagine how the "proxy-editing" mentioned by Roger Davies could be determined, beyond (a) circumstantial on-wiki evidence: unexplained coordinated editing out of the blue or (b) checkuser evidence: two people sharing the same IP. Perhaps he had something else in mind.

The hardest sockpuppet case so far for me has been Andreabenia, who harassed me on wikipedia; it was confirmed (by Elockid) by copious socking from what must have been the same IP after the indefinite block. Mikemikev and Echigo mole/A.K.Nole are usually not too hard. Since their editing has specifically been mentioned in this review and the run up to it (which they have both interrupted), it is quite possible that games could have been played during that period to confuse checkusers or me. Mathsci (talk) 15:25, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Even if this is Mikemikev (which I don't doubt), shouldn't you wait for checkuser confirmation before tagging an IP "confirmed"? I see you tagged both IPs as confirmed socks even before reporting them at SPI. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I have commented elsewhere on these very recent edits: if you feel that you have any useful information to contribute on the talk page of Newyorkbrad, on ANI or at the SPI report, please do so. But here is not appropriate, where this is so clear-cut (and self-admitted). All of these IPs are open proxies from China and therefore (a) illegal on WP and (b) as IPs cannot be looked at by checkusers (why even suggest it?) The edits by 3 IPs in the same range leave no doubt. Here's a sample: , . Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 21:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm really not sure anymore about whether your sock-strategies are helpful overall. There's the thing involving Yfever I mentioned in my evidence, and there's also your treatment of editors who don't deal with socks in exactly the way you'd prefer. Here you argued against five different editors (including a former arbitrator) that Echigo Mole's edits to an article should be reverted on sight without thinking about whether they improved the article. And another was here, where you threatened the admin Trodel with arbitration because Trodel didn't want to remove a post by Echigo Mole from his talk page. I agree these socks are disruptive, and the point of dealing with socks is to prevent them from disrupting wikipedia. But your aggressive methods of dealing with them are often disruptive themselves, and I think it should be carefully considered whether there might be a better way to go about it. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Who is the more disruptive, the disruptor who disrupts the disruption, or the disruptive one who would disrupt the disruptor? aprock (talk) 00:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure why FtA-CO commented about the wikistalking of Echigo mole/A.K.Nole in this way. In private arbitrators have expressed empathy/sympathy for this situation, which has involved outing at several stages; but FtA-CO seem to be using it as another way of attacking me: what do they mean by "aggressive methods"? Misplaced Pages has clear policy about edits by banned users, whether it is sensible or not. FtA has already had an explanation from an administrator, Amalthea, who removed a trolling message by another IP in this range from her own user talk page. Amalthea gave a straightforward explanation: "Hi, I removed a section from your talk page a few minutes ago. I wrote in the edit summary "rv provocations of banned user", which was technically not correct, the user was never formally banned. I consider him effectively banned though. He has been stalking Mathsci's edits for quite some time now, and leaves messages for users Mathsci is or seems to be in dispute with, trying to further those disputes." That explantion of an IPsock was directly to FtA (without my intervention). The wikistalking is clear enough. The list of named sockpuppets after A.K.Nole was Quotient group, Taciki Wym, Holding Ray, Zarboublian, Julian Birdbath, Old Crobuzon, Echigo mole. Ansatz, The Wozbongulator, A.B.C.Hawkes, Laura Timmins, Glenbow Goat, Tryphaena, Reginald Fortune, William Hickey, and others, including multiple IP socks in the ranges 212.183.140.* (vodafone, up to December 2011) and 94.196.*.* and 94.197.*.* recently. Echigo mole himself was blocked by AGK when he monitored the SPI page. Others have been blocked by Shell Kinney. Arbcom helped sort out the vodafone IPs, which were confusing at the time. Elen of the Roads sent me an emailin early 2011 since outing issues were involved at that stage. Amalthea and other administrators have suggested that the account be listed under long term abuse. That was suggested because these problems are recurrent and a page for LTA would remove the need to leave lengthy separate messages like the one Amalthea left on FtA's talk page. (CO, shortly before he was site-banned, did attempt to act as a proxy for Grundle2600, adding edits on his behalf after an email request, so he (and possibly FtA) has slightly different views on banned editors.) So to reiterate; a page for LTA is the way forward as Amalthea and others have suggested, but that takes times to prepare. Echigo mole is only distantly related to the original case and only because of his stalking of me. I'm not sure arbcom is here to solve that problem. Mathsci (talk) 04:09, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

• As a result of the report at ANI on the latest two of the three open proxies used by Mikemikev, they have been blocked for 1 year by Elockid. Tagging of open proxies is a purely academic issue, since they are illegal on wikipedia. The SPI report would normally be closed with no action (as all 3 IPs have now been dealt with) and is left there as a reference for future socking (likewise the tagging). WP:DUCK applied here. Mathsci (talk) 05:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
• With Echigo mole, there are no redeeming features. Since December 2011 in the IP range almost all he's done is troll or try to edit articles I'm editing. It's quite easy to pick out the diffs of Echigo in the IP ranges, because I edit some quite obscure articles, including in this case a series of articles on univalent holomorphic functions, early saints and organ music. Often the edits are in conjunction with the sockpuppet accounts listed above.
  • Edits in the range 94.196:
  • Edits in the range 94.197

This is all wikistalking. During the same period, there was an even more problematic set of edits on mathematics articles by Ansatz, eventually indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet. Mathsci (talk) 07:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Response - extension of voluntary topic ban to all project space

Extension of voluntary topic ban

I have not said this before, simply because it has never in fact arisen before. However, to help arbitrators reach a decision and since it means very little to me, I am quite willing at this stage to extend unconditionally my current indefinite voluntary withdrawal from editing article and article talk space related to R&I to all of project space. This is not a big deal for me and, if I read past and present comments by Roger Davies and other arbitrators correctly, it would be a way of clearing the air. I am quite good at spotting Mikemikev socks, but that is a minor loss. Mathsci (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Other remarks (not particularly important)

Supplementary comments on the evidence cited to FtA's Request for amendment

Just some brief comments on the statements of FtA-CO that has been cited as evidence of "personal attacks" and a "battleground approach," purportedly within WP:ARBR&I and the scope of this review. This evidence seems either (1) outside the scope of this review, (2) completely unrelated to WP:ARBR&I or (3) unrelated in any way to CO or FtA. I cannot see that it is evidence of either personal attacks or a battleground approach to editing.

• First set (initial presentation), Ferahgo's request statement:
  • The first diff of FtA is unrelated to R&I but the abortion case. It concerns gathering evidence for the abortion case, in which I had previously commented and in particular allegations of misconduct concerning MastCell It is beyond the scope of this review and is unrelated to WP:ARBR&I.
  • The second diff was about the abortion case, a comment during Jclemens election campaign, on his election discussion page. It is beyond the scope of this review and unrelated to WP:ARBR&I. Is this seriously being considered as evidence of anything at all?
  • The third, fourth and fifth diffs concern a problematic logged-off edit of Boothello, unrelated to neither CO or FtA. Again it is beyond the scope of this review as it does not concern any of the parties and unrelated to any of the five questions.
  • The sixth diff is a comment at WP:ANI related to Orangemarlin's illness. I had previously commented in private about this to multiple arbitrators. It has nothing to do with R&I and is beyond the scope of this review. (I pointed out that CO's comments about Orangemarlin's illness seemed unethical, without suggesting any consequences at all. Risker's three blocks were a surprise to me, and I think I even emailed Casliber after the initial block of Orangemarlin. The inclusion of this diff is particularly problematic, as it suggests somehow that I have been blamed for CO's site-ban. My thoughts there were obviously with Orangemarlin.)
  • In the next diff Eraserhead1 had cited a claim in evidence for the civility arbcom case that concerned me and I asked him to correct that on his user talk page. It was related to CO's letter to the Economist, which concerned me, as CO explained at length on User talk:Jimbo Wales. Again this is beyond the scope of this review and has nothing to do with WP:ARBR&I.
  • The next diffs concern FtA's friend TrevelyanL85A2, who resumed editing in the area of her topic ban. Again that proxy-editing has been deemed to be beyond the scope of this review.
• Second set (further presentation), Ferahgo's supplementary request statement:
  • The diffs produced by FtA were examples of Echigo mole trolling on FtA's talk page using the IP ranges 94.196.*.* and 94.197.*.* and were removed accordingly. Similar trolling edits were made later by another IP sock of Echigo mole in the same range and removed by Amalthea, a checkuser on WP:SPI familiar with Echigo mole socking. This is a known long-term wikistalker and better evidence should be produced than this. (the socking has been explained above in detail. A further sock Southend sofa has now been confirmed by Deltaquad.)
  • The WP:AE request was made without any proposed remedy: the statement that I requested a block is incorrect. The situation was anomolous and TrevelyanL85A2 received a logged warning as a result of the comments of multiple users. Mathsci (talk) 17:31, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

In my evidence and on the evidence talk page I cited arbitrators who had said on-wiki that both CO and FtA have twisted facts. That seems to be exactly what has been repeated here (a diff from one of Jclemens' arbcom election pages or the edits of a well-known serial wikistalker, c'mon folks). It appears that the diffs have never been checked carefully, even at the stage of the first submission in early January. Two arbitrators have so far accepted these diffs without comment (RD & PK). Please could they reexamine the diffs? (I understand by the way that arbitrators' findings in arbcom cases can be based on an overall impression rather than individual diffs. I am not in any way challenging that.) Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 19:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Question by Roger Davies

I'm not quite clear what Phil and I are being accused of here ;) Surely you are not seriously expecting a "yes, I accept this" or "no, I don't accept this" comment from each arbitrator on each and every diff adduced in evidence?  Roger Davies 07:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Roger. My point does not really concern you or Phil and I am sorry if I gave that impression. I refactored the post since you perhaps first saw it. I have already written that if arbitrators have formed the impression, irrespective of the diffs, that my conduct was borderline battleground, I have no objection and accept their view. That is how arbcom normally makes its decisions.

The diffs FtA-CO chose, however, are mostly unconnected with either personal attacks or battleground conduct. They were selected with a different purpose in mind: to show evidence of diffs of which FtA-CO disapproved. Most are only obliquely related to them. Just as an example, take the Echigo mole ipsock. I have previously removed a similar post on NuclearWarfare's talk page when Echigo mole was trolling in another arbcom case. I reverted two edits of his yesterday. I'm not sure what is shown by the reply to Casliber on the election page of Jclemens or the defense of MastCell on the workshop page of the abortion case. These are ordinary edits. I won't go on, since I have already gone through the list above.

My personal view is that the list of FtA-CO was prepared in bad faith. On the other hand I am equally sure that it really did not and probably will not play any part in Phil, you or other arbitrators forming their overall impressions, to which as I say I do not object and which I accept.

I hope this answers your question and sorry again for any crossed wires. Mathsci (talk) 09:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

After the above reply, some of the diffs compiled by FtA-CO already seem to be causing unnecessary problems. So unfortunately, since many of those diffs have very little to do with the case, arbitrators will need to look at each of them carefully again, one by one. I'm sorry about that, but they were compiled in bad faith, jointly by FtA-CO, and the commentaries are misrepresentations. That is a problem concerning FtA-CO , it is their responsibility and I cannot do very much about that. The two Echigo mole diffs produced this trolling on the amendment page , the first of six or seven such interventions by ipsocks and sockpuppet accounts. The trolling remarks by Echigo mole were later repeated by FtA-CO in their further submission. As Amalthea mentioned later, that kind of disruption is one of Echigo mole's purposes (and a pretty graphic example of my harassment or wikihounding by socks, cf Question 2). Mathsci (talk) 05:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Further comments

From September 2010 until January 2012, there have been problems of what appears to have been proxy-editing following the topic bans of CO and subsequently FtA. That is summarised in my evidence, in particular the diffs of Shell Kinney. That anomolous editing has been accompanied off-wikipedia by a letter to the Economist (reported later on WP wih an external commentary linked to below by FtA) and external attack pages. Finding 2.4, in particular the use of the term "ideological opponents", appears to be a watered-down version of FtA's rephrasing in her Request for amendment of these comments of CO. From my point of view the grey area of what appeared to be proxy-editing created all the problems, not unsubstantiated claims of ideological bias on my part. I have not made any statements on- or off-wiki about the subject matter, which is completely beyond my expertise. Mathsci (talk) 19:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Involvement at WP:AE in requests related to WP:ARBR&I

• 24/10/2010 Weijibaikebianji initiated by FtA - comment - no action
• 22/11/2010 CO (edits with SightWatcher and Woodsrock) initiated by Mathsci - logged warning for Woodsrock from MastCell, extended topic ban for FtA and CO
• 26/11/2010 FtAinitiated by Mathsci - blocked 3 days by MastCell for infringement of topic ban
• 27/11/2010 appeal by FtA thhrough Courcelles - HJM agrees with block but reduces to 24 hours as 1st time offence
• 14/12/2010 appeal by CO of extended topic ban - Mathsci particpation requested by Vassayana - extended ban upheld
• 05/04/2011 Miradre 2 initiated by Resident Anthropologist - no action
• 07/05/2011 Volunteer Marek initiated by Boothello - logged warning
• 08/08/2011 Miradre reported by Mathsci - 1 month block from Atama for breaking topic ban
• 31/08/2011 appeal of block by Miradre - block upheld
• 13/12/2011 Boothello reported by Hipocrite - result indefinite topic ban
• 15/12/2011 Yfever initiated by Aprock - logged warning
• 10/01/2012 FtA reported by Mathsci per extended topic ban - logged warning for TrevelyanL85A2
• 09/02/2012 Gwern reported by Aprock - no action
• 12/04/2012 Maunus initiated by Miradre/Academic Orientialis - withdrew comment

I did not participate in the discussions which led to FtA's topic ban and the first report on Miradre initiated by Maunus. Mathsci (talk) 01:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Response to Casliber Taking arbcom's advice I have sparingly initiated requests. No arbitrators or administrators have at any stage indicated that I may not comment and indeed I have been encouraged to do so and to file WP:SPI reports. Without providing supporting diffs from the period 2010-2011, it has been asserted that I have a battleground attitude in my participation on WP:AE, participating against alleged "ideological opponents". The recent case concerning Gwern, which happened during the run up to this review, in February, is an example of me supporting an editor whom Roger Davies would presumably describe as an "ideological opponent." Similarly outside this narrow topic area, there is no evidence that this happens: BelloWello is an example and Fountainviewkid a counterexample (SDA this time). An analysis of my comments at WP:AE, however, would show that the problems there centre on newly arrived single purpose accounts, some of whom could be proxy-editors. On-wiki behavioural evidence usually is what points to that but there is occasionally technical information, particularly when editors make logged-off edits or when their edits intertwine edits of identifiable IP socks. That has happened with at least four accounts.. Rrrrr5 was an example of a single-purpose account with highly anomolous editing who turned out to have usurped the account of an administrator Spencer195 after I requested a CU. Quintuple Twist turned out to be a sockpuppet of Mikemikev, but thatonly became clear fter a prolonged period of editing. Boothello could well be a sockpuppet of David.Kane/Ephery.

My participation is more or less to help in dealing with this type of proxy-editing: that is supported by the statements of multiple editors in good standing who commented in the preceding Request for amendment; they explained that these anomolous single-purpose accounts are now a significant problem. FtA-CO wrote almost the exact opposite during the request for amendment, questioning the efficacy of discretionary sanctions. (They are currently also questioning WP:SHARE.) The problem with geogrpahically displaced proxy-editors, which occurred prior to my topic ban being lifted, was discussed on-wiki by Shell Kinney In December 2010. She confirmed that two proxy-editors, identified on-wiki by anomolous editing in concert with FtA and CO described in my evidence, could be confirmed to be RL friends of one of the parties here. Off-wikipedia in September 2011 Roger expressed reservations about the means of confirmation. The on-wiki evidence is of battleground editing as a tag-team, in continuance of conduct described in WP:ARBR&I. If, as is currently being discussed on the PD page, FtA can be regarded as a "sockpuppet", then, from almost her first active period of editing on wikipedia, she would qualify to be another editor that could be listed in response to Question 2.

But again, in response to comments of Roger, Charles Matthwes and others (some in private), after a while—and now is the time—avoiding this area entirely and not "putting one's head over the parapet" (to quote Charles) is the best advice. There is a fine dividing line between being a "good citizen" and being a "vigilante" and I recognize that after too long in a problematic area one can morph from one into the other, perhaps without even noticing it. That is, in effect, how I read Roger's proposals. Mathsci (talk) 10:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Further comment per Casliber In the four requests that I have initiated, topic bans had already been imposed on CO, FtA and Miradre, but not at my suggestion. When being reported on the first two cases (FtA and Miradre), these editors were not permitted to add content of any kind related to R&I broadly construed. So the reports cannot be construed in any way as trying to influence content. These were issues of poor conduct, where editors had broken their topic bans, or had tested their limits. No "ideology" was involved. Another request concerned CO and the proxy-editing mentioned in my evidence. The second request concerning FtA in January 2012 was again an instance of the terms of an extended topic ban baing broken. In connection with that request, FtA appears to have written here that TrevelyanL85A2 is a friend of hers, although not a "racist friend".. At the time of the coordinated editing of FtA, CO, SightWatcher, TrevelyanL85A2 and Woodsrock, FtA showed an intimate knowledge of all of their editing. Here is a submission where she mentions them all. Mathsci (talk) 07:14, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Miradre/Academica Orientalis

It should be noted that when threatened by sanctions Mathsci has in the past humbly promised to voluntarily avoid this area in the future. Which obviously did not happen once the threat of sanctions was gone. Academica Orientalis (talk) 11:39, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

At a certain point during the R&I case one of the most experienced arbitrators, Newyorkbrad, drew a very clear distinction between me and other editors being considered for sanction. That is how things developed and not in the way you suggested. You seem to be repeating the misinterpretations of CO, FtA & co. Mathsci (talk) 20:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments by FtA on this page

• FtA has requested below that arbitrators impose sanctions on me at Commons. Mathsci (talk) 22:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
• Below FtA has repeated COs comments to Ludwigs2, with a wikilink to the evidence talk page where they appear in full. It is impossible to tell who typed in those phrases: CO or FtA? Unlike CO and SightWatcher (wikilink to comments of Ludwigs2), FtA has never mentioned Ludwigs2 on wikipedia before as far as I am aware. Several editors who have been in dispute with me (amongst many othere) have been site-banned by arbcom. They include ChildofMidnight, Ottava rima and Pmanderson. I did not participate in any of the arbcom cases which resulted in the site bans (except at one stage to plead that OR listen to NYB's advice). CO was site-banned for the reasons given by Risker. Ludwigs2 was site-banned for the reasons listed in the Muhammad images case. Mathsci (talk) 06:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments on proposed remedies

There is one thing about my finding of facts that I completely don't understand, and I really hope Arbcom will consider this carefully before voting to ban me.

As Allesandra Napolitano stated here, the connection between my account and Occam's is obvious. We joined at the same time in 2006 due to a suggestion from a mutual friend, and were supportive of each other at first - neither of us were initially aware of the WP:SHARE policy. But prior to today, it has never been suggested that I shouldn't be editing Misplaced Pages at all (outside of R&I, which I haven't edited since 2010). I don't understand what current behavior I'm being sanctioned for. All of the diffs of my supporting Occam at AE or AN/I are over a year old.

To put it another way, if this ban is meant to be preventative rather than punitive, I have no idea what behavior it is meant to prevent. Prior to this request, my only involvement in Misplaced Pages for the past year had been editing paleontology articles, so the only thing banning me will prevent is that I won't be able to finish the Specimens of Archaeopteryx article, any other paleo article, or contribute artwork.

If Arbcom can accept that Captain Occam and I are separate people (we've had separate identifies at Deviantart since 2004), I would like them to please tell me what I should have done differently in the present to avoid this outcome. I can only see two possibilities: 

1. That because of my having supported Occam two years ago, my experience at Misplaced Pages has been permanently poisoned ever since then. So after Occam's and my interests diverged, I should not have even been making edits to paleontology articles.

2. That I should not have made this request for arbitration. I explained in my private evidence how some of Mathsci's behavior towards me has real-life consequences for me, and it is also the case that I could not pursue this issue at AE or start an RFC due to my topic ban. If the only current behavior for which I'm being sanctioned is this arbitration request itself, how should I have dealt with Mathsci's behavior? If I can't request arbitration about it without being considered Occam's proxy, does Arbcom just expect me to grin and bear it?

Please answer these questions. Since this proposed ban is indefinite, Arbcom will require that I understand my mistakes in the present and promise never to repeat them if I want it lifted in the future. So I need to know what I should have done to prevent this, other than going back in time 2 years ago and reading the WP:SHARE policy in 2010.

Technical connection

Before making such a huge and unalterable decision to site ban me, I would like Arbcom to run another checkuser to compare myself to Occam to see if our accounts are still indistinguishable technically. The last time this was checked was over a year ago, and our living situation has changed since then. I think it may be the case that we don't share an IP anymore. As with the behavior FoFs, any finding related to technical evidence needs to be based on the current situation, not the 2010 situation. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 15:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom apparently considers your request for an interaction ban between yourself, Mathsci, and Captain Occam to constitute proxying for Occam in light of your relationship with him. Despite this being their sole allegation of misconduct in over a year, they regard it as so grievous an offense that they are willing to site ban you for it, thereby potentially losing all of your future contributions to paleontology articles. Because of political considerations such as Occam's POV on R&I, any future contributions you make to Misplaced Pages will be subject to extreme scrutiny by powerful editors seeking to exact sophomoric revenge. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 18:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, in FOF 3.5 arbcom cites what it considers to be examples of yourself and Occam both participating in the same AE requests. I've reviewed the most recent ones without finding a single discussion to which you both contributed. It's as though arbitrators were copying evidence into the FOF without even bothering to determine its truth. Like I said, arbcom is playing with loaded dice. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 19:00, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe what arbcom means is that both you and Occam express the same POV in R&I related AE discussions. No, that couldn't be it either, since the last time you commented in one of the AE requests listed in FOF 3.5 not directly related to your own editing was over one year ago, and occam didn't comment in the only listed AE request about your editing within the last year. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how closely you've been following this, or for how long, but your remarks seriously misrepresent the situation. What is not in dispute is that Ferahgo and Captain Occam not only edited from the same IP address but also from the same computer and participated, obstinately and interchangeably, on numerous occasions, in the same battles in the dispute resolution fora. We only have their word about whose hands were on the keyboard at any particular moment. Given the interconnectedness of these acounts, it defies reason to suggest that their activities were wholly uncoordinated.  Roger Davies 05:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a straw man argument. I'm not claiming that Ferahgo and Occam never coordinated their activities, or never violated WP:SHARE. The issue is that Ferahgo hasn't supported any position taken by Occam, edited R&I articles, commented about R&I content, or participated in any discussion of R&I editing except to respond to allegations which mentioned her by name, within the last year, except when requesting arbitration. The supposedly damning fact that Ferahgo increased her editorial activity soon after the block of Occam is far less significant when one considers that her contributions often wax and wane. And proposed decision doesn't even mention Ferahgo's multitudinous productive edits to paleontology articles. So, unlike the civility case in which Malleus' good contributions were acknowledged as a reason for him to escape a site ban for severe misconduct within recent memory, all mitigating circumstances have been hushed up to justify using this arbitration to ban Ferahgo for a year for filing an arbitration request! Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 19:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not accurate either. It's in evidence that Ferahgo supported Captain Occam in an interaction ban request for Mathsci just three months before filing the very similar request which led to this case.

In this context, it is worth mentioning that although this is ostensibly a request for a Ferahgo/Mathsci interaction restriction, much of Ferahgo's evidence instead actually focuses on Mathsci and Captain Occam or Mathsci and other R&I editors.  Roger Davies 09:06, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

My mistake. So, you're proposing to site ban an otherwise productive editor for a comment made in an arbitration request, filing this arbitration request, and the evidence she submitted? Wow. Even editors who strongly disagree with the position taken by Ferahgo and Occam on R&I don't this this is a good idea. Surely some lesser sanction, such as preventing Ferahgo from commenting on any arbitration page to which she is not a party, and requiring any requests to be submitted to the committee by email would be just as effective. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The subtext of this case is that many editors are still angry about Ferahgo and Occam's WP:SHARE violations over a year ago. However, WP:BLOCK clearly indicates that blocks and bans are intended to be preventative, not punitive. So what is banning Ferahgo for a year designed to prevent? Another year's worth of paleontology contributions and another mention of the Mathsci-Occam issue in a single arbitration request? Some arbitrators have seriously misplaced priorities. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 20:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

• Alessandra Napolitano, the Committee are individuals. There are 11 individuals active on this case. So far only 2 Committee members have voted on the siteban, so it is perhaps a little early to be talking about any group decisions. The findings, principles and remedies posted are those of the drafting members, not of the whole Committee. When there is a majority supporting and the proposals are carried, then it would be appropriate to talk about the Committee as a body, but at the moment it is individuals. Think of it as an individual nominating an article for deletion at AfD - it doesn't become a group decision until the discussion has been completed and consensus reached. SilkTork 01:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
• Ferahgo the Assassin, I am still looking into the case so I haven't yet got an appropriate answer to your questions. This may be true of other Committee members as well, so silence doesn't mean we're ignoring you, it may just mean that we have nothing helpful to say at this stage. Something that is worth considering, though, as a reason for a siteban for both accounts is that if the evidence points to the two accounts being controlled by the one person, and that the accounts were deliberately set up in 2006 with the long term intention of using them to support a single viewpoint, then the fact that this has only been found out now, even after a year of good editing, would not prevent both accounts being blocked, particularly if the charade was being continued right through this Review. That is not to say that I support such a view - I have still to finish my own examination of the evidence and findings, but that would be a valid reason for a siteban. SilkTork 01:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

As I said before, the best way to prove that we are really two separate people is that we've had separate Deviantart accounts for years before we joined Misplaced Pages. My DA account was registered in October 2004 and is linked to from my userpage. Occam's DA account was registered in March 2004 (and he linked to it here). Most importantly, my DA account has a lot of overlap with commons in artwork I've uploaded (see my userpage here at Misplaced Pages for list of contributed artworks). Occam's overlap can be shown in his letter to the Economist, which he discussed here at Misplaced Pages as well as at Deviantart. If our wiki accounts were made by the same person with the intention of abuse, the plan would have had to extend at least back to 2004 and include the 8 years of art and writing in both DA accounts. Hopefully a quick look at these accounts will make it obvious that we're different people. If a site ban is on the table for me for this reason, I think Arbcom needs to look at these accounts and their artwork and establish if they think they're by the same person. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 05:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for those links Ferahgo, and I note the photograph of you both on the swing with the deer in the background. The difficulty here for you, however, is not for you to prove that you are in a relationship, but to prove that only one person in that relationship has edited exclusively from your account. As the only people who can possibly know that fact are the people in the relationship, and it cannot be proved otherwise, then what we must concentrate on is not outside evidence, but the evidence of edits on Misplaced Pages. That is what this finding is indicating. To put a possible scenario to you: there is a married couple who have several separate internet accounts, the male in that relationship creates two accounts on Misplaced Pages - one for himself and one for his wife. The male uses the account but the wife doesn't. Later the male wants to make some changes to an article and is not getting consensus, so he uses the account he created for his wife to give the impression he has some support. Now I am not saying that is what has happened in this case, but I am saying that such a thing is possible, and that any proof that the man actually has a wife who has other internet accounts is not going to actually prove that he didn't use his wife's account on Misplaced Pages. The opposite scenario is that the accounts were created and used separately by the couple, and that incidents of the wife's account supporting the husband were down to a natural tendency to want to support one's partner, and an ignorance of Misplaced Pages's rules, and that since those incidents the couple have followed the rules. And there is a range of options in between those poles, such as that there has been some cross-over editing (the husband occasionally editing from the wife's account) or there has been discussions between the couple in which the result is that the wife, either consciously or unconsciously, has edited in support of her husband's views. Now our difficulty is knowing what the situation is at home. That is so difficult that we cannot be expected to make a judgement on that. Instead, we will look at the evidence of the edits on Misplaced Pages. Does that make things a bit clearer for you? SilkTork 09:39, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

It does, but that's where the point about sanctions being preventative rather than punitive come in. Unless Arbcom is certain that Occam and I are actually the same person, I'm not sure what disruption site-banning me would be meant to prevent - or what I should I have done differently in the past year, or what I'd need to promise to do differently in another year to appeal the ban. Not only have I not edited in R&I or supported Occam at AE or AN/I in the past year, but I don't edit any of the same articles he does anywhere on Misplaced Pages. I included the comparison between his and my most edited pages in my private evidence and I'm disappointed it's not being mentioned in my FoF.

This is also why I think it's imperative that a fresh checkuser is performed to see if these accounts are even still technically indistinguishable at all. As I said, the living situation has changed recently and I suspect that we no longer share an IP. If we don't, then Arbcom no longer has any reason to be concerned that he might be using my account. Could a checkuser be run ASAP to see if the technical connection still exists? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 12:21, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

If you aren't involved in Race and Intelligence for the past year, how exactly did you file this request for amendment? The mind boggles! Hipocrite (talk) 12:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

This case is about current R&I editing issues in name only. Ferahgo sought to have Mathsci stop running her name through the mud in his complaints about other users who edit R&I articles. A site ban has been proposed for long-past transgressions, and because Ferahgo hangs out with the wrong crowd. Neither consideration justifies running a productive editor off the site. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 23:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

So what was "OUTING OUTING OUTING OUTING" when I did it is now OK? Hipocrite (talk) 11:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Users can voluntarily release their own information. That doesn't mean that you can make the decision for them. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 23:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

And the games continue. Obviously.

This "outing" charge has been wielded like a "victim card" time and again here. Truth is that the "victims" here have outed themselves with wild abandon, and afterwards have tried to bury it away again. Which I'd have more sympathy for maybe if they weren't !!!!continuing~!!!! to play it both all ways! Professor marginalia (talk) 08:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the "victims" "outed themselves". Punish them obviously. More logic from the "professor". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.245.62 (talk) 16:16, 18 April 2012 (UTC) almost certainly an edit by banned user Mikemikev

MEATs and SOCKs

A previous arbitration decision outlines an ArbCom Principle on socks and meats as proposed in this section. My question is, is this remedy taking the right to making that decision into their hands and only theirs? (Which would then kill a significant portion of the work I do) I just want to make sure that it's clear what you guys are saying, and im pretty sure that this isn't an issue. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

By "their hands" I assume you mean the Committee? Both findings are stating what is already in policy and a widely used essay, that if both technical and behaviour evidence point to two or more accounts being so similar as to be indistinguishable (other than by assertion of the accounts) then they are to be treated as one account; and that is how an admin conducting a sock puppet investigation and how the Arbitration Committee will treat them. Having two accounts is not against policy, but having two accounts which assert they are separate accounts and then support each other in discussions and editing is against policy. If the separate accounts are operated by business colleagues, family members or a married couple they need to be aware that they share responsibility and consequences on Misplaced Pages in the same way that they share responsibility and consequences in real life. If your business partner, family member or spouse has been caught drink driving and banned, then that will impact on you, even though it was not your fault. On Misplaced Pages a person with a shared account will have a deal more control over such matters as they can elect not to get involved in editing in the same areas. If they decide not to exercise that control then they must expect to accept the consequences of their partner's actions if their partner violates our policies. SilkTork 01:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Site Banning FtA

Site banning FtA seems counterproductive. She had exited the topic area, and the one mistake could arguably have been an oversight. This is trigger-happy behavior. A topic ban including all of project space related to the topic, and a one (or even two) way interaction ban would solve the problem equally as well. FtA has demonstrated the ability to abide by a topic ban. Please consider. Hipocrite (talk) 14:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, am coming to the same conclusion. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree here as well. I think she is a net asset to the project, with the only problematic editing occurring on behalf of CO. It may be that a broad interaction ban between her an CO is appropriate. aprock (talk) 15:31, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "exemplary" is correct. This editor has been involved in extensive (though civil) feuding on various noticeboards and at Arbitration enforcement on and off for about four years. This suggests a serious behavioural issue, an inability to disengage and move on. Given the tenacity and ingenuity of the likely participants, I see your interaction ban exclusion for disruptive editors as a recipe for disaster, with further allegations of outing, hounding and so on.  Roger Davies 18:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's just not tennable. Between her and MathSci perhaps? Hipocrite (talk) 15:37, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I certainly don't mean in real life. But I generally agree that FtA's behavior outside of R/I is exemplary, so an adhered to topic ban would lead to a de facto interaction ban between Mathsci and FtA in the topic area. I see nothing wrong with making that explicit, as long as that interaction ban doesn't extend to disruptive editors that may know FtA off-wiki. aprock (talk) 16:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd be happy with a mutual interaction ban between me and Mathsci. It'd mean I wouldn't bring up Mathsci issues with Arbcom because presumably I wouldn't have anything to complain about anymore. I'd also like it to extend to Commons if Arbcom has the authority for that. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 17:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

@Hipocrite: Your trigger-happy remark is not really fair. There comes a time when most reasonable things have been tried and failed, and few options remain. Ferahgo is already under an enhanced topic ban. They're also already restricted per WP:SHARE. If we went down the interaction ban route, how many editors would need to be included? Should you be banned from commenting on or interacting with Ferahgo directly or indirectly, for example? To what extent should restrictions be in place? Total prohibition on discussion directly or indirectly? That's a minefield just in itself. What happens if there are further intersections beween, say, the DeviantArt site and fresh new editors turning up at R&I? Is everyone prohibited from mentioning Ferahgo's connection with DeviantArt even though a link has been on their talk page since the page was first created?  Roger Davies 18:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Put her under a strict general purpose topic and interaction ban, stated as "not to interact with anyone or any article in the R&I topic space after warning which can be given by any involved or uninvolved auto-confirmed editor, and may not be challenged except by motion from ArbCom." Include in the scope of the ban all ArbCom pages. Respond to her prospective emails with "your email has been ignored, wait for our review." Say in no uncertain terms "walk away from R&I." Review the decision in a year. Hipocrite (talk) 18:47, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

This action stems from a dispute in an R/I involved article and proxying allegations (well founded, btw). Ferahgo escalated, not only complaining of harassment and outing, but of a host of unrelated R/I disputes where she's no longer supposed to involve herself. As I said before this review was even launched, whatever else is decided here, it's important that it discourages rather than encourages future gaming like this involving R/I. Professor marginalia (talk) 19:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, all the evidence shows that FtA has been gaming the system from the earliest stages of her active editing. Mathsci (talk) 20:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Let's say Ferahgo did breach her topic ban by mentioning Occam-Mathsci issues in this arbitration request and in her evidence. She's only been blocked once before, and that was in 2010. The normal AE response to such a situation would be to issue a block of a couple of days at most. AE admins weren't even willing to do that as they believed that taking such action was arbcom's prerogative. A one year ban is grossly disproportionate to the offense. Alessandra Napolitano (talk) 23:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

If it were as simple as that, I'd agree a one-year ban is disproportionate. However, what we have here is a complex situation where no one can say with any certainty whether, at any given moment, the Ferahgo and the Captain Occam accounts are being operated by one person or by two people who are concluding. What is highly likely, from reviewing the evidence over the years, is that the two accounts are not wholly independent of each other and probably never have been.  Roger Davies 07:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

The reason given here for completely banning Ferahgo the Assassin by Roger Davies seems rather different than the official reasons stated in the proposed decision. The complete ban, as opposed to an interaction ban, is a preventive measure in order to avoid the work caused by possible further argumentation. Regardless of the ethics of such an action, I suspect that it is unlikely to succeed since there are two parties here. I suspect that Mathsci will be unable to resist finding a new target to attack using "Prolonged and repetitive use of community processes" if his current focus should disappear. Most likely me since this is exactly what has happened previously. Of course, an successful interaction ban may have exactly the same effect by forcing Mathsci to select some new target for his attentions. But then there is at least some model for how to deal with this. Academica Orientalis (talk) 00:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Huh, I see you're making the exact same argument here Captain Occam made with Ludwigs2. See the comments from Occam that Mathsci quoted here. I know how Ludwigs felt now that I'm in his place. I imagine this cycle may continue for a long time... -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 01:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

@Acadēmica Orientālis. On the ethical issue you raise, I don't know how much editor time the Ferahgo and Occam accounts have consumed over the years but there must have been more than thirty reports either about them or initiated by them at WP:AE, WP:AN, WP:ANI, various ArbCom pages, appeals, emails etc, over the years. All these required perusal, some investigation, and comment. The time spent doing this must, by now, run into thousands of man hours. In an extreme example like this, the question of whether someone is a net positive or otherwise must come to the fore. Any site ban would therefore be preventive as it less potential for continued disruption than a topic ban or an interaction ban which can be wikilawyered. A two-way interaction ban with Mathsci is also unlikely to be acceptable as it would unnecessarily clip his wings in respect of sockpuppetry investigations, especially if it prohibited him from commenting on DeviantArt. Although the flow of editors from that source seems to have dried up at the moment, no one is in a position to say when it might restart.  Roger Davies 07:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me that an explicit exception could be made for sockpuppetry investigations. There are two parties here and Mathsci has certainly also contributed to "Prolonged and repetitive use of community processes" regarding this and other disputes. I suspect that his argumentations (even if excluding sockpuppetry investigations) would outnumber those CO and FtA by far is systematically counted. Just look at the amount of text and argumentations he has added just in this case, counting all talk pages, and that has to be perused, investigated, and commented! If an acceptable purpose of an indefinite ban is as a preventive measure to avoid work from possible future extensive use of community processes, then by the same criteria Mathsci should also be banned as a preventive measure! This is of course not the way to proceed. An interaction ban has not been tried and seems to have been successful in other cases so I see little reason to not try one rather than lose an editor who has made valuable contributions. Academica Orientalis (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Unenforced topic bans

Part of the problem here is that admins do not want to touch this topic area with a ten foot pole. As Roger Davies notes here: "Ferahgo and Captain Occam are already under such an enhanced topic ban ...". One straightforward way of handling this entire mess would have been to issue a 24 block when FtA made her January request for amendment: "That Mathsci is banned from interacting with or mentioning me and Captain Occam anywhere on Misplaced Pages.", which exactly echoed Captain Occam's request four months prior: "User:Mathsci is banned from interacting with User:Captain Occam and User:Ferahgo the Assassin".

That this whole episode has continued for three months and expanded to this point when clear message like an admonishment notification, or 24 block would likely have sufficed seems incredible to me. FtA is a good editor outside of R/I, and all that is required here is enforcement of the topic ban. aprock (talk) 18:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I never thought that topic bans were meant to prevent an editor from requesting arbitration. Occam asked Jclemens this before making his request in September, and that's what Jclemens told him. I don't think it's fair that if an editor is being uncivil to me, all possible recourse for dealing with it should be closed to me. I explained in my private evidence how some of what Mathsci has said about me can potentially affect me in real life, so I absolutely think I should be permitted to deal with it somehow, even if the only available way is arbitration. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 18:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The recourse is for you to unwatch the page that you saw said incivility on, and to stop getting your deviant art friends to edit wikipedia as proxies for you. Hipocrite (talk) 18:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

@Ferahgo. How did you learn about Occam's question to Jclemens?  Roger Davies 07:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I knew Occam made a similar request in September, so before I made my own request I asked him if he'd checked first to make sure his request wasn't a topic ban violation. He showed me that diff. I know you don't like me talking to him about Misplaced Pages, but I don't think it was the wrong thing to do here, because I needed to make sure posting the request wouldn't be violating the ban. I don't think you'd consider it acceptable for me to have opened the amendment request without first knowing whether it was a topic ban violation. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:30, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

FoF 3.4

Regarding this finding of fact, I feel that I should explain why I remained involved in R&I after I'd been advised to stop due to WP:SHARE. The fact is that several editors that were involved at the time thought my own involvement was valuable and didn't want me to leave. These were not editors that had taken Occam's position in content disputes: the main two I'm thinking of are Vecrumba and Maunus.

• Here is Vecrumba's opinion about my involvement in this topic:

• In this comment to another editor, Maunus said that until Arbcom decided to formally topic ban me, I should be "as free as anyone else to work towards an improved article."

• And here, Maunus explained specifically why he didn't think I should have to leave. He thought I should not have to leave because I was avoiding the behavior for which Occam was sanctioned, and that my participation was valuable because I was one of the only editors around at the time who cared about the hereditarian view being fairly represented.

In retrospect I think it's safe to say this ended up being the wrong thing for me to do. But I do think it's at least understandable in context. My content involvement in R&I was not identical to Occam's: apart from what Maunus said, Occam was blocked multiple times for edit warring, and the only time I've ever been blocked was when I accidentally violated my topic ban in 2010. I understand that due to the connection between my account and Occam's, it is not possible to avoid the suspicion that I'm proxying. But the way my findings of fact describe his editing and mine as basically interchangeable on R&I is not accurate, and I think Arbcom should consider Maunus's points about this in the diff linked above. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 19:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

While motives (good or bad) are taken into consideration, our main focus has always to be on the actions, and especially on any disruption or harm caused by those actions. We also have to take into account potential disruption or harm - that is where it seems reasonably likely (from past behaviour) that disruption will occur if the actions continue. The finding that you had been warned not to edit in the R&I topic area is true. That you edited in the R&I topic area after the warnings is also true. The concern by the Misplaced Pages Community would be that the account holder(s) might be about to assert them self in an area where they had previously been disruptive. When looking at this case/review I agree with Roger's finding that those facts need to be taken into account. However, where individual Committee members may differ, is how much weight to put on that finding, how to put it into context of the whole picture, and what solution would be best.

To be fair, your mitigating statement that you were encouraged to edit in R&I because of some statements by other users may not be seen as helpful - that indicates you made a conscious decision to edit in that area, emboldened by their supportive comments, and without clarifying first that it was something you should do. I understand this must seem confusing right now - but what the community likes are people who are very careful, and who check if they should do something, especially when there has been some concerns already raised. What the community also likes are people who when they make a mistake, say sorry, and take steps not to repeat that mistake. What the community don't like are when people make a mistake and then argue that it was actually OK or understandable for them to do that. However, people are under stress when going through an ArbCom case, so that will be taken into account when a party to a case makes talkpage comments.

That Committee members agree with a finding of not heeding a warning does not mean that they will agree with a site ban. There are other things to consider. SilkTork 08:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I see now that remaining involved after Occam's ban was the wrong thing to do. There's no risk that I'd repeat this after this review - I haven't edited R&I in over a year and I know how to follow a topic ban. Hipocrite and Aprock said the same here. My point is that Roger Davies seems to think that everything I've done at Misplaced Pages has been to further Occam's goals, and that our behavior is indistinguishable. Neither is true. Occam didn't encourage me to stay involved originally, but Vecrumba and Maunus did. And you can see from Maunus's comment that my behavior was much different from Occam's.

Please also see my comments below about the technical connection no longer existing. Even if Occam's account has been idle for too long to be informative, you should be able to see from the history of my own account - my living situation (and my permanent IP) changed in February. Since then, I've had no IP overlap with him.

So, moving forward: I think it has been demonstrated that all of my major wrongdoings happened quite a while ago. In the present, all I really want to do is continue being able to contribute my knowledge and artwork to paleontology articles. Short of a site ban, is there anything Arbcom wants me to do, or any agreement I can make about staying out of dispute resolution, arbitration, and away from Mathsci? Now that he's stated his intention to completely disengage from project space in R&I, I anticipate no further conflicts with him and can agree to abide by that. Would something like that be a step in the right direction? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 16:28, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Technical connection no longer exists

AGK has just run a checkuser and confirmed that Occam and I no longer share an IP address. He also told me he has sent this information to the mailing list. Can arbitrators please consider this before voting? Otherwise I may be site-banned for a technical connection that no longer exists. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 01:22, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• As the Occam account has not made any significant edits since 15 Dec 2011 (which is stale for record retention purposes), the checkuser results are not surprising. I don't think we can conclude from the one convenient trivial edit that the Occam account apparently made on 11 Apr 2012, that the technical connection no longer exists. It is also of course trivially easy to spoof this sort of thing, which is why the English Misplaced Pages doesn't run checks for exoneration purposes.

  Against this, data from 16 Dec 2011 shows that both accounts edited from the same IP address and probably the same computer. The 16 Dec stuff is simply the latest in a long series showing, um, technical interdependence.  Roger Davies 07:06, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Both Occam's and my living situation changed in February. Even if you can't check anything about Occam's account from that time, can't you check it about mine? My IP address changed then too. For the past two months every edit I've made has been from an IP address that Captain Occam has never used. It should be possible for you to verify that, and I also don't see how that could be spoofed. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 08:04, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I wanted to point out this isn't a last-ditch effort to save my skin. I've been trying to bring attention to this issue, and get someone to run a checkuser, ever since the findings of fact were posted. I said this here both in my initial post and in response to Silktork. I also sent it in to the mailing list. But my request was never acknowledged. If it's now too late to change anything, I don't understand what I should have done differently. It doesn't seem like good practice to ignore something this important until it's too late to do anything about it.

Can't someone please make an effort to determine whether these findings of fact are accurate? With up-to-date checkuser data, FoF 3.8 definitely is not accurate, and FoF 3.7 isn't accurate either. Of the six AE threads from the past year in 3.7, the only one that involves me is one where I was reported by Mathsci (in which Occam didn't comment), and three of the six do not involve me or Occam at all. I'm getting very concerned that I may be banned just because most of the arbitrators aren't looking into this situation carefully, and that by the time any of them do, it will be too late to change anything. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:47, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• FoF: 3.7 • My apologies for the wrong links. I've removed them. They're about Boothello, come from a much (much) longer master list of AE/R&I requests, and I overlooked editing them out. Please let me know if there are any others like this,  Roger Davies 07:06, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
• FoF: 3.8 • Nothing wrong with this one, even though you may disagree with it.  Roger Davies 07:06, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

At the request of another arbitrator, Casliber, and a few days prior to the above posting, I also passed on publicly available technical information about FtA's computer usage. Amongst other things, that information indicates quite clearly the mechanism she has used for communicating with geographically displaced cyberfriends, including in particular TrevelyanL85A2. If thar publicly available information happens to dispappear after this posting—something that is quite likely to happen given past experience—copies of it are still available. The time to have mentioned any technical information about proxy-editing would have been in January 2012. That was the only thing I mentioned in my first "interim" submission. As it stands, there is no technical information available from prior to the recent check, i.e. from January 2012 to mid-April 2012. Mathsci (talk) 05:58, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Two points:

1. I do not consider the last-minute change of IP address to negate the years of account sharing.
2. I said it does not appear as though you are still sharing an IP address, but as Occam is not active (and we therefore have no behavioural evidence to use in tandem with CU data) it is impossible to say either way.

AGK 15:33, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I know it's impossible to prove to Arbcom… but I know it's true, and it's upsetting to think that this issue may permanently keep me from the only topic area I really care about, paleontology, where I've never done anything remotely sanctionable. The change of IP address wasn't last-minute, if you look at the history of my account you can see the change happened two months ago. I know two months of having a separate IP from Occam doesn't negate the fact that I violated WP:SHARE in the past, but there's no risk of me repeating this mistake now that we have separate IPs. As I asked Silktork above: is there anything I can do differently from now on, besides a site ban, that would satisfy the arbitrators? I am willing to engage in a formal agreement to stay away from Mathsci and from dispute resolution and arbitration related to R&I for as long as I'm topic banned. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 17:03, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The situation that the Committee members are considering is two registered accounts that have shared an IP address, have edited in the same two major and distinct topic areas of R&I and paleontology, have writing styles in common, attitudes in common, and a shared animosity toward another Misplaced Pages editor. The possibilities range from the accounts being run by the same person as "good hand / bad hand" accounts, through to the accounts being run entirely independently and without influence by two separate people, with a variety of possibilities in between. A plausible possibility is that there are two people, and that one of them, A, has used the other's account, B, to edit, knowing that it was inappropriate, but doing it anyway. Given that scenario, then A would still have the potential to edit through B's account even if B changed internet provider. While the Committee is composed of individuals who would have a range of sympathies and empathies with the real life situation of parties to a case, it has always to be borne in mind that as a body our primary objective is to prevent harm to the encyclopedia project, and to reduce disruption to the hard working community. We wish to be fair and reasonable, as that is the sort of community that will attract the best people, and which works more effectively, but at the same time we have to be realistic with our time and expectations, and also with the messages we are sending out. Because the situation regarding shared IP accounts who edit in the same topic areas is problematic, we have the WP:Share policy which says that we can treat such accounts as one account in the event of abuse. This means if A abuses the project and gets a topic ban, then B is also topic banned. It also means that if A continues to abuse the project and gets blocked then B could also be blocked as the assumption would be that A would edit through B's account, which is not allowed per WP:NOSHARE. While a possible reading is that B is a decent and useful contributor who has had her account abused by A, and that B has now devised a method to prevent A from using her account, we cannot spend months debating theoretical possibilities, and must instead look at the situation we have in front of us, which is that the B account has been inappropriately used on a number of occasions. However, also to be taken into account, is that the inappropriate use has declined over time, and that there may be more elegant solutions than a site ban yet to be suggested. SilkTork 19:01, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I wish I could prove that Occam isn't using my account. I don't know if this helps but if you look in his and my Deviantart accounts, you can see that both he and I have the same range of interests there that we do at Misplaced Pages, with the same overlap. Occam has lots of dinosaur submissions in his DA account, and I also occasionally bring up race and intelligence related topics there, such as in this post. I wrote that post in July 2009, more than a year before Occam was topic banned. This shows that my interest in the topic is not something I've been faking just to support him, nor is the only explanation for my edits in that area is that he was using my account. Even if you were to look at nothing but our Deviantart accounts, you would see the same overlap between our interests that is regarded as so suspicious at Misplaced Pages - that's why we're friends!

I hope it's accepted by now that Occam's and my Deviantart accounts, at least, are two separate people. Both accounts have been active since 2004. I think the connection between our DA accounts and our Misplaced Pages accounts is also fairly clear. We express the same interests at DA as we do here, and all of the artwork I've uploaded on Commons is also in my DA account. If Occam had been using my account at Misplaced Pages, it seems like there ought to be some inconsistency between my interests and behavior at Misplaced Pages and at Deviantart, but this isn't the case at all.

The real question is, what abusive behavior is there from me in the past year that needs to be prevented? Not my paleontology edits, surely. The only problematic thing you've mentioned from the past year is my animosity towards Mathsci. It doesn't require a site-ban to prevent that. My main problem with Mathsci has always been his willingness to bring up private things about me (and one thing in particular that can affect me in real life, as I described in my private evidence). But now that Mathsci has said he's going to disengage from all project space related to R&I, I can agree to drop this issue too. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I have an additional private blog where I've posted about race and intelligence much more often than I have at Deviantart. I can't link to the posts in public, but I could send some to Arbcom privately if they need proof that my interest in this topic is not something I've been faking, or the result of someone else using my account. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:43, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

 Roger Davies 09:39, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Problematic edits by FtA

That FtA has edited on behalf of CO does not really seem to be in doubt at the moment. In August 2011 an edit summary by me was oversighted at my request by Fred Bauder. At the time I also emailed the arbcom mailing list and other oversighters. Only somebody tracking my edits would have seen it because it and another edit summary were oversighted by Fred Bauder within hours of my request. CO emailed Fred Bauder and Charles Matthews about that and had evidently recorded what was written. FtA on the other hand also knows about that edit summary and included it in her submission on 22 January. That points to CO giving her that information. (Fred Bauder incidentally informed me that he had forwarded CO's email to arbcom and I alerted arbcom to CO's emailing.) I think there's no doubt that her whole submission was written with CO. The references to the oversighted edits are a particularly good example of the indistinguishability of the two accounts in project space. Similarly, the real life connection between FtA and TrevelyanL85A2 is known to arbitrators; and publicly available technical information passed on to arbcom shows how FtA and TrevelyanL85A2 communicate in real time. The communication between FtA and TrevelyanL85A2 on her own talk page in January is hard to explain: they have never spoken to each other on-wiki before and both of them repeat part of the CO-FtA mantra about me—that I am under arbcom imposed restrictions in project space. TrevelyanL85A2, who has hardly edited on WP, had that information at his fingertips as fast as FtA. It was his first and only response. In the intervening 8 hours between my message being left and that response, it is beyond doubt that he communicated off wikipedia with FtA. Their joint reponse is in fact one of the other shared opinions of the three editors Woodsrock, SightWatcher and TrevelyanL85A2 with FtA-CO. (cf (a) Wr Tr SW ; and (b) ). The edits of FtA and TrevelyanL85A2 were a repeat of the coordinated editing from October-November 2010 described in my evidence. As it turns out the confirmation that SightWatcher is a friend of FtA has become much more straightforward within the last month (I discovered that yesterday and have passed that information on to arbcom). Mathsci (talk) 03:06, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Uh, isn't all of this exactly what Roger Davies warned you not to do here? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:45, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

No, not really. This seems directly relevant to case issues.  Roger Davies 17:17, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Mathsci's claims about other people editing on my behalf are specifically outside the scope of the review. You said here that this was the position of the whole committee. For this reason I have not been defending myself from these allegations, since you made it clear that discussion should be strictly limited to the review's scope. After I've been acting under this assumption since the review opened, I don't think it's fair to suddenly change the scope of the review this far along. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

You'll probably think I'm being picky but that was about evidence submissions. Greater latitude is always allowed on talk pages and much of this was raised (without objection at the time from you) four or five days ago.  Roger Davies 19:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I asked Jclemens about these claims when they were being made before the review opened. He told me the arbitrators' consensus was that I shouldn't feel compelled to answer them, and also that these issues should be brought up with Arbcom privately rather than publicly. It's also my understanding of the outing policy that I should not confirm or deny the accuracy of off-wiki information about anyone. This is another reason I haven't responded to these allegations. Should I have not followed the advice I was given? It seems like an impossible situation if Arbcom is taking these claims seriously, yet I wasn't supposed to say anything to defend myself. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 00:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

This is what I'd like to know. I want to know why you'd think this action, which you initiated, will neatly resolve itself because Mathsci signaled willingness to remove himself from R/I puppet watch? This was an R/I puppet-watch incident that fired you up. Even though you are topic banned from R/I. Further, Mathsci isn't the only one who's connected the dots, made these associations. He's not the only one to initiate these puppetry objections! Should you pick him off, then what? Let's say, for purposes of argument, Mathsci is taking a holiday, or is off on a self-imposed R/I break, or is off judging an Aïoli festival, or is off due to Arbcom sanctions. What are the acceptable avenues, as you see them, for handling proxy editing traceable to you? Professor marginalia (talk) 05:42, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Mathsci's claims that anyone who disagrees with him on R&I articles is a sock or meatpuppet of mine is not my main issue. It's annoying and it was the last straw that caused me to raise this request, but the biggest issue has always been his willingness to dig up and publicly post off-wiki information about me that has nothing to do with R&I. I obviously can't go into detail about this in public, but I explained it in more detail in my private evidence. So yes, getting him to stop doing this will solve the biggest part of the problem from my perspective. As to your other question: current policy is that people with accusations of misconduct based on off-wiki info need to bring it up privately with Arbcom. This has been explained multiple times by myself and arbitrators (see my link in the above post). I would not be objecting if Mathsci and others would raise these suspicions in the proper channels and not in public. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 09:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you going to stop asking your deviantart friends to show up and edit wikipedia on your behalf? A simple "yes" would work. Hipocrite (talk) 11:38, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not a particularly promising sign about FtA's edits that she responds here with unfounded statements which at no stage have been supported with diffs. Misrepresentations like, "Mathsci's claims that anyone who disagrees with him on R&I articles is a sock or meatpuppet of mine" reflect very poorly on FtA and CO. They confirm the statements I made on the evidence talk page about the reliability of statements by both FtA and CO. Repeatedly making statements of this kind, without any supporting diffs, constitutes a personal attack. To date a significant proportion of her edits on wikipedia have been of that kind. That does not seem normal at all. Mathsci (talk) 14:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

(od) Okay. Can I have diffs please in respect of:

1. Mathsci's personal attacks/battlefield comments
2. Ferahgo's personal attacks/Battlefield comments

It shouldn't take the pair of you long to put together and it will help move the PD along. No lengthy narrative, no repeated edits of the same post (this is aimed at you, Mathsci). And no "Arbitrator:X said this was bordering on a personal attack". At this late stage, I'd like raw-ish data please.  Roger Davies 15:38, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

What harassment is not

Re: "Neither is tracking a user's contributions for policy violations harassment" (What harassment is not section) I have seen a lot of cases where someone does something like adding obvious linkspam to multiple pages, someone else removes all of them, and an accusation of Wikistalking is made. You might want to mention that checking a user's other contributions in the case of obvious policy violations is not wikistalking either. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:24, 24 April 2012 (UTC)