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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Misplaced Pages. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Armenia-Azerbaijan_3 none (orig. case) 4 January 2025
Arbitrator motions
Motion name Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024


Current requests

User:Guido den Broeder

Initiated by Cosmic Latte (talk) at 19:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
  • Guido den Broeder: Talk page is inactive due to ban, although I am filing this at his request.
  • William M. Connolley
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • (Not really a recent dispute but does show behaviour)

Statement by Cosmic Latte

User:Guido den Broeder was both indefinitely banned and blocked as a result of . User has indicated a desire to appeal the ban, but has had trouble doing so (see ), so I am doing it on his behalf. His appeal may be viewed at . My own take is that, while there was consensus at ANI to ban, the rationale was extremely nebulous, ignored the possibility that his serious contributions to medical articles make him a net positive to the project, and seemed to involve an exaggerated rekindling of prior grievances. Moreover, I find it in bad taste that someone would suddenly turn a good-faith ANI thread initiated by this user into a discussion about banning him; I also find it bizarre that such a specific thread with such obscure and esoteric roots suddenly exploded into a debate about banning him from the entire project. (Note: As "involved parties" I am considering all participants in the ANI thread, as well as all admins involved with the block.)

Reply to Newyorkbrad

Indeed, I would say "that the sanction of banning was seriously disproportionate to the editor's misconduct so that that the ban is grossly unfair to the user." While there was consensus, it appears to be of the lynch-mob variety: opportunistic, cumulative, and emotionally charged. Guido was certainly not doing anything at the time to warrant a ban, especially an indefinite one; he simply felt that an MfD was closed before consensus was reached--a defensible position, I believe--and brought the matter to ANI, at which point a whole crowd of angry editors clobbered him for a whole slew of (mostly unrelated, or distantly related) reasons. In defense of the view that the thread was emotionally charged, I should point out that people reacted to a distorted view of what he was doing in the MFD-contested essay; they apparently felt like guinea pigs in a "social experiment" of his, when in actuality, as I pointed out at ANI, Guido was using the term "social experiment" in reference to Misplaced Pages itself, not to his examination of it. As for the past, I've had a look at WLU's "evidence" page, and although I saw some interesting ideosyncrasies, I didn't find anything profoundly alarming. I did see his view of Misplaced Pages as a flawed social experiment, and even a claim that it can be at times a "Maoist" enterprise, wherein "uneducated" voices have undue sway. While I don't necessarily share Guido's sentiments, and while the "Maoist" label may have been a bit unorthadox, I should point out that WP:ELITE, a long-standing essay, communicates much the same message. Guido seems to be a rarity among editors, able to criticize the project as seriously as he contributes to it. This doesn't seem like "disruption"; it seems like well-rounded effort and intellectual honesty. Finally, I hope that Guido doesn't mind my disclosing this, but he privately indicated dismay at the fact that people raised so much drama about the "social experiment" essay, rather than politely asking him if he'd remove it. If he had been so asked, he might have responded very differently. Whether a social "experiment" or not, Misplaced Pages is a social something, and social endeavours are not one-way streets. For what it's worth, WP:DRV contains the statement, "Deletion Review is to be used where someone is unable to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question. This should be attempted first – courteously invite the admin to take a second look" (emphasis in original). Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea for WP:MFD to encourage a pre-MFD discussion with the user whose material is in question. In any event, while Guido's conduct has not always been stellar (I've seen the block log and 3RR concerns), it does not appear to have warranted, and it most certainly does not newly warrant, the sort of ganging-up that has led to his recent ban.

Statement by roux

I believe the permanent block was a good move, I support the ban, and I don't really see why this is at the level of requesting arbitration. There was no misuse of sysop tools, the community has indicated it is tired of Guido's disruption, unblocks have been denied by thoroughly uninvolved admins. The correct venue for this is the arbcom-l mail list. Yes, I know responses can be slow. I urge ArbCom to decline this request and deal with the unblock appeal as per normal practices on arbcom-l. // roux   19:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Orderinchaos

How on earth am I an involved party? I think I commented on an MfD or something. Ah well. I have absolutely no opinion on the user either positive or negative, although I think the essay was a bit odd and it was entirely appropriate to have it deleted. Orderinchaos 19:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Dendodge

I support the block, as does most of the community. Extensive discussion was held, and consensus was reached. The correct venue is arbcom-l, as this page is not for appealing against strong community consensus. Dendodge Talk 19:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Cheers Dude

I don't support the block of this user per reasons stated above my Cosmic. Again, much of the reasoning was based on past dealings with him from ages ago, forcing the user to try to justify everything he's done over things from months ago, making the discussion hard to follow and extremely unfair for the banned user. It wasn't originally even about banning him. Cheers dude (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Hermione1980

My involvement in this case is extremely limited. From what I've seen, Guido appears to be a fair content editor (though his contribs are outside my area of expertise), but he is unable to respond appropriately to talk page comments. I have no opinion on whether or not his ban should be lifted; I do not have enough information to comment. Hermione1980 19:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Non-statement by Tan

I wasn't nearly involved in this enough to comment. I made a peripheral comment to Guido on the ANI thread that he should take some dispute to DR. I didn't participate in the ban discussion. Tan | 39 20:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Seicer

My original involvement in this case was at WP:ANI#Improper use of MfD page?, when Guido mentioned that this MFD regarding a user subpage was inappropriate, posted at 14:15, 17 December 2008. I closed the MFD and deleted the page at 16:56 per the rationales given. Guido, prior to the closure of the MFD, had restored the content to his userpage at 15:23. He then filed a DRV regarding the case.

The DRV had near unanimous support of my closure of the MFD. It is worth noting that at one point, Guido had commented about starting a MFD for the MFD as a sign of an unwillingness to abide by the operation of the MFD. It is also worth noting that, per my rationale given at the MFD, that I would provide a copy of the deleted page to Guido; this was done immediately after the MFD closure.

Guido then began a thread at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Attack page regarding User talk:WLU/RFC, which has been identified as not an attack page, but future content for a potential RFC or AN thread. The page is clearly covered and supported under WP:UP#NOT, item 10. He later started User talk:Jimbo Wales#User page to complain about the MFD and the subsequent DRV.

I later removed the Social Experiment material from his userpage, citing the MFD case. This was promptly reverted, then tagged as CSD G4. The material was once again removed, citing CSD G4. It was again reverted, removed (with a notice), reverted, and removed with the page being protected from future abuse. It is entirely inappropriate to, while a DRV is in progress, to restore the material to a userpage, especially when consensus bears that it stay deleted. It is also entirely inappropriate to circumvent a MFD that was supported at DRV, and to mislabel edits as vandalism -- especially to multiple administrators and users.

An initiative to community ban was started at ANI, as a subset of the existing complaint Guido had started earlier. Per BAN, he had proven to be repeatedly disruptive to Misplaced Pages, and had exhausted the community's patience. His block log is quite lengthy, and he has had two legal threats prior to this ban. Guido was community banned under consensus, and his userpage content was removed and replaced with a template; his talk page was protected and redirected to his userpage. Both pages have not been deleted, as is typical under BAN, as I expected that this case would be taken to RFAR; it provides a layer of transparency so that others can see the content that were not involved in the cases at ANI/MFD/DRV.

As a last note, I am worried that a proxy was used in this case to file the appeal. Per WP:BAN#Appeals process, Guido should contact member of the committee or an Arbitration clerk by email and ask that a request be filed on their behalf. When he was community banned, his e-mail access was not restricted, and he is free to do so. He made a mention to Cosmic Latte (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) to file the RFAR as his e-mails to RFAR were "lost." It is noted here. seicer | talk | contribs 20:19, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Franamax

I don't see why I'd be a party to this (as Sam has noted). My involvement was a single edit to initiate a ban discussion. I made it where I did because it was immediately under a post of GdB's, so he would be sure to see it, and the thread itself showed a continuation of what I consider to be GdB's long history of disruption. I made it when I did because my impression was that GdB was leaving after having completed his "investigation", which basically amounted to a breaching experiment, but he seemed to be continuing his disruptive activities. I made it why I did because I have a visceral objection to people who conduct experiments (and/or investigations) on unwitting subjects, and the day I first read GdB's "report", AGF went out the window for me. Who and how: Franamax, MediaWiki.

Many editors commented, there was a strong consensus to ban, and the arguments against were not particularly compelling. The discussion may have been closed a little early, but I don't think the outcome was in much doubt. I don't think there's anything to arbitrate here, appeal can be made through the mailing list. Franamax (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Fram

I don't see the need for this case, this is a normal community ban. However, I can also see that if this case would be accepted, I would be an involved party. Anyway, now that we are here, I'll take the opportunity to highlight an example of the behaviour that lead to this ban. In his unblock discussion today, he claims that William M. Connolley has a personal vendetta against him, as evidenced by a talk page removal and the subsequent ban. Quite a one-sided presentation of the facts. In fact, at 21:12, William supported the ban. Three hours later, Guido goes to a talk page of an article he never edited before, to give Willam a warning for edit warring. This is stalking, following someone you have a conflict with to an unrelated article just to attack him. Guido's behaviour is unacceptable in a collaborative environment, and it is clear that he will not change in any way. Like je said today: "I am however not aware of having caused any kind of disruption and have seen no evidence to substantiate such a claim." This is his right, of course, just as it is the right of us as a community to decide that in that case, he is no longer welcome here. Fram (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Skinwalker

I don't particularly see why I'm named as a party, but it seems that I'm not alone. I'd like to direct the arbitrators' attention to the extensive evidence compiled here concerning GdB's long history of edit warring, lack of good faith, legal threats, personal attacks, soapboxing, gaming of the system, importation of disputes from other wiki projects, and general obtuseness. Cheers, Skinwalker (talk) 21:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

In response to Brad's comment, I believe this dispute meets none of the criteria he sets out, and the request should therefore be declined. Skinwalker (talk) 23:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

My involvement in this is, I think, limited to declining one of Guido den Broeder's unblock requests and noting that ArbCom review is the one remaining venue for relief, because it appeared to me that the ban did have community consensus at that time. I have no desire to participate in any arbitration proceedings concerning it.  Sandstein  22:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Caulde

I would encourage the arbitrator's to decline this case at this particular moment in time; absent any further developments – in which case – I see not much need for proceedings to be conducted here anyway. With respect to the specific user involved, I would register my concern with the legal threats, the long and chequered block history (usually regarding violations of the three-revert-rule) and the general lack of compromise he has been aligned to over the past few months or so. All relevant diffs are given in other's statements or their respective edits to the said pages. Caulde 22:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

I would just like to note that Guido den Broeder was active at other wikis as well. He was at one point banned from nl:wp and after failing to get satisfaction in exactly the matter he felt appropriate, brought the matter to Meta: Requests_for_comments/Dutch_Wikipedia_-_unblock_request. Apparently he wanted the stewards, or the Meta community, to override the decisions made at nl:wp. During the course of that he got into some considerable disagreement with User:Troefkaart, including bringing the matter to Meta's ANI equivalent: Behaviour on other wikis is not necessarily determinant but I do think it warrants mentioning so that there's some context ++Lar: t/c 23:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by MacGyverMagic

I commented on the MFD that started this. In my opinion there are several separate things at work here:

  1. User:Guido den Broeder conducted an experiment to see the effect different behaviors had on cooperative editing. He described the results of this failed experiment on the page Wikipeda, the Social Experiment using harsh language some editors would consider disruptive. This lead to an that was prematurely closed as a delete "to avoid drama" while several editors in good standing supporting keeping the page. Of course, the deletion did not avoid drama (since we're here now) but most importantly, it was closed without consensus. It was probably worded too strong and it would have been better for him to ask approval from the Wikimedia Commitee before performing said experiment.
  2. The ANI thread discussing the ban seems to be a reaction to Guido's attempts to get a bad deletion undone.
  3. In the course of his stay here, he's positively contributed to numerous articles.

I'll quote Cosmic Latte from the ANI thread as he worded things better than I could: "...I disagree with Franamax's belief that Guido's "statements carry a strong connotation that he regards us as a bunch of fools, to be experimented on at will." Guido is not conducting the Milgram experiment or the Stanford prison experiment--both of which were conducted by Ivy-League researchers, and both of which seriously messed up some of their participants. What I sense here, in the opposition to Guido's efforts, is a post-Milgram, post-Stanford aversion to being "guinea pigs" in someone else's activities--an aversion that allows people to overlook the prosocial intentions of any sensible "social experiment." What I sense in Guido's efforts is a benign attempt to understand and improve the encyclopedia; indeed, he has explicitly offered suggestions for improvement..." - Mgm| 23:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  • To aid Newyorkbrad in his decision, I'll post this as he requested in his comment: I believe the ban to be disproportionate to the wrong that was committed. - Mgm| 23:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by William M. Connolley (talk)

speaks for itself. On the irrelevant subsiduary matter of the "report to the UN": it doesn't exist. My opinion is that the arbcomm should reject this request William M. Connolley (talk) 23:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by ImperfectlyInformed

I'm not involved and I'll admit I don't have much experience with Guido, but the way this fly by night ban worked leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm bothered that yesterday I was commenting on a legitimate content dispute between WLU and Guido, and a couple hours ago I found that Guido is gone and WLU may just impose his preferred view on the issue without taking into account the other side. Long-term editors should not be banned without a clear presentation of evidence and a minimum amount of time to gather opinions. This looked more like a lynch mob. Someone suggests banning and then a bunch of people with chips on their shoulders pile on. It appears that many of the "supports" were presented before any diffs had even been presented, and then the diffs presented by WLU mainly showed Guido removing things from his talk page. The votes fell something like 14-4. Community bans are obviously much weaker in their weight than ArbCom bans; it seems as if they get done by the people who happen to be trolling AN at the time, or people who got instant-messaged, or what have you. In any case, if ArbCom generally bans for only a year, then community bans, with their loose standards, should stand for only a year. Perhaps setting up an RSS feed would help to ensure a broad base of opinions, along with a minimum of a couple days discussion time (or more), plus a required posting of evidence at the top of the thread. Incidentally, an RSS feed would be nice for admin nominations too. II | (t - c) 23:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by mostly uninvolved Sticky Parkin

This doesn't need an arbcom case and I think has been pretty much dealt with at AN/I twice. Ban or indef this person- that doesn't need an arbcom and has consensus. Don't let him forum shop further- he's said himself his "illness" has been exacerbated by being on wikipedia. This person has even been on Jimbo's page forum shopping. I think he's banned or blocked on some other language wikis. Misplaced Pages is not therapy. Sticky Parkin 00:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by CIreland

I've been keeping half on eye on Guido den Broeder since the initial controversy involving him and the Dutch WP users spilled over to us. I have no firm opinion on the ban itself but can only offer the advice to the committee that it is the nature of Guido den Broeder and his approach to the manipulation of disputes that the committee are going to end up having to deal with this whether they wish to not. Whether that will involve a full case or not remains to be seen. CIreland (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by CharonX

I cannot speak for the community, but Guido den Broeder has at least exhausted my patience. The wide majority of the users that voiced their opinion in the ANI thread supported the ban. I see no compelling arguments that makes it necessary for ArbCom to either investigate the validity of the Ban, nor the way it has been enacted. CharonX/talk 00:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Mccready

I don't support the ban. Despite being asked for evidence of content damage to wikipedia, none, including an administrator, have provided evidence of damage. The "experiment" is irrelevant. Here is a case for the new arbcom to demonstrate it can quickly focus on content and get us back to editing an encyclopedia. Good luck.Mccready (talk) 03:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Protonk (talk)

I'm listed as a party above but like most of the people here I'm not actually involved. I want to strongly echo what II said about about the tenor of this ban discussion. GdB pisses a lot of people off and has been involved in disputes both on content and conduct. But we cannot convince ourselves that "the community" is a collection of editors who happen to be on An at any given time. I understand that this is the nature of consensus on wikipedia--for every editor who had something relevant to say about GdB, there are a dozen who could care less about the whole affair. But we have processes, controls and expectations for discussions where we cannot enforce a quorum. A user conduct RfC goes 30 days before becoming 'stale'. An AfD goes 5 days. This discussion lasted a little over a day. Both have pre-determined expectations regarding evidence, presentation, availability, and fairness. ANI has none of these things. As such, it is a powerful vehicle for group-think and emotion. Even the structural nature of AN/I (high edit volume results in multiple edit conflicts, threading presents no clear place for the 'accused' to rebut claims and churn gives a false sense of urgency) works against an editor facing a community ban in this fashion.

There is also an incentive problem. AN/I becomes the forum for these debates because it (if you'll pardon the expression) gets shit done. If I have a user issue that might involve a person being blocked I don't take it to WQA (too toothless) or RfC (too long). I take it to AN/I. I can make a short case, get some positive feedback and get rid of the person in the dispute. This results in alternate forums being less well attended which tends to fulfill the prophesy that they are less effective. Even AN gets approximately 1/2 the traffic of AN/I. If we continue to bring community ban discussions to AN/I expecting immediate action and continue to get it, the other forums and the proper methods of dispute resolutions will wither from inattention. There are important fundamental reasons why AN/I (or AN) is the wrong forum for these sorts of long term user conduct discussions. Reasons we all know. IF the community refuses to be adult about things and demand that long term user conduct issues be handled through the dispute resolution pipeline then ArbComm should step in and dictate changes.

Statement by Verbal (talk)

None of New York Brad's criteria are met. GdB has caused repeated problems across wikipedia. He has been discussed on ANI several times, several resulting in blocks. The previous ANI thread, where there was consensus to ban, closed early due to GdB indicating he would no longer edit. Unfortunately this was not the case and he has continued the disruptive behaviour. I would have preferred all WLUs evidence to have been presented, but the community has shown that it will no longer tolerate GdBs behaviour. The Arbs can look at this evidence and see what they think, but I would urge them not to take this case at present.

I endorse the statements of Roux, Dendodge, Seicer, Franamax, Skinwalker, Lar, and the WP community as expressed at ANI. Verbal chat 10:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/2)

  • Comment - the list of parties is considerably longer than it should be. While it is possibly helpful to notify all those who commented on the Administrators' noticeboard thread, they are not all parties. Without prejudice as to whether to accept the case, if it is accepted, I would suggest that the parties be limited to the filing party, Guido den Broeder and William M. Connolley only. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • When asked to review a community ban decision (whether here or on the mailing list), I ask myself whether there is reason to believe that an arbitration case would add value to the discussion that has already taken place. That might be the case in one of the following circumstances:
    • If there were a good argument that the sanction of banning was seriously disproportionate to the editor's misconduct so that that the ban is grossly unfair to the user. Note: this means more than that an arbitrator might personally disagree with the decision.
    • If the community discussion could not be not fully informed, for example, if there are private facts that could not be shared on-wiki but could be provided off-wiki to the arbitrators and might bear on what a fair result would be. This circumstances will be rare.
    • It there is a genuine dispute as to whether the consensus of the community discussion was in favor of the ban. Note that a "genuine dispute" does not mean wikilawyerish, hypertechnical procedural objections.
    • (Not relevant here) If a significant amount of time has elapsed since the ban and there is reason to believe that the user might now be in a better position to resume productive, collaborative editing.

Editors supporting acceptance of the case should try to explain why one of these circumstances, or a comparable one, is applicable. I do not see any of them at present but remain open to persuasion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:28, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


Maria Thayer

Initiated by Rwiggum (/Contrib) at 17:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
  • G.-M. Cupertino
  • Dismas
  • Verdatum
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Rwiggum

This issue began when G.-M. Cupertino reverted one of my edits to the article. The article is one of an actress, and my edit consisted of putting her filmography into a table format, removing what I felt to be ancillary information (including the number of episodes she appeared on for each television series and several DVD extras) and un-linking several non-existent articles. I later reinstated my edits. When they were again reverted, I took it to his talk page to try and discuss why he felt my edits were harmful to the article. He believed that my revisions removed important information, while I believed that such information was not necessary and hurt the visual layout of the page. This is not an isolated incident, either. On several occasions, the user has replaced tabled filmographies with direct copy-pastes from IMDB. 1 2 3 4

Since my very first interaction with him, G.-M. Cupertino has been largely hostile and unwilling to reach a common consensus. I have tried to work with him to get this issue resolved, but he has been extremely resistant to my attempts. He has also deleted all of my postings on his talk page, so here are the revision histories that make up the most complete versions:


Likewise, in addition to being openly hostile toward me, he has continually removed his postings from my talk page as well. Here is the most recent revision of that, in case he removes it again:

After my continual insistence that he stop deleting content from my talk page, he chose instead to vandalize it twice under an IP:

Throughout this entire process I have been civil, cordial and willing to work to a conclusion. However, G.-M. Cupertino has been hostile and unwilling to make an effort, and has continued making unconstructive edits with no regard for other editors and a general indignation to those who tried to help him. (I am not the first one to bring this issue to his attention). I simply ask the arbitration committe to help me bring this incident to a peaceful conclusion. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 17:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note Another user has brought to my attention some more instances of G.-M. Cupertino's difficulties with others. (I tried to keep it to more substantial edits to the user's talk page, as G.-M. Cupertino has made several edits and additions to his posts. The full messages can be found here.)

Rwiggum (/Contrib) 17:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #2 Yet another user has come forward to express their frustration with G.-M. Cuperiono.

And the user also brings up a very valid point: It isn't that I feel that Cuperino's contributions are entirely worthless, on the contrary. A lot of these pages need filmographies. The major problem is his complete unwillingness to work with other editors to improve the articles. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 17:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #3 and Question It appears that I misunderstood the initial comment by Dismas on my userpage. He wasn't just directing me to his talk page and Cuperino's previous postings, but he was posting me here, to a user page he created to chronicle his dealings with Cuperino.

This leads me to my question: Now that the request for arbitration has been started, would it be too late to include him in this discussion? It seems as though he has quite a bit of insight into this situation as well. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 22:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #4 Dismas and Verdatum have been added as Involved Parties. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 22:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #5 It seems as though he's getting worse. He's taken to making personal attacks, as well as removing some of the disputed content from pages wholesale. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 14:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #6 Here are a few more: At this point, he has moved past unconstructive edits and into the territory of pure vandalism. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 15:11, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #7 I apologize for making so many additions in such a short time, but he has now moved onto nominating all of the articles for speedy deletion, in addition to continue removing filmographies. At this point it is clear that his edits are intended to be viscious and in bad faith, and if arbitration isn't the correct way to go about this, then I need to know what to do with him. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 15:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE The user has been temporarily blocked for his edits: Rwiggum (/Contrib) 15:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by G.-M. Cupertino

Statement by Dismas

I am not involved in the article for which this arbitration was started. I have however dealt with Cupertino on several occaisions. In almost every case he has been difficult to deal with.

When I put links to WP guidelines and policies into my edit summaries, he does not take the time to read those guidelines and policies. He has claimed that he doesn't have time to be reading pages of rules even when specific parts of policies are pointed out to him. I could understand if he didn't read every word of a particular guideline but he won't even take the time to skim them for relevant info. Although, somehow he has been able to hold onto the line at the top of every guideline that says that guidelines are not to be enforced on every page and are left to editor's discretion. He uses this excuse liberally to explain his edits. Due to having to re-explain guidelines to him, he now smugly inserts the word "mandatory" before every instance of using the term "guideline".

He has been uncivil on many occasions, whether on my talk page or in edit summaries.

Only by having an admin intervene or get a third opinion, through WP:3O, have I been able to speed up the process of reaching an agreement with him. For a long time now, he's had an "admin for emergencies" listed on his talk page. As far as I have gathered, this admin at one time helped Cupertino out and has since been listed there. They seem to be one of the few people that Cupertino listens to.

Only by posting things to his talk page does he ever engage in any sort of communication and even then it's spotty. He doesn't seem to have learned that this is a collaborative project. Instead of reading an edit summary and asking what something stands for, why someone has reverted his edit, or why someone has tweaked an edit that he's made, he simply reads it, dismisses it, and puts the article back to his version. When going through the effort of getting him to realize that dates were not to be linked 100% of the time, one of his rants was about how some 'powers that be' made some changes to the rules and didn't make him aware. When the recent notice was put at the top of everyone's watchlist about the discussion over dates, I made sure to point out to Cupertino that he could have his say on the matter. When I checked the discussions just now, he had still not weighed in with his thoughts even though this was such a hot button item with him previously.

Due to the fact that I've had to deal with him in so many cases and have had to go to such great lengths, I felt that at some point things may come to arbitration with him. Therefore, I have been building a record, of sorts, of his actions. You can find this at a sub-page of my user page, here.

With all that being said, I do have to say that he is able to do a large number of tedious edits seemingly without any scripts. When they are good edits, it is a very good thing to see. I just wish that he was more communicative and more receptive to changes because then he wouldn't waste so much time undoing various things. Dismas| 19:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Verdatum

I am not involved with concerns on this article itself, but instead regarding the actions of User:G.-M. Cupertino. I first had a disagreement with him in regards to the Kyra Sedgwick article. It resulted in in the following discussion , where he made Legal Threats, Personal Attacks failed to Assume Good Faith, failed to remain Civil, and acted as though he owned the article. The first argument, regarding WP:BLP, was resolved eventually, and the second argument, regarding Filmography, was eventually resolved through a compromise after making a request for a third opinion.

I found interacting with this user most off-putting. His correspondence were consistently in an aggressive tone (as seen in the above link). He overlooked requests for discussion, instead choosing to voice brief agressive arguments in the Edit Summary . I added messenges to his talkpage , both of which were immediately removed by him, which as I interpret WP:TALK is alright, but it makes threaded discussion difficult. I scanned the user's contributions and found a general history of the same agressive argument style. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming it was just a matter of a language barrier, and unfamiliarity with some guidelines and policies, still I continued to watch his talkpage, in case I could try to aid with any future altercations he might have with other editors.

Shortly there after, I was contacted by User:Dismas regarding concerns about this editor . I believe that resulted in Dsmas opening a RFA/UC which was quickly closed for not yet being a last resort.

After noticing a long string of back a forth edits on User talk:G.-M. Cupertino‎, between Cupertino and User:Rwiggum on my watchlist, I glanced through them, and decided to drop Rwiggum a note about Cupertino's editing style .

Any other issues on the matter are merely practices I've witnessed in sporadically monitoring his contributions, but I'm not yet comfortable enough with this process to know what level of detail I should cover, and would mostly be redundant to the statements of the other editors involved. -Verdatum (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion by uninvolved Sandstein

In view of G.-M. Cupertino (talk · contribs)'s comments at , noted by Kirill below, I suggest that this issue is most expediently resolved by indefinitely blocking G.-M. Cupertino for gross incivility and personal attacks, as well as threats of physical harm. An arbitration case is not required for this.  Sandstein  18:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved NVO

I "met" with G.-M. Cupertino (talk · contribs) only once on a subject not worth any quarrel. We did not agree then on notability issue, but, again, it is unimportant. However, I was bemused by G.-M. C.'s deletion of that discussion from my talkpage . When this arbcom case popped up, I realized that this is G.-M. C.'s routine modus operandi that has been complained about by other editors to no avail. This arbcom case is an example of current "administration" failures. G.-M. C.'s incivility and 3RR violations had to be handled by admins way before. Where were the admins when they were needed? the first block of G.-M. C, ever, was effected by User:Orangemike after the arbcom filing. Contrary to what User:Sandstein said above, arbitration is required, because of the admins' failure. NVO (talk) 13:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

There are some real issues with this user's conduct; a clear lack of receptiveness to any sort of feedback, let alone community feedback. This reminds me of certain conduct I unfortunately experienced with certain other users (example) - though the conduct issues are somewhat different, it comes down to the same problem. The example nearly managed to let his disruption go unnoticed for a long period of time (nearly greater than 2 years) - I note that it was only after several community discussions, and an unfortunately horrible wait that the example recently received a 3 month block for a lack of receptiveness to community feedback, among a couple of other issues. However, the sense of disruptive off-wiki coordinated editing with certain other editors (example) was something that could not be addressed. Perhaps, one day I will have no choice but to make a request for arbitration on these examples...but that'll be another case for another day. Back to this case....

Fortunately, there is no sense of such disruptive off-wiki coordinated editing yet, and G M Cupertino's lack of receptiveness to feedback is more clear cut; as with his conduct issues. An RFC is likely to prolong the dispute more than necessary in this case. It would take more than a couple of community discussions to demonstrate that the conduct has not ceased before sanctions may be imposed - even though we are reasonably confident that regardless of how much we AGF, the conduct will recommence in the future. There is no doubt that it is one form of problem editing that has adversely affected other users contributions.

Based on my own experience with the above examples, this user's conduct will continue to be a problem, sometime in the future - unless there are measures in place to prevent it from happening. If the Committee is willing to provide long term solutions/sanctions (such as bans) for this sort of problematic conduct, then this case should be accepted - if ArbCom will only go to the extent of providing minor sanctions or admonishment, then this case should be rejected. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/2/2/1)

  • Comment. At first glance this does not look as if the situation is ripe for an Arbitration Committee case. There may be user conduct issues, but it is not clear to me that others attempts to resolve the problems have been tried. Since Arbitration is the last step in dispute resolution, some preliminary steps need to be tried if they have not been done yet. See Dispute resolution for methods of to give users feedback. For example. Request for commentFloNight♥♥♥ 21:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC) FloNight♥♥♥ 21:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Awaiting more statements. There are very real conduct and civility concerns here, but per FloNight, it might be possible to address them short of arbitration. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with what has been said above, and would reject the request at this time. G.-M. Cupertino's refusal to participate in mediation is worrying. Nevertheless, there are other methods of dispute resolution available. I would recommend making a request for comments; see the instructions here. If that fails to reach a suitable outcome then arbitration may be appropriate. --bainer (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

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Request for clarification: Tobias Conradi

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by Ncmvocalist

I seek clarification on the recent principle that was passed (via a motion) in this case here - specifically, its application. It appears there is reluctance amongst administrators when it comes to enforcement - specifically with a comment/passage that appears on User:Bedford's user page:

I was a Wikipedian Administrator, but it was stolen from me without due process by a few fellow administrators who thought they should arbitrarily decide what should be and should not be on Misplaced Pages, despite WP:NOTCENSORED, and got me desysoped. I was once p.o.ed about it, but since then I've realized it is a greater honor to have been screwed of the status than to actually have it, as it just meant I am better than those behind the gangrape. Besides, it means I don't have to do as much as I did before.

No doubt, there are several problems with the ill-considered wording of the comment, as well as the cause for which it is written (if any). The page ended up protected amongst an edit war between User:Bedford and a few other editors. Bedford refused to change the comment when asked to, per the discussion at ANI at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Bedford_blatantly_breaking_policies....

I submit that even if it isn't necessarily BLP-related, the rule of thumb is to avoid harm. Unfortunately, there is a reluctance among admin-enforcement through full protection - the admins either seem to downplay the issue, or think greater consensus is needed - even in such a case of requiring more consensus-building, it's not unreasonable to remove a term such as "gangrape" (as an interim measure, even through full protection). I request the Committee to affirm this view and to effect such an enforcement action. Additionally, I request ArbCom to provide clarification on how the relevant principle would apply to the above passage as a whole. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Horologium

I am the admin who protected Bedford's user page. While I don't agree with a lot of what Bedford has to say, and I dislike his choice of words in the paragraph that was at issue, the argument presented was ludicrous on its face. A user who has baited Bedford before comes sniveling to AN/I over a single word, clearly used in a metaphorical sense, on Bedfords's user page. (It is in the penultimate sentence of the last paragraph of a big chunk of text, not highlighted/capitalized/italicized/bolded.) Then another user, who was at the forefront of the effort to desysop Bedford, starts removing the entire paragraph from Bedford's page. After I warn him about edit-warring and 3RR, he stops, and the first user starts doing the exact same thing, at which point I fully protected the page. Note the edit summaries left by the editors seeking to remove the entire paragraph. one of Sceptre's is incivil; the first of Mixwell's is incorrect, and the second is snarky. I would encourage Bedford to change the word, but the arguments that have been presented so far in the AN/I discussion have ranged from the fatuous and sanctimonious to the inane. Sceptre's WP:IDONTHEARYOU attitude, in particular, is annoying. There is no assertion of rape, and therefore there is no personal attack. Bedford has not called anyone a rapist. I suggest Sceptre should consult a dictionary; My copy of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth edition) offers this definition for rape: 3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation. In that context, the word is justifiable. Horologium (talk) 14:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

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