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Amendment request: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat 2

Initiated by

Rainer P.

Case affected

Prem Rawat 2

Remedy to which an amendment is requested

• Rainer P. (talk · contribs) indefinitely banned from all articles and discussions related to Prem Rawat

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Rainer P. (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Momento (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (notification)
• Rumiton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (notification)
• The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (notification)

Information about amendment request

• Rainer P. indefinitely banned from all articles and discussions related to Prem Rawat. Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Prem_Rawat_2#Log_of_blocks.2C_bans.2C_and_restrictions

• Request : Rainer P. unbanned.

Statement by Rainer P.

• I have been indefinitely topic-banned by The Blade of the Northern Lights, for “persistant battleground behaviour” but he provides no evidence or diffs to support that charge.

• I have never engaged in “battleground behavior”. I regard my influence there as neutral, moderate and conciliatory. About the only comment about me notes “Rainer's attempt to pull this discussion back on track seems a move in a positive direction”.

• I have edited Prem Rawat articles less than 10 times in three years. I have made edits only with full consent from all after previous discussion, like my last edit to the article on October 19th.

• Most of my edits have been to the Talk Page because I have extensive knowledge of the subject and want to help the article editors. I have never been uncivil despite being frequently provoked.

• I have never been warned or criticised in over three years of editing.

• I have never been part of an Arbitration action. And so, as per Discretionary Sanctions, I should have received a warning before banning.

• I have never been banned or blocked or otherwise been subject to disciplinary actions.

• I have looked at all my edits and I cannot see what I have done wrong.

Statement by Rumiton

Thanks for inviting me to comment. I don't understand the reason for Blade's implementation of these bans so I will wait to hear from him before commenting further. Rumiton (talk) 00:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Littleolive oil

I have a few impressions of the recent dynamics of this article discussion page and editing that includes Blade of the Northern Lights recent blocks. I had very little knowledge of Prem Rawat and of the editors who edit on this article until a few months ago with one exception, a now banned editor. I came to the page because of a comment I saw on Jimbo's talk page which seemed to me to be very uncivil.

Clearly discussion and editing on this page is highly contentious. However, while editors had strong opinions about how policy applied to content and sources, I did not see anything unreasonable in the issues raised. it seemed to me that some editors where intent on protecting past edits and content, while other editors were interested in contesting some content. I don't see anything wrong with any of this. Discussion pages are for discussion. This is contentious and a BLP so there's going to be lots of differing opinion. Once an uninvolved editor (olive) had come onto the page and Blade had made a few warning remarks in reference to civility, I felt things on the page settled down and editors were making a real effort to work collaboratively. I think that general process was ongoing and working. Issues were being discussed and then acted upon and there was little edit warring. The only inappropriate aspect of the process was periodic incivility which tended to degrade the process. I didn't see battleground behaviour in Memento, Rumiton or Rainer. Nor did the three of them always agree with each other. That isn't to say they didn't have strong opinions and were willing to express them. Rainer was always mild mannered, polite, and conciliatory in his positions. (I'm not taking credit for any quieting down on the page. I suspect any outside person requesting quiet above the din could change the long standing dynamic on that page)

It was after the page had quieted down and following a comment on Jimbo's talk page, and when progress was being made in terms of talk page dynamics that Blade sanctioned 4 editors silmultaneoulsy with out diffs to support the sanctions. Blade's ban didn't appear to follow the normal WP process by pointing to diffs of threads showing problematic behavior so I think posting diffs especially within context of the discussion as a whole would be a good next step for the banning admin to take.

In theory, sanctions in WP are meant to improve behavior. One can't improve if one doesn't know specifically what one has done wrong.(olive (talk) 03:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC))

• @Sir Fozzie: Editors have been sanctioned already. I may not have understood your statement.
• My points, and I may have not articulated them very well is that It would be helpful if diffs indicating sanctionable behaviour for each editor be shown rather than a simultaneous editor sanction with no diffs.
• @ Commenting Arbs: My first reading of the article when I came to it a few months ago was that it contained, as some contentious articles do, subtle tiny points which together serve to colour the article as a whole. This is an insidious form of editing dangerous for an encyclopedia especially on a BLP article. As is now, the article reads in a pretty neutral way excluding the second sentence of the lead which serves to describe another human being in only one way. Not good and not neutral. My experience with the editors on this page was that there was a genuine effort to improve their editing. The sanction came as a shock, especially the sanction of Rainer, in light of the improvements I saw in editing behaviour. Perhaps the difference with someone coming in, who is aware of the history and contentious nature of the article in general, but has no view of the editors, nor preconceptions about the topic area is that I didn't know or care what Rawat is in a personal way, nor do I care about editor motive. I'm looking at the present situation. I as a reader now, as the article is, sense that Rawat is controversial, has detractors and supporters, and I have a sense of what his tenets are. I no longer feel I am being manipulated to see Rawat in any particular way. The slant when I came in was pejorative. The Nixon article is probably a good example of a neutral article that could have easily been slanted in a pejorative way. This means to me process on the article is starting to work. I have left the article because support of edits was seen as support of editors which left me open for a a lot of abusive comments. Not what I have time for.(olive (talk) 16:31, 17 December 2012 (UTC))

Statement by EdJohnston

In response to Roger Davies, if you want to switch the remedies over to discretionary sanctions, and want to find a way to deal with the existing bans, you could decide that any existing bans placed under the old remedies are vacated, but are replaced by new bans of the same duration subject to arbitration enforcement appeal. Once you had made that change, you could deal with Rainer P.'s appeal by having a clerk copy it over to WP:Arbitration enforcement. EdJohnston (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Momento

Where is the evidence of Rainer's "persistent battleground behaviour"? I can't see it. Little Olive Oil and Silk Tork can't see it. BOTNL can't provide a single diff. And no one has raised it on Rainer's talk page or Prem Rawat talk. The only person accused of "battleground behaviour" on the Prem Rawat articles this year is PatW. Four separate editors have found it necessary to go to PatW's talk page and ask him to modify his behaviour to no avail. And that doesn't include numerous comments on Prem Rawat talk. As for BOTNL's observation that "it was becoming obvious the article was being stifled by the incessant fighting and tendentious editing", I think this comment from an independent editor who wanted to contribute sums it up nicely - "I came to this page to see if the allegations being made about Memento's editing were true, but what strikes me as more egregious are the constant personal attacks by PatW and Surdas. Because of the hostility and unconstructive comments by those two, I'm unwilling to get involved at this point. PatW and Surdas, if you will work on getting your behavior back in line with WP's policies, I think more page watchers, such as myself, might be willing to get involved in the content discussion". Rainer may be an SPA but he is, as WP:SPA notes "a well-intentioned editor with a niche interest" and "the community seeks to attract new and well-informed users knowledgeable in a particular subject". Rainer's appeal should have been over in five minutes, he has done nothing wrong and "the project" is diminished when "mild mannered, polite, and conciliatory" editors are hounded and sanctioned for their personal beliefs.Momento (talk) 19:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary.

Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Statement from The Blade of the Northern Lights

Let me begin by saying I also think a blanket lifting here would be a bad idea; as noted below by Risker, there's something else at work with PatW's situation, and in any event these sorts of issues are normally considered on a case-by-case basis. In early April of this year, an ANI thread brought my attention to the Prem Rawat topic area; since that time, I have been watching over the Prem Rawat article and a few associated articles. From April to August, Rumiton was under an indefinite topic ban, but I was monitoring the other users linked above, and when I lifted his ban I continued to watch him. What I could see was a pattern of editing that was slowly but surely slanting the article away from criticisms of Rawat. Although Momento, Rumiton, and PatW (PatW being the sole voice of opposition) were clearly the most active of the three, Rainer P. came by with some frequency to support the first two; the percentage of edits these editors had to Prem Rawat and the talkpage referred to by Roger Davies below also caught my eye. With the exception of a couple of outbursts from PatW, it's not something that can easily be packaged in diffs, but watching it happen it was becoming very clear what was going on. User:Steven Zhang had come in to mediate in August, and he was seeing exactly the same patterns I was. By mid-October, it was becoming obvious the article was being stifled by the incessant fighting and tendentious editing. Although Rainer P. didn't edit the article a lot, he made a large number of comments at Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 49 (which for some reason isn't linked in the archive box at Talk:Prem Rawat; someone who knows how such things work may want to fix that).

As was stated in the messages I gave them each, I had initially intended to institute the topic bans in late October, but first Hurricane Sandy and then a nasty snowstorm had other ideas, and I didn't think it'd be fair of me to topic ban people and disappear for several days; in those couple weeks, I saw a series of edits between November 10 and November 15 from Momento and Rumiton. These edits clearly gave the article a very pro-Rawat slant, and the tone on the talkpage made it readily obvious that was the intent. It was to the point where another editor noted on the talkpage how obvious it was, and even Jimbo stated his intent to get involved in trying to remove the bias from the article (something he later did); this made it even more obvious to me the continued presence of these users would be detrimental. I knew none of them would want to raise an AE thread because it would almost certainly result in the filer being banned as well, and knowing the article was under article probation I decided to unilaterally do it myself.

I don't have a particularly strong opinion on whether or not to remove the article probation sanction and replace it with standard DS; though the current article probation makes it easier for one administrator to manage major problems without requiring 15 threads in 10 places, I also understand not wanting to give administrators too much power over articles. As to the lifting of the topic bans, I think allowing SPAs who clearly have some sort of agenda back into the article will lead to exactly the same problems there were before. If you're going to replace article probation with standard DS, I'd support EdJohnston's suggestion above. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I've looked back at the contributions of Rainer P. (which are mainly to the talkpage of Prem Rawat) and I cannot find any problematic edits. I think it would help if The Blade of the Northern Lights could identify the problem areas for us. SilkTork 05:26, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

And would this be better placed at AE? SilkTork 05:32, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• I've had a look at this too, but a slightly different perspective. The authority for the sanctions comes from the 2008 Prem Rawat Article Probation remedy. The 2008 remedy does not require prior warnings, and has no appeal provisions. Whatever else happens, we probably need to consider whether the 2008 remedy needs to be modernised by replacing it with Standard Discretionary Sanctions. If we do go down that road, we could consider replacing the current indefinite topic bans with warnings to bring enforcement into line with current provisions, though probably not for all four editors involved. In any event, I'd like very much to hear from Blade of the Northern Lights before this amendment request gets much older. Parhaps one of the clerks would be good enough to notify User:The Blade of the Northern Lights as well as the other topic-banned editors, User:Momento, User:Rumiton and User:PatW. Thanks in advance,  Roger Davies 14:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Just looking at the contribution histories, 71% of Momento's edits are either to Prem Rawat or its talk page; 37% of Rumiton's; 86% of Rainer P.'s; and 77% of PatW's. Between them, they've added 11,800 edits to these pages.  Roger Davies 18:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • @EdJohnston. That's a good idea. I'll think on the other mechanics/implications,  Roger Davies 18:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• I'd be fine with bringing the remedy into the modern DS framework, however, a blanket lifting of the sanctions would be a bad idea. This appeal, however, we need to hear from Blade before proceeding further. (A motion on the underlying remedy would be in order before that, though) Courcelles 23:24, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
• Would be interested in bringing this into line with the current discretionary sanctions framework. I will note that I recently blocked PatW indefinitely for an attempt to out a user in relation to this topic. I am quite concerned about the fact that we seem to be dealing with several editors whose sole contribution to the project is in the Prem Rawat topic area, and I am unconvinced that any steps that permit these accounts to continue to monopolize the topic area is beneficial to the project. Risker (talk) 03:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• I agree that we need to bring this case in line with "modern" discretionary sanctions, but I don't think a blanket lifting of sanctions is workable, nor desirable. I share Risker's concerns that there are a number of SPA's who are very close to the edge of a sanction here. SirFozzie (talk) 09:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)