This is an old revision of this page, as edited by QuackGuru (talk | contribs) at 07:59, 16 March 2015 (→Statement by User:QuackGuru). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Requests for arbitration

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Battleground on e-cig articles

Initiated by QuackGuru (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Involved parties

• QuackGuru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) filing party
• KimDabelsteinPetersen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• S Marshall (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• AlbinoFerret (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Doc James (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification User:KimDabelsteinPetersen
• diff of notification User:AlbinoFerret
• diff of notification User:Doc James

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• AN/I (closed)
• article talk page

Statement by User:QuackGuru

KimDabelsteinPetersen

Some of the e-cig enthusiasts are WP:NOTHERE to improve the e-cig pages. See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive864#User:AlbinoFerret and see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive867#E-cig editors for previous ANI discussions.

KimDabelsteinPetersen opposes a topic ban for AlbinoFerret. That's because User:KimDabelsteinPetersen has also made many controversial edits to the safety of electronic cigarettes page. Let's review some of KimDabelsteinPetersen's recent edits.

Revision as of 13:05, 30 January 2015 This edit deleted text and sources from two reputable organisations. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Positions. The sources are reliable per WP:MEDORG. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Discussion on positions. The sources are reliable per WP:SNOW according to the current discussion.

Revision as of 13:11, 30 January 2015 This edit deleted text and sources from two reputable organisations again.

Revision as of 11:20, 26 January 2015 This edit mainly deleted text from a formal policy statement written in Clinical Cancer Research, a peer-reviewed medical journal. The impact factor for the journal is 8.19.

Revision as of 19:20, 7 February 2015 This edit mainly deleted text from a review and text from reputable organizations.

Revision as of 06:27, 25 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS.

Revision as of 10:00, 25 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again.

Revision as of 22:47, 27 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again.

Revision as of 23:46, 27 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again. KimDabelsteinPetersen does not see policy violations to back up a ban.

KimDabelsteinPetersen, aren't you also deleting a lot of sources against WP:MEDRS? This diff shows AlbinoFerret is making many counterproductive edits and deleting of a lot of reliable sources. See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed topic ban for AlbinoFerret. KimDabelsteinPetersen is also deleting a lot of reliable sources which suggests he/she is promoting a certain favorable POV for e-cigs. Should KimDabelsteinPetersen be topic banned? KimDabelsteinPetersen has earned a topic ban from the e-cig pages IMO. Does the community prefer a topic ban for KimDabelsteinPetersen for 6 months or one year, an indef topic ban, or just a warning or no action?

KimDabelsteinPetersen thought it was okay to delete so many sources over and over again. But it is not reasonable to continue to delete pertinent information about of the safety of e-cigarettes. Both KimDabelsteinPetersen and AlbinoFerret are the main problem editors IMO. No reasonable argument has been made to delete so many reliable sources including deleting reviews such as (PMID 24732159) and (PMID 24732160) and (PMID 25572196) after over two weeks. Please review the current discussion on the talk page. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Removal of mammoth edit. I think I bring a sharp editors pencil to many controversial places where most editors prefer to stay away from. That said I hope editors will try to follow WP:PAG a bit more rather than making blanket reverts to an older version. Often, reliable sources and pertinent text sourced to reliable sources are being reremoved over and over again with non-argument discussions on the talk page. What could possibly be a logical reason to delete so many sources? There is currently no open thread at AN/I for a proposed topic ban for KimDabelsteinPetersen. The community is not handling this specific editor at this time at AN/I. KimDabelsteinPetersen, do you agree in the future you won't be so quick to remove so many sources such as MEDRS compliant reviews? QuackGuru (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

AlbinoFerret

User:AlbinoFerret is making a lot of comments and edits to e-cig related pages. See https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Contributions/AlbinoFerret&offset=&limit=500&target=AlbinoFerret See Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive864#User:AlbinoFerret for previous behaviour issues. AlbinoFerret tried to hide the Environmental impact section from the page that uses a reliable MEDRS compliant source to verify the claims. He eventually tried to delete some of the text. AlbinoFerret deleted sources from reputable organisations.

User:AlbinoFerret also deleted a source from a formal policy statement. After User:AlbinoFerret could not delete the reliable source he then added context that was inappropriate. See Talk:Safety_of_electronic_cigarettes/Archive_1#Original_research_2.

Both User:AlbinoFerret and User:KimDabelsteinPetersen appeared to be against using the formal policy statement written in a peer-reviewed journal for medical claims.

See Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive_21#Policy_Statement_from_the_American_Association_for_Cancer_Research_and_the_American_Society_of_Clinical_Oncology.

Revision as of 23:02, 24 February 2015 This change deleted numerous sources.

Revision as of 22:04, 28 February 2015 This change deleted numerous sources again.

AlbinoFerret's last major edit was Revision as of 22:13, 28 February 2015, which deleted numerous sources, including deleting reviews against MEDRS again.

AlbinoFerret claims "Reliability does not guarantee inclusion." But AlbinoFerret has not given a specific reason to exclude relevant information about safety. WP:COMPETENCE is not the issue IMO. AlbinoFerret has turned the e-cig pages into a WP:BATTLEGROUND. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Positions. The sources are reliable per WP:MEDORG. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Discussion on positions. Please also review the current discussion on the talk page. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Removal of mammoth edit. I think an indef topic ban is better solution rather than a short-term topic ban. It is clear that AlbinoFerret is not here to improve the e-cig pages. It appears AlbinoFerret wants to have lengthy discussions on the talk page in an effort to prevent the article from moving forward. The community discussions to resolve these matters have not gone anywhere. This should not go to AN/I again and again. The repeated trips to AN/I is a waste of the communities time. Like AN/I, I'm sure things will get ugly soon. The reason there is currently a mess at AN/I is because no uninvolved admin at AN/I closed the thread when the evidence of long term disruption was previously reported to AN/I back in November 2014. The main e-cig page has been fully protected multiple times. The dispute is likely to continue for a long time unless administrative action is taken. QuackGuru (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Since no action was taken for a very long time at AN/I I closed the thread I started and hopefully the discussion can continue here. Note. If I am not allowed to close the thread I started at AN/I feel free to revert or if an uninvolved admin wants to take action feel free to revert and take action at AN/I. The thread at AN/I can still be reclosed by an uninvolved admin. See diff. Thanks. QuackGuru (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

AlbinoFerret has agreed to take a break for 6 months from the e-cig pages without receiving an official topic ban and without any admission of doing anything wrong. QuackGuru (talk) 05:54, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

AlbinoFerret claims "The constant negative POV pushing has created a NPOV problem." AlbinoFerret has had numerous chances to explain what is the current problem. I don't know what is the current issue. Articles are never prefect, especially for new articles. I do try to improve the wording. I think it is time to move on from previous resolved disputes. I just hope in the future editors won't delete a bunch of relevant text sourced to reliable sources. AlbinoFerret thinks that "The subject of the article is not "Nicotine"." Maybe that explains this edit. AlbinoFerret is giving old diffs. For example, the wording for the nicotine sentences has changed. See Safety_of_electronic_cigarettes#Nicotine for the current wording I helped improve. The first two sentences for the nicotine paragraph are "Nicotine is regarded as a potentially lethal poison. Concerns exist that e-cigarette user exposure to toxic levels of nicotine may be harmful." The lede says "E-cigarette users are exposed to potentially harmful nicotine.". What is the problem with the current wording? QuackGuru (talk) 06:47, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by User:KimDabelsteinPetersen

Statement by involved User:S Marshall

• It's certainly a battleground. I'm finding it utterly impossible to improve the article at present.
• I endorse the request for ArbCom to look at the whole e-cigarette family of articles and the quagmire of problematic behaviour that surrounds it.
• In response to Seraphimblade's request: the community processes are inadequate. They deal with one user at a time, and give a result in clear-cut cases. AlbinoFerret's case, by itself, is something the community can deal with. QuackGuru and KimDabelsteinPetersen is another problem (or two other problems ---- I think QuackGuru's been admirably unselfconscious in starting this, by the way). In the AN/I thread, User:CFCF alleges that there are SPAs or near-SPAs involved, and I suspect he's right. User:Doc James says that interested parties have contacted his university to attack him personally. Taken together this is too much for community processes to cope with.—S Marshall T/C 00:23, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by involved User:Doc James

@User:S Marshall The user in question was indefinitely banned. So the community did deal with it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, I agree. There is consensus for a topic ban of Albino at ANI at the moment. My hope is that QG will take a voluntary step back and work on something else. The main article has been long protected. Hopefully the scientific and medical world will spend some time seriously studying the matter and the risk versus benefits of e-cig will be more clear in a few years. Right now the majority of the scientific community states the risk and benefits are unknown as they have not been properly studied. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:10, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by User:AlbinoFerret

QuackGuru is a tendentious editor. I incorporate all the proof and diffs found in this closed AN/I case that was no consensus. He has harassed me and made harassing statements about my disability which were not settled in this AN/I case. link1 link2. QuackGuru while not a SPI is an advocate against that is drawn to controversial medical articles WP:ADVOCACY. He has a long history of blocks and bans for harassment, edit warring, and other related things. Nothing will be solved at AN/I because fellow medical editors block any action because they think he is useful.
He added a Editorial to the page for a medical claim diff then argued round in circles link Arguing its a review diff diff saying it was WP:MEDRS diff. He then started a new section arguing round in circles again with a deceptive section heading. link. Just today, he added the same source to the talk page as a "New Source" #6 diff McKee2014.
He has removed claims that lessesn the negitive impact of his edits. Here he removed one from the Environmental section diff and here lessened the wording to make it less neutral diff.
He inserted blatant negative POV that users of e-cig users were exposed to "lethal" nicotine diff diff when the source said harmful as shown in this section of the talk page link when it was pointed out to him, he changed it to "toxic" diff.
In the body of the article, he added nicotine is lethal, I added a part from the source that put it into perspective diff Hoved information that lessens impact, added OR by making it sound like the mitigating factors were part of the liquid and nut use when the source clearly is talking about use diff. He also added more claims between to further distance the negating claim that users were taking "lethal poison diff.
Added adverse effects "Major adverse effects reported to the FDA included hospitalizations for pneumonia, congestive heart failure, seizure, rapid heart rate, and burns" diff. But omitted positive part of the claim (mitigating factors), added by another editor that was in the same paragraph in the source diff.
The constant negative POV pushing has created a NPOV problem. The main article has a NPOV tag link The Saftey of Electronic cigarettes also had one, but he keeps removing it.diff.
Dont think this is just a few isolated events. He is an advocate against, plain and simple. I could write pages on his inserting POV and ignoring NPOV, this is what I could find in a few hours. AlbinoFerret 05:58, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Removing sourced material? What QuackGuru doesnt mention is that the material he says was removed was the product of long discussions on using policy statements and a still ongoing RFC that had only a few replies at the time. The other removal was over 20,000 characters of edits, 16,400 at one time

With this addition to the case diff QuackGuru shows a reoccurring problem WP:IDHT where he ignores what is said in comments and comes up with his own meaning to what has been said, not what actually is said. The talk page clearly sets forth a OR by synthesis problem, where he starts off adding nicotine is lethal, then in the very next sentence where we find "The user inhales an aerosol containing chemicals and very addictive nicotine." creating a synthesis that the user is inhaling "lethal" nicotine. Which he later adds to the lede as one sentence.diff AlbinoFerret 07:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I am not named as a party here. I am not in any way involved in editing the various e-cig articles, but I have been strongly involved in the AN/I discussion about whether AlbinoFerret should be topic banned for e-cigs, which I favor. My feeling about this request is that, while ArbCom certainly has the right to open a case, it should give the community process a chance to play out. As of this moment, the topic ban for AlbinoFerret and a proposal for community-imposed discretionary sanctions are both outstanding, and these should be allowed to finish before ArbCom takes on a case, should any of the parties feel the need to file a request at that time. For these reasons I would ask the committee to reject the request at this time. BMK (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I re-opened the AN/I thread about the proposed topic ban for AlbinoFerret, which was closed by QuackGuru. Although he started the thread, it does not in any way belong to him, and as a highly involved party he never should have closed it. The views of the community, in the form of the comments of editors both pro- and con-, deserve to be evaluated by an uninvolved admin, and the thread closed on the basis of that evaluation, not as a tactical move by one of the parties involved, especially one who stands to benefit (in the potential opening of the case requested here) if the thread is closed.

I have asked QuarkGuru on his talk page not to close the thread again, and I request that the arbitrators keep on eye on the thread. If QuackGuru closes it again, I believe it would be a disruptive edit, and a sanction should be considered. BMK (talk) 00:57, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Although I've been known to comment on case requests before, I'm not entirely certain of proper procedures. Should involved parties be added to the case unilaterally, as was done here, or does this require permission of some sort? BMK (talk) 01:25, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Euryalus - Thank you. BMK (talk) 03:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Battleground on e-cig articles: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/3/0/2>

• Okay, if QuackGuru, an editor in good standing, is willing to stand as filing party, then awaiting statements. Courcelles (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
• There certainly is a problem here. That being the case, it looks like community discussions to resolve the matter are still ongoing. Statements as to why arbitration is needed over and above that (or why it is not) would be very helpful. Seraphimblade 22:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
• Decline. The e-cigs topic area is a mess at the moment, but it is a mess that the community is working on fixing and I see no reason for us to step in while the AN/I is still ongoing. If after the community resolutions (whatever they turn out to be) have had time to take effect there is still a problem then I'd likely be willing to take a case, but for now this is premature. Thryduulf (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Decline per DGG and Thryduulf. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:37, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: - anyone can propose that another editor is an involved party, though nonsense proposals will be removed. Proposing that someone is an invovled party obligates the proposer to notify them of that fact. Whether they actually are involved is determined by the Committee if the case is accepted. Of course simply being named as "involved" doesn't imply any particular outcome, it just lets people know they should probably pay attention to the proceedings. Equally, being "uninvolved" doesn't stop editor contributing to the case as it goes along. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• Decline for now. With the removal of a persistent sockpuppet, it is very possible that the situation can now be resolved at AN/I. If it proves otherwise, then we can accept it DGG ( talk ) 04:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)