This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Acroterion (talk | contribs) at 16:19, 21 March 2018 (→Does Russia have time travel technology?: history of gaslighting on this subject). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

• WP:ARC

Requests for arbitration

• recent changes
• purge this page
• view or discuss this template

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

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

New Jersey-related AfDs

Initiated by power~enwiki (π, ν) at 17:26, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Power~enwiki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Rusf10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Alansohn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Rusf10
• Alansohn

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Power~enwiki

Alansohn is an editor who has made a large number of edits to articles on New Jersey-related topics. Rusf10 has been active in the Misplaced Pages namespace since November 2017. He has nominated a significant number of New Jersey-related articles for deletion; the community consensus is generally that these nominations are not frivolous in nature.

However, Rusf10's AfD nominations have generated an enormous amount of hostility from several of the users in this area, in particular at the recent discussion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/County executives of Atlantic County, New Jersey. The current discussion at ANI (linked above) does not appear likely to reach any conclusion, and the specific outing allegations are difficult to discuss on an open forum. Neither party seems satisfied by the results so far, and the ANI discussion appears to be repeating itself at this point with no consensus from the community for any actions. The most recent AfD discussion Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Governorship of Phil Murphy appears to still be causing similar issues.

Other users, in particular Unscintillating, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), and Djflem, may need to be added as parties. In particular, Unscintillating was topic-banned from AfD partially due to their responses to Rusf10's nominations, including a variety of "outing" related claims .

@Jayron32: I proposed the TBAN on Rusf10 at AfD, although after seeing the full discussion I agree it was too harsh as a stand-alone proposal and no longer endorse it. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

There appears to be a rough consensus that, as long as the parties heed the sage advice given by committee members and participants at ANI, neither a case nor administrative sanctions on any party are necessary at this time. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:50, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Rusf10

I don't want to repeat everything I already said. As pointed out below there are two other relevant ANIs at and the current one as well . @Smmurphy:Although I do not agree 100% with Smmurphy, I think he/she gave a fair analysis of the situation and I want to take the opportunity to apologize to them for the sockpuppet investigation because I was wrong.
I really don't know the solution to this problem here and not taking a position on whether arbcom should take it up or not. The problem is really the behavior of Alansohn. As I said before he takes ownership of all New Jersey-related articles. It is important to point out, I only nominated a small handful of articles that he created. While he keeps claiming that I am harassing him, he has blasted me at several AfDs where not only did he not create the article, but he didn't even edit it once. For Example . I could go on, there's more, but I'll stop there. He never even edited those articles, not even once, yet he viciously attacked me. This show unquestionably that his claims that I am victimizing him are false.
I also pointed out in the recent ANI that he has attacked other users that vote delete just as viciously and if anyone wants to dig through old ANIs, you will see a pattern of uncivil and ownership behavior spanning many years. What needs to happen is someone has to make it clear to Alansohn his behavior will no longer be tolerated.--Rusf10 (talk) 08:43, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Alansohn:Reading your statement below, makes a great case why should be outright banned. After all this you can't even admit the slightest wrongdoing on your part. Even here, you continue to personally attack me and outright lie. The most offensive part of your statement being where you compare me to a terrorist. That is a new low, even for you. You're obviously stalking my talk page, but why not post the whole conversation? "Even when asked to find ways to de-escalate, Rusf10 has been obstinate in refusing to find ways to work with other editors (see here for one of many such examples)." That is an outright lie. How about posting this diff, where I agree to @Legacypac:'s suggestion Now what good-faith effort are you going to make to deescalate? Nothing, because you refuse to take responsibility for your behavior.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:57, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Alansohn

Blame it on Bill Zanker. I thought that the article provided a strong claim of notability backed by reliable and verifiable source. By contrast, Rusf10 jumped to the conclusion that the only possible reason I could have wanted to retain the article was that "I think what is making you upset here is a conflict of interest WP:COI. I have now noticed that both you and the subject of the article live in the same town. And to be honest with you, the article List of people from Teaneck, New Jersey should not exist and neither should about half the articles on that list. Believe it or not, every mayor of Teaneck does not qualify for an article." (see here). Following up on that threat in early December 2017, Rusf10 immediately began a series of AfDs directly targeted at that threat with Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mayors of Teaneck, New Jersey (a list of mayors of Teaneck; withdrawn as an inappropriate bulk nomination), followed quickly by Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Lizette Parker (a mayor of Teaneck; no consensus, default to keep), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Eleanor Kieliszek (a mayor of Teaneck; keep), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Frank W. Burr (mayor of Teaneck; delete), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/William W. Bennett (a mayor of Teaneck; keep), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mayors of Teaneck, New Jersey (2nd nomination) (a list of mayors of Teaneck; keep), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Steven Weil (a rabbi from Teaneck; delete), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Howard Jachter (another rabbi from Teaneck; keep) among many others too lengthy to list. Despite overwhelming failure in this attack, Rusf10 has persisted with a laser focus on deletion of articles, keeping his aim at me and the articles I've edited even while tossing in a few other articles as a beard to disguise his intentions.

Rusf10's inherent goal of wreaking revenge and obtaining his pound of flesh has turned many of these AfDs into a WP:Battleground. Deletion is the only option. With remarkably limited exceptions, Rusf10 does not comply with WP:BEFORE or Misplaced Pages:Deletion_policy#Alternatives_to_deletion, and has never identified and added sources to articles to address concerns about notability, nor been willing to accept any sources added by me or other editors as acceptable to address concerns legitimate or otherwise. Rusf10 has stubbornly refused to find any compromise, refused to withdraw nominations where consensus is clearly opposed to his efforts and has made persistent accusations of bad faith against those trying to fix the problems he has identified, as at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/County executives of Atlantic County, New Jersey, where the claim was that the article had been created "to circumvent" his deletion efforts and which closed as keep, despite Rusf10's persistent efforts to refuse to accept a thoroughly sourced article I created or extensive added sourcing by Djflem. Even when asked to find ways to de-escalate, Rusf10 has been obstinate in refusing to find ways to work with other editors (see here for one of many such examples).

Creating encyclopedic content is hard work. Finding sources, editing content and creating a web of interconnections requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. I spend 99% of my time editing and improving articles, as do thousands upon thousands of other editors working to build an encyclopedia with content that goes far beyond any one state. At the exact opposite side of the continuum, Rusf10 devotes 99.9% exclusively to deletion, with a rather sharp focus on my edits and those related to my work on Misplaced Pages. We have created tools and utilities that allow editors to nominate for deletion with a single click. It can take seconds for a malicious editor to start the process to destroy content created in good faith with hours, days and weeks of effort. The asymmetric nature of Rusf10's battle means that it is far too easy for a bad faith editor to destroy content than for dozens or even hundreds of editors to create it. Thousands of workers might build a bridge across a river with years of labor, but one terrorist with a few sticks of dynamite in a well-chosen spot can destroy it in seconds.

Misplaced Pages is not a suicide pact. In the battle Rusf10 has created, where articles are being systematically attacked simply because of a geographical connection in one obscure AfD, it's not me that loses, or New Jersey; it's Misplaced Pages. The imposition of a topic ban or a significant throttling of the number of nominations (as proposed by RAN) might help solve the Rusf10 problem. Alansohn (talk) 16:12, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Kurtis

Seeing as this would involve private evidence, it might actually be a good idea for ArbCom to look into it. I know that other venues have yet to be exhausted, but I'm not sure if anything other than a full case will bring this to a resolution. The ANI thread alone shows how messy of a situation it is. Kurtis 17:53, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Prince of Thieves

My username is Prince of Thieves and I am making a statement as the person who initiated the latest WP:AN/I thread. (Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Issue at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Doreen McAndrew DiDomenico requires attention). I started the ANI thread to gain clarification on procedure for an AfD discussion which becoming a trainwreck due to incessant debate over whether a particular article should have been bundled with other similar (but not identical) articles by Rusf10. The articles were about political figures from New Jersey, USA, and had been largely written by Alansohn. I won't go into unnecessary details, but it is explained by me at this diff. The AfD was later closed as "delete all", without changing the bundle.

My understanding is that Alansohn and Rusf10 have been engaged in hostile back and forth over a number of pages for some time. But I only noticed that after the ANI thread became rather heated. Eventually it became a back and forth debate with both Alansohn and Rusf10 accusing each other of various behaviours not conducive to a productive collaborative environment.

I have no opinion on whether an arbitration case should be opened or not, but this hostile situation was very unhelpful for resolving the AfD issues. What should have been a simple resolution of a procedural issue (which itself ought never have needed resolution), was converted into a long argument which included a IBAN proposal, a TBAN proposal, and then back and forth accusations of harassment by Alansohn and Rusf10. It would appear that there have been other occasions where this has happened, but I am not involved in those other incidents, and won't comment on them beyond that.

Prince of Thieves (talk) 18:29, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Jayron32

I attempted to mediate the dispute by proposing an IBAN at ANI in the thread cited above. The proposal had some support, but not enough for full consensus to enact. There was also a proposal by someone else for a TBAN against one of the parties; that was also not enacted. However, following the closure of those two proposed remedies, the parties in question continued to create problems at ANI and elsewhere. Despite evidence of widespread objections to their behavior, they did not take it as a sign to back off, but instead have doubled down on their disruptive dispute, and the whole thing has become a HUGE time sink at ANI; the two sides in the dispute have become intractable, and this has clearly grown outside of the ability of the community to mediate. This seems like the sort of case for ArbCom to be necessary. We've tried options, they haven't worked, and now it is spinning out of control, with no end in sight. --Jayron32 19:03, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: Thanks for clarifying. My main point is that the responses to the two different remedies should have indicated to the parties involved that the community clearly thinks that their dispute was growing out of control, and given them reasons to self-regulate. They seem to be disinclined to do so, given that the dispute has escalated since then. That's why I urge ArbCom to act at this point. --Jayron32 19:11, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Smmurphy

Rusf10 does not seem like a overly disruptive editor, but their contributions to AfD are clearly upsetting other editors and I am not entirely clear why. I have an impression that the reason is that Rusf10 baits editors into anger because they often use "you" statements rather than "I" statements - an issue on both sides here. I have a strong preference that the editors listed who are disputing with Rusf10 continue to be active at AfD, as they are among those who are using AfD as an opportunity to improve existing articles when the subject is encyclopedic in spite of significant problems which brought them to AfD. I also prefer that Rusf10 continue to be active at AfD as a recognize the value in submitting articles to AfD, as they frequently do. I am not truly uninvolved or unbiased as I often work to improve articles on dead politicians and see (and !vote keep) some such figures as suitable for inclusion which Rusf10 has submitted for discussion. I have not been impressed by the discussions that sometimes occur in AfDs where Rusf10 is involved, but fault for that does not lie entirely with them and occasionally some of the fault may even lie with me; although reviewing some AfDs where we disagreed, I don't see any problematic disputes (here is a representative New Jersey-related example).

I have found Rusf10 to be a sometimes frustrating editor to work with, mostly on the basis of their efforts to ensure articles submitted for discussion be deleted in cases of interest to them. My evidence is that I count four submissions of articles to deletion review since December - I was only involved in the first of these. Three of the four are New Jersey related. . They also initiated a sockpuppet investigation against me (Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Smmurphy/Archive) after an IP agreed with me on four AfDs, one of which had a New Jersey connection, and another against User:Bernice McCullers (Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Bernice McCullers/Archive) which was related to a non-New Jersey AfD and was justified.

I sincerely wish the best for all the users involved and am submitting this only to provide a bit more context about Rusf10's behavior in these types of spaces where Alansohn, Unscintillating, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), and Djflem are not involved. I see Rusf10's behavior as more litigious than I would prefer but individually, the examples I have given above do not seem to me to be outside the realm of acceptable conduct. In my opinion, one of the underlying causes of the disruption is a feeling that Rusf10 submits articles to AfD with incomplete consideration of BEFORE and ATD. I don't know if that feeling is justified, Rusf10's nominations are deleted just over 60% of the time . I think that rate is a little below average but is not by itself alarming.

Also, since I don't see these already linked, Rusf10 also has created at least two other discussions at ANI which do relate to one or more of those five users; I find both here (both closed with no action); in addition to the one here which led to the aforementioned TBAN against Unscintillating. Smmurphy 20:52, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Rusf10: Thanks for your acknowledgement - of course I have no hard feelings. I ommitted to say this in my statement, but I have only followed a small-ish sample of the brewing conflict and I have made no effort to discover all sides of the issues. Smmurphy 18:19, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by TonyBallioni

I’d encourage the committee to decline this case. It is fundamentally a content dispute (whether or not we should delete certain articles), and the community has not formed a consensus for any sanctions in this area. If there is actual evidence of outing, that can be forwarded to the committee without a case. The core dispute, however, falls well short of an ArbCom matter IMO, and the committee would likely have a difficult task ahead treading the line between conduct issues and the content dispute. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:05, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Richard Arthur Norton

At least ban from using PROD and no more than one AFD nomination per week, I see no evidence of him doing the extensive research required BEFORE using PROD on an article. The four articles I worked on went from PROD to being saved. That work should have been done prior to nomination by the nominator themself. If I had not noticed them they would have been automatically deleted. No one can do all the needed research when there are a dozen nominations at once. There were so many deletions bundled together last week that I just gave up, despite one of the new nominations having an obituary in the New York Times. --RAN (talk) 13:53, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by TheGracefulSlick

Per this, it appears one side of the table has taken some steps required to resolve this issue. If anyone is to do anything, it would be for Alansohn to stop making baseless claims of outing, and following Rus around as much as he believes Rus is following him. The AFDs, while upsetting for Alan, are largely productive in removing unnotable subjects.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mendaliv

From all appearances this should be declined. There is a conduct dispute here, but the way the case request is framed, I don't believe it satisfies the ripeness or exhaustion of remedies doctrines the Committee generally imposes. While I cannot say whether a case about any of the named parties specifically (with regard to their general conduct up to and including this dispute) would be appropriate, such a case request would be more appropriate than what's before the Committee at this moment.

This would be a good time to remind the community that the Committee's jurisdiction is highly discretionary, and that a compelling showing that the community cannot resolve the dispute must be made. That the community is unwilling to resolve a dispute, has not resolved a dispute satisfactorily as to all parties, or merely that no consensus has been reached as to a way to resolve the dispute are not enough under the current arbitration policy. Sometimes disputes shouldn't be resolved by outside involvement, and while I am not saying this is one of those disputes, there needs to be a principled way to distinguish between cases where the community has not acted because action is not merited, and cases where the community has not acted because of a complete failure of community procedures to produce any reasonable result. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 15:08, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Robert McClenon

This request is unlike the recent case of Joefromrandb in that it hasn't been going on for years. There are content and conduct issues that need to be dealt with. The community has not yet succeeded in dealing with the issue of tendentious editing about New Jersey, but the community needs more time to deal with the issues. I would urge the ArbCom, when it declines this case, which I urge the ArbCom to do, nonetheless to caution the parties and to remind the community that it has a responsibility to deal with the issues. There probably is a need for topic bans, but the community should be allowed to impose them.

There is no obvious reason why there should be battleground editing in the area of New Jersey. Battleground editing is typically a problem in areas that have been real battlegrounds in historical memory, either actual memory, or memory kept alive so that the past not only isn't dead, but isn't even past. The last battles in New Jersey were about 240 years ago, and, unlike the American Civil War, Americans do not refight the American Revolutionary War even if they re-enact it. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:16, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I have been told that all of the articles being fought over have to do with politicians. In that case, discretionary sanctions are already doubly available for American politics and biographies of living persons. I suggest that the case be declined and the disruption dealt with by the usual effective and draconian means of arbitration enforcement. Either the community or the administrators can apply the topic-bans, and this case is not likely to come back in six months after the community does not solve it. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:40, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Doncram

The ANI thread provides clear and convincing evidence of wp:HARASSMENT by Rusf10 against Alansohn. Rusf10 is clearly stalking. This is unacceptable. I support permanent ban of Rusf10 from Misplaced Pages entirely. --Doncram (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by User:Reyk

I urge the arbitration committee not to take up this case. The issues involved go beyond just Alansohn and Rusf10's squabbling and I think we need a more general discussion on those issues, but this more specific dispute is probably not a good way to go about it. If someone has edited hugely in a subject area of their interest, to what extent does repeated, persistent, and annoying involvement by other editors constitute harassment? To what extent does opposing those new editors amount to WP:OWN? In any event, the outing accusations are incorrect; you don't get to cry "outing" if your user name is your real name and somebody refers to you by it.

Question from Beyond My Ken

It looks to me as if one of the biggest hurdles preventing the community from reaching a possible solution to this problem is the continued sniping between Alansohn and Rusf10. Would the Committee, or any individual arbitrator or non-arb admin, consider issuing a temporary gag order to both of them, forbidding them to comment about the other while the AN/I thread is open? They, obviously, should still be allowed to comment on any formal proposals, but could be directed to comment on the proposal itself, and not make direct comments on the other party. The gag order would be automatically lifted when a proposal is accepted by the community, or when the AN/I thread is closed by an uninvolved admin.

Any interest in this? Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:22, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mangoe

I remain perplexed by the level of drama over this. The one AfD that seems to be the focus on this could have gotten over the ostensible objection made with a perfectly obvious split-out which was suggested and ignored in favor of making hay over the supposedly problematic inclusion. the more fundamental issue is that there are a lot of at best marginally notable NJ political figures and related articles (e.g. lists of mayors of tiny townships) which in my opinion don't pass WP:GNG and which therefore cry out for deletion. Looking at Rusf10's contributions in AfD land, yes there are a lot of them, but the pattern seems more built around the kind of article rather than specific contributors, and NJ-related articles are not a particularly large proportion of the last several months, at least not as I sample them. Mangoe (talk) 21:59, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by L293D

• Comment Maybe we could just ban Rusf10 from nominating articles created by Alansohn for AFD. Nobody seems to have proposed this as a standalone option. L293D (☎ • ✎) 22:10, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Eggishorn

A small bit of background may be necessary on why New Jersey political topics, and political topics in northern New Jersey in particular, are liable to create difficulty. In the late 19th century, substantial communities were subdivided and sub-subdivided into entities that would be small towns or villages or even unincorporated communities elsewhere in the U.S.. This means that there is a surplus of people holding seemingly-notable positions such as mayors. The crux of the dispute is the question of whether these positions and their holders are truly notable. This is a question that ArbCom should not be answering unless the normal processes fail completely. The evidence so far produced shows only that two individuals are taking that question very personally, not the level of process failure that requires ArbCom involvement. Standard admin tools and community remedies should be able to restrain a two-person interpersonal conflict and it is premature to assume that they won't. I recommend declining for these reasons. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:13, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Advisement by Legacypac

I've worked with several other uninvolved editors to craft a set of restrictions that are as narrow as possible but should resolve the conflict. I've secured Rusf10's agreement to a TBAN on AfD and PROD for all Alansohn creations/substantial contribution pages, but Alansohn rejected an IBAN that would be the counterside to the TBAN. I've therefore proposed the IBAN at ANi for community voting. I believe this plan is in line with ARB and most other feedback on this case. Legacypac (talk) 20:37, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

@User:L293D and @PMC. Rusf10 has accepted a TBAN on nominating Alansohn involved pages but Alansohn admits he has an alert system that ensures he goes to every NJ related AfD, where he savages Rusf10. A NJ TBAN is unwarranted for Rusf10. I'm hopeful the IBAN with attached TBAN will pass. So far the only opposed are Alansohn plus one vote against 1 way IBANs generally and one who prefers the failed proposal of a two way IBAN. Legacypac (talk) 14:24, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Excelse

Seems like ANI still has some chance to sort this out. Excelse (talk) 06:20, 16 March 2018 (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.

New Jersey-related AfDs: Clerk notes

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

New Jersey-related AfDs: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/4/0>-New_Jersey-related_AfDs-2018-03-08T18:58:00.000Z">

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

• @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), Djflem, and Unscintillating: Please be advised you have been mentioned in a statement by the filing party. The way WP:PING works requires a signature in order for a notification to be sent, so I am notifying you separately. Mkdw 18:58, 8 March 2018 (UTC)"> ">

• Some good suggestions have been made at the ANI thread. I am inclined to wait to see if a consensus emerges and a community outcome is successfully imposed. Previous sections like 'Even more incivility by Alansohn' and 'Dealing with chronic WP:HARASS by Rusf10' clearly demonstrate some form of intervention is required. Mkdw 18:57, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Awaiting the outcome at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed IBAN against User:Alansohn. Mkdw 20:47, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

• Awaiting statements. This seems like it should be resolvable by the parties, but the ANI thread so far suggests otherwise. I would like to hope that WP:ARBNJ can remain a redlink, but we shall see. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:14, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not ignoring this, but waiting a bit before voting in the hope that the parties can de-escalate the situation, and following the discussion on ANI. The calls for site-bans seem excessive, so some other resolution does need to be reached, whether voluntarily or on the moticeboard or if necessary by us. Newyorkbrad (talk) 10:00, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
• Decline because it seems the community is taking steps forward here. In particular, the topic ban on Unscintillating was action that helped to resolve aspects of the dispute. All potential restrictions here could be enacted by the community, and most haven't been tested at ANI yet. The extreme steps of an IBAN and complete topic ban failed, but that doesn't mean more minor restrictions (throttles on nominations, etc) would fail. Start that discussion if the problem is ongoing. ~ Rob₁₃ 16:26, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
• Accept The community has not resolved the matter and is unlikely. The situation involves personal behavior as well as the content question at AfD, and we have taken cases involving such interactions at AfD. It was suggested we have no jurisdiction if the community is unwilling to resolve a dispute, in contrast to not resolving resolve the dispute; I consider the community being unwilling and the dispute persisting to be one of the manners in which the community is not resolving a dispute. DGG ( talk ) 00:21, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Rechecking ANI, I think progress is being made there, so this may well be settled without us . DGG ( talk ) 09:49, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

• Decline I just read the ANI thread, and I feel slightly dumber now. First of all, the event precipitating this escalation in dispute resolution - the argument over whether or not to un-bundle the AfD nomination of a single article that was heading for deletion either way - is exceedingly WP:LAME. The IBAN proposal at ANI may have failed, but that doesn't mean "leave each other the hell alone" isn't the answer here. Although the articles in question are mostly (all?) about living people, I don't see any BLP violations, or claims thereof; they're just borderline-notable. We have lots of borderline-notable articles and those that are not busily attracting BLP violations, spam, or other content problems are not emergencies and do not specifically require any single individual to deal with them. My recommendation is that Rusf10 either focuses his deletion-related efforts on something other than New Jersey, or focuses his New Jersey-related efforts on something other than deletion; and that Alansohn significantly reduces his participation in NJ-related AfDs should others make them. It's not immediately clear if article-creation problems are still ongoing, but the ones I spot-checked were started in 2005, and Alansohn's recent creations look at first glance to be unproblematic. Both sides accuse the other of harassment and hounding; if you stop interacting about content, you won't have any reason to interact at all, and the conflict should cease. It would be much better to just agree to do that now than to end up with that result or some variation of it after six weeks of mudslinging. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:12, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Decline It does appear that there is some effort to resolve this without the need for ArbCom to step in. Deescalating is what seems to be the key here, and as DGG states, progress is being made on the ANI thread. RickinBaltimore (talk) 11:28, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Decline for now on the basis that progress is being made on the ANI thread; hopefully both parties can agree to step away from one another and deescalate this without our intervention. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:09, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

L293D, that's actually one of the proposals that Legacypac floated at the ANI a couple days ago, although the discussion seems to have stalled and Alansohn has not responded to any of the proposals. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:18, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Does Russia have time travel technology?

Initiated by B01010100 (talk) at 14:27, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Involved parties

• B01010100 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• The page's talk page which was swiftly removed by a conspiracist editor
• ANI which was also swiftly closed by a conspiracist editor

Statement by B01010100

As per the earlier dispute resolution attempts, a group of editors camps the Su-25 page, threatening with sanctions editors and removing talk page comments who do not subscribe to some bizarre conspiracy theory where purportedly Russians traveled back in time to "manipulate sources" on the Su-25's flight specifications. They claim that they are authorized to do this because this is the ArbCom's position. Can the ArbCom clearly state that, indeed, their position is that:

1. Russia has access to time travel technology.

2. Russia has conspired to use said technology to travel back in time to "manipulate sources" on the Su-25's flight specifications.

If the ArbCom fails to clearly support that position, can it then explain how this particular conspiracy theory is supposed to work? How can Russia have decided in July 2014 to "manipulate sources" published years earlier without having access to time travel technology?

If the ArbCom does not support this particular conspiracy theory, then with what authority do these editors intimidate into silence other editors who wish to discuss the Su-25's flight specifications on that article's talk page?

Statement by NeilN

I have blocked B01010100 indefinitely. --NeilN 15:00, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, I understand it's a rhetorical device. But constantly using it (even here) is deeply disruptive and indicates the editor is unwilling to engage in serious conversation with others or is unable to refute their points without resorting to surrounding responses with nonsense. --NeilN 15:59, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Acroterion

It appears that we're getting some new activity to prepare the ground for the resurrection of old Russian conspiracy theories concerning Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Back in 2014 there was a lot of manipulation of Misplaced Pages articles, particularly on the Russian WP, to try to provide that it was possible for a Russian Su-25 to fly high enough to shoot down MH 17. Whether or not this is really possible, I don't know, but the factoid is less relevant than the fact that it was part of a gaslighting campaign against Misplaced Pages, which was picked up and reported by The Economist and Popular Science , both of which are prominently noted at the top of Talk:Sukhoi Su-25. The accounts and IPs that have been complaining that they're not being taken seriously have carefully avoided even acknowledging this issue, which was discussed in great detail in 2014 by a different set of editors. None of this in reality has to do with relatively obscure data on flight characteristics of an airplane, it's all about casting blame for the shootdown of MH 17. Acroterion (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2018 (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.

Does Russia have time travel technology?: Clerk notes

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

Does Russia have time travel technology?: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/1/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

• Use the time travel technology, travel a few days into the future, and see that this request is declined. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:32, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • As a more serious comment, I don't believe that B01010100 is actually claiming that "time travel technology" exists; he is using "time travel" as a rhetorical device to emphasize that on his interpretation, events could not have taken place as other editors are suggesting because the events took place in a different order from the one posited. Whether this is correct or not I have no idea, but the repeated references to "time travel" have become a distraction, and if he is ever unblocked (on which I express no view), I suggest he find a very different way of framing his concern. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:37, 21 March 2018 (UTC)