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Dilip rajeev

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Dilip rajeev

User requesting enforcement:
Ohconfucius (talk) 02:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested:
Dilip rajeev (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated:

• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong#Article_probation: "Falun Gong and all closely related articles are placed on article probation. It is expected that the articles will be improved to conform with Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, and that information contained in them will be supported by verifiable information from reliable sources. The articles may be reviewed on the motion of any arbitrator, or upon acceptance by the Arbitration Committee of a motion made by any user. Users whose editing is disruptive may be banned or their editing restricted as the result of a review. Passed 7 to 1 at 06:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)"
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong#Point_of_view_editing
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong#Wikipedia_is_not_a_battleground
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Falun_Gong#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Sathya Sai Baba#Removal of poorly sourced negative information
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Sathya_Sai_Baba#Removal of poorly sourced information

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it:
Dilip rajeev (talk · contribs) has been editing Falun Gong articles (almost exclusively) since February 2006. He has a habit of disappearing (i.e. not editing in article space or talk space) for weeks on end. When he returns, he frequently reverts to the last version he feels comfortable with irrespective of the individual merits of each of the changes because the changes which took place were not to his liking. Such reverts are usually done without due reference to the discussions which have taken place during his absence. Some diffs immediately below, show this modus operandi

• this one single edit, made following an absence of 12 days, undid 36 intermediate edits made by others during this time.

His habit of making radical reverts is a matter of historical record. Some examples of this tendency are below:

• This is his first intervention as Diip rajeev since the blocking of Inactive user account. He reverted 43 edits made by others while he was away for 26 days' absence.

• reverted 44 edits by others in one fell swoop after 7 days' absence

For myself and a number of neutral editors who have joined the Falun Gong wikiproject, Dilip's latest reverts to the 'Self Immolation' and 'Organ harvesting' articles have become the last straw in our tolerance of his disruptive behaviour.

NPOV at Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

The following is a brief history of the significant edits which took place after the article was declared a Good Article through collaborative work by me and User:asdfg12345. The radical changes put through by Dilip rajeev to a good article were all done within a period of about a week, without prior substantive discussion to speak of:

• This exchange shows clearly how Dilip rajeev railroaded changes against all other opinions, including that of asdfg. The information about the victims deleted was just one of many very overtly biased changes made to the article. That information was sourced from Xinhua in much the same way as Dilip rajeev's stuff sourced from Faluninfo, and has every right to exist in the article. To omit it introduces undue bias. Furthermore, of the material which I "blanked", there was considerable repetition. We only need grouped representative opinions, and there is no rhyme or reason why we need to collect each and everybody's opinion. Below, I have a collection of the significant diffs where the unacceptable bias has been introduced, comments and objections, as well as his accusing EgraS and me of engaging of sockpuppetry:

• this demonstration of bad faith
• another demonstration of bad faith
• this series of edits introduces very obvious pro-FG bias.
• gratuitous accusation of 'vandalism'
• citing his favourite FG-aligned journalist
• removal of text 'Later reports' without summary
• added one partisan text and cherry-picked another
• deliberate introduction of weasel words without changing attribution/refs
• this series of edits introduces very obvious pro-FG bias.
• revert of Egra's edit "EgraS / Oconfucious. Stop vandlaizing the pages. You cannot accusse material from reporters such as Ian Johnson of being "biased" and stop misusing the NPOV tag. " (note: Ohconfucius' last edit dates to 6 August 2008)

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required by the remedy):

1. Dilip rajeev block log
2. Inactive user account 001 block log

• He was given this final warning on 16 May 2009.

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction):

Falun Gong

He is a habitual disruptive editor whose aggressive and partisan edits have been the subject of numerous comments and complaints from other users, including fellow practitioner User:asdfg12345. Dilip rajeev has been warned repeatedly against edit-warring, and has been blocked a number of times - the last time was a 3 month topic ban; prior to that was a block of 55 hours. I believe that, in view of his continued disruption since the topic ban and the total lack of any mitigating collaborative successes, an indefinite ban from Misplaced Pages editing Falun Gong-related articles or their talk pages. would be in order; he should also be banned from any edit which potentially touches on Falun Gong, for example on the Communist Party of China, Jiang Zemin, Cult suicide, Censorship in the People's Republic of China etc.

Sathya Sai Baba

In view of his disruption at Sathya Sai Baba articles as demonstrated above, as well as by User:Radiantenergy below, I request a ban on editing of all articles related to same to minimise Dilip rajeev's disruption to the project overall, and serve to protect his personal safety and that of his family against the wrath of Baba supporters. I also request that he should also be banned from any edit which potentially touches on Sathya Sai Baba. This would appear to be justified as Baba is another 'hot topic' which has already been the subject of two Arbcom cases.

Additional comments by Ohconfucius (talk):

Background

There is a protracted, large-scale propaganda war between the spiritual movement and the Chinese regime. The polariation makes it much, much harder to deal with, as there are activists on both sides. Both sides use exaggerated 'evidence', borrowed 'experts', sensationalist claims and other forms of propaganda to attack each other. "NPOV" becomes very delicate - as both sides clearly have an agenda against the other, there will be routine disruptions from both sides. No revision of articles is ever stable.

The propaganda war manifested itself on Misplaced Pages in 2006, with anti-Falun Gong activists and pro-Falun Gong practitioners constantly opposing each other and engaging in disruptive editing. To my knowledge, after arbitration, all of the anti-FLG editors (Sam Luo, Tomanada, etc.) were banished. As a result, since June 2007 and until mediation in July 2009, the Falun Gong family of articles have become unmistakably dominated by pro-Falun Gong activists. These articles all suffer from serious POV issues heavily biased in favour of Falun Gong, and are used as direct advocacy for the Falun Gong movement; users from all backgrounds (including those who are anti-Chinese gov't) have raised concerns - but all have been either discouraged by the drama, or their attempts at other means of dispute resolution have failed.

Conflict of Interest

Dilip rajeev is a Falun Gong practitioner, and edits Falun Gong articles almost exclusively since 2006 along with a team of 3 other very easily identifiable FLG activist editors - asdfg12345 (talk · contribs), Olaf Stephanos (talk · contribs), and HappyInGeneral (talk · contribs). After the ban of Anti-FLG users Sam Luo and Tomanada, this group of Falun Gong practitioners have seemingly taken over all Falun Gong-related articles. All four users, to varying degrees, erase critical content, engage in lengthy advocacy commentary on talk pages, tag-team against other editors. Rajeev in particular shows very little respect for any users who wish to bring balance to articles, by sundry disruptive tactics and tendentious editing. These 1

• 2 attempts (amongst others) by fellow activist asdfg to rein him in have never had much effect.

In my experience, Rajeev has shown great animosity when non-FG devotees edit this article. There has been a long history of unchecked edit warring, even over the placement of {{NPOV}} tags. Such tags are routinely removed (as here) with not so much as a 'how do you do', as if the contents suddenly become neutral when the tag disappears. Reverts are usually very provocatively done - blind and wholescale, often destroying many intervening edits which have accurate and well-reasoned edit summaries - and any ensuing discussion makes clear that the user is always 'right' and anyone who opposes him 'wrong'. Anything which is sourced from sources he approves of have a right to stay and any sources he disapproves of are "CCP propaganda" or somesuch. Dilip rajeev's tendency to introduce ironic quotes (like here) and weasel words are already mentioned above. Not only is he completely and blindly partisan, Dilip rajeev often expresses points of view which are unique; his style and content introduced have been frowned upon from time to time by most others, and also by asdfg.

In all Falun Gong articles, misrepresentation of sources has been endemic, and these four abovenamed editors are known to back up each other's problematic edits. They occasionally concede when it is clearly demonstrated that misrepresentations exist. However, more often than not, the neutralising revision provokes another flurry of introducing "highly sourced material" ostensibly to 'restore balance', but which usually tilt bias back in favour of Falun Gong; some such introductions give their cause the last word. Adding, removing, restructuring, moving, or otherwise changing any material that appears to upset the pro-FG bias in any of the articles is met with the same tactics.

Dilip rajeev's stated view that nothing from the Chinese authorities is worthy of citing because it is unreliable propaganda demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of what is WP:NPOV. He is known to endlessly pontificate on moral questions, and lawyer around citing paragraphs of WP:RS and WP:NPOV to support whatever position he favours in regards to a certain link or source. He maintains a website which he uses as Falun Gong advocacy. It seems that he passionately believes the persecution of Falun gong practitioners at the hands of the Chinese authorities, and is unable to put these views to one side when he is editing; and when he edits, it is with such great fervour and aggression that leaves little or no place for others who wish to contribute.

• pontification of 'Persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
• Here, he uses moralistic arguments in an apparent defense of denying platform for the "lot of mis-information and lies on Falun Gong" spread by the CCP
• again here
• In this edit, he apparently argues "highly sourced" is sufficient to achieve WP:NPOV
• here is another example.

I would add that the above edits from the 'self-immolation' article demonstrate a pattern of behaviour which can be seen throughout his editing in FGverse. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with inserting text favouring one viewpoint, to continue to do so and to ignore the other viewpoints (and all those who support it) when an article manifestly lacks balance is problematic. There are numerous discussions in which he openly advocates Falun Gong, the principles of "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance". He appears only to able to observe only twoone of the three 'virtues' ("truthfulness"), and even so, he appears to do it with his rose-coloured spectacles.

Sathya Sai Baba

Arbcom will already know about sockpuppet account. From this, it can be seen how he ran User:Inactive user account 001, the sock apparently to protect himself against members of the Baba cult.

• this edit in Jan 2009 demonstrates the same modus operandi (insertion of bias, use of ironic quotes) as in the Falun Gong articles. The account was blocked indefinitely in May 2009 after edit warring which resulted in his real identity being outed here by his adversary there.

After said sock account was blocked, he continued to repeatedly edit war at Sathya Sai Baba

• 1 2 3 edits in an edit war in Baba article (he crushed 13 explained changes with revert number 3)

Dilip rajeev creates an ambiance of intolerance and hostility, leaving behind a trail of breaches of WP:NPOV, 3RR and other guidelines wherever he goes. He is responsible, in whole or in part, for driving away a number of neutral editors from the Falun Gong articles. His editing Sathya Sai Baba demonstrate his propensity to be controversial; his forays there are nothing short of spectacular drama. He has demonstrated that he is incapable of working with others who do not share the same views as himself, and I am regrettably of the conclusion, after observing numerous attempts by myself and other editors to discuss, negotiate and mediate, and after many months of suffering his various antics and POV-pushing, that Misplaced Pages is best off without him. A wholescale indefinite ban is warranted to end this editor's disruption of wikipedia, once and for all. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested:

• Notification has been served Ohconfucius (talk) 02:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
• Because of his habit of frequent absence, I also sent him the following email:

Arbitration enforcement‏

From: oh confucius (ohconfucius@hotmail.com)
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 4:19:41 AM
To: dilip_rajeev@msn.com

I wish to inform you that an arbitration enforcement case concerning your behaviour has been filed here.

Ohconfucius (talk) 04:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I continue to be baffled by the discussion below concerning the scope of authority of admins in this matter. I would just point out that in January 2008, Dilip rajeev was topic banned for 3 months without coming to AE; prior to that was a block of 55 hours. Olaf Stephanos was also given a 6 month topic ban recently here at AE for just such a violation. Ohconfucius (talk) 17:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Per Shell's comment, I have now realised that Samuel Luo was only topic banned indefinitely, but though it was a site ban. I have now amended the request above. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Reaction to asdfg's comments: My only ideology is WP:NPOV. If Dilip's latest reverts to the 'Self Immolation' and 'Organ harvesting' articles are part of Dilip's latest "improvements", I would hate to see what getting worse is like. He may be good at sourcing, but note that he frequently hides behind the "highly sourced material" as defense against removing any text which he wants to stay. Ohconfucius (talk) 13:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion concerning Dilip rajeev

Statement by Dilip rajeev

Well, a lot of accusations and all of them absolutely baseless.

1. Clarifying the Sock Accussation

I'll start with the sock accusation regarding the Sai Baba page. The "Sai Baba" topic being an extremely sensitive topic here in India, and any criticism of which could potentially result in threat on my safety as well as my family's safety, I had wanted anonymity when contributing to the pages( Ref: BBC Documentary, Secret Swami)( Even 70 year olds have been attacked in the very state where I live for exposing critical information on this person.) All my contributions there has been well sourced - to the BBC, The Times, The Guardian, The DTV, etc. It was a legitimate alternate account. Admins had also agreed there was no evidence of abusive socking from that account. Further, I had informed the arbcom, in a mail in February, regarding the account.

A newly registered editor, wanting to find out the real identity of the alternate account, started an SPA case against me - admins who were mislead by the manner in which the user presented the case initially mistook my account for a sock, revealing the identity of my alternate account. Shortly following this revelation of info, people related to the sai baba group had a large scale attack launched against me on several blogs and website.

Admins suggested that I rename the original alternate account and I did. That I "returned to edit warring" on the pages is a baseless mis-characterization. It is not uncommon on wikipedia for editors to get cornered and attacked when their contributions are not in- line with other's POV.

The above user had attacked me with claims along the same lines here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Dilip_rajeev/Archive

And he was clearly told by the admins that I had not operated any abusive socks.

2.The Tiananmen Square Page

The article had remained stable in this version for over a year : http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident&oldid=300212095

The above User, Ohconfucius, came and and reverted it to a two year old revision - ignoring the pages of discussion that resulted in the newer version.

The user refuses to focus on the content being blanked out by his revision while attacking, personally, editors like me who bring up concerns on such a revert - chosing to base it ona "good article" comment.

The information and sources that got blanked out in the revert to the two year old version includes:

• Clive Ansley's statement from the CBC documentary
• Ian Johnson
• Danny Schechter
• RSF ( Reporters Sans Frontiers )
• Beatrice Turpin of Associated Press
• Ownby
• A centrally relevant image (which was part of the article for years).

And above are among the best sources and most notable sources available to us on the topic.

None of this removal was on the basis of any consensus. I had raised my concerns to the effect on talk, pointed things out clearly, requested that if any well sourced info from the two year old version ( which is extremely biased on builds on CCP propaganda ) be missing in the newer version, it be identified and incorporated into the newer article. PLease see my comment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident#Carification_from_Dilip

I attempted a single revert to the stable version with the comment:"Please see talk page. The revision of the stable article to a two year old version, with no consensus/discussion, had blanked of several prominent 3rd party sources. Kindly see talk."

I was quickly reverted back by the above user, who, refusing to focus on the content, cast a set of baseless, distorted and misleading accusations against me. I refrained from any further revert to avoid a meaningless revert war.

3.The Organ Harvestation Page

It is true that I reverted to an approx. 10 day old version. But I was unaware of the discussions going on talk when I did the revert. Over 40 KB of centrally relevant, well sourced information as from Amnesty, Kilgour Matas, US COngress, etc., I had noticed, was removed in a series of edits. All images on the pages, showing statistic from the KM reports etc. had gotten removed as well.

I brought up the issue on the main page of Falun Gong article. I reproduce my comments, requesting admin attention, in their entirety below. I had pointed out I did the revert and was requesting admin attention to the revert as well as to the current state of affairs in the article.

Requesting admin attention on the organharvesting sub-page

Kindly review the flurry of changes that have happened in the the past couple of weeks: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Reports_of_organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China&diff=309220914&oldid=309152359

A 66 KB article, every sentence in which had been highly sourced, has got reduced to a 26 Kb stub. Could admins kindly review such changes - the article comes under the probation placed by the ArbCom on these pages.

I have attempted to restore the page as of around Aug 8th, when this flurry of removal started -and not just info sourced to Amnesty, Congressional Reports, Kilgour Matas reports, etc. have been blanked out but several centrally relevant images from the KM reports have been blanked out as well.

Requesting kind attention on the issue. Dilip rajeev (talk) 09:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Kindly see http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident#Carification_from_Dilip. The page was reverted to a two year old revision - in the process blanking out several pages of content sourced to western academia. I merely restored this removal of info on a stable article, requesting that we discuss and make changes based on consensus - incorporating stuff from the two year old revision that might be missing in the stable article. While the user accuses me of "blanking two weeks of work" on The Tiananmenn square page, he choses to ignore that what I did was merely undo the user's revert to a two year old version ( an edit that ignored completely years' of work on the page).

I request admins to kindly go through/ compare the revisions and see for themselves.

The same pattern has occured on almost all related pages - and by the same set of users in the past two weeks. Li Hongzhi article has had info removed , addition of several paras of info irreleavent to the individual's notability, in violation of WP:BLP , etc. Persecution of Falun Gong article has undergone such changes as well.

I'd also like to point out that these flurry of changes started at around the same time as these comments were made by the same users involved in the changes. The "discussion" and "consensus" that resulted in the removal of all this info has been largely between the editors engaged in the below exchanges.

• Seb az86556 on Ohconfucius' talk page: "you did well in keeping the this Olaf-guy at bay, and I can see now why the Falun Gong thing you emailed about will be "total war"..."

• Colipon on Edward130603's talk page: "Anyway, do you have e-mail?"

• Colipon on Mrund's talk page: "I'd sent you an e-mail today. Please check! :)"

• Ohconfucius on Mrund's talk page: "I'm glad you're back. Drop me an email, I'd like a private chat with you."

I'd also like to point out that am not accusing all editors involved in the conversation. Mrund, for instance, just received these comments on talk and there is little evidence of him being involved in the recent removal of info on these pages.

As regards the removal of info on a 66KB stable article - reducing it to a 26 KB article, another stable page being reverted to a two year old revision ,etc. I'd like to point out that the very majority of info removed in the process are material centrally relevant- sourced to western academia, Human rights bodies, etc. - Amnesty, AP, Congressional Reports, a Yale Univ Thesis, Kilgour Matas Reports,etc. I point this out because, in the past, we have witnessed such blanking being covered up by claims to the effect that it was primary sources such as ET or Faluninfo.net that was removed. Demonstratably, and very clearly, it is reliable 3rd party sources being blanked out here. In all of these pages, primary sources such as Faluinfo.net are very sparingly used ( despite that they are identified as being reliable by scholars such as David Ownby.)

Dilip rajeev (talk) 11:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I was reverted by Ohconfucius , whose edit summary ran: "rvv - where's the discussion?". I pointed out I had brought up the issue on the main page . When I was reverted again, I refrained from doing any more reverts, again to avoid an unnecessary edit war and thought would bring up the issue in detail on the article's talk when I find more time.

The 10 day old version I reverted to is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Reports_of_organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China&oldid=309225056 ( 66KB article, content stable for a almost a year )

The version from which I reverted ( the current version, after removal of 40 K info and ALL images) is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Reports_of_organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China&oldid=309223036 ( 26 KB article )

If reviewing admins even causally compare the two versions, what motivated me to attempt restore all the info removed would be apparent.

Comments by other editors

Comment by antilived

I cannot express how much I appreciate User:DilipRajeev's effort to copy his rant verbatim to here, it makes life so much easier. As he himself said it, he was unaware of the talk page discussions (which should mean he is aware now?) and reverted a whole bunch of well discussed changes on the organ harvesting page. That itself is typical of WP:OWN behaviour, which seemed pandemic across all the FLG pages. But not only that presumably after he has become aware of the discussions he did not revert back his own edit, did not participate in the discussion, and instead posted a long winded rant on an unrelated page requesting admin intervention. The same thing happened last time I dealt with him, moving the issue right up to the WP:AN/I, accusing me of "adding in material from a clearly propagandistic video", "vandalism", "dis-information", the lot, while we were carrying out a conversation to resolve the matter. This, in my opinion, is clearly disruptive, inflammatory (that incident partly caused my hiatus on Misplaced Pages) and completely without remorse. --antilived 09:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Response to Asdfg12345 If by having an ideology of that an encyclopedia should have a neutral point of view opposes Dilip's ideology, I'll gladly be his "ideological opponent" (unless you are accusing every one of us being CCP propagandists?). The only criteria for his edits is to improve the outlook of FLG in Misplaced Pages articles (I can go add lots and lots of poorly written, poorly sourced text that praises FLG and he'd have no problems for it). By his criteria there can never be enough "discussion" to warrant a change that puts FLG in a more negative light (although I can hardly say it's specific to him, it's certainly the most prominent).

a small side-note: Asdfg12345 raises a good issue here, it's quite obvious that all the people that regard Dilip highly are FLG-practitioners. Maybe it IS an ideological issue after all? --antilived 07:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by PerEdman

Dilip rajeev states that he was unaware of discussions going on in talk when he reverted two weeks worth of good-faith collaborative edits. He could have investigated it and being the one who performed the revert, he should have created such a discussion, but he did not. Because this is not the first time he has done so, it is far too late to claim ignorance as a defense. I don't know what to make of this. I suppose it's possible, as Ohconfucius writes, that he's a devoted Falun Gong practitioner who cannot bear to see other sources represented and therefore acts in this way. What I can say is that it's disrupting a volatile subject matter. The terms in which he defends himself above are sadly typical. The edits made are "attacks", he is being "attacked" when demands are made that he follow WP:BRD or WP:NPOV. Such partisan behavior can be handled on many subject matters, but in the Falun Gong articles, on probation, with a very strong partisan conflict between the Chinese Communist Part and Falun Gong, it is extremely disruptive. I'm sorry to say that I believe the editing climate on these pages will be improved without the poorly-motivated reverts and deletions repeatedly made by Dilip rajeev in the past. As a final note, I do not believe a blanket ban is necessary at this point - an indefinite subject ban from all articles on Falun Gong and possibly China subjects would allow the editor to grow into a well-rounded, constructive Misplaced Pages contributor in areas where he can maintain a semblance of objectivity.  / Per Edman 09:38, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Response to comment by HappyInGeneral

If Dilip has the time to be Bold and Revert, it is not unreasonable to expect hir to take the time to Discuss as well. To revert without discussion can obviously be quite disruptive to a probationary article that needs no more drama.  / Per Edman 21:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Respose to comment by Asdfg12345

This is not a place of discussion, but the claim that critics are "ideological opponents" of Dilip rajeev begs the question: what ideology would that be?  / Per Edman 22:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Enric Naval

Confirming that there is a group of editors resisting the insertion of any criticism in Falun Gong articles, that this has stalled editors who keep trying to balance that articles (myself I tried to make a few changes), and that the articles have benefited from boldly ignoring unreasonable objections raised by these users. A topic ban of Dilip rajeev from anything related to Falun Gong would help improve those articles and would reduce the level of persistent advocacy. Topic ban should include making any edit that makes reference to Falun Gong stuff in any article or talk page in any namespace, broadly constructed. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

See clarification, admins can impose topic bans of their own. Can someone hand the topic ban to Dilip rajeev and close this? --Enric Naval (talk) 21:32, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments by PCPP

I was involved in long term edit disputes with Dilip, who has has demonstrated his lack of good faith previously by:

• has a habit of continued edit warring
• running false checkuser claims against Ohconfucius
• accused me of being an "vandal" and "propagandist" over content dispute at FLG articles
• bad faith attacks against Antilived, accused of being a PRC propagandist
• another bad faith attack against bobby_fletcher, using an external source that accuses him of being a Chinese spy.

Most of the other issues were already mentioned by Colipon and Ohconfucius above. Basically, his method of destructive editing involve:

• Persumed ownership of articles. He often adds large chunks of material without discussion, while revert edits he doesn't like on sight. This often involves simply article tags, particularly in the Tiananmen Square self-immolation and organ harvesting articles. He cannot seem to grasp the concept of discussion before inserting controversial edits.
• Wikilawyering. He demonstrates a clear disregard for wikipedia guidelines, particularly WP:SOAP and WP:NPOV. His arguments often involves soapboxing and the such. He also has a habit of removing anything from Chinese sources as "propaganda" , while hold FLG sources as the gospel truth.

Since mediators become involved in the FLG articles, the users of both sides have became more cooperative, and dilip's continued disruption and violation of the arbcom ruling damages on the mediation, and as such warrants a topic ban or block .--PCPP (talk) 10:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Mrund

The best that can be said about Dilip rajeev, and the one thing that makes him only the second most disruptive editor on everything having to do with Falun Gong over the past few years, is that he isn't there all the time. His contributions take the form of drive-by shootings. He cares only about Falun Gong, which in his mind is all good and whose reputation must be boosted, and the Sai Baba cult, which he used to fight on Misplaced Pages. Dilip is not primarily interested in making a good encyclopedia. He actively disrupts attempts in that direction. I am not optimistic about his willingness or ability to do any productive work here. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 13:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Sandstein

It is not clear to me that this is a case for arbitration enforcement. Which remedy in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Falun Gong allows uninvolved administrators to enact the requested "indefinite ban from Misplaced Pages"? Unless this request is amended to cite an actual arbitration sanction or remedy that has been violated (as of this writing, it cites only principles enunciated by the Committee, which are not by themselves enforceable), it may be closed without action.  Sandstein  15:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Falun Gong#Article probation, which has now been added to the request, places the article on article probation (which would allow topic bans by admins), but also states that "The articles may be reviewed on the motion of any arbitrator, or upon acceptance by the Arbitration Committee of a motion made by any user. Users whose editing is disruptive may be banned or their editing restricted as the result of a review." I understand this to mean that under this remedy, any topic ban may only be imposed as a result of action by the Arbitration Committee. If so, admins on their own can't do anything here and a request to the Committee would be required.  Sandstein  15:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

In reply to John Carter below and Ed Johnston on my talk page, yes, a case can be made that ArbCom meant to enact standard article probation, but if so, why the confusing extra text about review by the Committee? On the face of it, that would appear to be a lex specialis limiting the terms of article probation for this case. Absent clarification by the Committee, I am not ready to enact a sanction that is not authorized by the remedy (assuming any sanctions are required at all; I've not looked at the merits of this request).  Sandstein  16:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Edward130603

I would support a topic ban or a block of Dilip rajeev. He is a disruptive editor and often edit wars to get his way. Dilip simply has no care for the good faith work of other editors if they don't match with his POV.

Sandstein, I think that the Article Probation remedy allows blocks/restricted editing for disruptive editors. --Edward130603 (talk) 15:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

This enforcement case has been out for quite a while now. Can a administrator come and close the case now?--Edward130603 (talk) 23:54, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Seb az86556

I find it difficult to convince myself that a Francophone soccer-player, a piano-player from North Carolina, an archaeologist and convinced atheist, a Hong Kong resident, and an art-instructor with a staunch belief in Judeo-Christian deism would manage to agree on and produce one-sided, slanted revisions — unless one subscribes to the notion that all those who do not cheerfully support every source which celebrates the accomplishments and wisdom of a controversial religion must be part of a great heathen-conspiracy led by Hel and the time of Ragnarök has finally come to pass.
I have yet to become familiarized with the new rule which explains to the underlings exactly how long they would have to wait before Dilip descends from his watchtower to approve of the changes that had been thoroughly discussed before being implemented to the articles he apparently owns. It becomes terribly frustrating when, upon finally coming to some agreements in the course of tough discussions, one knows that said debates take place under the auspice of an omnipresent divine eye that will fire its wrath-filled flames of destruction down to earth should the inferiors' actions fall into disfavor. Just as there should be no cabal, there should not be a god-like Übermensch with no need for explaining or justifying his actions, either — especially when he himself has been warned and informed of the fact that not everyone in the pool of unworthy minions follows the creed of Dilipianity.

The behavior is clearly disruptive and violates remedy 1) of the Arbitration Case closed on 06:26, 9 May 2007 (UTC) which states "Users whose editing is disruptive may be banned or their editing restricted as the result of a review". Seb az86556 (talk) 15:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Jayen466

Sandstein is correct: as written, the remedy does not appear to support direct admin action, but asks for a review by the arbitration committee following a corresponding motion; bans or restrictions should result from such a review. --JN466 15:56, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• John appears to be "more correct". The remedy links to WP:Article probation which in turn redirects to Misplaced Pages:General sanctions, authorising the community to place sanctions. I'll shut up now and leave it to smarter heads to sort this out. --JN466 16:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
• As it appears that this may be falling under AE jurisdiction after all, I would like to add that I and several other otherwise uninvolved editors found Dilip Rajeev's editing at Sathya Sai Baba deeply problematic, as attested to by several WP:BLPN threads (e.g. the two Sai Baba threads in Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive60, both of which centred around material introduced by this editor). --JN466 00:36, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by John Carter

The existing remedy includes a specific link to Misplaced Pages:General sanctions, which, in the second paragraph, specifically does allow for parties other than the ArbCom to impose general sanctions, although it also permits such sanctions to be revoked later if so desired. I have to assume that the presence of such a link indicates that it would be possible for uninvolved administrators to place sanctions, effectively at the community's request, on such topics. John Carter (talk) 16:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Response to Sandstein: I understand your reservations about placing such a ban without a clear mandate in the existing ruling. I am therefore requesting clarification of the existing ruling, specifically regarding whether uninvolved admins would be acting within the ruling placing such a ban, at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests. John Carter (talk) 16:49, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment by HappyInGeneral

1. Ohconfucius claims that Dilip is disruptive, but if he only edits once a week, how disruptive can he be? As I see it Dilip wants to contribute to these pages, just that right now he does not have the time to keep up with the huge amount of changes that are happening and that are driven by about 10 dedicated people. Plus Dilip did not engaged in any revert wars he only made some WP:Bold changes which correspond to the WP:BRD cycle.
2. If the admins would like to understand how the team play is played, please see here: Talk:Reports_of_organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China#The_Situation:_A_Summary reading even just this thread alone will give a good idea. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Contrary to what PerEdman suggests, I see that he engaged in talks: Talk:Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident#Carification_from_Dilip. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 22:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Vassyana

My comments are mainly procedural.

• The remedy has been treated as a standard probation with an additional option for ArbCom review. See: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Falun Gong#Log of blocks and bans. This interpretation has generally been upheld by ArbCom at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment#Request to amend prior case: Falun Gong.
• The editor under scrutiny received a "final warning" over three months ago.
• If reviewing administrators feel the editor in question has engaged in explicit misconduct, contributed to a poor editing environment, or otherwise inhibited productive discussion and editing, he should be sanctioned to permit continued improvement in the topic area.
• Reviewing admins may find that other editors' conduct raised or exhibited here, or noted through examining the evidence of this request, is problematic and counterproductive to the topic area. If this is so, I implore the reviewing admins to issue final warnings to help future enforcement in the Falun Gong topic area. Anything that helps highlight and resolve counterproductive behavior is a boon for the area.

Thank you for considering my comments. --Vassyana (talk) 00:07, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• The drafting arbitrator has clarified the intent of the arbitration remedy, in line with my interpretation. --Vassyana (talk) 22:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Colipon

Dilip Rajeev is a very difficult user to work with. He was the primary user that drove me away from working on Falun Gong articles in 2007. After my two-year hiatus from the FLG zone, my first attempts to make good faith changes over at ‘Organ Harvesting’ in July 2009 was directly met with a horde of personal accusations from dilip. Dilip’s style of disruptive editing and disrespect for users who do not share his POV has been a serious detriment to improvement to Falun Gong articles. Note in his defense, he writes “But I was unaware of the discussions going on talk when I did the revert.” I am baffled he is able to utter these words as a form of defence. This type of blatant disregard for other contributors' edits is not acceptable. He also often throws poorly argued but very offensive accusations at people who are displeased with his disruptive behaviour.

Although there seems to be an on-going debate about the semantics of sanctions, a long-term topic ban for Rajeev serves the basic spirit of the arbitration – that is, to foster a more cohesive and productive editing environment. Dilip’s past behaviour has undoubtedly turned away and frustrated many good faith editors and significantly hindered progress in the Falun Gong articles - to a degree no less severe than now topic-banned user Olaf Stephanos. Olaf and Dilip's argumentation on talk space differ in that Olaf responds directly to comments by other users while Dilip simply uses overarching statements to conclude that he is 'right', and then engages in edit-warring and reverts regardless of other users' input (as shown in evidence above) - this is the reason dilip has many more warnings against him than other Falun Gong SPAs. In all this adds up to make dilip the most destructive user on these articles. Similar to Olaf, if dilip was truly interested in working on the project rather than pushing his views on two controversial movements, he can still remain a valuable contributor outside the realm of Falun Gong and Sathya Sai Baba. Colipon+(Talk) 19:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Outside Editor:Radiantenergy

I have n't followed the Falun Gong article closely. However I will like to share Dilip Rajeev's role in the Sathya Sai Baba article. Dilip Rajeev using the account 'White_Adept' added several unreliable sources and material banned by second arbitration commitee in the Sathya Sai Baba article since Jan 2009. He made 200+ edits in 10 days and changed a neutral article to NPOV nightmare. He always edit-warred with other editors who tried to remove the unreliable sources which he added. I had put an arbitration enforcement case here - http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement/Archive36#I_seek_Admin_help_in_this_case:_White_Adept_and_Arb.com_rulings where he was warned of sactions if he added questionable sources into the Sathya Sai Baba article.

Even after this case Dilip Rajeev still continued to add the same banned material in the sub-article '1993 murders in Prashanthi Nilayam'. I have always wondered why Dilip Rajeev was not afraid to break wikipedia rules or even arbitration enforcement rules. Many co-editors had become frustrated unable to stop his POV pushing and edit-warring in the Sathya Sai Baba article.

If you ask me if Dilip Rajeev disrupted the Sathya Sai Baba article? My answer is definite Yes. He did a lot of damage to that article. It has taken me and other editors almost 6 months to get rid of the unreliable sources Dilip Rajeev added into the Sathya Sai Baba article and bring it back to the original neutral state. Lately in the last 1 and 1/2 months after Dilip stopped interfering in the Sathya Sai Baba article the article has tremendously improved and has become more neutral and well balanced. I hope that the Sathya Sai Baba article will stay that way in the future instead of becoming a NPOV nightmare once again. Radiantenergy (talk) 02:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Outside Editor: J929

Hey, sometime in 2008 i came upon the Misplaced Pages Sathya Sai Baba page. The page at best was poorly written and lacked any real coherancy and information. Sometime later, in 2009 i read the page again and was disgusted with the way Sai Baba was presented. i know people have different opinions but it seems there lacked any human dignity or neutral presentation of a living person. That is when i signed up for a wikipedia account. 16:07, February 15, 2009 . i couldnt make any changes as the page had been blocked.
i'm not familiar Dilip Rajeev or his writing as he stopped around the time i began, but i do know the article in early 2009 was, in my opinion, horrendous. you will have to consult the history of the page to see who made the contributions.

J929 (talk) 02:48, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Asdfg12345

I've been involved with these articles for a long time. I believe Dilip is editing in good faith. Much of the calls for a ban here come from Dilip's ideological opponents, who of course find his presence a nuisance. I agree that Dilip's editing is unthoughtful in the cited instances, and I don't know why he annoys people like that when he doesn't have to. On the other hand though, he is improving, and he has made good contributions to these pages in terms of research and finding sources, and that shouldn't be discounted. His once a fortnight changes that get reverted in ten seconds aren't what is making or breaking the editing environment on these pages--they are minor, and he only did it a couple of times, and I'm sure he won't keep doing them after this incident. He notes, in his defence, that he was undoing changes that he felt had been pushed through without discussion, and were often cases of vast deletions of material referenced to reliable sources. There is actually nothing wrong with doing this. This is merely the bold-revert-cycle. It would only be a problem if he edit-warred, and I see no evidence of that. Mostly this seems like a difference in taste. People disagree with each other all the time. There should be a plurality of views on wikipedia. If there was some genuinely disruptive activity coming from Dilip's corner I would want him banned too, but I don't see evidence of it.--Asdfg12345 18:07, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Result concerning Dilip rajeev

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

• We can't site ban someone as nothing in the Arbitration case went that far, however, a topic ban could be considered. Sandstein, there's an open amendment in which another editor was topic banned as a result of this case; not sure why the funny wording, but the Arbs seem to support standard discretionary sanctions here. I've asked Vassyana if he wants to comment on this request as well. Shell 20:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

  Also, given the repeated blocks for 3RR on these articles and a prior topic ban (logged here), a revert restriction might be appropriate as well. Shell 20:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

  • And the the winner is...??? Ohconfucius (talk) 14:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

  I might be counted as "involved" in this matter, so I won't act directly. However, I would like some clarification as to whether this request is for some form of topic ban on both Falun Gong and Sathya Sai Baba. John Carter (talk) 18:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

  Clarified in request above. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• After a rather exhaustive review of User:Dilip rajeev's contributions, I do see the problems that were brought up in the report here, however, I also see that since the end of July of this year, Dilip rajeev has mostly refrained from reverting and engaged in discussion. Since the reversions happen so infrequently (3 times in 2 months), a revert restriction would be of very little value. The other examples given in this report show that Dilip rajeev is at times incivil and has strong feelings about the subject, but I don't believe this rises to the level of requiring additional sanctions at this time.

  It appears as if the editing climate surrounding Falun Gong articles is rather tense at this time and a lot of involved editors have been far too focused on each other rather than content. Maybe if a few uninvolved admins could put articles on this topic area on their watchlist and help keep the lid on any disruptive behavior, the editors involved in the dispute could be strongly encouraged to either work out their issues, or take a step back from the topic area for a while. Shell 02:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Xx236

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Xx236

User requesting enforcement:
Skäpperöd (talk) 15:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested:
Xx236 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated:
Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren#Discretionary sanctions: "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process."

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it:
The diffs are from the last 10 days and primarily from one article, Expulsion of Germans. The last two diffs from Soviet invasion of Poland were his newest contributions when I checked, confirming for me that Xx236 is editing other articles in the same manner.

• Xx236 targeting me

1. don't impose your anti-Polish POV. Nawratil isn't any "source", it's propaganda. (I did not use Nawratil btw)
2. ARen't you ashamed to write such lies?
3. Claiming that tranfers of Germans were "special" means that you believe that German were Uebermenschen. It's a Nazi ideology. (I did not call them "special" btw)
4. This is an English language Misplaced Pages, not a German propaganda division.
5. Stop yopur (sic!) lies.
6. ONe of many manipulations and lies of the editors here.
7. It's one of several examples of the strategy - lets write so many lies as possible and maybe they won't find our lies.

• Xx236 targeting Rudolph Joseph Rummel

This paragraph contains several derogative attacks on Rudolph Joseph Rummel:

1. Rummel is refered to as "Rudi" and my "Hawaiian ally"
2. Rudi Rummel pretends to use mathematics in his works about the democides. He uses unrelable data and becomes unreliable results - "Garbage in, garbage out"
3. "Let's collect any existing garbage, add a frog, mix up and as a result you have science". It's a shame for this Misplaced Pages to use such sources and such immoral ways
4. Xx236 removed material sourced to Rummel with an edit summary: "The text is so idiotic, I'm not able to tolerate it."
5. Removed again, edit summary: "Stop your propaganda"

• Other

1. Tagging an article "POV", edit summary :"Soviet propaganda"
2. Edit summary: "Stalinian (sic!) lies removed"

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required by the remedy):

1. Warning by PhilKnight (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction):
block and/or topic ban and/or mentorship

Additional comments by Skäpperöd (talk):

• Response to Xx236

After reading his response, I understand that Xx236 issued a request for mediation on 27 August, did not notify me, and continued his ad hominems against me (all diffs above are from later dates). Since the mediation request is formulated as just another ad hominem against me, it is no surprise that no mediator took on the case or bothered notifying me, and frankly I fail to see how anything would have come out of it without a fundamental change in Xx236' approach. I take Xx236' further statements in this case as just confirming what is already expressed by the diffs above. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Response to Feketateve

Feketateve introduced themselves to the article talk page today with this comment and this falsification of a comment of mine before they came here to make their comment below, presenting this as a "battle" of "ideology". I think Feketateve should be formally made aware of the Digwuren case. Skäpperöd (talk) 23:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested:

Discussion concerning Xx236

Statement by Xx236

• I asked for mediation with Skaperod but got no help.
• The truth cannot be the result of voting or the result of better English and bigger number of German nationalistic editors. A dispute about genocides shouldn't be reduced to a play based on doubtful sources.
• I admit, I committed the crime of tagging the POV article as POV. I admit also that I have checked the quoted Cienciala article and found it's misqoted.
• I admit, I have read several texts by Rudy Rummel about Poland and they are based on selected, cold-war period books, including Polish-communist (censored) ones. Rummel is incompetent when describing post-war Poland both with words and numbers, his results are obsessionally anti-Polish. The result is so absurd, that it proves that Rummel's methods are naive.
• The word expulsion is a direct translation of ideologically biased German Vertreibung so should be used with care and with explanation of the context.
• The expulsion of Germans was the third expulsion in Europe, after the Soviet and Nazi ones. No source and no voting can prove it was the biggest. It was a part of post-war transfers both from East to West and from West to East. This Misplaced Pages doesn't describe the post-WWII transfers, but mostly the (real) tragedy of Germans, creating false image. This Misplaced Pages has a moral problem, that big nations impose their POVs and the small ones are humiliated. I know the subject better than Skaperod but I'm treated like a criminal here. A number of Polish editors weren't able to tolerate the attacks and were banned or resigned. Xx236 (talk) 07:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments by other editors

I would like to point out that Xx236 and user S. who filed this request have a history of disagreements and are on two different ends "of the stick" as far as their views on the subject of expulsion of German civilians from Eastern Europe after WW2. Unfortunately xX235 made a mistake by sometimes selecting unfortunate wording while commenting on the issues or in his edit summaries. To my knowelage, he did not break any other rules however. It would be wise in my opinion to advice him to be extra careful while commenting rather than sanctioning him. Articles which are being edited by these two editors need crucial balance which can be only achieved by having two sides involved.--Jacurek (talk) 17:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Administrators should not be bothered by frivolous complains such as this. In my opinion the editor should have made a good faith effort to resolve this petty dispute on the talk page rather than waste the time of administrators. Editors should ignore provocative remarks and discuss the facts instead. It seems to me that we are back at square one --Woogie10w (talk) 18:36, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Today I had to correct a number of factual errors made at Expulsion of Germans after World War II. The editors should take the time to become familiar with the sources rather than engage in food fights and bother the Administrators with frivolous complaints.--Woogie10w (talk) 19:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

..or squre two]. But frankly Woogie10w, I don't know what you meant by that, sorry, (sorry Woogie10w, I know now what you meant) I think that user S. is as needed to be on the pages of Expulsions etc. as user xX236. They have to somehow come to the agreement. User S. has to tone down his strong German POV and User xX236 should be more understanding also. I know that Polish editors are very suspicious of Germans trying to present history from their point of view but that view has to be acknowledged without frustration as we clearly see here.--Jacurek (talk) 19:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Xx236 exaggerated with some of his comments however i have to note a couple of things. First, this might be trivial, but my observation is that Xx236 isn't too fluent in english and i often get the impression that some of the things he writes come out worse than he intended to. More importantly to understand his reactions one has to know a bit about the Expulsion of Germans after World War II article. The reality of the matter is that Skapperod's work there is biased, he keeps added more and more material the result being he's making the Germans as much victims as possible, that's why all sources he uses are always those who paint the expulsions in as bad light as possible. Lately he even dug a source which claimed that the expulsions were a genocide... the absurdity of that claim leave one speechless, really. To better understand the tragicomical situation we are in there, one only needs to look at the size of the Expulsion of Germans after World War II article, 158Kb, plus it's "sister" article Flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II which is 74kb, together that's 232kb. Compare that with the size of the Holocaust article, 184kb. A bit ugly isn't it? IMO it's things like that make wikipedia a complete joke in the eyes of many serious scholars. In conclusion while I don't support the language that Xx236 used i fully understand his frustration at the current situation. Loosmark (talk) 18:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Xx is not being problematic in article space, but he is being uncivil in the talk space. I think the solution here is not a topic ban, but a civility parole. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:32, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he is being incivil, but he's also using Misplaced Pages as an ideological battleground, which is more problematic. I also tend to dislike civility paroles because we expect all editors to be civil all the time anyway, even without a parole. I don't yet see how any less restrictive sanction than a topic ban can properly address this problem. (We don't want to ban people just from talk pages, because editors must be able to communicate.) What do other admins think?  Sandstein  20:58, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

A battle is bilateral. If any ideology is peculiar here (or an "ideology" at all), it is the one defended by some of this user's adversaries: the biases of some of them would be instantly recognised and seen as way out of line in the German-language wikipedia. Feketekave (talk) 17:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Result concerning Xx236

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

• I have no opinion about the historical issues at stake, but the language used by Xx236 in the diffs provided violates WP:BATTLE, WP:NPA and WP:AGF. If no uninvolved admin disagrees, I intend to impose a time-limited topic ban to give Xx236 the chance to edit in some other topic area that excites him less strongly.  Sandstein  07:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Pmanderson

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Pmanderson

User requesting enforcement:
Tony (talk) 10:17, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested:
Pmanderson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated:

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Date_delinking#Pmanderson_topic_banned
• Amendment - User:Pmanderson restriction re-widened to include the pages and talk pages of all MOS and style guidelines due to continuing disruption. Enforcement report

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it:

1. Mr Anderson removes a reference and link to MoS from the Naming conventions policy on the day ArbCom's original restrictions were reimposed (August 28); the edit is similar or identical to at least two of his previous attempts to remove mention of MoS from this policy.
2. First in a series of diatribes against the Manual of Style, using the Naming conventions policy talk page as a soap box to denigrate the MoS and its editors: "MOS:DASH, as usual, covers dashes badly; it's an unsourced bunch of rules of thumb made up in school one day."
3. "... MOS is; a crusade by a handful of Language Reformers to impose some provinciality on the whole of Misplaced Pages - as harmful as Anglo-American warring and without its excuses in childhood patriotism.... a half-dozen editors have hammered one together out of bits and pieces; the result is not anybody's usage - some would call it dubiously literate."
4. "... there is only one reason why literate editors care what those non-consensus essays say: to avoid having prose incompetently reworked by junior high school students who believe that MOS knows what it is talking about or represents an agreement of Misplaced Pages."

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required by the remedy):
Not applicable

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction):
I believe it is reasonable to widen Mr Anderson's topic ban to include Naming Conventions and its talk page, to protect the project from incivility and disruption.

Additional comments by Tony (talk):
ArbCom's remedy did not include a topic ban on policy pages. WP:Naming conventions is the only significant policy page related to article style, and the user is clearly (1) violating the remedy by making edits that change the relationship between that policy page and MoS, and (2) gaming ArbCom's remedy by using the talk page to denigrate MoS and its regular editors, while recently having been banned again from participation at MoS itself.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested:
The requesting user is asked to notify the user against whom this request is directed of it, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The request will normally not be processed otherwise.
diff of notification Tony (talk) 10:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion concerning Pmanderson

Statement by Pmanderson

This is an effort, like the previous request for arbitration enforcement against me, to use claims of incivility to silence a voice that simply disagrees with a guideline with which Tony has a strong emotional identification.

The way to get more respect for the "Manual of Style" is to write one worth having: one based on consensus, not on revert-warring; one based on English style guides, not on the opinions of a handful of Wikipedians who assert ownership of the page. This will never be done until more Wikipedians want one; but that does not change its condition; and criticisms of text are not criticisms of persons.

I would prefer a first-class MOS, which would be concise, contain only the guidance that was necessary for Misplaced Pages, reflect the consensus of Misplaced Pages as a whole, and be based on sources. That would be brief, coherent, and stable.

As for the claim made here, ArbCom decided while the full extent of the date-delinking decision was still in effect on everybody, that editing or discussing Naming Conventions had nothing to do with date-linking. The edit that gave rise to that discussion was my edit of the same clause now at issue.

I therefore request that if any administrative action be taken, it be taken against Tony1. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments by other editors

The reported diffs do not concern date (de)linking and thus do not violate Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking#Pmanderson topic banned. The "extension" of this topic ban at does not appear to be provided for or allowed by any arbitration remedy or other Committee action. Such an extension would need to be made by the Committee itself, through motion or amendment. Because the extension is not founded on Committee authority, it is void and unenforceable, at any rate here at AE. This means that this request, in my opinion, is not actionable. If Pmanderson's editing is deemed to be problematic, I recommend requesting a community sanction on WP:ANI (after a WP:RFC/U) or Committee action.  Sandstein  11:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Shell Kinney had re-imposed a full topic ban, and could do so as an admin. Can we please have a clarification of the situation? Tony (talk) 12:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

No individual administrator has the authority to impose a topic ban except where a Committee decision delegates such authority. In this case, the Committee has not delegated such authority to administrators, which means that the supposed extension of the topic ban is without effect.  Sandstein  12:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with you, Sandstein. I originally lodged a complaint about PMAnderson's behavior at the discussion page for the Arb Motion that narrowed his restrictions. I was told by administrators that it wasn't the correct venue and was directed to Requests for Enforcement. Indeed, at least one Arb (NYB) was aware that I was directed such. I re-filed the complaint and it was answered by an impartial admin who, in my opinion, acted correctly and remedied that particular problem. There is no clear venue for such requests, so we used the best available. PMA's behavior creates an exigence that cannot wait for systemic reviews at set intervals; he quite actively drives editors away from the pages he participates on. We now find ourselves debating process instead of debating the actual problem at hand, which is that PMA cannot behave himself on any page where style, semantics, or conventions are discussed. So none of us waste any more time, where is the correct venue for requesting a broadening of his ban to include all such pages? --Andy Walsh (talk) 04:47, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's not AE, because this page is for the enforcement of Arbitration Committee decisions, and the supposedly extended topic ban is not an Arbitration Committee decision. The only advice I can give you is to proceed per WP:DR. This page is not part of the dispute resolution process.  Sandstein  07:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Nobody can tell us where we ought to go, and there are only suggestions where we might try. This is a worryingly huge crack in the floorboard where things are allowed to fall through. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sandstein, if you believe that my decision based on the latest motion by the Committee (vis a vis re-widening the sanctions if the behavior became problematic) was incorrect it would be productive to bring up your concerns with me or the Committee. It seemed to me in reading the latest motion that several members of the committee specifically noted that a return to disruptive behavior would be looked upon badly and be reason for additional sanctions; I believe a "re-widening" was specifically mentioned but I'll have to go look through the discussion again. I could very well be misreading the intent of the motion, but only the committee could tell us that; snide comments here that you feel bounds were overstepped won't actually do anything to resolve any concerns you may have. Shell 02:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Result concerning Pmanderson

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

• I agree with User:Sandstein above. The "extension" to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking is not an Arbcom decision and should not apply here. The scope of the restriction was explicitly reduced () less than two three weeks ago, and it was stated that the situation should not be reviewed again for at least 30 days. Based on that it seems inappropriate to expand it here. I don't think Pmanderson's edits as presented above cross the line in terms of policy. If his behavior has changed significantly in the past three weeks perhaps an amendment is warranted despite the length of time that has passed, but as it stands this is not enforceable. Of course it's somewhat open to interpretation; I wouldn't raise any objection if someone were to enforce a topic ban for disruption, but that would not involve Arbcom. Evil saltine (talk) 12:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• It was indeed narrowed, but was widened again for PMA because of some other incidents of incivility. Shell Kinney logged it in the sanctions section of the case page. The widening was specific to PMA and was subsequent to the narrawing. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
  • The expansion was an admin action, not an Arbcom decision. Evil saltine (talk) 12:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Thanks for replies. Evil s, does that mean that Mr Anderson is indeed not permitted to edit or discuss style guides, and that ANI is the proper place to take this matter (since there do appear to be breaches if that is the case)? Tony (talk) 14:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
      • I think it means it's outside of the scope of anything Arbcom ever intended, so this is not the place. However, as there may be some breaches of WP:Civility, you should take it to the relevant forum, WP:ANI. Ohconfucius (talk) 14:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Loosmark

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Request concerning Loosmark

User requesting enforcement:
Faustian (talk) 18:25, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested:
Loosmark (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy that this user violated:
digwuren sanctions Digwuren sanctions Scrolling down you will see that he is already on a list of editors placed on notice

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it:

1. Created an abusive topic heading naming another editor
2. Escalating personal attack by writing about another editor: "Your constant attempts at trying to find something to blame on the Polish side is as sick and perveted as trying to find sth on the Jewish side for the Nazi horrors."

Diffs of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required by the remedy):

1. Warning by Bobanni (talk · contribs)
2. Warning by Thatcher (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Enforcement action requested (block, topic ban or other sanction):

1. Topic ban on Ukrainian-Polish relations during World War II broadly defined followed by probationary period.

Additional comments by Faustian (talk):
Please note that there is a message on the top of that article's talk page requesting "be polite" and "avoid perosnal attacks."Faustian (talk) 18:25, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested:

Requesting a clerk, or other party, notify various parties so that I need not discuss this case on non-arbitration page, or interact with Loosmark's talk page Faustian (talk) 18:25, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Notified, though I am neither clerk not party.  Sandstein  20:36, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Statement by Loosmark

My intention was not to attack Faustian or being uncivil but rather to discuss the edit which i considered, and i still do, to be very controversial and badly sourced. Basically the dispute is he's trying to insert a claim that the Poles joined the German police first which started or aggravated the violence. Btw I have already appologied to Faustian for creating the section with that title, i honestly didn't have any bad intentions with that. Still i don't think my 2 diffs are nearly as bad as he paints them. (Please not that the sentence is put completely out of the contest of the relevant discussion). To maximalise the drama now he doesn't even want to put a notice on my talk page. Oh well. If me writting "Faustian POV pushing" is so bad i'd like to present a couple of his diffs myself:

This one i don't think even deserves a comment: ] "clearing of Poles from Volhynia was necesasary in order to prevent the killing of Ukrainian civilians from spreading from Lublin region into Volhynia itself".

Blaming the victims, the Poles for starting the massacres: .

Here is his personal attack Paweł5586 which is far worse than anything i've written: "You have admitted elsewhere that your Polish family is from Volhynia. Perhaps this may explain your passion and one-sidedness on this article." Talking about Paweł's family that way is not very nice. And what is that "admitted" supposed to mean?

More nice stuff: "Please stop spreading falsehoods.", "You seem to be pushing the Polish nationalist POV". etc etc.

I could go on and dig many more diffs but really it seems such a waste of time. If Faustian feels so offended by those my 2 diffs i appology again but his behavior wasn't exactly exemplary either. IMO the problem we have is a content dispute and needs to be resolved on the talk page of the appropriate article rather than by trying to get opponents topic banned. Loosmark (talk) 20:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Please see next section for response to these false claims about me. Your behavior above suggests something, I think, about your apology.Faustian (talk) 21:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Faustian

I have a right to defend myself against more attacks on this very ANE, a defence that was removed by Loosmark: . On the one hand, the editor complains that it was only 2 diffs and now he repeats attacks against me by claiming that I condone the killing of civilians. He does this right on the ANE! So here is a repeat of his attacks and my response to them:

Loosmark, previous section: "...Oh well. If me writting "Faustian POV pushing" is so bad i'd like to present a couple of his diffs myself:

This one i don't think even deserves a comment: ] "clearing of Poles from Volhynia was necesasary in order to prevent the killing of Ukrainian civilians from spreading from Lublin region into Volhynia itself".

Please don't snip my remarks to present a falsle picture of what I said. The full quote was "This incidentally seems to confirm the what I had posted from another book, that the OUN claimed the Poles started killing Ukrainian civilians and that (according to OUN's logic) clearing of Poles from Volhynia was necesasary in order to prevent the killing of Ukrainian civilians from spreading from Lublin region into Volhynia itself." On the very talk page I condemned killing of innocent Polish civilians and attacks against me suggesting that I did not. Here is just one: . And here you are, continuing such personal attacks against me by claiming that I support the killing of civilians, on this ANE!Faustian (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Blaming the victims, the Poles for starting the massacres: .

See my response to your previous comments.Faustian (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Here is his personal attack Paweł5586 which is far worse than anything i've written: "You have admitted elsewhere that your Polish family is from Volhynia. Perhaps this may explain your passion and one-sidedness on this article." Talking about Paweł's family that way is not very nice. And what is that "admitted" supposed to mean?

That is worse than stating as you did "Your constant attempts at trying to find something to blame on the Polish side is as sick and perveted as trying to find sth on the Jewish side for the Nazi horrors?"Faustian (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

More nice stuff: "Please stop spreading falsehoods.", "You seem to be pushing the Polish nationalist POV". etc etc.

Yeah, the falsehood that I am a denier of the murder of Polish civilians. That's a falsehood that was being spread. I didn't use the word "lies" as was thrown against me.Faustian (talk) 21:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments by other editors

Well Faustian... This is my honest opinion about this request...I'm sorry to say that but this is just an attempt to eliminate your opponent by cherry picking his comments and hoping to get a "trigger happy" administrator to act against him. Unfortunately I see this behavior on Wikipiedia all the time. Certain users instead of trying to reach an agreement are manipulating the system by getting their opponents tricked and banned. If Loosmark gets restricted now, what will stop you from pushing in your POV on the articles you both edited? Are you absolutely sure that the Ukrainian POV you are presenting is %100 unbiased and neutral? I would not be so sure about that. We desperately need balance and middle ground on these difficult historical issues. I really hope that instead of constant fights, traps, tricks, cherry picking comments etc. editors will focus on reliable sources and good faith editing to reach consensus. Thanks.--Jacurek (talk) 19:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't push my or any POV, and indeed have added plenty of negative info about Ukrainians such as here where I added

Comments such as those by Loosmark "Your constant attempts at trying to find something to blame on the Polish side is as sick and perveted as trying to find sth on the Jewish side for the Nazi horrors" are hardly conducive to achieving balance and middle ground. This is why he was warned and placed on a list of editors put on notice here: . Speaking of of the goal - which I absolutely adhrere to and support - that "instead of constant fights, traps, tricks, cherry picking comments etc. editors will focus on reliable sources and good faith editing to reach consensus" it is especially important that abuse by Loosmark or others not be tolerated.

Now with respect to "trapping" - I wasn't even involved in a conversation with Loosmark when he became abusive towards me. Here is the thread where it happened. How could I have "trapped" him? and btw there is another Polish editor (not you of course) also engaging in such behavior. Hopefully he can learn from this example and does not need to be reported also.Faustian (talk) 20:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Faustian, but you should at least tell Loosmark that you did not appreciate his wording before trying to get him restricted right away. You see... if he indeed gets restricted now, you will have an open door to compose the articles the way you want, right? Are you absolutely sure that you will be %100 neutral and correct all the time? Please be honest .. was his selection of words "so terrible" that you could not live with it? I personally would not be so offended if you did leave similar comments while talking to me. The bottom line is Faustian, that you both are very needed on these pages to maintain them neutral or at least close to it. I would not like to see Loosmark restricted from editing and same with you.--Jacurek (talk) 20:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

There was another editor being abusive and I warned him several times to be civil, here and and then here and then here . In the latter thread where I warned the other editor of incivility Loosmark stepped in and took the incivility to a whole new level. At some point a line needs to be drawn. And our contributions are hardly equivalent here. I'm the one sticking to reliable sources and adding info about both sides in a balanced way. Faustian (talk) 20:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Ya, you are right, it is wrong to describe somebody's edits as "lies" even if they are far from being true but again, is this so abusive that one can not live with it? Editors often get emotional especially if they really believe in their edits. I would ask them first to : please do not use word lie because I really believe that my version of events are true and see what happens. Being polite and friendly often works, threats and complains only escalate tensions but they don't solve disagreements.--Jacurek (talk) 21:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I have collapsed the extended quote above for readability. This is not the place to discuss content disagreements. Waiting for Loosmark to make a statement.  Sandstein  20:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the cited 2 diffs merit AE attention, but I do think that Loosmark should pay more attention to NPA/AGF. And so should you, Faustian, particularly where AGF is concerned. Have you tried mediation before coming here? AE enforcement - which is indeed often seen as an attempt to block a content opponent - should only be tried once discussion has been attempted and failed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I request Faustian's comments are removed from my section because it's a complete mess now. He can reply in his own section, if he's allowed to insert text into my comments i request having the same right myself. Loosmark (talk) 21:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Faustian and Loosmark, will both of you please stop making any more edits anywhere here, thanks. This thread is a mess now, but you've both had your say. Now it's up to admins to evaluate the situation (I'll do so tomorrow). If either of you continues with the mudslinging in this request, I'll block him.  Sandstein  21:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. I may have added a comment before reading this one by you. I will add nothing more.Faustian (talk) 21:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sandstein i need to reply to what Faustian wrote, since my section was archived (thanks to his disturbance of it) please advise me where can i reply. Loosmark (talk) 21:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You've had your opportunity to respond to the request, and the two of you throwing new accusations at each other in an arbitration forum will not help either of you, so I strongly suspect that you do not "need" to reply to anything except the original request for enforcement.  Sandstein  21:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but i don't understand your comment. He and he alone made the mess by starting to include his text into the Loosmark statement, which is a section where only i am allowed to write. I only deleted his text (which i am, correct me if i'm wrong, entitled to do) and asked him to use his section to reply. After that he once again attempted to add text into the Loosmark statement and your conclusion is we should both stop editing here!?!?!? Please explain what have i done wrong. Anyway since i don't know where can i reply i'll do it here, his statement: "And here you are, continuing such personal attacks against me by claiming that I support the killing of civilians, on this ANE" is false. I have not, I repeat, NOT accused Faustian of that. What I accuse him is trying to POV push that provocative explanation of Ukrainian mass slaughters into the article. Loosmark (talk) 22:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Faustian, do you really have to take all those who disagree with you to AE? You have your opinion, and Loosmark has his. Whatever is happening, things can always be worked out, without wasting time of admins with all those little grievances. A Misplaced Pages of my nightmares would be the one where we all denounce each other to AE, hoping that any users who disagree with us, would be eliminated, at least for 24 hours. Tymek (talk) 00:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Result concerning Loosmark

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

I've reviewed the evidence and conclude that Loosmark's interaction with others in this topic area has violated WP:NPA and WP:AGF, notably through comments like "Your constant attempts at trying to find something to blame on the Polish side is as sick and perveted as trying to find sth on the Jewish side for the Nazi horrors" () and "20,000? riiight." ().
This is compounded by an completely inappropriate reaction to this request - his defence consists not in addressing his own conduct, but in making accusations against Faustian, the editor making the request, and in doing so seriously misrepresenting Faustian's comments. For instance, at , Loosmark claims that Faustian said "clearing of Poles from Volhynia was necesasary in order to prevent the killing of Ukrainian civilians from spreading from Lublin region into Volhynia itself", whereas in actuality at Faustian said "This incidentally seems to confirm the what I had posted from another book, that the OUN claimed the Poles started killing Ukrainian civilians and that (according to OUN's logic) clearing of Poles from Volhynia was necesasary in order to prevent the killing of Ukrainian civilians from spreading from Lublin region into Volhynia itself." Loosmark's statement makes it appear that Faustian condoned historical crimes, while Faustian actually only made claims about the opinions of "OUN" about these crimes. Likewise, in the same statement at , Loosmark accuses Faustian for "Blaming the victims, the Poles for starting the massacres", whereas Faustian at actually said: "the info that according to Ukrainian historian Ilyiushin Poles began the massacres belongs in the article." In other words, Loosmark seems to be unable or unwilling to distinguish, in discussions, between the opinions of third parties and the opinions of editors citing these third parties.
For these reasons, I believe Loosmark's involvement in the discussions surrounding these topics is detrimental to the purpose of Misplaced Pages. Since we cannot usefully ban an editor from discussions only (as editors are required to discuss their edits in cases of disagreement), a full topic ban is needed.
Accordingly, under the authority of WP:DIGWUREN#Discretionary sanctions, Loosmark is hereby banned from the topic of Ukrainian-Polish relations during World War II, broadly construed, in all namespaces and discussions, for six months. He is encouraged to improve his communication skills in the interim.  Sandstein  05:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Appeal against the topic ban imposed on Loosmark by Sandstein

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Yesterday user Faustian reported me on this board for these 2 diffs: ,

After examining them admin Sandstein decided to: topic ban me from Ukrainian-Polish relations during World War II, broadly construed, in all namespaces and discussions, for six months.

In my opinion Sandstein's decision was not the correct one because my alleged offense was not nearly bad enough to warrant any sort of ban. First i'd like to provide some background, i apology for this but it is i think necessary. The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia is an article about the massacres of around 100,000 Polish civilians mostly women and children who were murdered by the Ukrainian nationalists in the worst possible ways for the purpose of ethnic cleansing the pre-war Polish Volhynia region. As such it is one of the worst and least known crimes during WW2. Now the content problem which arises there is that Faustian is always trying to, as he likes to say, put the massacres in the proper context which usually involves finding some blame on Polish side: Poles closed Ukrainian schools, Poles threw 1 Ukrainian women into the fire, Poles didn't give rights to Ukrainian minority, Poles closed Ukrainian some church etc etc etc etc. Now my second diff from which both Faustian repeatedly and admin Sandstein quoted only 1 sentence as aprove how bad i am ("Your constant attempts at trying to find something to blame on the Polish side is as sick and perverted as trying to find sth on the Jewish side for the Nazi horrors") was in direct reply to what Faustian said there: "By avoiding placing any blame for the Polish side (be it government policies in the 1930's that inflamed the local population or Polish participation in German police units that killed Ukrainian civilians)." My response was without doubt too emotional, but saying that the Poles participated in the German police units that killed Ukrainian civilians is a direct provocation as it is simply a crazy claim. Anyway my attack was not Faustian personally but on the concept that there should be a blame on the Polish side for the mass massacres something that i find totally uneccaptable. (In the similar way as for example saying that the Jewish people controled 60% of banking in pre-war German as sort of blame would be totally insane, or saying that the American military presence in middle east is to blame for terrorist attacks etc). Large scale crimes like that can only be explained by the total crazyness of those who perpetuate those crimes. Let's not blame the victims.

Regarding the first diff

I have already apologized to Faustian for that 2 times, my intention was completely not to be uncivil, on that talk page everybody said that the other party is POV-pushing at one time or another, including Faustian (diffs can be provided). I just didn't anticipate he'll be so offended by that. The third diffs which Faustian have not complained about but which apparently Sandstein found himself since he cited in his ruling, is this one: i don't understand how can that be perceived as incivility i was just very astonished to see a number 10x times bigger than anything i have seem before so i asked who estimated that.

Another thing which concerns me a great deal is that Sandstein completely failed to comment on this: In my opinion talking about families of other editors should not be allowed, by failing to address that Sandstein IMO sends the wrong message: you can freely ad-hominem attack an editor using his family ("your family is from XY therefore you are totally one-sided in article Z" just sounds very wrong to me).

Anyway IMO it's pretty clear that at the core of it, on the Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia the issue is a content dispute rather me being uncivil towards Faustian to the point of being disruptive on that page, let alone on the entire Polish-Ukrainian relationship topics. I therefore suggest:

1) my unjustified 6 months topic ban on the Polish-Ukrainian relationships topic is cancelled. (reason: there was no evidence provided, apart from those 2 diffs on a single talk page, that i made any problems on any other Polish-Ukrainian topic page or talk page).
2) i'm of course open to any process which would improve my interaction with Faustian (since our interactions/problems are limited to a single page some sort of mediation would probably be best)
3) alternatively if the admins still think I am the only problem, i'm ready to voluntarily avoid making any comments regarding Faustian's edits on that talk page for 6 months
4) user Faustian is advised to not to draw any conclusion based on the family origins of Polish editors or make any other comments about the families of Polish editors Loosmark (talk) 15:11, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Sciurinæ

Additional pertinent diffs:

• "Wow, lets praise the OUN and its fantastic goal not to kill each and every Pole but only to brutaly massacre over 60,000 women, children etc. Of course you also don't have a clue about the Yugoslav wars"

• "it's also interesting to note how ukrainian nationalistic editors attacked this article: first minor changes and deletions, then bigger and bigger changes now they even want to change the title, it's sickening."

• "Seem that he's just trying to get rid of me because i oppose his POV.", "who is one of the users with anti-Polish views"

• "Renaming this article to Ukrainian-Polish conflict would be like renaming the Holocaust to German-Jewish conflict."

• "Nice try but the title of the article says what the article is about - the Massacres Poles of in Volhynia. Of course it would be the dearest dream of Ukrainian natiolistic editors here to change the title to muddie the waters and it seems that for this purpose every silly argument is good."

Sciurinæ (talk) 15:51, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Radeksz

Radeksz, please comment on the content, not the contributor of evidence. I don't know the nationality of Loosmark (it was even said he isn't Polish ), nor do I care, so please don't speculate about it. There are two ways to respond to providing evidence of misconduct of another contributor: improving the conduct or personally attacking the messenger (ad hominem) but only the first way will help Misplaced Pages. If you provided evidence against Loosmark, I wouldn't have to. Next time do that. Sciurinæ (talk) 16:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Radeksz

To provide some background here, the article Massacres of Poles in Volhynia is one which involve perennial conflicts between Polish and Ukrainian editors. Awhile back, early August, the atmosphere on the article and the talk page got quite heated (mostly because of other editors, not Loosemark or Faustian). Myself and a couple other editors tried to intervene and calm things down and the effort effort was more or less successful for a time, so much so that EdJohnson commented: I am astounded at the degree of harmony on the talk page I've been following over at Massacres of Poles in Volhynia, and I hope that it lasts. (I even spoke up to get a Ukrainian editor, Lvivske, a pass on his previous civility violations ).

So a calmed down situation (though of course there was a little bit of bickering) lasted for awhile. This uneasy compromise and calm was upset when Faustian made this edit which was pretty provocative and which essentially mis-characterized what was found in sources (long story short: Ukrainian nationalists (UPA) joined German police and then deserted with weapons. Ukrainians nationalists attacked Poles. Poles joined German police and then deserted with weapons which they used to defend themselves against Ukrainians - Faustian's edit tries to make it appear as if Poles collaborated with Nazis in attacks on Ukrainians which is not what happened at all). I can perfectly understand why Loosmark (and other Polish editors) got upset though I can see how Loosmark probably should've responded more calmly.

Note also that accusations of "POV pushing" have been made by a lot of editors on both sides of the dispute and so Loosmark's comments do not diverge from the norm on article talk (part of the purpose of my intervention there was to try to change this norm). In fact the usage by Faustian of somebody's family background to call an editor's edits "POV pushing" is pretty problematic (a similar comment directed at a Jewish person with family members who are survivors, editing an article on a Holocaust would definitely raise some eyebrows).

I think that previously a great effort had been made to AFG on this topic. However, Faustian's provocative edit, followed by a quickly followed report that led to Loosmark's topic ban raises the possibility that the part of the guideline which explicitly states This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence. Assuming good faith does not prohibit discussion and criticism, but instead editors should not attribute the actions being criticized to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice. applies.

What might be a better course in this case, rather than a topic ban, is that Faustian and Loosmark undertake mediation and try to work out their differences through that venue. Alternatively or additively maybe some kind of mentorship would be useful.radek (talk) 16:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment on Sciurinæ

Well, it's not surprising that User:Sciurinæ has shown up here, since this user basically shows up in any conflict involving Polish editors and tries to get them banned (on articles s/he him/herself is not even involved in!). But none of the diffs s/he provides indicate incivility, but rather just strong opinions on the subject. Let me repeat - there is not a single instance of incivility in diffs provided by Sciurinæ; this is just another attempt by this editor to try and get Polish users into trouble, a practice which Sciurinæ has made a disturbing habit of.radek (talk) 16:05, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Sciurinæ, I did comment on the content: there is not a single instance of incivility in diffs provided by Sciurinæ. The fact that you follow Polish editors (or at least Poland-related editors) around and try to get them blocked, even in articles and topics you are not involved in, is pretty well documented and I personally find it very worrying.

Dr. Dan, I would appreciate it very much if you refrained from trying to "parody" my comments - you've done this before and if you keep doing this I will take it as an act of incivility. As to the substance of your comment - it is simply false. 1) It is not true that I show up in any conflict involving Polish editors and automatically defend them - I had nothing to say here for example. 2) Uhh, I was most definitely involved in the relevant article here, Massacres of Poles in Volhynia so what are you talking about?. Also, no, reading an article and noting the contributors does not "involve" one as an editor - for example, I've read the article on Crustacean, looked at the talk and history page but I don't think I'm "involved" in it. Ok, now that these little red herrings have been addressed, I'm gonna leave this one alone.radek (talk) 16:53, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, I'm going to ignore attempts at derailing the discussion from its main topic.radek (talk) 17:50, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like to confirm that indeed it was my impression that user Sciurinæ (talk) was following me around trying to get me restricted and I felt harassed by him in the recent past, therefore I'm also not surprised that he appeared here on this board since a Polish editor is in trouble. (Links to the related pages available upon request.) Thanks--Jacurek (talk) 19:06, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment on Loosmark and Sandstein's comments

In light of both of those comments, perhaps a mediation between Loosmark and Faustian, combined with a article ban for Loosmark (as opposed to the topic ban) for the duration of the mediation would be more appropriate.radek (talk) 20:34, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment to Clreland

What ever other merits to this case there may or may not be, I also, like Loosmark find Clreland's contention that Loosmark engaged in "the deliberate and repeated misrepresentations of others' edits by Loosmark in his response to the report are by themselves sufficient grounds for the sanction" unfounded - while there may be some question about Loosmark stating his views a bit too strongly I don't see any misrepresentation of other editors' edits (except in the section by other editors on this appeal). This additional accusation just seems to muddy the waters.radek (talk) 02:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

CIreland, I'm sorry to say that but also in my opinion your description of Loosmarks comments as "deliberate and repeated misrepresentations" is incorrect. Regards--Jacurek (talk) 07:11, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Dr. Dan

Comment on Radeksz

Well, it's not surprising that User:Radeksz has shown up here, since this user basically shows up in any conflict involving Polish editors and tries to mitigate obvious bad behavior and get them reprieved (on articles s/he him/herself is not even involved in!) For the record, reading an article, and noting the contributions of various editors definitely involves you in it. Dr. Dan (talk) 16:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Radeksz, I apologize for the parody. I wasn't aware that you had read the article on Crustaceans, only that you had recently read the article on Spanakopita (or at least the history pages of it), and consequently asked me this ..."And don't you think that this is a little too much"?...regarding this . Could this possibly be evidence that you are stalking my edits on WP? What prompted you to bring up my edit, since you previously never had any dealings with that article? Dr. Dan (talk) 17:33, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Loosmark

I won't theorize why once again Scurinae seems to be following around to a topic area and articles which he never showed any interest at all. Like usual I will just assume it's a coincidence. I'd just like to point out that he badly misrepresented me in his quotes by pulling them out the contest. For example Scurinae quotes me:
"Wow, lets praise the OUN and its fantastic goal not to kill each and every Pole but only to brutally massacre over 60,000 women, children etc. Of course you also don't have a clue about the Yugoslav wars".
And the correct quote: " Yes there were massacres, but the goal of the OUN wasn't to kill each and every Pole, massacring everyone, but rather remove all Polish influence from the region as it was perceived to be a hindrance to statehoo. Wow, lets praise the OUN and its fantastic goal not to kill each and every Pole but only to brutally massacre over 60,000 women, children etc. Of course you also don't have a clue about the Yugoslav wars, there is an article on the Bosnian Genocide."

The point being that i'm replying to an insane sentence that the OUN wasn't to kill each and every Pole but to remove Polish influence as if that makes the huge massacres any less horrible. Scurinae also chopped out part of the last part of the sentence which shows why i said he doesn't have a clue about the Yugoslav wars. Basically the editor in question wanted to rename the Massacre of Poles in Volhynia to "Polish-Ukrainian relationships" giving as an example that there is only the article about the Yugoslav wars but "rightly" no article about the Massacres of Bosnians. I was simply pointing out that is not true as there is a Bosnian Genocide article and i wasn't uncivil. But in a way I think it's good he brought up that example as it shows what kind of claims the Polish editors have to sometimes oppose on that page.
I won't comment on Dr. Dan since i don't understand what is he doing here and his comments have absolute zero relevance for this case. Loosmark (talk) 18:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment on Sandstein

I'm a bit surprised by what Sandstein wrote bellow that a separate AE request is needed to examine Faustian's behavior. I don't have much experience in AE requests but in those that I have followed I have always seen admins examining the behavior all the parties involved in a problematic situation. If I understand Sandstein correctly in his evaluation he hasn't examined Faustian's behavior (why else would there be a need to start a separate request to examine Faustian). Does that mean that my behavior was examined as if it happened in a vacuum so to say. (Also for example theoreticaly speaking if there are 5 or 6 problematic users on a specific page and one of them fills a request, it seems very impractical to me that the other 5 should start separate requests about everybody involved.) Loosmark (talk) 20:13, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Another thing I'd like to ask Sandstein why does he think that a wide Ukrainian-Polish relationship topic ban is required for me rather than just a specific page ban. I have not misbehaved on any other article in that area, I did not have problems with Faustian on any other article in that area and in fact I think I have shown moderate interest in only 2 other articles there. I hope Sandstein won't be annoyed by my questions, I have little experiences in AE requests I'd like to know how are the decisions made. If he'd be kind enough to answer I'd really appreciate it. Loosmark (talk) 20:13, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for answering Sandstein, however I'm not sure I follow your logic, if for example person A punches person B, the circumstances make a hell lot of a difference, it's just not the same if he simply delivered the punch for no reason or he was kicked in belly first.
You also wrote that "my problematic conduct that triggered the ban was not specific to the subject matter of that article, but rather appears to reflect your approach to dealing with contested historical issues of that sort in general." Since I edit great number of historical articles (in fact WW2 is probably my main topic of interest on wiki), do you have any other evidence from all those other pages about approach or have you deduced that just by examining a couple of diffs from Massacres of Poles in Volhynia. Loosmark (talk) 21:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Reply to CIreland

In my judgment, the deliberate and repeated misrepresentations of others' edits by Loosmark Since this is an extremly severe accusation, would you care to explain where have i done that? Loosmark (talk) 21:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I specified where you had done this in my statement. Sandstein also pointed out the same misrepresentations when he described your sanction. Since you recognize the severity of this and the fact that it occurred is beyond reasonable dispute, I am confused as to how you expect this appeal to succeed. CIreland (talk) 23:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I recognized the severity of your accusation, not that I have actually done that!! For the record I totally reject that I have done that, I tried to give examples of what kind of stuff he POV-pushes into articles, in no place I've claimed that he came up with that stuff himself. I even provided the exact diffs for crying out loud and later to avoid any possible confusion I even explicitly stated that I'm not accusing him of coming up with that himself, saying this: "I have not, I repeat, NOT accused Faustian of that. What I accuse him is trying to POV push that provocative explanation of Ukrainian mass slaughters into the article." If that's not enough to make it clear I didn't mean that, then I don't know what is. Loosmark (talk) 00:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment on Faustian

As I've anticipated Faustian just doesn't get it. In the comment he somewhere bellow he writes My statement concerning another editor's family background was not meant in any way to imply that such a background, in general, renders one nonobjective. I was responding to the other editor's particular incivility and high level of emotion. clearly indicates that he completely refuses to understand why is such a statement wrong. Obviously the point is that it is not only bad if applied generally for all people of that background but even applied individually to explain a "one-sidedness" (or whatever other behavior) of a specific editor.. simply because it's completely senseless and ugly too. To draw an obvious analogy, if an editor has a grandfather who was a Nazi, in no way can that be that held as a reason to explain his attitude on any edits. So we are now left with a grotesque situation that i had to get a wide topic ban by Sandstein to prevent "continued disruption" based on some vague and nebulous claim that a couple of diffs from a talk page "appear(!) to reflect my approach to dealing with contested historical issues of that sort in general." For which he, btw, provided zero evidence from the 100s and 100s of pages with historical topic that I have edited. On the other hand an editor who demonstratedly doesn't understand that "calling family background into play" is a no no is simply allowed to go on. Well I guess I better don't say anything else on this topic because I wouldn't be surprised if my "penalty" gets "doubled" as some editor suggested somewhere in this thread. Loosmark (talk) 15:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Unbelievably Faustian still keeps pushing the idea that drawing the conclusions based on origins of editor's family is ok. Polish editors completely can't work in a relaxed state of mind with him like that... anyway i'm out of here for today, don't want to spend all sunday arguing on sth he should be well aware of. Loosmark (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

I won't comment on the substance of the appeal – res ipsa loquitur – except to note that Loosmark and Radeksz are right that Faustian should not, per WP:AGF, have speculated about any grounds related to Loosmark's family that Loosmark might have for his edits. But any misconduct by Faustian can, if needed, be examined in a separate AE request; it is not relevant to the question of whether the sanctions against Loosmark are warranted.

As always, I am open to modify the sanction if it is clearly no longer required (e.g. after mediation has been successfully undertaken). It would be good if an administrator could moderate this thread to prevent it from becoming another front in the East European wiki-wars (as I am involved here, I won't do it).  Sandstein  19:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Loosmark

You are right that on occasion the conduct of others (notably the reporting editor) can also be evaluated at AE, if all required evidence is readily available (we don't have clear rules about this), but in principle - and that's my main point - each editor's conduct should be assessed on its own merits, and nobody's misconduct is excused or mitigated by any misconduct of others. That (and a desire to reduce confusion) is why I normally find it useful to examine each case separately.
As to your ban's scope, your problematic conduct that triggered the ban was not specific to the subject matter of that article, but rather appears to reflect your approach to dealing with contested historical issues of that sort in general. That's why I chose a scope for the ban wide enough to prevent continued disruption but narrow enough not to prevent any productive contributions.  Sandstein  20:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement by CIreland

As an administrator with no prior involvement in the area of dispute, I have reviewed the original request filed by Faustian and closed by Sandstein. I fully endorse the sanctions imposed by Sandstein. In my judgment, the deliberate and repeated misrepresentations of others' edits by Loosmark in his response to the report are by themselves sufficient grounds for the sanction. Furthermore, I am inclined to impose additional sanctions or warnings on other editors for their behaviour during this appeal. CIreland (talk) 20:45, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Bandurist

He still does not understand. He was let off very lightly. He offended many people in his edits. Maybe the penalty could be doubled?--Bandurist (talk) 21:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps user Bandurist would like to respond to the complaint concerning his person ] before suggesting anything on this board??--Jacurek (talk) 00:25, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Vecrumba

I have been following the article closely as I find Eastern European internecine, if you will, conflicts unproductive and draining of editors' energies--Poland-Lithuania, Poland-Ukraine are two such conflicts, rather unavoidable given Poland's history, dissolution, reincarnation, massive border shifts, starting WWII squarely in the cross hairs of Hitler and Stalin, et al. I agree with Radeksz that Faustian and Loosmark should attempt mediation on the topic. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  00:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment/appeal to administrators by Jacurek

I absolutely agree with Verumba that user Faustian and User Loosmark should start immediate mediation process instead of being sanctioned from the topic. Administrators, please understand that what was really happening here was an attempt (successful) to silence an opponent in content dispute by bringing questionable and open for interpretation (in my opinion) misconduct to your attention. Please also note how quickly other opponents of Loosmark or allies of Faustian appeared on this board suggesting for example that restrictions should be doubled. If you go ahead now and validate sanction of one side of this conflict without giving much attention to the wider aspect of Eastern European history issues on Misplaced Pages then what will happen?? Side that was not sanctioned will get an upper hand and will rewrite the articles to present that history from their point of view without being challenged or questioned. Disputed articles will loose credibility very quickly. Is this what we need ? Will this help Wikipiedia to become credible tool of reference?? Will you get involved with editing these articles to help keep them on the middle ground and as neutral as possible? I don't think so, therefore I APPEAL to you to think about your decisions with a little more understanding of the overall problem. Thank you.--Jacurek (talk) 03:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Faustian

My statement concerning another editor's family background was not meant in any way to imply that such a backround, in general, renders one nonobjective. I was responding to the other editor's particular incivility and high level of emotion. The whole thread is here: . I initially responded here: . Which met with this response from the other editor: . I then followd up with this response: . When I wrote "You have admitted elsewhere that your Polish family is from Volhynia. Perhaps this may explain your passion and one-sidedness on this article. Which is your right of couse; just please don't push your POV into the article" it was meant as friendly feedback to the other editor to step back and consider his behavior on this article. Indeed the other editor's pattern of behavior is also abusive and battleground-like but in part because of his family background I chose not to report him. If my comment to him was construed otherwise in any way other than a warning and call for some introspection, I apologise.

As for my so-called "controversial" edit that began this conflict - it was referenced to the work of Ihor Ilyushin published by the Institute of History of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and is available on-line for verification. I see nothing controversial about that.Faustian (talk) 12:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

With respect to my comment above I invite editors to review the page Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest, particularly here: . In particular, "Closeness to a subject does not mean you're incapable of being neutral, but it may incline you towards some bias. Be guided by the advice of other editors. If editors on a talk page suggest in good faith that you may have a conflict of interest, try to identify and minimize your biases, and consider withdrawing from editing the article. As a rule of thumb, the more involvement you have with a topic in real life, the more careful you should be with our core content policies — Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, Misplaced Pages:No original research, and Misplaced Pages:Verifiability — when editing in that area." I was suggesting that the particular editor's abusive behavior on the talk pages may have been a reflection of his stated personal links to the atrocities and emotional involvement with them. I see nothing wrong with my words but am certainly willing to reconsider if presented with other arguments by uninvolved, neutral editors.Faustian (talk) 16:12, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Piotrus

Too much bad faith flying around :( I'll keep it short and say that in light of the presented evidence, I think that a civility parole is a better solution than topic ban. Loosmark is not disruptive in article's mainspace, but he should pay more attention to AGF (to editors and entire ethnic groups) on talk. This, of course, should be a lesson drawn by others - in particular I think that Bandurist may benefit from same civility parole as well. PS. I totally support mediation as suggested above by Vecrumba; those editors who refuse mediation could indeed be subject to a topic ban, as if they don't want to talk - they shouldn't edit the subject as well. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Result concerning Loosmark

This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above.

After analyzing the original request filed by Faustian and Sandstein's comments, I endorse the sanctions imposed by Sandstein on Loosmark. Loosmark is banned from the topic of Ukrainian-Polish relations during World War II, broadly construed, in all namespaces and discussions, for six months.

While making the final decision, I ignored the comments of Dr. Dan, Jacurek, Piotrus, Radeksz, and Sciurinæ. I concentrated on Loosmark's appeal, the original request filed by Faustian, and Sandstein's comments. AdjustShift (talk) 00:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)