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Amendment request: Eastern Europe

Initiated by  Sandstein  at 19:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Case affected

Eastern Europe arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Presumptive discretionary sanction of 1 November 2014 by John Vandenberg

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• John Vandenberg (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• John Vandenberg notified on 19:36, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Information about amendment request

For the reasons detailed below, I ask that the Committee

• sanction John Vandenberg for misuse of discretionary sanctions and failure to communicate, and
• remove his presumptive discretionary sanction against me, by way of appeal as provided by WP:AC/DS#Appeals and modifications.

Statement by Sandstein

As set out in a request for clarification on 1 November 2014, John Vandenberg issued me earlier that day with, confusingly, an "alert", "notification" or "warning" supposedly per WP:AC/DS for alleged misconduct on my part in the Eastern Europe topic area, and logged this on the WP:ARBEE case page in the section "Log of blocks and bans". The request for clarification concluded on 10 December 2014 with most arbitrators agreeing with AGK, who noted that as an alert per WP:AC/DS this action would have been inadmissible and that John Vandenberg needs to decide whether his action was meant as an alert or as a discretionary sanction, in which case he would need to issue a "hand-written caution". Despite my repeated requests (, ) to do so, John Vandenberg has responded only with evasive one-liners (, ) before ceasing to edit altogether. A further clarification, promised in his last edit on 10 December 2014 for "tomorrow", has not been forthcoming.

John Vandenberg has violated the conduct rules that apply to admins in two respects:

• John Vandenberg's issuing the alert, notification or warning to me was frivolous and disruptive. There are no grounds for either a discretionary sanction or any other admin action against me. To the extent I can discern any relationship between his actions and any actions by me at all, the one action by me to which John Vandenberg expressed an objection was a normal admin action, to wit, deleting a page created by a sock of a banned user, Russavia, as directed by WP:CSD#G5. Even if this deletion could have been deemed objectionable (there was an earlier AfD, but in my view it was no bar to speedy deletion because that discussion didn't know about the ban evasion), John Vandenberg would have been out of line by responding to it with discretionary sanctions, meant to address misconduct arising from disputes about topics related to Eastern Europe, rather than with a civil query and a discussion among admin colleagues, and possibly with the community at deletion review or elsewhere, which would have been the expected way to settle good faith disagreements among admins about the merits of contested admin actions. Instead, he chose a course of action either intended to or at any rate having the effect of furthering the block-evading activity of a banned user's sockpuppets, by inappropriately stifling normal admin action intended to counteract such activity by way of the "chilling effect" of discretionary sanctions.

• Moreover, John Vandenberg violated the admin policy's requirement that "administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Misplaced Pages-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed." Additionally, WP:AC/DS specifies that admins "must not ... repeatedly fail to properly explain their enforcement actions". John Vandenberg failed these expectations by failing to respond to my repeated queries – made necessary by the conclusion of the clarification request – about whether his action was intended as a sanction or as an alert, and to my repeated queries about the specific reasons why the sanction (if it is one) was imposed. His lack of response has so far prevented me from properly appealing the presumptive sanction. Per WP:AC/DS, admins failing to meet the expectations set out in that procedure "may be subject to any remedy the committee consider appropriate, including desysopping".

For these reasons, I ask the Committee to sanction John Vandenberg to the extent necessary to prevent further misuse of the discretionary sanctions procedure. I also ask the Committee to strike John Vandenberg's warning from the enforcement log – either as an out-of-place and superfluous alert, or as a groundless sanction, which is hereby appealed in case it is a sanction. Finally, I ask the Committee to clarify that discretionary sanctions are not to be used in lieu of discussion among admins about whether good-faith admin actions are appropriate or not.

In consideration of the already long time elapsed solely because of John Vandenberg's confusing and dilatory conduct, I ask that this request not be suspended or declined on account of his apparent absence from Misplaced Pages. Thanks,  Sandstein  19:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

@AGK: Sorry, but I don't see how the matter would die a natural death, as you put it. The way I see it, I'm still subject to what is logged as a discretionary sanction that was, in my view, imposed for invalid reasons and in a disruptive manner for what I consider doing my normal admin duties, which it is impeding by its existence. I don't think that I'm being unreasonable by asking for it to be reviewed exactly as provided for by the procedure you helped write. But if you see another way to resolve this problem, I'm open to any advice.  Sandstein  07:36, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Hawkeye7

First, let me state how sick and tired I am of good content being deleted and destroyed by gnomes under spurious speedy deletion criteria. The procedure is clear; if the deletion is contested there should be a proper deletion review. Once this has been done, if the result is for the article to be kept, then the article cannot be speedily deleted per WP:G5. WP:SPEEDY lists seven criteria, and this is not one of them. Maintaining otherwise by refiling this is WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and WP:BATTLEGROUND at its worst. John Vandenberg, a former Arb, is one of the most polite and patient admins we have. Absence from Misplaced Pages at this time of year is both normal and acceptable. In this hemisphere, the Christmas/New Year period falls in our Summer holidays and many firms shut down for two or three weeks.

Because Sandstein has:

1. Failed to respond promptly and civilly to queries about Misplaced Pages-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed;
2. Shown an WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality by filing this absurd request;
3. Not showing any inclination to participate in reasoned dispute resolution (or just let the stupid matter drop);
4. Continued to pursue a vendetta when told to knock it off;
5. Has shown overwhelming hubris and arrogance in performance of admin duties; and above all
6. Failed to demonstrate a substantial record of content creation which raises issues of WP:NOTHERE.

I therefore recommend that WP:BOOMERANG is in order and that Sandstein be admonished. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Psychonaut

Irrespective of whether Sandstein's deletion of the page was appropriate, it seems absurd to invoke or apply WP:ARBEE here. Discretionary sanctions are normally meted out to those whose strong personal views relating to a given subject area lead them to disrupt the corresponding articles and discussion pages. In my observation Sandstein has demonstrated no such personal attachment to the topic of Eastern Europe, nor am I aware of any history of his disrupting pages in this area. If his actions relating to Why didn't you invest in Eastern Poland? were mistaken, or even intentionally disruptive, this could and should have been dealt with through other measures. As John Vendenberg has so far failed to provide the required clarification for his WP:ARBEE warning, I think it would be appropriate for the Committee to strike or overturn it, without prejudice to his pursuing a discussion or remedy in some other venue. —Psychonaut (talk) 11:17, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Josve05a

• On 11 May 2014 an editor raised the issue of the non-existence of an article on WP. Sandstein, the deleting admin, stated that it needed to be undeleted at WP:DRV.
• On 1 November 2014 I independently started a deletion review. At the deletion review I raised issues relating to the notability and suitability of the article, and also re-assessed Sandstein's initial AfD closure
• Sandstein made comments which insinuated I was proxying for banned editors.
• Immediately after this, Sandstein gave me a discretionary sanctions warning. The lack of warning to any other editor made me feel that he was using his position as an administrator to intimidate me because I started the DRV and because I was a little critical of his initial deletion. I simply followed Sandstein's own advice to another editor to take the issue to DRV. This is not grounds for giving a baseless discretionary sanctions warning; Nick agreed and rescinded the warning given by Sandstein.
• After another editor pulled the "racism" card in the DRV discussion, I asked Sandstein if he thought it was acceptable. He didn't do anything about it, and essentially claimed that the editor doesn't have a history of battleground disruption, when they do.

It is clearly evident that Sandstein is himself abusing the threat of discretionary sanctions as a tool to intimidate other editors. I agree with Hawkeye7 that WP:BOOMERANG has a place here. If Sandstein were to WP:DROPTHESTICK, things might be different, but at this point, that boomerang should be used given his continued battleground behavior at this very request and his very clearly demonstrated intimidation of other editors — I am certain is not an isolated case.

If Sandstein is willing to walk away from the carcass, this request should be closed off with the discretionary sanctions warning in place. If he is unwilling to do so I think an upgrade of the discretionary sanctions to a topic ban from the Eastern Europe topic area is in order, to give him time off from the entire topic area and to enable to re-assess his disruptive and intimidating behavior.

Statement by {yet another user}

Clerk notes

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

Eastern Europe: Arbitrator views and discussion

• I am actually minded to agree with part of Hawkeye's submission in this matter. Sandstein, I do not see what is to be achieved by this request, and I question why you are not letting this matter die the natural death for which it was on course. AGK 23:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Sandstein, please just drop the stick. Salvio 10:45, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

Initiated by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) at 21:22, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)#Richard_Arthur_Norton_.281958-_.29.27s_topic_ban_on_article_creation

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

• Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Fram (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Statement by Richard Arthur Norton

I am currently following Misplaced Pages rules on attributing source material and have been creating articles in my user space at User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) as examples. I would like my restrictions on 1) creating new content in Misplaced Pages space lifted and 2) on adding images to dead people's profiles under fair use lifted.

I have gone over my earliest edits to attribute the source material used and rewrite blocks of text where the writing was insufficiently altered. I have not found any additional ones and no one has brought to me any further examples that need work. Any additional ones found in the future will be fixed right away. I would like to continue adding images to dead people's biographies under fair use. I will use the most current template and make sure it is filled-in as completely as possible.

Statement by Carrite

Richard Norton is celebrating 10 years as a Wikipedian tomorrow. He stands as #124 on the Most Edits list with over 153,000 edits (he is a plain editor, not someone with a bot-inflated count). He is #96 on the new starts list, with more than 3,000 articles started. Of these, a very small fraction, mostly c. 2005-2007 were problematic — granted that a very small fraction of a huge number is significant. Regardless, he now understands copyright rules with respect to WP content. No one has complained of copyvio in his work of the past year or two... Richard has a huge backlog of new material to be moved to mainspace, the current system of proxy-editing his starts is not working. He will be under very close scrutiny for any future copyright violation, rest assured. The current restriction upon him (which was ill-advised in the first place) does nothing but fetter his work and should be ended. Carrite (talk) 02:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

@Psychonaut. The CCI case will never be completed. Their methodology does not scale and, as you mention, their backlog is massive and growing. In short summary: it only takes three demonstrated instances of copyvio to open a case. Once opened, a case can never be closed without each and every edit in the history of the subject of the inquiry being hand-checked. For a new contributor or a small-scale contributor, this is possible; for one of the most prolific contributors in the history of Misplaced Pages — as RAN is — it is not possible. CCI had fewer than a dozen really active volunteers at the time of the Norton case, these to handle every single case. It's an absolute waste of RAN's time as a content-writer to be hunting copy vio needles in haystacks (not to mention it's probably not going to happen, not to mention it would be a subject of a copyvio investigation policing the ancient edits made by himself...) Carrite (talk) 10:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Fram

As the one that brought the case against Richard Arthur Norton here in the first place, I have no objection against lifting the restriction on creation of new content (i.e. articles) in the mainspace. His user space articles seem to be copyright-violation free. I believe he still has a tendency to use quotes excessively (in footnotes), but that is less of a problem and doesn't need a restriction if it doesn't get a lot worse. As for the image restriction, I'm less convinced that there won't be problems with this, but have no recent evidence for this. Fram (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Psychonaut

Richard Arthur Norton is asking for his restriction to be lifted on the basis that he has fixed all his past copyright violations, and that no one has brought any further ones to his attention. However, at his CCI (Misplaced Pages:Contributor copyright investigations/20111108) there remain literally tens of thousands of edits to thousands of articles yet to be checked. It's true that no further copyvios have been found there since 2013, but consider that no one has even been processing the CCI since that year. (Sadly, CCI has such a backlog that cases there often languish for months or years between edits.) We simply cannot take the lack of any recent discoveries in the CCI as evidence that they don't exist. In fact, I would wager that if processing were resumed, many further copyvios would be uncovered.

In light of this, I wonder if, rather than allowing him to start creating new pages again, it might not be a better use of Richard Arthur Norton's time to assist in the massive cleanup of the old ones. Keeping the restriction in place until such time as the CCI is completed might give him a greater impetus to clear the backlog.

I haven't been involved in this particular CCI but am pinging those who were most active in it (User:Sphilbrick, User:Hut 8.5, User:Moonriddengirl, User:Wizardman, User:MER-C, User:Amalthea, and User:Bilby) in case they want to weigh in. —Psychonaut (talk) 17:57, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite: Except for the very smallest edits, this is not a "finding needles in a haystack" problem; it is a "shooting fish in a barrel" problem. On the first page of the CCI alone, 36% of the articles checked so far were found to contain copyvios. Richard Arthur Norton is uniquely qualified to identify his sources, since he's the one who found and copied from them in the first place. He could save us all a lot of time by actively marking and fixing the positive cases. No matter how understaffed CCI is, we can't simply throw up our hands and ignore the copyvios; ensuring that our articles are free content is one of our core principles. —Psychonaut (talk) 11:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by { other user }

Clerk notes

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

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting any further statements. Statements should focus on whether the concerns about Mr. Norton's editing that prompted us to impose the restriction have been addressed in his more recent editing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• I'd like to hear some more statements before making any decision (which may not happen before disappear off the committee), but in principle, I'd certainly have no issue with easing these restrictions to allow Richard to show he's able to work without causing issues especially if he has put right what's been pointed out. Worm(talk) 11:25, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• I'm amenable to applying the standard "parole" (i.e. we lift the sanction, but for the first year it may be reimposed by any uninvolved admin, in the event of further problems). Salvio 12:01, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• I'd also like to hear from those originally involved, but absent any serious and recent concerns, I'd be amenable to Salvio's suggestion. Seraphimblade 20:28, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• It is a little soon, in my book, to be loosening restrictions applied in 2013. I am likely to oppose the motion suggested above, at least for the time being: the issues identified in the original case, although diminishing, are not clearly gone. Decline. AGK 23:17, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Infoboxes

Initiated by Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) at 01:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Case affected

Infoboxes arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy 1.1 - Pigsonthewing and infoboxes

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Callanecc (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• Pigsonthewing

Information about amendment request

• Remedy 1.1 - Pigsonthewing and infoboxes
• Add "for articles" to the end of the remedy.

Statement by Callanecc

I know it's another Infoboxes request, but bear with me, this one will (hopefully) be easy and uncontroversial.

There was an AE request filed which requested enforcement against Pigsonthewing requesting and discussing deletion of infoboxes at WP:TfD. The consensus among admins was there was an implication that the restriction applies to articles only however as this is not clear in the provision there would continue to be misunderstanding and possibly further AE requests closed without action being possible. So this request (as an uninvolved admin carrying out the close of the request) is for a motion with the following wording:

Remedy 1.1 of the Infoboxes arbitration case is amended to read:

Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes from articles.

Statement by Francis Schonken

Disagree with Callanecc's proposal. Here we see Pigsonthewing going in denial about an unresolved issue regarding infoboxes, removing the link to where the discussion of that issue was taking place: unnecessary & unhelpful – if it is qualified as "unhelpful" to try resolve an actual infoboxes issue the resulting impression remains that many months after the conclusion of the Infoboxes case at least some infoboxes proponents prefer to go largely in denial about the issues at hand.

If anything, an amendment to the Infoboxes case should imho further restrict PotW's actions regarding infoboxes. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:39, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Gerda Arendt

@Francis: "Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment." - We are not discussing here your bold change to a project page of a project of which you are not even a member, claiming that it is a "disadvantage" of infoboxes that a certain program extracting a PDF fails to render the image. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:14, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

If that was, or reasonably seems to be, the intention of the original wording, then the amendment should be made without cavil. And I would say that it clearly is the substantive intention. Any desire to extend the sanction should be the subject of a different process.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:27, 20 December 2014 (UTC).

Statement by Thryuduulf

Note I'm commenting here as an involved editor, not as an incoming arbitrator

I fully support this, as this matches how the restriction has been interpreted on multiple occasions at AE. Indeed, I would go further and explicitly add a second sentence "Pigsonthewing may nominate and discuss infobox templates at Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion." to fully avoid any ambiguity. Thryduulf (talk) 19:31, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by NE Ent

AGK although personally I agree with you -- as discussed on the linked AE thread -- this is clarification and amendment. Given the requesters have a good faith question about the scope of the sanction, a comment indicating your interpretation would be helpful. NE Ent 23:40, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {yet another user}

Clerk notes

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

• Recuse obviously. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Infoboxes: Arbitrator views and discussion

• The purpose of restrictions is to reduce disruption. It doesn't much matter whether the disruption is on articles or talk pages, or wherever. If his contributions in non-article space have not been disruptive, there may be benefit in formalising a narrower scope of the restriction.  Roger Davies 20:33, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
• My recollection was that we crafted the remedy to stop the infobox wars. Those were mainly around adding and removing infoboxes from articles, and that's where Andy needed to be taken away from. I personally supported allowing him to stay in policy debates on the topic, though that didn't pass. I'd certanly support such a change. Worm(talk) 11:34, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• As Roger says, arbcom restrictions are meant to stop drama, not breathe new life into it. Considering Andy's recent attempts at testing the boundaries of his restriction and the community's uncertainty as to where exactly these boundaries lie, I'd be in favour of a gordian solution: let's simply ban Andy from anything infobox-related across all namespaces. Salvio 12:08, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• The motion is fine as written. Decline. AGK 23:18, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
  • The restriction is not fine as written, as evidenced by the fact that it's the second time in less than two months that we have been requested to clarify its scope. Salvio 11:02, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Clarification request: Climate change (WP:ARBCC)

Initiated by NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) at 13:37, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Climate change arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

List of any users involved or directly affected

• NewsAndEventsGuy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Generic FYI link posted to affected article talk page

Statement by NewsAndEventsGuy

The question
As you know, WP:ARBCC (and the new DS system that enforces it) applies to the broadly construed topic of climate change. Does that encompass the article Scientific consensus?

My request/opinion
I would like to see you answer "YES", and an admin or clerk paste the notification template on the article talk page.

Supporting article history

• Dec 4 2004 (William M. Connolley 11:30, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)) I don't know if it helps, but if you look at the very early history of this page you'll see it was essentially created by Ed Poor to hold a quote from Michael Crichton that attacked global warming.
• July 18, 2005 OK, now that the Climate wars have quieted down a bit following the Arbcom decision, I've taken a look at the rewrites. -Vsmith 15:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
  

What prompts the motion
Originally I wrote something about the users and editing that has been happening recently, but after completing it I decided to redact it. After all, I'm not seeking AE against anyone at this time. If anyone asks, I can just add it back. It should also be obvious that well-funded PR firms are paid to undercut belief in the notion of "scientific consensus" as part of various industries' fight against regulations, fees, and taxes. The fossil fuel industry is joined in that regard by tobacco, big pharma, and many others. There are plenty of RSs for that too, if needed.

Conclusion
If you agree, then please have a clerk post the DS notice on the article talk page.
Thanks for your attention, Happy Holidays
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:37, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Callanecc

@NewsAndEventsGuy: The discretionary sanctions would apply to any edit was what broadly construed to be related to climate change, so not every edit on the page would be covered, though the two edits you linked (2004 & 2005) would be covered. Edits regarding tobacco and big pharma very likely wouldn't be covered, but edits regarding fossil fuel probably would. So the short answer is yes and no, and it depends on the edit. For example, an edit to Al Gore regarding his military service wouldn't be covered by the ARBCC discretionary sanctions but an edit to the Environmentalism section very likely would be. Whether it's worth adding the DS template to Talk:Scientific consensus, I don't think it matters two much, the template doesn't need to be there for someone to be sanctioned, nor for them to be alerted about the discretionary sanctions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:50, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by J. Johnson

I would point out that Scientific consensus and the editing and issues there are directly connected with Draft:IPCC consensus, which has parallel issues and authorship. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:10, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {other user}

Clerk notes

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

• Recuse Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:50, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Climate change (WP:ARBCC): Arbitrator views and discussion

• Essentially as stated by Callanecc. In the case here, the entire article isn't related to climate change, but portions of it could be. If the edit is in a portion of the article not related, it is fine, if it is related, that particular edit falls under discretionary sanctions. As to templating, normally, an article talk page should not be templated unless all or almost all of the article would fall under DS, as almost any article could have a portion related to various areas under DS. The example of Al Gore is a good one. We wouldn't template the article on Gore himself because part of the article could relate to climate change, since edits could be made to most of the article in regards to his political career, life, etc., that would have nothing to do with climate change. A template on An Inconvenient Truth, on the other hand, would be appropriate, as that entire article would fall under the climate change DS. Seraphimblade 21:19, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
• I can't think of anything to add beyond what Callanecc and Seraphimblade have already said. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:04, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
• I also agree with the above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:46, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Concur. Worm(talk) 11:37, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• What they said. Salvio 12:09, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• The test to be applied to the article on Scientific consensus is, as stated above, quite clear. Please proceed accordingly. AGK 23:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)