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Requests for arbitration

Blablaaa

Initiated by Kirill  at 22:06, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Kirill Lokshin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• EyeSerene (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Nick-D (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Ranger Steve (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• EnigmaMcmxc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Chaosdruid (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Caden (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Blablaaa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Climie.ca (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• EyeSerene
• Nick-D
• Ranger Steve
• EnigmaMcmxc
• Chaosdruid
• Caden
• Blablaaa
• Climie.ca

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Discussion at Military history WikiProject
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Blablaaa

Statement by Kirill Lokshin

Blablaaa, an editor working primarily on articles related to World War II, has, since February, been engaged in a lengthy series of disputes on these articles, primarily related to disagreements over how force strengths and casualties should be presented.

In the course of these various debates, Blablaaa has repeatedly engaged in personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith directed against anyone who disagrees with him—and even against editors who merely happen to comment within the same discussion—and has consistently treated Misplaced Pages as a battleground. He has engaged in tendentious editing on a significant number of articles, and his disruptive conduct has spread to several different project-space fora.

In response, a number of editors, including myself, filed a request for comment regarding Blablaa. Unfortunately, while most comments at the RFC agreed that Blablaaa's conduct was inappropriate and hindered any real attempts to resolve the underlying dispute, Blablaaa has not moderated his behavior. If anything, the RFC has prompted him to launch attacks and accusations with greater fervor, and he shows no sign of being able or willing to work constructively with the other editors in the debate.

I ask the Committee to take up this matter and to consider how Blablaaa may be prevented from causing further disruption. Kirill  22:12, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

In response to Jehochman: you're perfectly free to block him, of course, but please keep in mind that he has already been indefinitely blocked once. I have no real confidence that a discretionary block will stick at this point; hence the arbitration request, which can at least produce a binding resolution, if not necessarily a very quick one. Kirill  15:30, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Blablaaa

First of all iam not activ anymore. In short, i have so much trouble simply because i mainly raised concerns about biased editing. Its pretty clear that such a controverisal topic brings much discussions. Many of my concerns were simply put away with calling me a progerman editor with agenda. Unsubstantiated accusation that i do bias editing were never prooven with diffs.

mfg Blablaaa (talk) 22:48, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Iam sorry iam very short of time at the moment so only a quick overview. Many of my problems evolved with User:EnigmaMcmxc . This user has 5 featured articles marked at top right of his userpage. Lets take a look. If we assume that the infobox is one of the major elements which forms the opinion of the reader , we should look at them. 4 out of 5 "Results are incorrcet" . Operation Perch was a huge operation failure of the british. Enigma made "]" inconclusive out of this without citiation. I changed this now. Operation Epsom is seen by the most historians as a british operational failure, no mention of this in the box. Operation Charnwood had according to the Aniboard ] ( the link is also good for seeing OR by users to defend their outcome and unsubstantiated accusation against me) a outcome which misused sources . Enigma was advised to change it, but he refused and put again a "wrong" outcome in the box] . Operation Brevity , here my knowledge is limited so iam not 100% sure but this battle was also a simple failure at the operational level. The brtish army failed to achieve what they planed but the box gives "inconclusive" without citiation, same like perch. Enigma and other editors will dispute this now but thats it, 4 out of 5 featured articles have incorrect/flawed outcomes all of this mistakes favor british. This is only the result section of the box. Its everywhere i will present more if needed and i have time. I hope showing that even the outcomes are wrong, is generic.

Regarding the behaviour of editors and a less subtle case of WP:OR/WP:SYN/WP:OWN can you find at the talk of Battle of Jutland, plese visit this link ] if you are short of time please skip to subsection "sources" . Several editors are disputing sources which are contraticting the choosen outcome this goes so far that they explain why they think this battle was inconclusive and this seems to be enough to keep the status quo maintained. 2 other editors give neutral input and suggest to write something clear and unambiguous in the box but this is also not accepted. I want to highlight the post of the MILHIST coordinator parsecboy at "02:11, 23 July 2010 (UTC)" and my response. This is a pretty obvious selective quoting and a cheattry. When you try to change the outcome, there was a remark in the code saying: "dont change the outcome, first discussion!", this means you should go to the discussion then they explain you why they think this was no german tactical victory. ( at the talk a user claims i did editwar and caden is my sockpuppet. i deny this. i did 1! and was the first who added sources to the outcome)

I hope, the fact that i present not so much stuff does not imply that this is all. Its only the biggining.

You can also read the talk of the RFC, i refute many accusations as wrong. Blablaaa (talk) 08:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding my conduct. People are correct, my tone etc is hard to handle. Thats why i quit anyways. with regards Blablaaa (talk) 08:14, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

I have no prior involvement with Blablaaa, WP:MILHIST or (as far as I know) any of the concerned articles. But I was just now reading Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Blablaaa and came to the conclusion that the material gathered and opinions voiced there are sufficient to block Blablaaa indefinitely for persistent disruption and an inability to work productively with others, even considering that a previous indefinite block was (for reasons that are not very clear) lifted in April 2010.

Before imposing the block, though, I noticed this request for arbitration. Its acceptance and the imposition of a topic ban from World War II articles would probably solve the problem, but an administrator's indefinite block is likely to have about the same effect (Blablaaa seems not to have ever edited anything but WWII articles) and take less time for all involved.  Sandstein  10:42, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Nick-D

I was involved with Blablaaa as primarily in my role as an administrator and agree completely with Kirill's statement (I was the admin who instituted the indef block that was later overturned, along with four previous blocks of 31 hours to one month duration which were upheld by other admins on appeal). This has been a long-running problem which a number of very good and patient editors have been unable to solve due to Blablaaa's intransigence.

Given that Blablaaa used the RFC/U as yet another platform to argue over article content and make abusive comments towards other editors I think that ArbCom intervention is needed to resolve this situation (though I do agree with Sandstein that an indef block would be justified; Blablaaa has not changed his behavior in response to the multiple blocks he received from several admins as an IP editor or the blocks I implemented in the period after he registered an account). I note that Blablaaa's break from editing will only last until he has gathered material to present to a 'committee' (by which I presume he meant ArbCom), so this is going to end up here one way or another, and taking action now will head off further disruption. As part of this case, I'd suggest that ArbCom also consider the role played by Caden (talk · contribs), who has supported Blablaaa's disruptive behavior on a number of occasions, and has also repeatedly made highly uncivil and baseless accusations against various editors during these discussions. Nick-D (talk) 00:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by MBK004

I urge the Committee to accept this case not only to examine the behavior of Blablaa, but also as suggested by Nick-D, the behavior of Caden during this incident as well. This dispute is a complicated one which does not lend itself towards having the ability for the community to successfully resolve it due to the overturned indefinite block of Blablaa as well as the continued disruption by Bla after that block and during the recent RFC. Most of the administrators who work in the MILHIST project have become involved to the point that they cannot sanction Bla anymore and the MILHIST coordinators also have had to suffer blatant personal attacks by both Bla and Caden when we have tried to diffuse and/or solve this problem without having to resort to such means of dispute resolution such as RFC and Arbitration.

Also, while it does appear that Bla intends to take a break from editing, Nick-D points out that he has stated his intent to return and I suspect that return will be with the same behavior of constant personal attacks against editors who disagree and he will continue to make allegations of a vast MILHIST cabal that seeks to suppress German military exploits during the Second World War. Simply put, Blablaa is the editor who I would not hesitate to name in response to the question "who is the most disruptive editor in the MILHIST spectrum currently?" because of his constant attacks against editors which stifle productive collaborative editing in articles and cause said editors to completely disengage and cease working on articles (on extremely important historical topics) which they intended to improve through constructive collaborative editing.

The RFC has quite a large amount of evidence, but I will note that the editors who drafted it have chosen not to present everything in the interests of not turning the RFC into a wall of evidence via diffs. They only chose certain recent examples of Bla's disruptive behavior. A more thorough in-depth investigation of his behavior will show even more instances of disruption which deserve to be entered into evidence so the Committee can accurately judge the widespread amount of disruption and hopefully enact sanctions which are designed to end the disruption. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:30, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by EyeSerene

Should an alternative solution (such as Sandstein's suggestion) not emerge, I too respectfully ask that the committee consider taking on this case. I fully support Kirill's statement, but with the minor addendum that Blablaaa started editing Misplaced Pages as an anon in late 2009, four(ish) months before creating his account in February 2010. His IP addresses also attracted a number of blocks. I mention this not to recall earlier misdeeds - many editors have a rocky start - but to note that this is a longer-term problem than Kirill's text implies. We are unable to handle this at Milhist for the reasons given by MBK (although given the conspiracy theories that have been touted, this is probably for the best anyway), and the unblock discussion at ANI mentioned by Nick shows the potential difficulty of using that forum for anything but the most clear-cut issues.

Regarding Blablaaa's recent declaration that he's leaving, obviously it would be a waste of the committee's time to hear a full case for an editor who won't be here. However, I'm not convinced he won't be back once the fuss has died down. He's made the same statement a few times now during the course of the RfC and his editing has been sporadic before. Finally, while poorly-judged, unhelpful, uncollegiate, and in places bizarre, I think the merits of Caden's contributions to the RfC were self-evident and the sort of thing that could be addressed by an uninvolved admin if necessary. On that basis I have no view either way on expanding the case to consider these. EyeSerene 12:15, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Jehochman: I have the same reservations as Kirill re discretionary sanctions. If Nick's indefblock of Blablaaa had stuck back in April we wouldn't be here now. I have complete confidence in your ability to judge whether or not a block is in order, but based on that unblock I have rather less confidence in ANI's suitability to judge any unblock request further down the line. I think the advantage of going via ArbCom is the removal of any grey areas that might permit a similar outcome in future. I for one have certainly got no appetite for going through all this again :) EyeSerene 16:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

If what Kirill says is true, why not just ask an uninvolved administrator to place an indefinite block, or ask the community to place a topic ban? Why tie up the committee's insufficient resources with a case that has a foregone conclusion? Where are the complicating factors that prevent this from being resolved directly? It is unseemly when arbitrators use their position on the committee to ramrod opponents. (Whether or not this is the intention; this is the appearance.) A "defendant" cannot get a fair shake here when they are prosecuted by an arbitrator. The mailing list is just too cozy. Jehochman 14:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Can anybody give me a valid reason not to block User:Blablaaa as a disruptived editor right now (as Sandstein suggests above)? No colorable defense has been given. The editor's response at RFC is a collection of off-topic rambles. Caden's disruptiveness ought to be handled separately. Jehochman 14:56, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I have blocked the account. This is run of the mill disruptive editing that should be manageable by any administrator. ArbCom has the following options:

1. Any arbitrator or clerk may unblock the account to participate in a full case.
2. ArbCom may reject the request as moot.

The editor claims to be retiring, so I do not understand why they would appeal the block or why you would invest resources in hearing a case. Jehochman 17:50, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

• Carcharoth, I am sure you are aware that beneath all the pomp and circumstance, arbitration is just a negotiation. I asked if blocking Blablaa would be acceptable. Kirill agreed, just above, and so did EyeSerene, the two certifiers of the RFC. Blablaa stated that they were retiring. After I placed the block Blablaa confirmed their acceptance by placing a retired tag on their pages. There has been no drama whatsoever. After the RFC one of the certifiers should have posted to WP:AN asking for an uninvolved administrator to review the matter. I've now done that, belatedly, and taken the necessary action. ArbCom is the last step in dispute resolution. We should not fast track cases from RFC to arbitration, except in emergencies or when the community is incapable of action (e.g. desysopping, confidential evidence). (This is especially true when the filing party is a sitting arbitrator.) When Kirill agree to my placing a block, I assumed he would subsequently withdraw this request. What else needs to be dealt with here that cannot be handled by the community? Jehochman 13:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

• Deskana, immediately before reading your comment below I posted to User talk:Blablaaa suggesting unblock conditions very similar to what you've recommended. The solution here is quite obvious. I too was concerned that the block log was full of blocks by a single administrator. However, the RFC was pretty clear that the user was repeatedly causing trouble. Jehochman 13:49, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Deskana

My first interaction with Blablaaa was when he came into #wikipedia-en-help asking for advice. He had been indefinitely blocked from editing by Nick-D. Chzz, another person in the help channel, created a thread on AN about the block. The AN thread summarises the situation far better than I could, so I would suggest reading it (or at least skimming it) before continuing to read this statement.

I was especially concerned that the blocks were done by a WP:MILHIST member, Nick-D, when the articles in question were ones regarding World War 2. It's a pretty standard philosophy here that blocks for disruptive editing should be done by uninvolved administrators (blatant vandalism excepted, of course). I don't think any MILHIST member is really "uninvolved" when it comes to articles on World War 2. Additionally, as you can see from Blablaaa's block log, Blablaaa's first five blocks were all done by Nick-D, notwithstanding a block settings change for unblock abuse which was done by Blueboy96. LessHeard vanU said in the thread on AN that he is "always wary of one admin being the only or major applier of sanctions with one editor without apparent recourse to other opinions or consensus", and I agree with that sentiment. If the block is appropriate, then it can be done by an uninvolved administrator. This not only has the effect of reassuring the user that they have been treated fairly and impartially, but it also gives that assurance to uninvolved users reviewing the evidence as well.

I recognise that Blablaaa has issues with user conduct as has been pointed out in the RFC. I don't know much about that side of the case, but I find edits like this to be characteristic of people that cannot edit here constructively.

Note: Although I have said I find Nick-D's fifth block to be inappropriate, I am not accusing him of abusing his administrator tools. I also have no doubt in my mind that his actions were taken with the intent of improving Misplaced Pages. I want to make this perfectly clear.

--Deskana (talk) 13:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

• Recused -MBK₀₀₄ 00:31, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/3/0)

• Recused, obviously. Kirill  22:12, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
• Accept. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:19, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
• Accept. KnightLago (talk) 01:43, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
• Recuse.  Roger Davies 03:40, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
• Accept, with the note that I will be inactive for the opening of the case, but intend on becoming active during the case. SirFozzie (talk) 20:50, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
• Would like to hear a few more statements before deciding whether to accept or not. I note that the request for comments has technically not closed yet - how much time is normally given after or during an RfC for the editor concerned to modify their behaviour? I've also read the AN thread where the indefinite block of Blablaaa was discussed, and the difference in opinions between that thread and the RfC is noticeable, so while I was inclined to agree with Sandstein's comment above, I'm no longer so sure. Possibly a case is needed here. Will wait for more input. Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 1 August 2010 (UTC) I've left a note at the RfC talk page. If any uninvolved editor reading this is willing to close that RfC, that may help make things clearer (there are several different ways that RfC could be closed, all of which would impact on this request for arbitration). Carcharoth (talk) 00:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct/Closing (of which I was previously unaware) seems to suggest that the RFC should be left open until it is clear whether or not a case is accepted. I do think that going straight from an RfC to a request for arbitration puts too much pressure on the editor concerned. If an editor continues being disruptive while an RfC is in progress, an uninvolved administrator should be sought to assess the matter first, as further escalation may not be needed. A short-term or long-term block should be applied if an uninvolved administrator thinks this is necessary to prevent disruption, and if disruption resumes after the block expires, then arbitration can be sought. An indefinite block would probably not be appropriate (though it would be if a community ban proposal gained proper consensus). If uninvolved administrators think the situation too complex to assess, then arbitration immediately may be needed. Carcharoth (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Accept for several reasons: (1) I think more than just Blablaaa's actions here need scrutiny (and that can proceed regardless of whether Blablaaa appeals or unretires or whatever); (2) I can understand administrators feeling that action was needed here, but at the time Jehochman blocked, the case had reached net four to accept, so for better or worse it should have been allowed to proceed at that point without the drama of a block; (3) If administrators want to save the time of the arbitration committee, it would be more useful if they paid attention to user conduct RFCs, rather than this page, and if those at user RfCs announced an intention to escalate to arbitration (an announcement of which I don't think happened here), then administrators can take action (say in a 24-hour window) before then if needed. To be clear, I would include Jehochman's actions here in the scope of any case, not with regards to any sanctions (the actions were taken in good faith) but to clarify what would have been best done here. Having said that, if the current accepts turn to reject following these actions, it may be that a case is not needed after all. If Blablaaa is reading this, I would encourage them to make clear whether they want a case opened and whether they would participate in a case if it opened. Carcharoth (talk) 08:06, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
• Recuse - I had commented on this editor and an unblock request fairly recently. Risker (talk) 00:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
• Accept. User claims to have quit. In the event that Blablaa does not return, I believe this case should be held open, suspended in anticipation of his return. Cool Hand Luke 14:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)