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Amendment request: Race and intelligence

Initiated by The Devil's Advocate (talk) at 22:32, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Case affected

Race and intelligence arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Review remedies 6.1 and 7.1.
2. Review remedy 1.1.

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• TrevelyanL85A2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• SightWatcher (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

• TrevelyanL85A2
• SightWatcher
• Mathsci

Amendment 1

• Review remedies 6.1 and 7.1 (standard language).
• Modification of ban to be a standard topic ban from Race and intelligence-related edits broadly construed and a route for appeal of the sanction clearly outlined.

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

My concerns mostly relate to the wording that bans "participating in any discussion concerning the conduct of editors who have worked in the topic." As read this ban would seem to prevent any discussion of the conduct of the 1,000+ editors who have contributed to the Race and intelligence article, even when it has nothing to do with the subject. However, from my reviewing of their contributions it seems the only time these editors have commented on the conduct of editors from the topic area has been when that conduct directly concerned the topic area in some way.

This wording greatly enables the kind of disruptive gaming sanctions should be looking to prevent and this appears to have already occurred. Following an amendment to the Review case regarding Mathsci, an IP sock of an editor apparently obsessed with Math left a comment on Trev's talk page. Math removed the comment and Trev restored it, politely asking that Math not edit his userspace. Math reverts, citing WP:BAN, and suggests Trev ask an Arb about it. Trev restores the comment and reiterates his desire that Math not do this. Another editor reverts him, an IP restores the comment, and the previous editor removes the comment again.

Following Math's suggestion Trev commented at the page of Jclemens to object to these actions in his userspace and asking for advice. Mathsci jumps into the discussion, calling Trev Ferahgo, claiming that Trev had made a "sudden miraculous return" and that he was engaging in conduct "indistinguishable" from "Ferahgo's other friend SightWatcher", knowing Trev's actions were actually prompted by the above situation. After expressing his frustration with Math's conduct towards him, Math seizes on Trev's mention of R&I to say "Someone could easily report him now at WP:AE" and a report was filed mere minutes later.

A few days later Math created an ANI discussion to object to other editors restoring comments from that same sockmaster. He references Trev's conduct obliquely by talking of his "perseverance . . . in pursuing those operating proxy-editors." One day later Trev comments merely to say Math had also removed comments from his userspace against his wishes and that he should stop doing that. Math immediately suggests administrative action by stating "he is breaking the terms of that ban by commenting here when his name has not been mentioned", conveniently worded to disregard the allusion to Trev's conduct just a day before. Just as before an AE case is filed in response to Math's comments almost immediately with the filer responding to the ANI comment to note the case has been created, which results in a block.

During Trev's appeal, Math seemingly insinuates that he had nothing to do with that AE case. Not long after that Math once more goes in to remove comments from Trev's talk page, sparking another edit war in Trev's userspace that lead to Trev losing talk page privileges. After the block expired, Trev filed a request for arbitration regarding the circumstances of the block and the removal of comments from banned editors by Math and others, with Math immediately responding with an AE case, claiming falsely that Trev is forbidden from even mentioning Math's name.

This dispute with Math illustrates rather clearly how the sanction has proven ineffective as Math can directly provoke Trev into a block-worthy response without fear of Trev reporting him for it, essentially encouraging such disruption. I believe reducing the sanction to a normal topic ban will prevent this situation from repeating with Trev or Sight.

@Pen I do not think an interaction ban of any kind is necessary at this point, because the issue, from my perspective, is that Math knew his conduct could not be reported by Trev without Trev getting blocked for violating the ban. Allowing Trev the ability to comment on Math's conduct outside R&I means, I believe, that he will feel compelled to avoid interacting with Trev because there will be no incentive. Rather than having a restriction that presumes Trev or Sight will engage in bad behavior outside R&I, despite no evidence being presented to support that presumption, making it so that they have true freedom of movement outside R&I will more clearly signal whether they will or can edit constructively elsewhere on Misplaced Pages.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:15, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

@Roger It is not the removal of comments from banned editors itself that is the issue, but the edit-warring and resulting discussions about it being used to restrict Trev's activity on Misplaced Pages. Math could have done any number of things to prevent a situation where Trev gets blocked, but he chose to poke at Trev repeatedly until he said "Stop it!" and then Math basically responds with "BAN HIM!" Look at the discussion on Jclemens' talk page. Math suggested Trev talk to an Arb about the issue, and when Trev did, Math repeatedly accused Trev of talking to Jclemens at the behest of a banned editor, when he would know full well that Trev was talking to Jclemens at Math's own suggestion. After repeatedly referring to Ferahgo and the proxy-editing allegations (including a comment where he implies Trev is Ferahgo), Trev responded by saying Math's conduct keeps him from getting away from R&I drama and Math said "someone" could file an AE case against Trev because R&I was not mentioned in the discussion. He did the same thing at AN as Trev commented after Math clearly referred to the proxy-editing allegations against Trev, but Math said Trev was in violation of the ban because his name was not mentioned in the discussion. That kind of conduct is textbook gaming. The point of my request for these two amendments is partly to make it less likely that such gaming can occur.

I would also reiterate that the wording "worked in the topic" is so broad that any editor who has made a few edits to an R&I article would qualify, meaning the restriction as it stands effectively leaves Trev and Sight on edge about whether they can complain about the conduct of any user as that editor may have a few minor contributions to an R&I article. A restriction that effectively demands Trev and Sight memorize an exhaustive list of contributors to a topic area to know whose conduct they can comment about without fear of sanction is punitive to the extreme.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Hipocrite

What R&I needs more than anything is another proxy editor for the previous proxy editors. Hipocrite (talk) 23:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq

The effect of Amendment 1 would be to enable SightWatcher and TrevelyanL85A2 to discuss the conduct of editors connected with the topic. In practice, that means these two editors would be entitled to initiate discussions about Mathsci on a variety of talk pages and noticeboards. It is hard to see how that would help the encyclopedia, and I am unaware of any reason to believe that such monitoring is required. At any rate, the R&I cases have raised Mathsci's profile to an extent that plenty of established editors are available should Mathsci's conduct need comment.

Mathsci has two problems:

• Remedy 1.1. This appears to be satisfactorily resolved, and Mathsci's contributions show a lot of good article development and no battlefield conduct, possibly apart from the following problem.
• A long term abuser is known to harass Mathsci. The problems started long ago (disagreements were at Butcher group in June 2009, but started before that) and were not related to R&I in any way.

The banned user now has an easy method of attacking Mathsci. All they have to do is notify an R&I editor about some matter (that event was a case request that was removed 17 minutes later by Courcelles). The banned user has noticed that some editors will restore their comments after they have been removed per WP:DENY (diff, diff), and the community has divided opinions on the desirability of removing comments by banned users. That guarantees a pointless discussion which can be initiated by the banned user whenever they choose.

If Arbcom decides that editors should not remove unhelpful comments that were intended to harass a productive editor, the banned user can create permanent memorials to celebrate their achievement. That issue does not need input from R&I editors (and if it were vital, they could email Arbcom). Johnuniq (talk) 01:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Rue Cardinale is a new sock and needs to be blocked. Clearly the banned user is trying to provoke conflict, and the only sensible procedure is to apply DENY by removing their junk. Johnuniq (talk) 10:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Penwhale

I am sort of torn about this one. But I believe that MathSci and Trev needs to stay away from each other, as much as possible. Thus, if remedy is changed to topic ban, some sort of user-talk interaction ban (at the very least) needs to be present. - Penwhale | 11:25, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by {yet another user}

Amendment 2

• Review remedy 1.1.
• Include an explicit warning that further battleground conduct by Mathsci towards editors that is related to the topic will be cause for discretionary sanctions.

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

It seems that Mathsci does not understand that the standard regime of discretionary sanctions under Remedy 5.2, which replaced Remedy 5.1, would also apply to his activities. He has claimed that WP:AE can only be used to report edits related to R&I on articles and their talk pages, or edits that violate a sanction and that he can thus only be sanctioned through a request for amendment. The following are some instances where he has made this mistaken claim:

Making it clear to Math that his conduct related to R&I anywhere on Misplaced Pages could be cited at AE as the basis for sanctions would seemingly help, together with the above amendment, in preventing Math from continuing in this disruptive conduct and allow these editors some breathing room to try and be productive elsewhere.

@Math The request I am making is so fundamentally different from the requests for arbitration that your claim it is "not very different" is just bizarre. As to the predictable accusation of proxy-editing, if you also wish to be "in contact off-wiki" with me that would be fine. Got mountains of evidence you wish to share privately? Feel free. Door's open dude. Oh, and sorry for leaving a notification on your talk page. I was on auto-pilot and forgot about your prior request.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I really want to keep this statement short and respect the privacy of the communication so I will give you the cliff's notes version of that rather anticlimactic e-mail. He feels the arbitration request was respecting what was said by the Arbs, he preferred on-wiki suggestions other than the one I previously made on-wiki and am making here, and said some inconsequential stuff about you that I have not alluded to here at all. All in all, I do what I want.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

@John, I understand the desire to deny recognition, but there are more ways to deny recognition than RBI. Sometimes a much more concise and successful approach is if you remove the R. Certain things just aren't worth clicking undo.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Brad, I am not suggesting some sort of new remedy for Math. Effectively my suggestion with this second amendment is redundant as Remedy 5.2 already says any editor making any edits related to R&I anywhere on Misplaced Pages can be sanctioned if those edits violate policy. Basically my suggestion is to drive the point home by adding something like "and warned that continued battleground behavior anywhere on Misplaced Pages relating to R&I broadly construed could lead to sanctions under Remedy 5.2", or something to that effect, to his admonishment. That way he is not under the impression that his actions in userspace, or any other non-article space, are exempt from discretionary sanctions.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

@CIreland I don't think that's a very good idea. Just like the current restriction against Trev and Sight it would be so broad as to be just another cause for useless drama. How does someone know the edit belongs to a specific sockmaster? If someone is unaware of the restriction how do we react? There is no conceivable way such a new restriction would do anything but create more problems.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:43, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Mathsci

I have already made several statements in private to the arbitration committee prior to this request being posted concerning the interactions between TrevelyanL85A2 and The Devil's Advocate. Apart from omitting all mention of MastCell, this request does not seem very different from TrevelyanL85A2's very recently rejected RfAr and also not very different from the RfAr of Keystone Crow that was removed almost immediately by Courcelles. The only thing that might be worth pointing out here is that The Devil's Advocate has been in contact off-wiki with TrevelyanL85A2. The Devil's Advocate is also himself under a 6 month topic ban under WP:ARB911. Mathsci (talk) 00:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

My content edits are disjoint from the topic area covered by WP:ARBR&I and have been for two years. Nothing new has happened since the recent review apart from the reappearance on wikipedia of two of the parties that chose not to comment during the review. Arbitrators, in particular Casliber and Elen of the Roads, suggested that arbcom should be kept informed of any problems from the DeviantArt group of editors. The on-wiki and then off-wiki communications between The Devil's Advocate and TrevelyanL95A2 were of that kind. At the moment The Devil's Advocate seems to be acting on behalf of TrevelyanL85A2, after communicating at least once in private. The banned wikihounder Echigo mole/A.K.Nole is a red herring, a red herring that appears to be on holiday at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 02:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Echigo mole/A.K.Nole was discussed at length during the review along with Mikemikev in response to one of the five questions of Roger Davies. There is no reason why the review should be revisited just because The Devil's Advoacate missed it first time round. He does not seem fully aware of the background and has preferred to take private advice on the review from TrevelyanL85A2 who, although undoubtedly aware of what was happening in the review, chose not to participate even after being added as a party. Like the DeviantArt group, including the two site-banned users Occam and Ferahgo, The Devil's Advocate has chosen to concentrate matters on the banned user Echigo mole/A.K.Nole, a long term wikihounder, with a whole sleeping sock farm created in 2009. Echigo mole is engaged in acts of deception, harassment and disruption. The responses above of the Devil's Advocate do not seem helpful. The Devil's Advocate made a conscious decision to engage in private discussions with a topic banned user on matters he knew could not be discussed on wikipedia. That private exchange unfortunately now connects The Devil's Advocate with other members of the DeviantArt group, including the site-banned editors Occam and Ferahgo. On the talk page of an arbitrator, The Devil's Advocate has also pressed to see private evidence provided during the review (i.e. by Occam and Ferahgo). To my knowledge nobody except arbitrators has been shown that evidence. Apart from one exception fairly late on, I was not shown any submissions provided by Occam or Ferahgo. On-wikipedia and off-wikipedia (on Wikipediocracy) The Devil's Advocate has made a series of statements about parties involved in the review which show either confusion or a mireading of the review and the preceding request for amendment. That might be an accident on his part. For example during the review historic versions of the Fur Affinity attack pages were displayed (here, here. here) but The Devil's Advocate, from his statements on Wikipediocracy, only had access to later versions, after offensive comments had been removed. I am not aware of other circumstances where a single user has made a request for a review to be rerun after he missed it first time round. That would appear to be a waste of everybody's time. The Devil's Advocate has gone further by involving himself in private communications with part of the DeviantArt group and making a series of unjustifiable assertions. Perhaps that was not his intention, but his submission favours banned disruptive trolls, known to arbitators, other checkusers and administrators, over established editors engaged in improving this encyclopedia. Mathsci (talk) 07:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• Echigo mole has unfortunately become active again as Rue Cardinale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Editors should be aware that the username Rue Cardinale was chosen because it is the road in which I live in Aix-en-Provence; in the past sockpuppets of Echigo mole, now blocked, have attempted to write hoax or undue content about that street on wikipedia. The edits of this particular sock troll, blocked indefinitely by FPaS, were removed from User talk:TrevelyanL85A2 by Hipocrite and then restored by TrevelyanL85A2 with a bizarre edit summary. MastCell's analysis of TrevelyanL85A2's edits (vis-a-vis Echigo mole) hits the nail on the head. Why are people wasting time with this nonsense? Penwhale, you could easily have double checked with FPaS. Mathsci (talk) 21:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• Note also that TrevelyanL85A2 had already been informed about this RfAm by The Devil's Advocate (see above). Mathsci (talk) 22:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• Examined individually, some might argue that all the edits of Rue Cardinale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) were fine. Presumably they could say the same about the edits of Keystone Crow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). On the other hand those accounts were blocked indefinitely fairly quickly by administrators, per WP:CLUE and WP:DUCK. Going back on-topic, the only issue that has arisen here with any relevance to the arbcom review is the deliberate bypassing of a topic ban or a ban through a proxy-editor, through email or other off-wiki communication. Mathsci (talk) 04:11, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• AQFK has claimed elsewhere that I had edit-warred on User talk:TrevelyanL85A2. The editing history of that page shows that not to be the case. Note that AQFK comes to this page in response to the trolling edits of Echigo mole as Rue Cardinale. Good grief. Mathsci (talk) 04:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• The Devil's Advocate left problematic comments on Newyorkbrad's talk page. I reported those at WP:WQA where another report about TDA had recently been filed. Only in death heavily edited my comment there, without any justification. Prior to posting here Only in death posted twice on my talk page, once after being explicitly requested not to, because I was (and still am) busy adding quite tricky mathematical content spread over several articles. The edits of Only in death were unhelpful and discourteous on WP:WQA; he is now treating this arbcom page as if it were WP:ANI. Ah yes, ... that famous peanut gallery. Mathsci (talk) 10:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Only in death, please do not remove editors' comments on wikipedia pages, whether you agree with them or not. Doing so is just disruptive and can result in blocks. You can remove them on your talk page, but not elsewhere, except in exceptional circumstance. Per WP:DENY, that includes malicious trolling by idenitified community banned editors. I removed all the fake RfAR notifications in June by Keystone Crow that had not already been removed by the recipients (e.g. MastCell). Mathsci (talk) 10:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• Roger: I have never banned people from editing my user talk page. When there is a more appropriate place for them to edit or if their edits are unhelpful, I politely request that they do not comment there. I think that happened with Andriabenia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who turned out be a sockpuppet of a banned user. My talk page has been semiprotected at various stages because of abusive edits by either Mikemikev or Echigo mole. Although my memory is fuzzy about wikipedia in March, I think the protection then happened because of the horrific youtube links added by Mikemikev after the death of Steven Rubenstein. Since you ask. Mathsci (talk) 11:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• QFAK: there was no edit war, but you have continued to make exaggerated claims. There were two edits on May 27 to remove a trolling comment by an ipsock of Echigo mole from his standard IP range (see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Echigo mole); and one edit on June 10 to remove the notification by Keystone Crow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) of an abusive RfAR that was deleted instaneously by Courcelles who simultaneously blocked the Echigo mole sock. Similar messages were removed by me from about 10 other user pages. Here once more is the edit history for Johnuniq removed the fake RfAr notification two further times in June after TrevelyanL85A2 restored it twice (with no clear benefit to either himself or wikipedia, as Johnuniq has said). Mathsci (talk) 12:09, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• Neither AQFK not TDA has heeded the warning from Newyorkbrad. Both have repeated false claims of edit warring (see above). Both these editors have been subject to several arbcom restrictions before (in AQFK's case 6 months for 911 and and two years for CC). Neither of them know me from Adam, yet base their exaggerated rants on 2 edits by me in late May and early June. The recent edits of Rue Cardinale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), were reverted by others. But no, they are only interested in those two minor edits, both justified by WP:DENY. If that isn't trolling on arbcom pages, what is? Mathsci (talk) 17:17, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• TrevelyanL85A2's response is almost indistinguishable from the statements of Ferahgo-the-Assassin that led to her site ban. It can be safely be presumed that it was prepared in collaboration with her and Captain Occam. The most shocking part of TrevelyanL85A2's statement is his blithe endorsement of Echigo mole's editing as Keystone Crow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Echigo mole is a community banned editor and TrevelyanL85A2 is not at liberty to give him the thumbs up. (Just before his site-ban, Occam behaved similarly acting as a proxy for Grundle2600.) The second problem is with TrevelyanL85A2's mentioning of a "dispute". There is no dispute. There is, however, an explicit topic ban which prohibits TrevelyanL85A2 from agitating against me in an Occamesque way on wikipedia. He is doing so now. Presumably he expressed himself in the same way in his private discussions with TDA which preceded this meritless request. Neither of them should have engaged in that activity. TrevelyanL85A2 seems to think he can interpret the rules of wikipedia as it suits him: it's all a big WP:GAME. But that is not how wikipedia works. It is primarily about creating scholarly articles to build a high quality encyclopedia; it is not a role-playing war game. Possibly on the advice of others, TrevelyanL85A2 chose not to comment in the review, when he was free to make any statements he wished (within reasonable bounds). That is not the case now. Using Roger Davies' question as a loophole to launch a full-blown Ferahgian attack on me, with fatuous claims about me, is not a good sign. Instead of condemning Echigo mole's harrassment, he has chosen to use Keystone Crow's RfAr as evidence against me. The idea that 3 meritless arbcom requests, two of them due to him and the first to a pernicous banned troll, must indicate something. Does TrevelyanL85A2 really think he can use the actions of a banned editor to make negative statements about me. It is hard to see any redeeming features in TrevelyanL85A2's editing. His account looks like a disruption-only account at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 04:59, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
• The Devil's Advocate was asked to stop commenting here by Newyorkbrad. Instead of heeding that warning, he wikilawyered on NYB's talk page and continued his pro-Echigo mole campaign here. Mathsci (talk) 06:00, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq

Amendment 2 would provide R&I editors (and the banned user) with a tool to provoke Mathsci. Consideration of this amendment is not required now as there is no evidence of a problem (apart from the dilemma over whether WP:DENY should be applied to a banned user posting on the talk page of an R&I editor). If required, this matter can be addressed at some future time, if Mathsci becomes engaged in R&I topics with conduct that is believed to be unhelpful. Johnuniq (talk) 01:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Silver seren

I'm not sure about whether the Amendments should or should not be enacted, though bullet 2 of Amendment 2 makes logical sense to me, because it's quite clear that there is evidence of a problem. Mathsci has been clearly gaming the system in order to remove perceived opponents from the topic area, taking actions that are sure to provoke a desired response so an Enforcement request can then be filed against the person. Seriously, at this point, I think everyone needs to truly consider blocking Mathsci for some period of time for his rampant and obvious gaming and, to be honest, harassment of other users. Silverseren 10:27, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: Whether the user is a sock or not, it was indeed appropriate for me to be notified, considering my involvement in the prior discussion, and the notification itself was neutral. Silverseren 11:15, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

@Mathsci: I also restored the comment on my talk page, as did Penwhale on theirs. Any user is allowed to restore the edits of a banned user so long as they aren't a copyvio or attacking another user, per WP:BAN. Silverseren 22:28, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Extra comment: It appears that Mathsci is enacting the "attack and discredit all of your opponents to win" tactic. Silverseren 01:52, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

@Professor marginalia: You should take care not to only quote the parts of the policy you like and ignore the rest, as BAN clearly states that any user is allowed to reintroduce the edits of a banned user so long as the edits do not violate our policies, are copyvios, or are attacking another person. And the attacking part is only for direct attacks. There's no Wikilawyering of "any edit by this person is an attack on this person", that would just be ridiculous. Silverseren 06:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Penwhale

Like I said above, MathSci probably needs to stay away from Trev's talk page. Beyound that, I am not sure what to do here.

And @Johnuniq: It was appropriate for me to be notified, considering my involvement in previous AE. - Penwhale | 11:36, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

@Roger: Trev has not posted on this thread because he was apparently requested to refrain from commenting. I trust that someone else should notify Trev in this case. (Also, he hasn't done much within the last week according to his contributions, so I am not sure what to take from it.) - Penwhale | 13:22, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by MastCell

There is no conceivable way in which repeatedly restoring the user-talkpage edits of a banned harrassment sockpuppet helps the encyclopedia. Restoring such edits - or litigating their restoration - appears to be TrevelyanL85A2's sole focus on Misplaced Pages over the past 6 months.

Presumably, the previous ArbCom restriction was crafted in the hope that TrevelyanL85A2 would find something, anything to do on Misplaced Pages besides continue these old disputes. It's obvious that's not going to happen. Every further second spent on this is a second wasted, and frankly the sheer volume of vexatious litigation associated with this editor-or-group-of-affiliated-editors rivals anything I've seen in the post-Abd era. MastCell  20:22, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

A short statement by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge

I concur with Penwhale that MathSci should stay away from TrevelyanL85A2's talk page. However, I also concur with MastCell's observation that TrevelyanL85A2 has not contributed to Misplaced Pages in any meaningful way for the last six months. Indeed, TrevelyanL85A2 has not edited a single article since January 13, 2012. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:48, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

@Mathsci: As an editor completely uninvolved in R&I, I correctly pointed out that you participated in an edit-war. Your claim that I come to this page "in response to the trolling edits of Echigo mole as Rue Cardinale" is flatly wrong. This page is on my watchlist and has been for quite some time. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

@Mathsci: I find it ironic that you would accuse me of continuing "to make exaggerated claims" when you were the one to bring up the edit-warring, not me. Anyway, back to what I was saying, I think you should stay away from TrevelyanL85A2's talk page. There's no need for you personally to remove these posts. Let someone else do it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:15, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

@MathSci: I've made two points:

1) I agreed with Penwhale that MathSci should stay away from TrevelyanL85A2's talk page.

2) I agreed with MastCell's observation that TrevelyanL85A2 has not contributed to Misplaced Pages for the last six months.

It was a very short statement. You're the one who keeps harping about edit-warring, not me. The battleground mentality that you're displaying for all the Arbs to see is highly disappointing, especially when you've already been admonished for this very same behavior. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Professor marginalia

Games. Games. Games.

What's needed here is some serious introspection how the gaming (which is transparent, as I see it, and is frittering away frillions of hours of volunteer time here) can be curtailed. I don't have so much free time to give back to wikipedia lately but I'm here virtually every other day looking up something I want to know about. How does it seriously help this project to squander this much volunteer time in mindless, pointless bureaucratize over how and who to handle a site banned troll obviously stirring up crazy on another topic banned user's userpage? What difference does it make which editor removes those edits that which obviously don't belong here?

The last thing we need here is to give sanctioned troublemakers new avenues to disrupt. This has been a 2 years long clown circus already. Will restricting Mathsci from Trevelyan's talk page end this? How? Trevelyan's not the first - he's deliberately pressed those buttons to exploit the precedent when Ferahgo objected to Mathsci editing her talk page. And I'm half convinced she tacked that direction because she'd seen him chase editors off his own talk page. When others besides Mathsci removed the same comments, Trevelyan's objection persisted. Why except to escalate? Obviously Trevelyan'd read these comments already, and could return to them through edit history as we all appreciate as one of the strengths of this platform. So would it really result in less disruption to demand Mathsci appeal to a proxy to remove a banned troll's comments? How so? Off-site appeals, they won't like one bit and will decry as off-site collusion. On-site appeals they'll decry as "Mathsci who is restricted from such-and-such proxied the action be done by someone else".

To diagnose the games going on in R/I is difficult; blenderize reality TV, Tartuffe, Braveheart, Paddy Chayefsky, The Secret Agent, Scott Pilgrim and you'd get some sense of the aroma of the wikinutty that wafts in to wreak havoc with legit sourced content decision making. Mice at play. Then comes arbcom, and Bleak House gets tossed in the blender.

I think to curtail the gaming we need to stop rewarding it. Professor marginalia (talk) 08:58, 27 July 2012‎

Relevant policy position:

A ban is not merely a request to avoid editing "unless they behave". The measure of a site ban is that even if the editor were to make good edits, permitting them to re-join the community poses enough risk of disruption, issues, or harm, that they may not edit at all, even if the edits seem good Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. By banning an editor, the community has determined that the broader problems, due to their participation, outweigh the benefits of their editing, and their edits may be reverted without any further reason. (WP:BAN) Professor marginalia (talk) 01:27, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

@Silverseren: The sections I quote above make no reference to "attacks", expressed or implied. If an editor supports the message or content of an edit made by banned editor on a talk page they should sign their own name to it rather than further enable banned users to continue editing via socks. Professor marginalia (talk) 14:23, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Only in Death

I dont particularly want to be here as I have quite a bit of respect for Mathsci and his work, but his needling of his opponents is going to far. This is particularly troubling for me as its basically taking potshots at TDA over a completely unrelated matter to himself (an issue with a GA review for gods sake) and he is using this request, and NYB's (and TDA's issue with them) comments below to do it. It contributes towards showing his relentless attack-mode mentality when he is pursuing a target and it needs to stop. Its got to the point where his actions are impacting on other editors, ones completely unrelated to his issues with his sockpuppet harrassers. And its totally un-necessary. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

If anyone wishes to look further, please check the history of WQA and Mathsci's talkpage. As he has requested I dont post to his talkpage because it 'disturbs his difficult content editing' I will not be taking his inapproprite spreading of his conflict further with him. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Additional - if anyone wishes to take up my actions in removing part of Mathsci's comments at WQA (someone else has reverted his edits here - no idea why), feel free to ask via email or on my talkpage as I do not want to disrupt this further by agitating Mathsci any more. Suffice to say I think the above interactions demonstrate why R&I case needs amending/clarifying as per TDA has outlined. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:12, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

@Roger - Just FYI, I respect Mathsci's wish to not have people post on his talkpage if he so chooses. Unfortunately I didnt see the request until after my second post at which point I promptly self-reverted it, although I suspect the damage was done and his concentration already broken for a second time. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by CIreland

Echigo mole is an extremely pernicious banned sockpuppeteer who has long pursued a vendetta against Mathsci; the very length of this behaviour must itself be disturbing for Mathsci. Additionally, Echigo mole has repeatedly attempted to intimidate Mathsci with "We know where you live" style edits, referencing Mathsci's place of residence.

One of the favorite tactics of Echigo mole is to seek out editors with whom MathSci is in dispute precisely to make it difficult for Mathsci to remove edits to their User talk pages without creating tension. This very amendment request, so far as it concerns Mathsci, enables and extends this abuse even if such was not the intent of the filer.

What is needed in order to address this long-standing problem is not any form of restriction or sanction for Mathsci but rather a remedy that prohibits the restoration of edits by Echigo mole's sockpuppets. Although such is not permitted by the current policy, I would personally like to see Revision Deletion of such edits allowed in order to mitigate against the possibility of editors not wholly aware of the background restoring problematic edits in good faith. Such good faith restorations have occurred in the past and have only served to further Echigo mole's agenda by drawing Mathsci into conflict. CIreland (talk) 23:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by TrevelyanL85A2

I was not planning to comment here, but Roger Davies is asking me a question so I'll answer it.

There are two reasons I don't want Echigo Mole's posts in my user talk to be removed. First, I care about having the the right to decide what I do and don't want in my user talk, even if it's from a sock, as long as it doesn't violate policies. Echigo Mole's conduct elsewhere might be objectionable, but his posts in my user talk were just notifications or civilly-worded advice. Keeping it there doesn't violate WP:POLEMIC or anything else.

Second, I object to which editors are removing it and what I think their reason is. I would object much less if it were done by an uninvolved admin. Mathsci has said a few times he regards his dispute with me as an extension of his dispute with Ferahgo, and refers to me as "unfinished business". The other editors removing the posts, Johnuniq and Hipocrite, also are Ferahgo's and Captain Occam's old opponents. It feels like this group is trying to perpetuate their old dispute in my user talk, and I don't want that.

This began when I had been trying to avoid this group of editors since January. After avoiding them and the R&I topic for a few months, I realized I could not do anything to make them leave me alone. Part of how I realized this was that I saw at the same time Mathsci also was removing posts from SightWatcher's user talk, and making new accusations about him in arbitration discussions, at a time when SightWatcher had avoided this group and the R&I topic for the past year. How can I ever escape this conflict if Mathsci even pursues people who had nothing to do with him and his articles for the past year? There is nothing I can do.

If you count the arbitration request the sockpuppet made in June, this is the third time this issue has been brought before ArbCom in two months. And each time, the group of editors objecting to Mathsci's conduct is a little larger than it was before. If the arbitrators decline to act on this request, what do they hope will happen? The community clearly is not able to resolve it. If ArbCom rejects this request now, it probably will just continue to grow and end up on their plate again in another month.--TrevelyanL85A2 (talk) 00:42, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Further discussion

Statements here may address all the amendments, but individual statements under each proposed amendment are preferred. If there is only one proposed amendment, then no statements should be added here.

Statement by yet another editor

The only question worth answering here is if Mathsci (or anyone else) has the right to remove the comments of an abusive sockpuppeter per WP:DENY after having been restored and responcibility for them taken on by Trev.

if yes, Trev is to cease restoring the text when removed by someone (including Mathsci) citing WP:DENY.

if no, Mathsci (and others) are to cease removing restored edits and any harassment or incivility contained in the restored edits are Trevs to answer for as if he personally wrote them. If the restored edits breach Trev's topic ban, he is responcible for that too.

Everyone is just rehashing that question from different angles. 204.101.237.139 (talk) 22:34, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

• Recuse due to previous AE amongst other things. - Penwhale | 11:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting statements. However, I would clarify that while Mathsci has e-mailed the committee regarding this matter, no private statement or evidence has been taken into consideration. Only under certain circumstances do we receive private evidence or hold proceedings in camera. AGK 01:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• I'll recuse, even though I've only ever interacted with these editors and this topic as an uninvolved administrator, my efforts to keep all parties working constructively have been dismal failures of the bitten-hand variety, resulting in the recent attempt to name me as a party the last time this matter showed up here. Jclemens (talk) 06:34, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• The editors who are already banned and topic-banned need to abide by the prior rulings, and editors who are proxying for them or carrying on on their behalf need to stop. While the banning policy contemplates that editors in good standing may, in effect, sponsor and adopt edits made by banned users, I strongly recommend (and we may want to adopt this in a decision) that people not do so with respect to this particular topic, because the behavior that led to some of these bans was egregious and the edits are generally not helpful. Mathsci should stay away from the talkpages of his adversaries (reverting edits from banned users on those pages can safely be left to others), but other than that, I don't see the need for any remedy against him at this time. Finally, the involvement of at least one of the passersby in this dispute has been unhelpful, and I hope those who have acted inconsistently with the preceding suggestions will stop doing so before we have to start calling out names. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
  • People continue to defend the practice of accepting and responding to posts from obvious sockpuppets of the banned users in this area, and reverting them back onto their userpages when they are deleted. Whether or not this practice might be acceptable under the banning policy in other contexts, given all the background here it is encouraging the banned users to continue their disruptive and harassing behavior, and therefore is not permissible. The editors who have commented in this discussion are therefore directed to refrain from any further on-wiki communication with the banned users on any page on Misplaced Pages (including their talkpages), and not to reinstate any comments by the banned users that may be removed by others, regardless of any claimed justification for doing so under any policy or guideline that, in less toxic contexts, might otherwise apply. At the moment, this is simply a friendly but firm suggestion from an individual arbitrator, but I'll be glad to offer a formal motion to this effect, enforceable by significant and increasing blocks, if that is what becomes necessary to put an end to this disruption. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:37, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
• Various questions:
  • @ Mathsci: I'm not seeing "banning" people from your talk page as being helpful. Why not simply remove the messages after you've read them?
  • @ The Devil's Advocate: Are you seriously suggesting Mathsci is gaming the system when he reverts the posts of a banned user who has long been harassing him and posting non-public information about him?
  • @ Trevelyan In the light of WP:UP#POLEMIC and WP:USERBIO, why do the named topic-banned editors believe such messages should be retained on their talk pages? (Could a clerk mention to them that I've asked this please and ask for their responses?)
  Otherwise, I reiterate what Brad has said.  Roger Davies 11:08, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Amendment request: Eastern European mailing list

Initiated by Nug (talk) at 21:06, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Case affected

Eastern European mailing list arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Eastern European mailing list Remedy 4.3.11A: Editors restricted (as modified by motion)

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

• Russavia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Nug (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (formerly User:Martintg)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

Notified

Information about amendment request

The remedy of the Eastern European mailing list case is amended to lift the interaction ban between User:Russavia and User:Nug.

Statement by Nug

EdJohnston had previously requested that the mutual topic bans between Russavia and I be lifted Unfortunately after some editors objected due to their apocalyptic fear of our possible collaboration might turn the world up side down, it was declined. Given that Russavia has since been site banned for a year and indef topic banned and the chance of now interacting reduced to zero, can this restriction be now lifted? I'd like to edit articles like 90th anniversary of the Latvian Republic, but I cannot remove those tags placed by Russavia almost a year ago without breaching my interaction ban. --Nug (talk) 21:06, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

@Clerks, I fail to see how Paul Seibert's comments have any relevance what so ever to a request to amend a redundant interaction ban, and I ask that they be removed. If Paul has issues he can air them in a more appropriate forum (along with linked evidence) where they can be discussed in full without derailing this specific amendment request. Thanks. --Nug (talk) 05:55, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

@Courcelles, Russavia is indefinitely topic banned from EE, see this, in addition to the one year site ban. --Nug (talk) 02:13, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Given that the problematic behaviour occured solely in the EE topic area, an indefinite topic ban in EE is virtually an indefinite site ban in any case. --Nug (talk) 02:33, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Link to discussion on Courcelles' talk page. --Nug (talk) 02:45, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

• I don't quite understand the point of Courcelles' concern, which apparently is related to Russavia's behaviour when he returns from his site ban. Courcelles claims that Russavia's disruptive behaviour extended outside of the EE topic area, but I cannot find any evidence of this. As EdJohnston states, discretionary sanctions remains available under the existing authority of WP:ARBEE, this request is merely to enable editing of articles that Russavia is indefinitely banned from editing without breaching my Iban. --Nug (talk) 20:23, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for the update Brad, this is an intriguing and dramatic development. As I recall Russavia had previously supported the lifting of our mutual iBans, so I hope this evidence is germane to the issue of the iBans, rather some unrelated and unsubstantiated allegations which would more likely be evidence of where his own head is at, more than anything else. Anyway, I await with interest. --Nug (talk) 21:12, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

• @SilkTork, Roger Davies, The point of an interaction ban is to stop interaction between two parties, if one is indefinitely topic banned from the area of conflict there can no longer can be any interaction, and thus it is redundant. What you appear to be suggesting is that you believe the edits of a banned editor should be preserved by keeping an interaction ban in place. The reason no editor has been "moved to remove" these tags is simply because there isn't anyone who cares a cat's fart about certain obscure topics. Tags are not meant to be used as tools to further battles but to alert editors to real potential issues, but no one has responded in almost twelve months. The reason why they were placed in the first place along other tags and immediately nominated for deletion was more to do with the same battleground attitude that eventually got Russavia site banned for one year and topic banned indefinitely.

It is just absolutely astounding that you, both Arbitrators, would contend that there should be mutual agreement from an indefinitely topic banned editor prior lifting an interaction ban. In any case I provided evidence of such prior mutual agreement in an earlier request. If Russavia has since withdrawn that agreement in some email to the Committee, then that is further evidence of his battleground mentality as there is no cause for him to withdraw such agreement. I just don't see what these implications that SilkTork alludes to other than to perpetuate conflict that Russavia and I agreed to leave behind and to hold hostage some topics to the whim of someone who forfeited their right to edit that area for an indeterminate period. --Nug (talk) 09:27, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

Yeah, me too. It's sort of pointless now. VolunteerMarek 23:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

@Ed Johnson - I'm pretty sure that there are no remaining sanctions from the EEML case and there haven't been for awhile (btw, as an update, EE topic area is actually doing pretty well). And even the sanctions themselves were pretty mild to begin with. Some people keep dredging the case up in the standard battleground tactic of poisoning the well but honestly, that stuff's old news, there's nothing left, nobody, including AE admins, is paying much attention. The interaction bans are the last remnants of the case (well, actually, more from the R-B case) and even those, obviously, are no longer much relevant.VolunteerMarek 01:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

@Paul - Paul, when I wrote ""keep dredging the case up in the standard battleground tactic"" I actually did NOT have you in mind. Rather just some more peripheral users. Keep in mind that lots of folks from what can be described as the "anti-EEML" side managed to get themselves banned/blocked/topic banned just fine without any help from anyone on the list in the months following the case, thank you very much. I was thinking more of these guys who sometimes keep coming back as IP addresses or fresh starts or sock puppets, who pretend to be new to Misplaced Pages but somehow have this magical knowledge of the EEML case which they try to use win arguments and battles in which they got blocked for in the first place.

Anyway, more general point is that aside from this interaction ban there are no outstanding sanctions from the EEML case. This is a good opportunity to put it all to rest.VolunteerMarek 04:26, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Paul Siebert

@Ed Johnson & Volunteer Marek. First of all, I always supported the idea to lift all remaining individual sanctions against ex-EEML members. However, this my post is mainly a responce to the Volunteer Marek's post where he mentioned some people who "keep dredging the case up in the standard battleground tactic". In connection to that, I would like to remind VM that I was among the users who had conflicts with the EEML cabal, and, I recall, someone (probably user:Viriditas) strongly advised me to read the EEML archive and present the evidences against them when the case was open, because the cabal had been contemplating some actions against me. I refused to do that, however.
I believe, the fact that I had been silent when the EEML case was open, and that I decided to return to this issue now is per se an indication that something happened during last year that forced me to express my concern now. The major EEML violation, their coordinated edits is the fact that is extremely hard to establish. As far as I understand, the community became aware of the existence of the EEML cabal purely by accident, and there is absolutely no guaranty that no similar cabals currently exist. By writing that, I do not imply that the EEML member continue to coordinate, however, it would be equally incorrect to claim that their one year long topic bans may guarantee that no coordination can exist between them. In connection to that, I believe the behaviour of EEML members must be absolutely transparent to dispel any suspicions. Concretely, I am not sure ex-EEML members have a moral right to simultaleously participate in votes or RfCs when no fresh arguments are brought by each of them (i.e., the posts such as "Support a user X", without detailed explanation of one's own position should not be allowed for them). Similarly, joining the chain of reverts where other EEML members already participate should not be allowed also. We all remember that these users massively coordinate their edits in past, we all (including the admins) have absolutely no tools to make sure such coordination does not occur currently, so we have a right at least to express our concern in a situation when such coordination cannot be ruled out. The fact that they cannot be considered as uninvolved parties when they join the action of their peers should also be clear for everyone.
In contrast, we currently have a directly opposite tendency: any mention of the EEML is treated as a "battleground tactics", many EEML members changed their usernames to protect their privacy and, simultaneously, to disassociate themselves from their past violations, and many of them continue to concurrently edit the same articles. In my opinion, the EEML pendulum is moving in the opposite direction, and now it has already passed its lowest point...--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Paul, with much respect, the conduct you describe as suspicious due to the potential for off-wiki collaboration, is suspicious without reference to off-wiki collaboration. If discussion closers are poorly closing discussions on the basis of !votes, rather than on the basis of quality and influence of independent arguments, then this is a problem with closers. If a number of editors happen to have the same reversion style, which appears to an editor to be against policy or consensus considerations, then that is already a matter for content dispute resolution. The conduct you're describing is unacceptable regardless of demonstrated past off-wiki collaboration, or the potential for off-wiki collaboration. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:37, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

@ VolunteerMarek. Thank you, Marek. In actuality, I also didn't mean all EEML members in this my post. Behaviour of majority of them is almost impeccable, and they do their best to dispel any doubts about any possibility of coordinated edits. The problem is, however, that some mechanism is, nevertheless, needed to eliminate any possibility of resurrection of this story (with the same or different participants, no matter). In connection to that, I proposed some modifications to the EW policy. To my great satisfaction, one of the EEML members, whom I sincerely respect, Piotrus, supported this proposal (which, in my opinion, would eliminate any possibility of tag teaming). However, some other EEML members opposed to that, and my proposal went into oblivion. Maybe, it makes sense to return to this issue?--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:09, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

@MVBW. In my opinion, the idea of amnesty should come from some third party, not from the EEML members themselves. Frankly speaking, I do not support a blanket amnesty. Whereas some ex-EEML members fully learned due lessons from this story, some other members still demonstrate partisan behaviour.

Moreover, in my opinion, the right of amnesty should be earned. By earned I mean, for example, the following. You guys should come together and propose some changes to policy that would make any tag teaming, as well as other manifestations of edit warring impossible. For example, you may propose a following change to the policy: every user who joins a chain of reverts started by others is responsible for edit warring even if his personal 3RR limit has not been exceeded (a kind of "collective 3RR", we can discuss technical details elsewhere). Two years ago, I proposed this change to the policy, I was supported by one of the EELM member, Piotrus, - but two other EEML members opposed to such a change! What is the most logical explanation for that? The most obvious (although not necessarily the most correct) explanation is that you guys (of course, just some of you) still have not fully abandoned your battleground mentality. Again, if you guys will propose, and persuade, our community to make this, or similar modification of the policy that will help to prevent future edit wars - I will fully support a wholesale amnesty, and, probably, even deletion of the EEML case from the archives. However, for now - no.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

@Frankly speaking, I agree with this Vecrumba's argument. It would be more reasonable not to focus on the interaction ban between Nug and Russavia, but to fix a ridiculous situation when the interaction ban between the user A and B becomes a tool that allows one of them to seize a control over some article by making edits scattered through the whole article. Fixing of this issue will be tantamount to lifting of the Nug/Russavia interaction ban. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:47, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by John Carter

I have to say that this proposal makes sense to me. Russavia probably can't remove any tags himself under his own restrictions, and it makes no sense to have possibly now irrelevant tags remain in place because the person who placed them can't do so himself. I might request Nug start a discussion on the talk page before removing tags or maybe making substantial changes to an article not necessarily directly related to recent developments, under the circumstances, but I can't see how it makes any sense to allow people who have been banned from the site and a given topic to in effect continue to have a degree of control over them, through such things as dubiously placed or now irrelevant tags. John Carter (talk) 22:12, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Statement by EdJohnston

There would be a benefit to making EEML obsolete, and the Committee could pass a motion to lift all remaining bans and restrictions from the original WP:EEML case. The understanding would be that any bans that turn out still to be necessary can be reimposed via discretionary sanctions under the existing authority of WP:ARBEE. The only nuance might be that some of Russavia's restrictions come from WP:ARBRB which is thought of as including all of the former Soviet Union. So the Committee might clarify that WP:ARBEE will allow discretionary sanctions relating to any countries of the former Soviet Union. In actuality, the only provision of EEML that hasn't expired is Remedy 11A, the one that prevents the EEML editors sanctioned by name from interacting with Russavia.

Statement by Vecrumba

To the point at hand, I support lifting of the ban. In particular, any evaluation of editor behavior needs to be from here forward, not, as as has been implied, saddle particular editors with a permanent stench. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:02, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the IBAN mechanism, I have commented elsewhere on its completely inappropriate enforcement which invites conflict. I thank Paul Siebert for his stated agreement with my position. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:00, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I move not only that the ban be lifted but that the IBAN policy be strictly interpreted. If two editors are "banned" from interacting with each other, that should not be construed as a ban on their constructively interacting on content, addressing content and not each other. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

It should be noted that the ban/block on Russavia was a strange reaction to a harmless cartoon, and therefore could be overturned at any time. Rich Farmbrough, 01:00, 9 July 2012 (UTC).

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Awaiting statements, but I'm inclined to seriously consider this request. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Unless anything new and concerning is raised in the comments, I'll propose a motion on this in a couple of days. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:19, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
  • The delay is because the Committee received an e-mail from Russavia indicating he has some evidence we should consider. I'm allowing a little more time for him to send it to us. Note that I wouldn't take any action (or refrain from taking any action) based on such evidence without giving anyone else mentioned in it an opportunity to comment on it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
• I agree that there is little value in maintaining interaction bans that have been mooted by one of the parties being banned. Jclemens (talk) 03:08, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
• Well, the banned party is not banned indefinitely, so that is a mitigating concern... when that party returns to Misplaced Pages, will the interaction ban save strife? Courcelles 20:54, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • @Nug, topic bans don't really change the usefulness of interaction bans to my mind, I'm only concerned about Russavia's site ban here. Courcelles 02:20, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
• I am also concerned about the implications of lifting an interaction ban because one party is currently blocked - that appears one-sided and simply delaying potential conflict. I would rather lift an interaction ban because BOTH parties are in a position of agreement. If the tags that Russavia placed are significantly inappropriate, then another editor would be moved to remove them. It doesn't need to be Nug. SilkTork 08:31, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
• Pretty much per SilkTork.  Roger Davies 09:00, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
  • @Nug. A topic ban and an interaction ban are two very different things. I'd be prepared to lift the interaction ban for both parties, but would like to hear from Russavia first.  Roger Davies 12:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
• Considering that we've lifted other individual sanctions in this area on the basis that the discretionary sanctions are sufficient to maintain order in the future, I don't see a particular need to retain this one, especially on the off chance that the conflict might resume once Russavia's current ban ends. I'll propose a motion to that effect below. Kirill  01:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Motion (Eastern European mailing list)

1) The interaction ban placed upon Nug (talk · contribs) and Russavia (talk · contribs) in the Eastern European mailing list case is lifted, effective immediately. The users are reminded of the discretionary sanctions authorized for their area of mutual interest.

For this motion, there are 12 active non-recused arbitrators, so 7 votes are a majority.

Support

1. Per the discussion above. Kirill  01:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
2. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
3. Jclemens (talk) 06:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
4. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 12:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
5. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. This is a one-sided discussion. Prefer to discuss it if the other party returns. In the meantime, Nug is able to edit Misplaced Pages without the ban interfering. Having assisted on the main aspect of the ban that Nug had problems with (and willing to help out in any other areas that remain) there is no valid reason for lifting the ban. If the ban on Russavia was permanent, then yes, but he may return on successful appeal. SilkTork 19:02, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
2. Per SilkTork, especially the part about that Russavia's block is time-limited changes the discussion considerably. Courcelles
3. It is not an interaction ban in the conventional sense. It restricts a group of editors from commenting on or interacting with Russavia. I would like (1) to hear from Russavia about this before amending and (2) to consider removing the restriction entirely from the group of editors rather than lifting it piecemeal. In the meantime, I am not persuaded that it continuing in force is onerous.  Roger Davies 07:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Abstain

Comments

Holding my vote, for reasons similar to Roger's. AGK 13:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Apparently, Russavia will contact us with his views over the weekend. AGK 15:18, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Clarification request: Annotation of case pages for sanctioned users who have changed username

Initiated by Seraphimblade at 18:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

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

• Seraphimblade (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Paul Siebert (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• My very best wishes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This request would also indirectly affect anyone who has been involved in an arbitration case with ongoing sanctions and has publicly changed usernames.

The two editors involved in the immediate discussion have been notified: .

Statement by Seraphimblade

Clarification is requested on the following two questions:

• May the log pages at a closed arbitration case be annotated to note that a user has changed his or her username by those who become aware of the change, or must such an annotation be performed by an Arbitrator or Clerk?
• If only Arbitrators and/or Clerks can make such an annotation to a case, what is the proper procedure for requesting such an annotation, and are objections considered?

This objection led me to make this request, as it seems this is not as uncontroversial a housekeeping measure as it would seem, and I could not find any existing policy or discussion on the matter. A clarification would hence be much appreciated.

For the record, the thread at arbitration enforcement suggested such annotations to the case page, and had I evaluated consensus for such at the close, I would have found that they did have consensus among the uninvolved admins commenting. I did not make such a determination as to my knowledge it was not required. I think the clarification would still be useful in a broader sense, however. Seraphimblade 18:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Hersfold: I sure didn't see any trouble with it either, but MVBW seemed to pretty strenuously object, and thought it was only clerks/Arbs. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I'd missed. Seraphimblade 19:37, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

I do not see why not. My renaming was already annotated . The only question is this: should you only annotate users who were sanctioned, or all users indicated as parties. For example, speaking about WP:EEML, should renaming of User:Offliner be annotated? My very best wishes (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Paul Siebert

In my opinion, information about past conflicts (or alliances) between the users editing contentious and scrutinized topics should be easily available to everyone, and the linkage should be traceable not only between an old and a new names, but in the opposite direction also. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:20, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The idea to link new and old names on the relevant case pages was initially proposed by VM. His new idea seems also quite reasonable. However, that should be done in such a way that old account page will redirect to new ones similarly to what has been done to the user:Radeksz page. In contrast, a situation with the user:Biophys page is hardly acceptable, because this account has been totally deleted, and a new account user:Hodja Nasreddin was created instead. The Biophys page should be converted into a redirect to user:My very best wishes, similar to what Volunteer Marek did. In addition, since user:Biophys was deleted, a possibility exists that some new user may request to use this name.

@ Newyorkbrad. I agree that off-wiki harassment is a legitimate reason for rename. However, in my opinion, the users with problematic edit history should provide serious evidences of harassment to get a permission for name change.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:16, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

@ Biophys. I conclude from your last post that the real reason for you user name change was outing, which was a result of the leakage of the EEML archive. Contrary to Jclemens, I believe you do have a right to take some protective measures. However, you are missing one point: whereas you have a right to defend your privacy, the good faith users working in the EE area also have a right to know whom they are dealing with. Therefore, we have two mutually exclusive tasks, which cannot be solved simultaneously. In my opinion, if you want to conceal your identity, WP:CLEANSTART option is still available for you. However, that should be a real clean start: the old accounts must be labelled as "retired" (and not deleted), and you must leave the previous area of contentions. Under your new account, you may edit biophysics, molecular biology and all other areas, but not EE related areas. However, if you do not plan to do so, the linkage between your old and new account (and vise versa) must remain totally transparent.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:49, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a good idea to allow someone to create a Biophys account. Not only that would lead to further hiding of the connection between old user Biophys and present My Very Best Wishes, that may complicate a life of the new good faith owner of the Biophys account. Indeed, as far as i know, the archives of the EEML and other story are available on Internet (outside of Misplaced Pages), so the new account may be confused by someone with old Biophys, which may create problems for the absolutely innocent person. In connection to that, I believe the Biophys account should be restored and converted into a redirect to MVBW.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Statement by John Carter

I could, in some extreme cases, such as perhaps controversial OUTing of an editor in a previous identity, see some basis for not indicating changed names there. But, honestly, only in such cases, and I imagine that there are probably already procedures in place to deal with such circumstances. If that is the case, this seems a good way to ensure that people do not try to change their names to avoid dealing with the realities of their own previous objectionable activity. John Carter (talk) 20:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

I've been thinking about asking for something similar for awhile, but for different reasons. The major reason IMO (it certainly applies to myself, I'm guessing it applies to others) why people changed their usernames after the case was not to escape any kind of scrutiny but rather because of ongoing off-wiki harassment (I know that that kind of thing doesn't stop the dedicated harassers, but it might make it a bit harder for them or any new potential ones). This is particularly true for those users, like myself and I believe Nug, whose previous usernames were tied to their real life names.

So why not kill two birds with one stone? That is, why not go through and change all the old user names in the case pages to their current names: i.e. Radeksz-->Volunteer Marek, Miacek-->Estlandia, etc. That way people can always refer back to the case, while at the same time the old-names-tied-to-real-life-names will be gone. Everyone will be happy. Win win. VolunteerMarek 01:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

@JClemens - What the hey are you talking about? What "extraordinary efforts"? ??? VolunteerMarek 20:09, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Btw, if time and effort are a concern then... well, this is a collaborative project, so I can go through myself and change all the old names to all the new names, at least for myself. Just like working on articles.VolunteerMarek 16:01, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Vecrumba

As long as it applies to all users. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 18:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

@JClemens, if that is your attitude (I believe the proper action for a user who has 1) been sanctioned by the community or the commitee, and 2) has been harassed sufficiently unpleasantly that he or she cannot function on Misplaced Pages if their prior identity is known is to leave.) then you leave me no choice but to appeal and overturn EEML in its entirety. Your statement sanctions off-Wiki harassment to drive editors away from Misplaced Pages. I am utterly gobsmacked. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:50, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Penwhale

Depending on the size of involved case, you could have a really large list to track or very little.

I would like to suggest that the log/action section be accessible to anyone that can currently utilize that section, and information about renamed users be listed under a separate heading. However, as for the actual findings/Remedies/etc, let ArbCom/AC Clerk handle changing/notarizing those parts. - Penwhale | 05:01, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I see no reason why such a routine notification couldn't be made by anyone. Unless I'm missing something? Hersfold 19:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I suppose the confusion could come from the fact that the vast majority of the page is considered to be restricted to Arbitrators and Clerks - however, for the purposes of clarity, I think a general exception can be made for editors who wish to add a note such as "(since renamed to {{userlinks|Newusername}})" to the list of involved parties at the top of the main case page. Hersfold 19:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
    • To answer MVBW's question, I would say all parties regardless of whether they were sanctioned or not. Obviously, though, non-sanctioned users are not bound by the requirement stated by AGK below. Hersfold non-admin 18:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
• In my view, final decisions ought to be updated to reflect changes in username of users who are (or previously were) subject to sanctions; this would include expired sanctions. In the case of outstanding sanctions, this committee should probably do the updating: we must be notified by any editor who wants to rename their account while under arbitration sanctions. In the case of amended or vacated sanctions, an optimal method of having the decision updated would be to ask a clerk to do so—though I would take a dim view of this becoming a tool for editors to embarrass or humiliate their 'opponents'. Obviously, very old cases are retained largely for the purpose of reference and should probably not be disturbed. AGK 20:42, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
• The log section is not restricted to just Arbs, Clerks and AE admins. All users are able to add appropriate and relevant information there, such as notifications. I think if there is an issue with what someone has posted there, the Clerks would be able to deal with it. SilkTork 22:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
• I certainly don't have a problem with AE admins making annotations such as this. PhilKnight (talk) 23:08, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
• Updating should be performed as appropriate, but I share Volunteer Marek's concern about being sensitive to situations where usernames have been changed because of harassment situations, and there are probably some instances where the time and effort of doing the updating wouldn't be worth it (e.g. in cases from years ago where there have been no further problems). Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
• Contra Newyorkbrad, I believe the proper action for a user who has 1) been sanctioned by the community or the commitee, and 2) has been harassed sufficiently unpleasantly that he or she cannot function on Misplaced Pages if their prior identity is known is to leave. There is no right to edit Misplaced Pages, and we should take no extraordinary efforts to allow protected editing by previously sanctioned users. The community's interest in ensuring that previously-sanctioned editors are subject to appropriate future scrutiny takes precedence over the individual's right to edit pseudonymously in a manner unconnected to previous pseudonymous access. Jclemens (talk) 19:42, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
  • @ Vecrumba, no, it simply refuses to grant 'special rights' to previously sanctioned users just because they claim to have been harassed. My stance is that this committee's past actions that failed to clearly proactively track and identify previously sanctioned (to include failed RfAs and community noticeboard discussions, not just ArbCom sanctions) users to this community have done 1) no particular good to the users in questions, two of whose identities have been found out in recent months despite such efforts, and 2) have eroded the trust in the committee's impartiality an willingness to serve as the community's watchdog in such cases. I do not sanction the off-wiki harassment of anyone, so that booting previously sanctioned users out of Misplaced Pages entirely is the best option for both the integrity of the encyclopedia and the protection of the real person behind the account. There is no right to edit Misplaced Pages, so there can be no right to edit Misplaced Pages harassment-free: freedom from harassment is easily achieved by the editor in question leaving Misplaced Pages, should they desire to avoid potential harassment. Jclemens (talk) 17:07, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
• I'd prefer any such modifications be handled via requests to the clerks, to provide some scrutiny first, as on occasion this could be contentious.  Roger Davies 09:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
• It doesn't look like we're all quite on the same page here, so I've proposed a motion (Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Motions#Motion on annotating changed usernames in arbitration decisions) to address this issue more formally. Kirill  00:50, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Amendment request: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan

Initiated by Magog the Ogre (talk) at 20:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Case affected

India-Pakistan arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Remedy

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

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

• Magog the Ogre (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• JCAla (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Darkness Shines (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• TopGun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mar4d (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DBigXray (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Vibhijain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Smsarmad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

Information about amendment request

• Requested amendment: Standard discretionary sanctions may be placed on any editor by an uninvolved administrator, including revert limitations, civility parole, and outright topic ban. the wording from WP:ARBPIA is a good one: " uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict 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. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project."

Statement by Magog the Ogre

ArbCom previously denied a request to hear a new case . At the time, I opined that I thought this issue would remain unresolved, and it has. Since that time, numerous discussions, blocks, and threads on ANI have occurred, and yet the only difference between now and then is that both TopGun and Darkness Shines have received a 1RR probation.

It is my opinion the editor Darkness Shines is an unrepentant POV-pusher who sees the world through the lens of "us" vs. "them", an opinion echoed by other editors at ANI threads and other editors not involved in this dispute (cf. Talk:British Pakistanis). JCAla has been just as bad, but has not edited as much in the past several months. TopGun faces POV-pushing issues himself, as does Mar4d.

As you can see from the links below, this has been a huge drain on community time, and I respectfully ask Arbcom to amend the remedy of the case to allow the sanctions. All previous attempts at fixing the issue have failed, and the only reason RFC's have not been tried is that everyone knows they would fail. To not allow an amendment would leave the community once again to try to implement a fix, something which it has failed at before (cf. with the interaction ban, which was eventually lifted as ineffective).

The following has a link to the discussions that have occurred just revolving around a few different users, all attempts to get the parties in line with proper conduct (the noticeboard links are just the ones that have occurred since ArbCom's rejection of the case 6 months ago; there are more in the archive, if an arbcom member wishes to look at the link I provided above of the previous decline):

• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Top Gun & Darkness Shines
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive739#Personal attacks, canvassing, editwar by IP sock
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive740#Block review and admin issuing 1RR
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive741#Clarification required on interaction ban
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive741#Another question about this IBAN
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive750#IBAN violation
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive751#User:JCAla, source falsification and tendentious editing
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive754#Iban violation
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive756#Appeal
• Darkness Shines block log and unblock request block 1 (expired), unblock request block 2 (expired), 3 unblock requests block 3, one unblock request block 4 (withdrawn), 2 unblock requests block 5 (last one accepted), 3 unblock requests block 6, 5 unblock requests block 7 (last one accepted), 1-34 unblock 8 (all denied) - note, these are all just in the past 6 months.
• TopGun block log (I don't have the patience to go through all the unblock requests on this one too, but I assure you they are manifold; they can be provided upon request; otherwise, Arbcom is encouraged to look through the talk history here)

PS. I am willing to remove myself from any action related to any one or more of the above parties regarding enforcement if ArbCom, the community, or any non-involved party whatsoever thinks this is important. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:00, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

PPS. FPaS is entirely correct about filibustering: the common tactic I've seen in use is textbook WP:SOUP, and it has been marvelously successful at confusing ANI and pushing blocks ever further away. Also, I forgot to mention there is rampant sockpuppetry in the area (User:Nangparbat and User:Lagoo sab). Finally, you will note below the traveling circus of POV-pushers that FPaS speaks of which all find no fault in editors on their own side. But you decide for yourselves if this editor (DS), which everyone below maintains if a bastion of neutrality, is a POV-pusher: his requests for unblock are mostly denied, he's been blocked by other admins on several occasions, he would have been blocked by other admins at some points if I hadn't stepped in, (Personal attack removed), and he makes wildly POV-pushy edits like this one (which I'll note he still maintains was a completely legitimate and neutral edit). His and JCAla's tactic of claiming that I am biased (which is ludicrous, seeing as I give not a single fuck about the parties in this dispute; JCAla in his diffs below cherry picked the two admins who didn't support my block versus the ~9 who did.) and trying to leverage that into claiming I'm too involved to block has been employed against other admins (e.g., User:TParis), in an attempt to chase off anyone who looks closely enough into the area to recognize their WP:BATTLEGROUND agenda. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Fut.Perf.

Yes, please, do something. The situation is out of control . Last time I suggested imposing discretionary sanctions on a community basis, the ANI folks couldn't agree on anything. Admins have been curiously reluctant to use their tools in a decisive fashion – people in this field can collect seven or eight blocks in a row for disruptive editing within a few months, but admins will still not escalate the block lengths beyond a week or two, when it's pretty obvious that indef would be the only rational response . The topic area is poisoned by the presence of a small number of determined, incorrigible agenda editors, whose constants fights with each other have led a larger number of associates/allies/enablers into joining the "travelling circus", conforming their own editing to that same "us-versus-them" mold defined by their ringleaders' obsessions. The ringleaders need to be taken out. Don't ask us to take them to RFC/U first – an RFC/U works only on the optimistic assumption that a person might be prepared to listen. These guys have known their editing is offensive for ages; if they haven't begun listening yet, what reasons have we for hoping they ever will? Don't ask us to wait for mediation between them – that's a colossal waste of time, serving only to pamper their egos and train them to become even better filibusterers. We are dealing with a number of people here who are deeply, fundamentally unwilling to accept or even to conceive of "neutrality" as a desirable goal to strive for.

Do something. No matter what: take a full case, or decide per amendment motion. Ban the central figures yourselves, or just impose disc-sancs. But do something. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:47, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and before it gets forgotten, please make sure to include also Afghanistan in the scope of this; the disruption there is intimately related. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:24, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

To SilkTork and Risker: if you see the mediation as a reason for holding off with the discretionary sanctions, please consider the following:

• The mediation only attempted to deal with one highly limited content issue. After three months, it is nowhere near solving even as much as that. It's moribund, and has been so for a while. The last bit of dialogue between the parties on the case page was almost two weeks ago.
• Meanwhile, the travelling circus is busy moving elsewhere. Currently it's at Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War, India and state terrorism and no doubt several other pages I've not been keeping track of.
• Parties are still engaged in personal squabbles, exchanging accusations and spurious warnings, block-shopping and all sorts of similar noise (e.g. here, here).

Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Vibhijain

I have to disagree with Magog the Ogre's statement. I don't think that DarknessShines is a "unrepentant POV-pusher". Magog has blocked him many times, and this one specially raises concerns. So does this. As of TopGun, he shows serious neutrality concerns. Along with attacking editors on the basis of their nationality, he has a history of making highly controversial and questionable edits and reverts, citing WP:BRD; and when someone reverts him, he harasses him crying hounding. The sad point is that he also gets support for his false accusations. The main purpose of TopGun, while editing Misplaced Pages, is evidently to push Pakistani POV, and he is also supported by other editors. This, and even this, shows some signs of blockshopping. Another point which I noticed, is that this case case came when DS was all set to open a case against MTO. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ 14:28, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

On accusations of hounding

• Anti-Pakistan sentiment Through Interwiki links (Template:Kashmir separatist movement > Pro-Pakistan sentiment > Anti-Pakistan sentiment)
• I Protest through Template:Kashmir separatist movement
• Kashmir Solidarity Day through Template:Kashmir separatist movement
• State-sponsored terrorism Through Interwiki links (2008 Mumbai attacks > Pakistan and state terrorism > State-sponsored terrorism)
• Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 May 29#Template:Jammu and Kashmir freedom movement It on almost every Kashmir related article; its obvious to catch my eyes.
• Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War I reached there through DarknessShines' user page, and watchlisted it.
• Talk:Operation Dwarka TopGun's talk page is on my watchlist, and since being a controversial article in a bad state, I preferred to comment there.

Now I hope that no one other will put such allegations, and still if he/she wants, then I will be more happy to solve out those too. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ 14:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply to TopGun's accusations

A user puts tons of sources in the favour of keeping an article, despite the fact that they have no mention of the topic, and when a user does nothing rather than blindly accusing me of hounding, I think I am supposed to term those comments as baseless. Also watching someone' talk page is completely allowed, and its not my headache if you are involved in every dispute of this topic's articles. TopGun’s accusation that I am following his DYK noms is another baseless one. Please note that I have around 20 DYK credits and various DYK reviews, I am an active contributor to the DYK page, and I have reviewed various dyk noms. 1, 2 and 3 to name a few. Most, or I should say all DYK noms by TopGun have highly non-neutral hooks, and the article also aren't different. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ 10:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by JCAla

1. The editors in the mentioned content area are currently engaged in a mediation process. An arbitration process for these issues is currently not warranted because it would be a parallel process disrupting mediation efforts. There is no urgent dispute which would cause disruption going on currently. Editors are discussing content disputes on talk pages.
2. This arbitration request was initiated by Magog the Ogre not because of any urgent need with regards to a specific content issue (as mentioned above, mediation is already proceeding as a means of dispute resolution). Instead this request was made because Magog the Ogre's administrative competence has been questioned just yesterday by Darkness Shines. This was, according to Magog himself, the "that's it" that compelled him to open this arbitration request.
3. Both administrators asking for sanctions, Magog the Ogre and Future Perfect at Sunrise, are involved editors/administrators in the topic area. Uninvolved administrators have said that Magog the Ogre appears to be involved and to lack neutrality. Magog bears bad feelings towards one part of the editors which makes him take unbalanced actions. Future Perfect at Sunrise is himself involved as an editor in a content dispute.
4. Conclusion from me: An arbitration process for the content area is currently not warranted as a mediation is in full process. During the mediation period any wrong behavior can be dealt with by uninvolved administrators according to normal policy and procedure as agreed on at ANI just a short time ago. If the mediation fails, arbitration can still be requested. On Magog, he keeps refusing to accept that he is neither considered neutral nor uninvolved by several editors and administrators. Starting arbitration to get an editor who has criticized oneself off wikipedia is yet another sign. There are plenty of uninvolved administrators who have successfully acted in the content area, which do not lack the appearance of being neutral. Please accept this. JCAla (talk) 16:34, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by TopGun

• Since back in around November since I edited the Taliban article, the two editors who disputed my edits there (DarknessShines and JCAla) now have a dispute with me in all the articles I edit after they followed me there one after another. I reported DS's admitted and unrepentant stalking/hounding which resulted in an IBAN, after the administrators failed to enforce the IBAN (through which the stalking continued with vios only being on DS's part), the IBAN was removed on the pretext that admins would act on normal vios to make decision making easy for them. Yet many many requests to deal with the situation of the editors have been rejected with the excuse that it is difficult to gauge hounding/stalking even after I've presented with hard evidence of diffs . Another editor Vibhijain has started hounding me soon after his interaction with DS and who did not back off after a civil warning ( ) and is not being dealt with the very same way . This has gone a step further and the editor continues to unambiguously follow me around to revert my edits or oppose me. The same was the case with DBigXray who now tries not to appear following me around but games my 1RR restriction when ever he can with edit summaries about some thing completely different . As noted in his SPI he has also been suspected of meat and sock puppetry and only got away with it because I was reporting him and had content/conduct disputes with him. This user also pretended to be an administrator clearly lying . Based on this and the subsequent administrative failure I very strongly oppose discretionary sanctions as admins have already shown that they've been extremely poor in enforcing sanctions with the filibustering that goes around in this specific dispute and support that either arbcom takes the fully case or asks admins to make swift blocks when provided with hard evidence of diffs and patterns of diffs. Also agree with Fut perfect that the Afghanistan topic is very much in the range of this dispute. --lTopGunl (talk) 13:29, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply to DBigXray's statement

• The editor never assumes good faith on part of any editors opposing his views and calls any allegations on him with diffs as "baseless" some thing that Vibhijain does too now. Whenever warned civilly for editwar aor any other matter he instead chooses to point out my blocklog in reply to the warnings which actually contains many reverted blocks.
• The "Blockshopping" as being called here are actually formal reports to administrators as it was explicitly said at ANI that me and Darkness shines should better stay off that page after I reported an IBAN vio with diffs and it was turned into a thread for topic bans instead of acting out on the actual vios. The point being about the further sanctions instead of enforcing the previous ones. --lTopGunl (talk) 10:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Vibhijain's statement

• So we have a second user who agrees he stalks (atleast) my talkpage and follows my disputes. All other incidents also still categorize in hounding as they have short time difference and all oppose my edits. Just more reasons to take a case rather than hand over the power of handing out sanctions to the administrators who couldn't enforce them before either. It is quite funny to find the allegations of POV pushing on me when I am trying to get an NPOV or a combination of all POVs in balance while these editors simply want to remove any views they don't like and state Indian POV as neutral. Something to do with WP:MPOV. --lTopGunl (talk) 10:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply to TheSpecialUser's statement

• Last I checked, opposing something against the majority was not a reason to believe the editor had bad faith and neither is the wikipedia a majoritarianism. I discussed the edit more than any of the users who commented there and actually found agreement with atleast 2 users who initial opposed my edit at Talk:Pakistan Zindabad#Controversial Usage. Also funny that none of my blocks were because of incivility. Such false accusations make me doubt TSU's intervention here in the first place. --lTopGunl (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Darkness Shines

Regarding blocks

1. His first block was for edit warring which was completely unfounded in policy. I had but one revert on that article, and it has been my first revert in four days.
2. His second block was also a violation of policy, wherein he accuse me of hounding I explained that I had gotten to the article in question via an RFC which had been posted on a user talk page He ignored this and allowed the block to run it's course.
3. His third block was again entirely wrong. Accuses me of edit warring and stalking. I explained how I had gotten to the article in question via internal links and it was obvious an article on a non existent word would be deleted. There had been no stalking nor edit warring on my part at all.
4. The fact the Magog so blithely calls me a bigot in his statement above shows he has not an ounce of neutrality towards me whatsoever, such a blatant personal attack is proof of his attitude towards me. Darkness Shines (talk) 02:28, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

On accusations of hounding

1. . Edit wars uncited content into an article.
2. Reverets in unsourced content.
3. Other states of India:- Citation needed. Various editors arguing with TG over his edit warring uncited content into an article.
4. When pointed out on his talk page his habit of reverting unsourced content into articles he says "Blah"
5. Reverts out reliably sourced content. He did not like it.
6. Files an AN3 report, even though 3R was never broken by myself.
7. Misrepresentation of sources
8. Battlefield mentality, talks of "sides"
9. Inter-Services Intelligence was locked for two weeks due to TG edit warring, his first action upon the article being unlocked, He reverts again. I endeavor to use only the best of sources, all are from academic publishing houses.
10. Taliban we have the same issue again, TG reverts out huge amounts of content, all of which is sourced to academic publishers. He quite simply reverts out content which he thinks sheds a poor light on Pakistan.

As I pointed out to Magog I began to look into TG's edits after the fiasco at the Taliban article per WP:HOUND Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Misplaced Pages policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. Magog ignored all the above infractions of policy by TG and focused on my actions for reasons known only to himself. Darkness Shines (talk) 14:05, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Salvio giuliano

Well, to tell the truth, I'm not sure discretionary sanctions will be particularly helpful in this case due to the peculiarities of the topic area. First of all, it has been plagued by constant blockshopping, with users complaining about their opponents' edits on the talk pages of many different admins — disclosure: I have received several requests to examine somebody else's edits —. This is the area where an interaction ban between two editors had to be lifted because it was creating more drama than it was preventing, after all. Furthermore, only very few sysops have acted in an administrative capacity and, on top of that, some, though not all, have not always appeared neutral when brandishing their mops — disclosure: and in a couple of circumstances, I have commented to that effect on the blockee's talk page —. This does not mean they were not neutral, merely that they did not appear to be. Besides, owing to the incredible litigiousness of all editors involved, the sanctions imposed have not always received the appropriate level of review by the community. Actually, the reaction on ANI has been either aww, jeez, not this **** again or a chorus of let's ban them all and be done with them. Moreover, the editors involved in this topic area are very few (fewer than ten). I realise that the ongoing disruption needs to be stopped; however, as I have already said, I'm not sure the imposition of discretionary sanctions is the best way forward. That said, if the Committee were to consider them unavoidable, I'd like to urge you to consider not imposing the standard set of discretionary sanctions, but to shape them in a way that takes into account the peculiarities of the topic area (particularly the litigiousness, lack of appearance of neutrality and blockshopping). Salvio 22:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by DBigXray

• I was not a party to this case as the nominator Magog had only mentioned 5 names as involved users and TopGun has wrongly dragged me here by adding 2 more names to make this a soup and distract the case. This also comes after I was recently threatened by topGun for commenting at ANI. I hope the arbcom members will note this and remove the extra names as attempts to distract, noting that I have never been blocked or accused by any editor other than TopGun (who because of a few content disputes likes to take my name everywhere)

1. User:TopGun (previously edited as User:Hassanhn5) keeps pushing Pakistani POV in Wiki articles (and can be clearly seen in his edits) using unsourced or poorly sourced (blogs, SPS) contents and is often met by resistance from other editors. In past I had disputes when he tried to disrupt (insert POV and remove sourced content) in india related articles under my watchlist. To get me out of his way he had desperately tried all attempts of getting me blocked by all possible means and failed in all of them.
2. Its not easy for a such edits to go un noticed on wikipedia. And whenever the other editors complain of his behavior he prefers calling them Sockpuppets and . TopGun has made failed attempts to get me blocked by falsely accusing me for Sockpuppetry . Inspite of the fact that I was cleared and the case was closed, he keeps wrongly accusing me for his imaginary socks.
3. TopGun has tried block shopping against me by canvassing on talk pages of admins and editors , ,(many more..) and called me a vandal and presented a content dispute at AIV for a quick block on me

On accusations by TopGun

1. TopGun makes controversial edits on articles and whenever the page watchers revert him he accuses everyone else (with whom TopGun has content disputes) of hounding. this observation has also been supported by Magog himself . In past also TopGun tried to get me blocked my making a concocted report at ANI hoping that he might get me banned by incorrectly accusing me of "hounding", for editing my watchlisted articles and failed.
2. In response to an 11 month old diff presented by TopGun above on accusing me of posing as admin where I was trying to warn a proven Vandal about Vandalism is yet another ill-intentioned attempt to show me in a bad light. I was new to wikipedia and was trying to discourage a vandal only account from vandalizing wikipedia. later on I learnt that there are templates to warn them so started using them. The very next day that account was blocked indefinitely for being a Vandalism only account. But the Arbcom members must also note that TopGun brings this incident with carefully worded phrases every time he makes a complaint against me and here as well.
3. The diff of the revert pointed by TopGun above was done by me in accordance with the talk page discussion here, when other editors had pointed source misrepresentation by TopGun.

• Unlike TopGun who follows WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality and has a block log filled with edit warring and disruptive editing, I have never been blocked neither have I been warned for any issue.

• It is to be noted that TopGun makes regular visits to Magog's page for block shopping instead of taking the issue to the ANI as his attempts of block shopping have a much higher success rate at Magog's page than at Admin notice boards.

• It must be duly pointed out that block shopping at admin's talk pages need to end and if there is a genuine concern then it should be posted at appropriate noticeboards where "uninvolved" admins can take proper actions (or boomerang if appropriate). I am in complete agreement with Salvio's comment above. --DBigXray 07:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Request

As it is evident by the diffs provided by the many editors here, this is more of a user conduct issue which could have been handled in a better way by uninvolved admins. The block shopping and subsequent blocks by involved admins have brought this here. It will not be appropriate to put up Discretionary sanctions to block any of the editors in this topic area, just by the wrong doings of individual users above. The action by Arbcom if any should be taken on the erring users and not the topic area as a whole.--DBigXray 17:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Request 2

AS evident by the comments of admins User:Magog the Ogre and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise above, I will also request the arbcom to prevent these two admins from taking administrative actions against the editors in this topic area, as they are clearly involved and their admin actions are biased while dealing with few specific editors in this topic area. --DBigXray 19:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by TheSpecialUser

I completely disagree when MTO calls DS an "unrepentant POV-pusher who sees the world through the lens of "us" vs. "them"". DS's edits may look controversial but none of them are disputing neutrality or using unreliable sources. As far as his reverts for TGs edits are concerned, TG's edits were controversial and subject to eventual talks or RFCs at talk pages or user talk pages. MTO being an admin has made few uncivil kind of personal attacks to DS (). Especially this didn't look appropriate at all as the editor wasn't even warned or asked for clarification prior to the block. This isn't my main point at this statement. I will have to say that it is actually TopGun and at times Mar4d who have pushed POV and they seem to remove addition of any content that sheds a poor light on Pakistan. They have also been adding data which is not so in favor of Indian authorities at Jammu & Kashmir or related issues negatively. The best example of this "biased behavior" can be found at where TG and M4 introduced links (I Protest, Rape in Jammu and Kashmir, Human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir and Media curbs and usage of social networking sites in Kashmir) which have no connection whatsoever to separatist movement. These links don't even have any content related to the movement and still get a place in the template. Another example is Pakistan Zindabad where TG removes data which is completely sourced with WP:RS and the incident is notable enough to have a mention but still it was removed just because it was proving a bad point for his country, I was totally shocked by such biased behavior (Pakistan Zindabad incident lead to a Talk:Pakistan_Zindabad#Controversial_Usage RFC where editors are in clear support of inclusion). This is nothing but clear POV pushing. He also accused Vibhijain of HOUNDING which was not a case there. HOUNDING says that edits that are intended to dispute or badger the editor in a wrong way is HOUNDING but addition of material and other fixes in good faith are not HOUNDING. Since long TG has accused people of HOUNDING and still does as he doesn't seem to understand what WP:HOUND is. Since long TopGun has followed such behavior and has faced many blocks due to incivility or personal attacks (hostile editing against Darkness Shines, improper calling of "sock") or breaking IBAN or Disruptive editing. He has since long continued to make this site WP:BATTLEGROUND and one of the instances can be found here. This dispute doesn't look like it is going to end. I believe that a ban from Indo-Pak related articles will be the best possible solution to this continued conflict.  — TheSpecialUser  05:23, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Anir1uph

I have been an active Misplaced Pages editor for the past 6 months. I edit many articles, and that includes articles about my country, India. I have observed the process of edits, reverts and ANI proceedings from the sidelines for some time. I am here as an editor whose willingness to edit, add content and removed vandalism/violations from these articles has been diminished. This is because of two reasons:

1. Fear of swift administrator intervention, due to a complaint against me by an opposing party. I am here to devote my time on Misplaced Pages's article space. Being caught up in ANIs, with a possibility of being handed out blanket bans is terrifying to me. I would not like to be dragged into an official mess for cases that ideally require more discussions on the talk pages.
2. Distractions caused to regular editing, by users who hold opposite views but are reluctant to discuss them, and are willing to enforce them using tactics like talk page intimidation (as illustrated in the examples linked in the previous sections).

In my opinion,

1. Placing blanket sanctions on the topic area will not be very effective as it won't solve the root of the problem, which, in my opinion is a user conduct issue here.
2. Administrators on Misplaced Pages are like administrators anywhere. In all progressive democracies, there is a time-bound change of guard, of elected politicians and behind the scene bureaucrats. This i believe is done to ensure that an administrator appointed to a particular 'region' does not become all-powerful and start to 'intimidate' his/her subjects. Similarly, when an administrator on wikipedia remains associated with a disputed subject for a long time, any action by him/her that might even appear to be biased causes further agitation among opposing users. The problem is made worse by the fact that other/uninvolved Misplaced Pages administrators do not like to intervene on seeing an admin already 'handling business'. A vicious cycle is formed, which might discourage other editors from contributing to such articles/topics.

I would urge the ArbCom to ponder over these issues.

Thanking you all,

Anir1uph (talk) 21:37, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Strike Eagle

I completely disagree with Magog the Ogre's description of Darkness Shines as a unrepentant POV-pusher.Darkness Shines has been doing great service to neutralize the POV pushing that plagues many(most) of the Indo-Pakistani articles.Magog the Ogre was always involved in the dispute when he repeatedly blocked Darkness Shines.There was obviously some kind of blockshopping due to which Darkness Shines was indiscriminately blocked many times.MTO ridiculously accuses DS of Anti-Pakistani editing while he supports TG and Mar4d who openly push anti-india propoganda.

User:TopGun has always been trying in extreme magnitudes to push Pakistani POV in any article he finds..TopGun has been Templaring and warning regular and established editors as they stand against his pov pushing. .He regularly(and baselessly) accuses DBigXray and Vibhijain(sysop elsewhere) for hounding .TopGun has a good history of edit-warring due to which he was blocked quite a good number of times and was even stripped off his rollback privelages.It's ridiculous to see him accuse another established editor for edit-warring and hounding.

Mar4d's follows a different pattern of POV pushing where he pushes his point silently so that no one notices his edits.He doesn't appear on other user talk pages as frequently as TG but his effect on articles is quite high too.

I hereby request the ArbCom to take necessary action against TopGun and Mar4d-Discrete Sanctions or Ban.Darkness Shines and JCAla, who have been working for NPOV in the conflicted articles must be freed of the charges.Vibhijain and DBigXray who were dragged into the dispute by TG have no major role in it and hence I think must be removed from the list. Sincerely, TheStrikeΣagle 13:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

On Accusations of POV Pushing by Mar4d

The only major POV dispute I have ever been involved was a userbox I created.Mar4d nominated it for deletion saying that it was not in use and unnecessary.Who is he to decide what is necessary here? Unfortunately(for Mar4d) the MfD was closed as keep with no delete !vote other than Mar4d's.perhaps his friends were off-wiki that time .It is clear that Mar4d accuses other users for POV pushing while he himself does it all the time.Hope this clears the accusation. Regards TheStrikeΣagle 13:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Smsarmad

I don't know why my name was added here as none of the statements given up till now state my name. As I edit in this topic area so I will like to share my observation: that whenever an editor persistently pushes his/her POV in a topic area giving an impression that he/she is working on some agenda here at Misplaced Pages, the editors contributing to the same topic area how much neutral they may be but a time will come that they will be forced to push the opposite POV instead of coming to neutral ground. The problems in this topic area are so difficult to handle that most of the admins avoid using their tools in this area or even try to understand what the actual problem is and what is its cause? I have been viewing Darkness Shines’s (DS) edits in the Pakistan topic area, for the last 7 months. Per my observation he is continuously pushing his POV and disrupting any good effort put by most of the other editors working in this topic. I have raised this issue previously many times (some other editors also did this). Some of his edits that don’t need much explanation describing his POV: , , , ,

Not to mention his uncivil behavior, creation of article to piss other editors, hounding other editors, as they are separate and lengthy chapters.

On calling an admin involved I will just say that DS calls anyone involved/not neutral admin whoever supported Bwilkins idea of blocking him for six months,in the last discussion at ANI so that includes: Bwilkins,The Bushranger, Dennis Brown, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Magog. Though till now he has called only Bwilkins, Magog and Future Perfect as involved, with this argument but I don’t see it far that all the other admins who supported his block will be accused of being involved whenever they take some action against him. So I think an editor should not be given the right to call an admin being biased/involved just because he/she blocked or supported/upheld a block of that editor previously. It will set a bad precedence leading to problems for the administrators dealing with disruptive editors.

There is much more happening in this topic area that most of the outside editors are possibly not aware of, like creation of retaliatory articles, hounding, teaming up, defending an editor or his/her actions whenever an action is (or going to be) taken by an admin, accusing any admin who takes action of being involved/biased, accusing editors (including admins) of being friend of the other editor, giving barnstars to each other with inflammatory comments against other editors soon after a discussion is concluded, etc. All this is now increasing with more editors following the path of others who did this successfully and have become a role model. Also the frequency of these kind of disruptive activities is increasing. Actually this is one of the reasons that my contributions are declining too as I avoid these disputes as much as I can. That is why I think Arbitration Committee should take a thorough look into this (that unfortunately most of the admins avoid), that I guess is possible if a full arbitration case is taken. Apparently it looks like that discretionary sanctions will solve the problems in this topic area but it will not be plugging (only) the right hole, instead it is like plugging all the holes, that will have collateral damage to some extent as issues which arise in this topic area are so complex sometimes that it is difficult for an admin to act without thoroughly checking the lengthy history of the events, so sometimes they avoid using the (sysop) tools. So my only concern about giving admins the powers of discretionary sanctions is why ArbCom is leaving this case once again for the admins, majority of whom are probably reluctant to act in this topic. Besides I would like to mention about the more visible display of Battleground mentality .i.e. the addition of my name to the involved/affectee list that apparently looks like an "us vs them" approach. --SMS 22:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Stfg

In addition to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, I suggest including Bangladesh in the list of countries covered by the motion. There has been extensive battling by the same editors over articles related to it. --Stfg (talk) 09:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Nyttend

Just ran across this by accident while looking for more context on the change-of-username motion; I'm not at all involved with Indo-Pakistani disputes. If this motion pass, does that mean that this arbitration decision would be binding on random people who dispute sports stats for Vijay Singh or who disagree on the US political aspects of business process outsourcing in India? Nyttend (talk) 02:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Ignoring rules to respond inline here: see the discussion at the very bottom by the arbs. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 13:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Blade of the Northern Lights

Although I haven't been particularly involved in the situations leading up to this, I do have a lot of experience dealing in the closely related topic specifically covered already. I'm fine with adding discretionary sanctions, but I'm not sure how effective they'll be. Setting aside the problems that Salvio giuliano says above about experienced editors, anyone who's done any NPP or editing in the topic area will recognize the substantial problem created by new users as well. Many seem to treat Misplaced Pages articles as a place to practice their English, which wouldn't be a bad thing were it not for the fact that most of their English skills are atrocious and create another layer of communication problems; looking at Talk:Nair and its archives is fairly demonstrative of the problem. Discretionary sanctions can only do so much to solve those sorts of problems; what's needed is more admin attention, which from what I can see isn't forthcoming. So while I think discretionary sanctions will help, the underlying problem to me seems more like the lack of admins willing to head this off at the pass. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by user Fifelfoo

Arbitrators ought to be aware that there is an existing community sanction of general discretionary sanctions regarding caste and sub-groups. This community sanction will of course keep running regardless of your decision—some day you may reverse yourselves, correspondingly the community must reverse itself on its sanction that overlaps with this one to some extent. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Volunteer Marek

Ugh. Usually I do an excellent job of avoiding controversy, contentious topics, disputes, and anything that remotely smells of "trouble" but it seems I have somehow stumbled into this, mostly because I began editing some articles related to Bangladesh out of a personal interest.

So.

First, whatever is done, you should add Bangladesh to the "India, Pakistan, Afghanistan" list since this stuff has already began spilling over there.

Second, I'm torn between, on the one hand, my established disdain for "discretionary sanctions" and the sincere belief that these often do nothing but pour gasoline on the fire - in many cases instituting "discretionary sanctions" is like exporting arms to war torn countries, it just provides another weapon for people to fight with - and, on the other hand, the obviousness that there's plenty of trouble going on here. So it's a sort of 60% Salvio Guiliano 40% Future Perfect kind of thing going on here.

What really would work at this point is involvement in the topic area of some knowledgeable, respected and diplomatic uninvolved editors. If you know of any, you should hire them. Or just record their existence, before that species goes extinct (again). In absence of that, discretionary sanctions *could* work as long as it's not just a "we'll put in the discretionary sanctions and then abandon the issue and pretend it's solved" ... kind of thing. If you do put in discretionary sanctions, be prepared to deal with follow up complaints, with a whole new slew of WP:AE reports (most of which, but not all, will be petty and stupid, and further proof that Misplaced Pages IS in fact a battleground) and more work for yourselves (which you can always evade by pointing out that the ArbCom is not concerned with content disputes).

Honestly, to deal with these perennial consanguineous areas you're going to have to start appointing "Tsars" (like the "Education Tsar" or "Drug Tsar") or at least "Surgeons Generals". Or maybe Consuls. And with the consuls, there was always two of them. So I nominate Salvio Guiliano and Future Perfect as the first two Consuls of the "India-Pakistan-Afghanistan-Bangladesh" topic area. With Fifelfoo as the tribune, just to watch over them.VolunteerMarek 03:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Ncmvocalist

Were the relevant Wikiprojects notified (eg via noticeboards for related topics) - that you intend on putting this DS regime on anything related to these countries? Next, should we expect you to also put the entire project on DS without properly consulting community first? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by RegentsPark

Like Ncm above, I'm a little disappointed that we have arbs voting on sanctions without seeking wider input from the community that will be affected by those sanctions. However, if that's the way things are then that's the way they are.

I think discretionary sanctions are unnecessary. To the contrary, I think the problem in this area has been an excess of admin involvement and admin action. Punitive blocks applied at will, restrictions imposed on the various participants that are really not warranted, gratuitous lectures about behavior that are better suited to parent child interactions than to admin/editor interactions, stuff like that. This has lead to a poisonous atmosphere marked mainly by block shopping and a constant low grade complaining about other editors. My suggestions, perhaps too late since arbs seem to have already made up their minds, are the following:

1. Remove all restrictions on all participants in these areas. This has more or less been done through ANI though there may be other restrictions on these editors that I am unaware off.
2. Remind admins that they should use their tools minimally, only when there are clear transgressions.
3. Remind admins that they should be sparse in their comments. Comment only on the transgression not on editors.--regentspark (comment) 16:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Additional note

Now that I've had the time to look at this further, I think Magog is overstating the "disruptive" nature of what is going on here. A look at the block log of both DarknessShines as well as TopGun shows that most of l the blocks were for violating one restriction or another. The restrictions were the problem and the predictably unfortunate effect of discretionary sanctions is going to be more blocks not less. The ANI cases were largely initiated by two of the editors, DarknessShines and TopGun, probably because block shopping on technical violations of the restrictions was, partly anyway, turning out to be an effective weapon against each other. I believe this is better handled on a case by case basis using the normal way of dealing with edit warring or tendentious editing rather than through adding to the bureaucratic overhead by placing more restrictions on both these editors (and, incidentally, on any other editor who may happen to be editing these pages). --regentspark (comment) 18:36, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Fowler&fowler

This very bizarre. Discretionary sanctions are being considered for India and Pakistan related pages, yet, none of the significant contributors to these pages (see, for example, here) know about this. No announcement had been made on WikiProject India, until NCMvocalist just made his. Most editors making statements above (who edit South Asia-related pages), on the other hand, seem to be relatively new users; all are seasoned at edit-warring and POV pushing; all know enough wikilawyering to template me for writing this sentence. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

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

• Recuse - I'm one of the two mediators in the RfM before the Mediation Committee. -- Lord Roem (talk) 16:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Seems a good idea - a preliminary circuit breaker on pages with ongoing troubled history which can be installed with a minimum of effort for (hopefully) some settling of behaviour. I'm inclined to post a motion as requested but will wait for some more input. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
• Agree that enabling discretionary sanctions for this topic area seems like a good idea. PhilKnight (talk) 13:34, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
• Concur, and am fairly surprised it hasn't been done already, given the level of disruption that goes on in this area. Courcelles 18:05, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
• Agreed, and I think a motion is probably the best way forward. Jclemens (talk) 18:02, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
• Perhaps this remedy, adopted in 2007 (before my time on the Committee) in a case involving India-related articles, could be viewed as a primitive phrasing of discretionary sanctions? Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:01, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Do I detect a hint of nostalgia the good old days when we could have remedies calling for people to be hit on the head with sticks? Kirill  00:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I was the clerk in that case, and I remember asking the arbitrator who drafted the decision (Mackensen) whether I really had to post the decision with that in it. He said yes. At the time I was aghast. After four and a half years arbitrating, I understand now. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with my colleagues above, and have proposed a motion to that effect. Kirill  00:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Motion (India-Pakistan)

1) Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, broadly construed.

For this motion, there are 12 active non-recused arbitrators, so 7 votes are a majority.

Support

1. Proposed per discussion above. Kirill  00:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

   Added Afghanistan per the comments below. Kirill  03:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

2. Necessary to maintain order. Courcelles 00:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
3. Per Fut Perf's comment this should include Afghanistan as well. PhilKnight (talk) 00:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
4. + Afghanistan too Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:53, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
5. Jclemens (talk) 05:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
6. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 12:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
7.  Roger Davies 07:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
8. I'm disappointed (though not surprised) that discretionary sanctions for these topics were recently proposed as a community measure at ANI, but failed to achieve consensus. It is so obviously needed. AGK 13:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. There are a number of statements saying that this is not needed, and there is a call to wait until the Mediation case has finished. If the community are in the process of resolving this dispute, then it is too soon for the Committee to be stepping in. SilkTork 19:35, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
2. Concur with SilkTork - we should not be acting while this is being actively discussed in a lower level of dispute resolution. Risker (talk) 19:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Abstain

Comments

• I support the intent, but shouldn't this be limited to pages or edits concerning national, ethnic, or similar disputes between or within India and Pakistan? I wouldn't think the discretionary sanctions would be needed for every single article relating to India or Pakistan. (At least I hope not!) Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

  Our other geographic discretionary sanctions are purely region-based, with no reference to the specific nature of the edit. Given how disputes of this nature can pop up on otherwise seemingly uncontroversial articles, it seems more straightforward to authorize discretionary sanctions for the entire area rather than requiring administrators to individually add articles once a dispute flares up. Kirill  02:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to agree with Kirill--on non-controversial pages they shouldn't have any effect, but can be applied broadly and quickly in case of flare-ups. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 12:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)