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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by EdJohnston (talk | contribs) at 19:13, 12 March 2013 (→Result concerning Hgilbert: Date of proper warning may be considered to be 30 January 2013 (notice of the DS motion)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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See also: Logged AE sanctions

Important informationShortcuts WP:AE WP:ARE Please use this page only to: request administrative action against editors violating a remedy (not merely a principle) or an injunction in an Arbitration Committee decision, or a contentious topic restriction imposed by an administrator, request contentious topic restrictions against previously alerted editors who engage in misconduct in a topic area designated as a contentious topic, request page restrictions (e.g. revert restrictions) on pages that are being disrupted in topic areas designated as contentious topics, or appeal arbitration enforcement actions (including contentious topic restrictions) to uninvolved administrators. For all other problems, including content disagreements or the enforcement of community-imposed sanctions, please use the other fora described in the dispute resolution process. To appeal Arbitration Committee decisions, please use the clarification and amendment noticeboard. 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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by POVbrigand

Fyunck(click)

Soosim

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Soosim

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Nomoskedasticity (talk) 06:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Soosim (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Misplaced Pages:ARBPIA#PRINCIPLES and Misplaced Pages:ARBPIA#General 1RR Restriction

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

1. 7 March 2013 09:23 Undoes previous edit on Amiram Goldblum
2. 8 March 2013 08:03 Undoes previous edit on Amiram Goldblum, thus a violation of 1RR

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 13 December 2011 by EdJohnston (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

• One edit relates to the Israeli occupation, the other to Peace Now. Both are clearly connected to I/P. If you look at the recent history of NGO Monitor, you'll see another violation of 1RR: first this, then this, both on 6 March.
• This request comes in the context of serious concern about the way Soosim has been adding poorly sourced negative material to the BLPs of activists on the left of the I/P conflict. One egregious example was here, using a very questionable source to get an accusation of anti-Semitism onto the page. Another one is here, where some neutral material is accompanied by a vitriolic paragraph sourced to CAMERA's own website. Soosim has been antagonising Goldblum for months now, and if he can't adhere strictly to 1RR then he ought to be given a lengthy break and/or a topic ban. The use of poor sources for negative BLP editing should, in my view, result in a sanction even when it doesn't violate 1RR.

• @Sandstein: the indicated "notification" by EdJohnston was in fact a block for violating 1RR as per the ARBPIA sanctions. I don't think that whether Soosim is aware of ARBPIA is really in question. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:56, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
  
• Comment -- Whatever one makes of Sandstein's concern about the general nature of ARBPIA, the fact is that Soosim was warned and clearly knows about 1RR on I/P articles. The sort of concern Sandstein indicates, if widely shared among arbs/admins, portends to undermine the 1RR restriction in this area. I think that would be a very bad idea. As for Soosim's claim that I too violated 1RR, that is an extremely bad faith claim, failing to indicate that my edit was immediately self-reverted and failing to convey the edit-summary with the explanation (here). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:50, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
• @EdJohnston: I don't think the 1RR violation itself is serious enough to justify a topic ban. But in the context of using very poor quality sources to get things like "anti-Semitic" and "hypocrisy and double standards" onto BLPs, I think a topic ban warrants consideration. This sort of thing is a plague in the I/P area. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
• @Ed -- on inspection, it's true that Soosim didn't add the text about 'hypocrisy and double standards'; he did however use the CAMERA source to expand that passage and add an example of what he appears to consider Siegman's 'hypocrisy and double standards'. It's a mystery to me how this makes it 'more acceptable'. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified.

Discussion concerning Soosim

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Soosim

hi all - i see there has been some discussion here since yesterday. i apologize for not answering right away. i started to and then was unable to be at my computer until now (36 hours later).

i would like to say the following:

a) nomo was waiting for me to screw up. fine. i screwed up, according to the rules. i was 23 hours and not 25. (though 25 can also be like 24 under certain circumstances, right?). i have an 'excuse', but it is irrelevant. and yes, the two edits were two very different items, but apparently that is irrelvant as well.

b) i am very shocked at nomo's wholesale categorization of me "serious concern about the way Soosim has been adding poorly sourced negative material to the BLPs of activists on the left of the I/P conflict". i have made thousands of edits, and there are two questionable ones (questionable according to nomo). i will simply say that the greta berlin edit was one which can be allowed since the source was specific and knowledgable. after it was reverted, i left it alone. didn't fight it, didn't edit war. period. and for the siegelman edit, i was clarifying content that was already there. didn't add what nomo thinks.

c) and if i may, nomo also has been a 1RR violater on the same exact page. i think this shows it: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Amiram_Goldblum&diff=542762926&oldid=542536262 - but, i will not "take nomo to AE" because in my 5+ years of wiki editing, i haven't done that. i prefer to talk on the talk pages, work things out. you ask my 'natural' sparring partners about that (sean.hoyland, malik, dlv, etc.). maybe i need to be more 'vicious', but i doubt i will head in that direction.

thanks for listening.

@EdJohnston: ed - if i may....a) berlin: i used a piece written by the person themselves. i wasn't using mondoweiss as a RS, but rather the article itself. if joe shmoe writes an article, it is valid for joe shmoe's opinion only, correct? did i miss something? ; b) camera - i didn't put that on the page. it was already there, and i think i edited it and added material to make it more acceptable. if it wasn't a good edit (the adding about the LA times, i think), then it can be removed. let me know what you think. thanks. Soosim (talk) 05:56, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

@ed - i think 4 days is a bit harsh.....the last time was december 2011. i don't deny that i am overzealous and often get dragged in. and most of the time (zero times in the last 14 months) i am pretty good about it. i thought your original call for 48 hours was fair. Soosim (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Gatoclass

@Sandstein: In response to your queries, the 1RR discussion was led by admins then active at AE and was considered an AE remedy. Since AE admins are explicity given the discretion to impose remedies (hence "discretionary sanctions"), I'm sure they were seen as having the power to do so, but regardless, the 1RR restriction is by now long accepted as an ARBPIA remedy. With regard to Soosim, AFAICT he has been a regular contributor to I-P conflict-related pages since 2008, and has himself been the subject of AE requests in the past, so it is practically inconceivable that he would not be unaware of the 1RR restriction after all this time. Gatoclass (talk) 17:45, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

And Soosim him/herself explained the 1RR rule on this board here. Zero 13:53, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Soosim

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

Could someone who was around then explain how Misplaced Pages:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction is a restriction enforceable under Arbitration Committee authority? The case page states "Per community discussion and decision at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Arbitration Enforcement/Israel-Palestine articles", but this board is not for enforcing community decisions, only arbitral ones. If the 1RR restriction is to be considered a discretionary sanction (and I'm not sure that it can be, since it neither invokes the arbitral decision's authority nor is it labeled as being imposed by a clearly identified uninvolved administrator), the question would remain as to how we know that Soosim was made aware of the restriction's existence.  Sandstein  17:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

• The ARBPIA 1RR was originally a community restriction, but Arbcom passed a motion in March, 2012 that adds a qualifier to the terms of the 1RR, allowing IP edits to be reverted without counting against 1RR. They also modified the Troubles 1RR to use the same language. Since Arbcom touched the 1RR in 2012, I think they own it now. The Troubles 1RR was explicitly imposed by T. Canens under authority of discretionary sanctions in the fall of 2011, perhaps to avoid this issue. EdJohnston (talk) 05:20, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

If there is any question whether Soosim received a proper notice, I did warn him using the {{uw-sanctions}} template in December, 2011. EdJohnston (talk) 06:42, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications. You're all correct as far as I can tell, but nonetheless... Call me a hidebound legalist, but I'm uncomfortable enforcing a provision that is not clearly (a) a Committee decision taken by majority vote and published as such on the case page, or (b) a discretionary sanction labeled as such, made by a responsible individual administrator and specifically notified to the editor via talk page message or edit notice. Tertium non datur, in my view.

Also, the 1RR restriction is worded such that it is to be applied to anyone who edits an affected article without prior warning: "Editors who violate this 1RR restriction may be blocked without warning by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense". As it is unreasonable to expect that every editor who edits these articles is aware of even the existence of this arbitration case, this provision runs counter to my sense of procedural fairness (even though notification is not a problem in this case).

So, personally, I'd rather not take action in this case. That's not to say that I think less of anyone who does decide to act on this enforcement request, but to me this provision is too novel and unusual for me to be comfortable with acting on it.  Sandstein  15:56, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The defense that "I didn't know this is in effect" is moot when said editor has been warned prior, however. - Penwhale | 17:56, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

• On the actual topic of this complaint, Soosim already broke 1RR and seems to have no valid defence. His block log shows that he's been previously sanctioned for 1RR violation, so I'd double the previous remedy, and make this a 48-hour block. The only question is whether anyone considers this serious enough to justify a topic ban. EdJohnston (talk) 18:33, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I have now checked out the claims of Soosim's bad editing at Henry Siegman, Amiram Goldblum, NGO Monitor and Greta Berlin. The worst item was this edit at Greta Berlin. It seems to be an example of poor judgment on his part. Trying to use a blog like Mondoweiss as a reliable source for a certain bad comment being posted on Facebook is a stretch. Still, it's within the realm of editor discretion and I don't know if it is sanctionable at AE. Quoting CAMERA's opinion on Henry Siegman looks to be another example of poor judgment. For us to cite CAMERA's opinion about an Israeli leftist is like reporting what Joe McCarthy thinks about Communism: the answer is predictable, and it tells us little about the person who is the target of the comment. It looks like there was another 1RR violation at NGO Monitor on 3 March, so with that in mind I'd increase the block to 4 days. EdJohnston (talk) 05:33, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

No admins have expressed any support for a topic ban. The submitter, Nomoskedasticity, mentions a topic ban. Gatoclass left a comment but he did not participate in the uninvolved admin section since he usually considers himself to be involved in this topic area. Sandstein does not wish to close 1RR violations that were established by ARBPIA due to "Tertium non datur". Sandstein, we've only closed about 50,000 of these here at AE while you were temporarily away from this board. So I'll proceed to close this within 24 hours with a four-day block of Soosim for the double 1RR violation unless there is consensus against that. EdJohnston (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Brandmeister

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Brandmeister (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Brandmeister 10:29, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Two-year topic ban on all articles related to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts, broadly interpreted, imposed at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive129#Brandmeister

Administrator imposing the sanction

Lord Roem (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

Statement by Brandmeister

I would like to request a review of my topic ban, imposed on February 10, 2013 in the aforementioned AE section. The edit, for which I have been reported and sanctioned, was merely a removal of contradiction within the article's text (which I noted in the edit summary) and the edit was ultimately restored by mediator Golbez. Up until now the dissenting users themselves have no concerns at the related talk page thread, which I started on February 4. Also I would like to note that the previous report on me was dishonest as it was made by account which subsequently turned out to be a sock. In his report that account, Vandorenfm, mentioned four other allegedly unrelated editors, with whom I had interacted (Aram-van, Gorzaim, Vandorenfm and Xebulon). All of them also turned out later to be socks, which likely tried to use the arbitration noticeboard as an instrument to overcome the content disputes. User:Zimmarod, who reported me this time, displays the behaviour of a dormant single-purpose account, as evidenced by his/her contributions, that are almost exclusively within the Armenia-Azerbaijan field. Considering that and the fact that the Armenia-Azerbaijan topics constitute an insignificant part of my contributions, I believe that my two-year topic ban is inappropriately severe and can be reviewed. I am ready to provide any further details if necessary. Brandmeister 10:29, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

@ Sandstein I have not wrote above, that Zimmarod was a sock. I wrote, that he behaves like WP:SPA, which does not neccessarily mean that he is a sock. Brandmeister 19:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Lord Roem

I have no objection to reducing the ban duration, per the comment in the discussion section below (which I believe suggests shrinking from two years to one). If this needs to be done by me, I'll gladly do it. Otherwise, I authorize any other uninvolved admin to adjust that time without objection from me. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 07:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Brandmeister

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

Sandstein, Brand's comment about sockpuppets filing a report against him is in reference to a report filed by User:Vandorenfm in February of 2011, which resulted in a year-long topic ban. As you can see, that account was eventually found to be a sockpuppet of another editor. The other two accounts were also blocked as sockpuppets, one being a sockpuppet of the same editor who operated Vandorenfm. I think the current sanction is extremely excessive in light of those facts and given the very limited legitimate evidence provided in this latest case.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:30, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The two-year length of the current topic ban was suggested because of there having been a previous one-year topic ban so it does have relevance to the current sanction.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:56, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Grandmaster

I would like to support the request by Brandmeister. His 2 year topic ban is considered to be an escalation of his previous 1 year topic ban, but one should take into the account that the first ban was not a correct one. If we look into its history, the complaint against Brandmeister was made by User:Vandorenfm, a sock of the banned user. See here: Note the complaint of the sock: The immediate concern is his editing of the article on Caucasian Albania, where User:Twilight Chill continues waging an edit war against 5 (five) other unrelated editors (Aram-van, Gorzaim, Vandorenfm, MarshallBagramyan, Xebulon). As Brandmeister noted above, 4 of 5 accounts that Vandorenfm mentioned back then turned out later to be socks (User:Aram-van, User:Gorzaim, User:Vandorenfm, and User:Xebulon). So group of sock accounts tag teamed against an established editor with tens of thousands of useful contribs, and then reported him to get him banned. That plan worked back then, but considering that the sock accounts were later exposed, I believe that first ban should be overturned and discounted, because the banned user is not allowed to make any contribs to Misplaced Pages, including filing enforcement reports at this board, and any contribs by the banned users and their socks must be reverted on spot without consideration to their merits. Therefore Brandmeister did not violate any rules by reverting socks, and should not have been banned on the basis of the report by a sock account.

Now if we look into the present topic ban, we can see that situation appears to be similar to that that led to the first ban. Brandmeister was alone against a group of accounts with less that 500 edits each, which appeared one after another after a long absence to rv the article Shusha. And I'm not the only one who thinks that the activity of Zimmarod, Oliveriki and 517design in the article Shusha looks very suspicious. Sandstein agreed "that the history of the article gives the impression that sock- or meatpuppetry may be involved". Golbez also stated that he believed Zimmarod could be a sock account. Plus Brandmeister was the only one who attempted to discuss and left a comment at talk, while accounts reverting him never bothered to join the discussion. In a situation like this, I don't think that a topic ban (especially such a long one) is justified. Grandmaster 23:30, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Brandmeister

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

• Decline appeal, but recommend that the banning administrator reduce the ban duration. I was among the uninvolved administrators who expressed support for the original sanction, based on what I said then was a summary review of the complaint and response. To begin with, the statements about alleged misconduct by others are immaterial to whether the sanction against Brandmeister is appropriate or not, and can be disregarded. What matters here is only whether Lord Roem was right to impose a 2-year topic ban for Brandmeister's actions. On reflection, I think that the duration of the ban is disproportionate. The request incorrectly stated that Brandmeister had been blocked for a year and that he had been topic-banned for a year for similar conduct. If that were true, a 2-year ban would have been understandable. But in fact, Brandmeister had only been blocked for a week, by me. It would have been useful if Brandmeister had pointed out this error in his response to the enforcement request, which he did not. Considering that the sanction was imposed for "only" one revert, and that administrators are or were reluctant to impose year-long topic bans in other recent cases for what I consider rather more serious misconduct, namely longterm battleground conduct and intimidation, I think that the ban is disproportionately long, and I recommend that Lord Roem reduce it to a year or less.

  However, I would not accept the appeal in the sense of overturning the sanction against Lord Roem's will, for the following reasons: In general, administrators enjoy a wide individual discretion in imposing discretionary sanctions, and reviewing authorities other than the Arbitration Committee itself should not interfere with that discretion other than in cases of clear and severe error, which is not the case here. In this specific case, the statement of appeal is additionally problematic in that it does not reflect any understanding for why the conduct for which the ban was imposed was disruptive. Furthermore, the appeal alleges that the complainant, Zimmarod (talk · contribs), "subsequently turned out to be a sock". That is not true, in the sense that the account is not blocked as a sock, and I am not aware of (and the appeal does not supply any evidence for) any other authoritative finding that they are a sock. The Arbitration Committee has stated that casting aspersions on others by alleging substantial misconduct on their part (such as socking) without supplying evidence for such allegations is disruptive. Accordingly, I would decline the appeal for that reason alone.  Sandstein  18:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread that; the appeal apparently refers to Vandorenfm (talk · contribs), who is blocked as a sock. Nonetheless, I don't see how other editors being sockpuppets has any relevance to whether the sanction against Brandmeister for his own action(s) is appropriate.  Sandstein  21:41, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't going to comment on this one but since nobody else has for a day or two, I think I will.

I have never been altogether comfortable with the "escalating sanctions" model recommended at some dispute resolution pages (though no longer, it seems, under the wording of the standard discretionary sanctions). The escalating model in my view is akin to the "three strikes and you're out" laws in some US states, where a miscreant can end up with a life sentence for stealing a pizza. Although it is certainly appropriate to utilize the escalating model in some circumstances, as a general rule I am more comfortable with the notion of applying a sanction proportionate to the offence.

In this case, my impression is that Lord Roem felt obliged to lay an extended sanction in line with the aforementioned escalating sanctions model, resulting in a two-year ban, but it seems no administrator here really believes the offences were that egregious. In these circumstances, I too would probably favour a reduction to a more proportionate level, particularly since Brandmeister's previous case appears to have been engineered in part by a since banished sockpuppet. Given that the effective length of any topic ban, if I am not mistaken, is six months (at which time a user can appeal), I would tentatively suggest a reduction to three months this time around. Gatoclass (talk) 10:57, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Hgilbert

This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning Hgilbert

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Hgilbert (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education#Conflict of interest, and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Waldorf education#Hgilbert. With regard to the Waldorf schools topic, Hgilbert was found to have a conflict of interest, to engage in original research, and to use inadequate and inappropriate references. Hgilbert and any other editor with an identified conflict of interest was instructed to follow the guideline at WP:Conflict of interest, which states that COI editors may not perform controversial edits to articles. Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

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

1. 10 March 2013. Removal of "Pseudoscience" category, with the edit summary of "controversial category", which confirms Hgilbert's knowledge of the disputed nature of this change. Two minutes after he made this change, Hgilbert initiated discussion of the issue at Talk:Waldorf education#Categorization, rather than first engaging in discussion and gaining consensus.
2. 10 March 2013. Removal of negative summary text from the lead section, in support of new editor Vittoria Gena (who has contributed only on three articles, all of which touch upon Waldorf, including a book that likens non-Waldorf schools to Nazism.) Discussion of this material was underway on the talk page, at Talk:Waldorf education#Undue material. The negative information was a summary of negative points described in greater detail in the article body, so it was appropriate per WP:LEAD guideline, but open to discussions of undue weight. Hgilbert acted to remove the disputed text but consensus had not been reached.
3. 9 March 2013. Removal of an image of the human heart, with negative text in the caption. No discussion.
4. 5 March 2013. Introduction of inappropriate reference to K12academics.com which includes, in its text, the editorial bracketed note "citation needed". This indicates that K12academics.com is not reliable, that its contributors do not agree on content.
5. 4 March 2013. Removal of Sean Esbjorn-Hargens' ReVision reference as "non-peer reviewed journal". One minute later, Hgilbert opened a discussion about this reference, rather than discussing it first and gaining consensus for change.
6. 1 March 2013. Removal of several article alert templates, including POV and COI. The POV tag was discussed on the talk page between Hgilbert and Jellypear at Talk:Waldorf education#Tags, but nobody agreed, or even discussed with Hgilbert, the removal of the COI tag which applied specifically to himself. Nevertheless, he removed it.
7. 13 February 2013. Removed negative information from cited to professor Edzard Ernst and education expert Richy Thompson of the British Humanist Association. No discussion.
8. 10 February 2013. Added a reference about Waldorf governance. The reference is about the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), but the text that it purportedly supports pertains to global Waldorf/Steiner practices, not just North America. No discussion.
9. 9 February 2013. Removal of cited text, that makes Steiner look more like a kook. Hgilbert summarizes, "rem. jargon, simplify." No discussion.
10. 9 February 2013. Removal of the word "pseudoscience" from a section header. No discussion.

Correction 10: 9 February 2013. Hgilbert added "Science" to the header of the "Pseudoscience" section. He removed the list of examples found by Jelinek and Sun; ones which reflected very poorly on Waldorf. Binksternet (talk) 02:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 11 March 2013 by Binksternet (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

After receiving the warning on 11 March, Hgilbert replied that he thought the ArbCom determination of 2006 had been superseded by a new one (a motion passed on 30 January 2013: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education#Modified_by_motion). As far as I can tell, the conflict-of-interest determination remains in place with regard to editors. The findings about Hgilbert also remain in place. The amendment looks like it replaces only one section of the 2006 ArbCom case, changing "article probation" to "standard discretionary sanctions". I think that Hgilbert is in violation of COI and the 2006 finding naming him specifically, and has been for some weeks now.

After I warned him, Hgilbert did not revert the two edits I pointed out as being in violation. This unwillingness to follow the 2006 finding is typical of his behavior. For instance, on 28 November 2012, Alexbrn warned Hgilbert about COI , which Hgilbert removed from his talk page but answered at the article talk page: . There, Hgilbert argued against the 2006 finding, saying that he was "no more or less conflicted than an employee of the public school system would be in editing an article on public education." Because this has been a long-running problem, I propose that Hgilbert be topic-banned from Waldorf education article space, broadly construed, but not banned from talk pages, which are not the locus of the problem. Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• Notification of Hgilbert. Binksternet (talk) 00:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Discussion concerning Hgilbert

Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.

Statement by Hgilbert

I'm happy to have this looked at. At Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Continued_conflict_of_interest_at_Waldorf_education the claim was made that I have made massive prejudicial changes since early February, when Alexbrn last edited the article. We could start with this diff of all the changes between Alexbrn's last contribution on Feb. 3rd, and the present state of the article as of March 11th. What massive removals of negative material and additions of positive material have been made over this time frame? (Note that many of the mostly minor changes that have been made were made by other editors.) Also: Note that there was also a review of the original arbitration.

Also: if arbitrators examine Talk:Waldorf education, I think they'll see harmonious discussion on a range of issues, and a readiness to compromise.

In response to the concrete diffs above (from Binksternet):

1. WP:Category clearly states that categories should not be controversial. See the extensive talk page discussion here, which makes it clear that this category is very controversial. Summarizing: There is extensive controversy over WE's relationship to pseudoscience, as documented in the article; many educationalists believe that it is a solid educational approach, and some of those who are cited on the pseudoscience side (e.g. Jelinek) support the education generally, but dispute some curriculum content. The discussion deserves to be presented fairly, but it clearly falls foul of the category criteria. In any case, the category was initially removed by another editor, Vittoria Gena here. I supported this when the change was reverted.
2. I summarized the material in the lead more concisely, trying to preserve the primary discussion themes; see also here where I added more material. The body of the article retains a full discussion of all the topics. The only issue I removed from the lead was the immunization issue, as per a (still undisputed) suggestion of another editor on the talk page.
3. The image of the human heart was not closely related to Waldorf education. It had previously been critiqued for this reason.
4. The citation critiqued here is solely used to support the uncontroversial fact that there were 12 Waldorf schools in North America in 1968. This is not a controversial question; though the article is actually cogent, I would not use the source for other purposes, and would have been happy to have looked for a better source had the choice been questioned at any point after I added this text. (In response to concerns raised here, I have now replaced the citation.)
5. Why would we want to keep material not supported by its own citation? See discussion about this on the article talk page Talk:Waldorf_education#ReVision, where another editor points out that the article text for which this citation was used turned out to be not remotely supported by it, indicative of a larger problem with whoever added this text originally.
6. See the talk page discussion of tagging here. Neither in the week and a half of discussion prior to the removal of the tags, nor in the week and a half that have passed since, have any objections been made indicating that the tags should be kept. Further: the COI issue had been brought to an arbitration proceeding recently; the conclusion of this proceeding is here. The arbitrators consciously emphasized that the focus should not be on COIs, but on the policy on reliable sources as a path toward resolution. This distinction has also been raised by an administrator in the current discussion. After this arbitration proceeding, neither this nor the other tag was under current discussion, which I understand is meant to be a requirement for the tagging.
7. This is the only place of all those cited where I actually removed content critical of WE. I have to confess, the theme seemed adequately covered; two paragraphs of material drawn from a single TES article seems to be a violation of WP:UNDUE, but I am open to discussion of this.
8. This diff shows me adding a single phrase stating that the role of boards of Waldorf schools includes "formulating strategic plans and central policies," with a supportive citation. WP:RS states that organizations are reliable sources for information about their own workings, so long as this is not controversial. If this is highly controversial, feel free to explain why. If you believe it to be particular to North America and want to qualify the sentence to say so, this would be fine. (What's the big deal??)
9. The use of jargon was criticized repeatedly by a wide spectrum of editors: Talk:Waldorf_education/Archive_11. Responding to that, I changed this terminology, the meaning of which was unlikely to be easily accessible to the general reader, to more easily comprehensible terminology. It's a little unfair to request that jargon be removed and then criticize when it is removed!
10. Rather amusing. The diff indicated shows me adding the term pseudoscience to the section header, not removing it. hgilbert (talk) 01:08, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

In response to IRWolfie's diffs:

1. The first diff removed an image which had been contested on the talk page as being unrelated to Waldorf education. This question had been taken to the reliable source noticeboard; the response by an outside editor was that the image was unrelated to the article, and that the source it was drawn from was an unreliable source. The second diff is removing material referenced the same article, critiqued as not a reliable source by outside editors. Incidentally, this material was later reinstated when we accepted -- despite the outside editor's critique -- that the article, though not peer-reviewed, had some claim to reliable source status. Perhaps this should be reviewed again. IRWolfie further criticizes me for trying to ensure that "all sources have to be peer reviewed"; the requirement that in this and related articles, sources for any controversial material be peer-reviewed, stems from the last arbitration proceeding. I find a critique of my following WP guidelines a little odd.
2. This is actually a diff of changes made to a different article. The claim for BD was sourced to an organization named ISIS, which as far as I understood is notable in organic agriculture circles. There was further discussion of this at the time; I believe the material was removed as a result.
3. This diff shows a change that kept all relevant text, including the author of the citation, and only took out the name of the book cited, which is easily found in the reference. This follows standard WP practice; we don't usually mention (inline) the name of the books or journal articles referenced in discussions of this source.
4. These are critiques of my attempting to remove material sourced to a blog, in accordance with clear WP policy. Again IRWolfie critiques me for trying to ensure that sources for controversial material are peer-reviewed, in accordance with the very clear arbitration guidelines laid down for this article. (I am puzzled.) Incidentally, if you read the diff claimed to be calling for "tag teaming", I had made an erroneous reversion (to the wrong version) and was requesting help to sort this out.
5. IRWolfie is right here; the citation contains an extract from a WP article, which I had not noticed, and should be removed. (I will do this.) Done

More generally: I have been striving to bring a neutral point of view in a situation that has been historically, and continues to be, highly polarized. There are a number of editors who seem primarily interested in bringing negative critiques into the article, and others who primarily interested in positive views. There are virtually no neutral voices. I have been trying to keep to the RS policy as the path forward. As a result, a number of questions have been brought to the RS noticeboard recently; Looking at the talk page, it seems clear that the mood is generally of fruitful discussion. I believe I consistently seek a positive solution and am willing to use consensus and compromise, respecting all points of view. hgilbert (talk) 02:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• Images

The two images (of Lemuria and the human heart) were added by User:Alexbrn, following a persistent pattern of POI-pushing on the critics' side.

• COI tag

In defense of the removal of COI tagging--which I grant is not normally a good idea:

1. since the tagging there had been an arbitration which had found that the COI I was accused of was not relevant to the case (pointing us to RS policy instead)
2. after I proposed removing the two tags, NPOV and COI, there had been a week and a half of discussion in which no one spoke up against this removal (nor has anyone questioned the removal on the talk page since)

Nevertheless, I clearly should have requested others to remove it rather than removing it myself. I apologize. hgilbert (talk) 10:27, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

1. The recent arbitration discussion I refer to is (see second half of page). Though COI issues were raised by editors offering opinions, not one of the arbitrators mentions these issues in either the Arbitrator views and discussion or Motion: Waldorf education discretionary sanctions. They urge us to focus on reliable sources: "the original ruling has long been overtaken by our evolving policies on reliable sourcing".
2. As Nil Einne mentions below, s/he had also explicitly stated at WP:ANI that "the thing to concentrate on why the edits were bad or controversial, not whether or not the editor has a COI. Concentrating on the COI misses the point because someone is not going to be blocked simply because they were editing when they had a COI, even if the edits were controversial and many question whether the COI should even come in to the block (perhaps the length of the block only). As Hgilbert mentioned, this has been reaffirmed in other cases." I assumed from Nil Einne's contribution at ANI that this editor is an administrator and took his/her comments on the case to be clear direction that we should focus on issues such as RS, NPOV, and working on consensus.

Due to the above rulings and comments by admins, and the complete lack of dissent to the removal of the COI tag when I raised this, I understood that the removal was both in line with the current understanding of the article sanctions and undisputed. I'm shocked that users who had a chance to question the suggested removal on the talk page, and did not, are raising this as an issue here. (Having said this, I still recognize that someone else should have been the one to take the tag off.) hgilbert (talk) 13:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by IRWolfie-

Older diffs, showing long term issue with regards to Steiner:

• Removing source with odd reasoning. The removed source itself which is given a large paragraph in Østergaard, Edvin (1 September 2008). "Doing phenomenology in science education: a research review". Studies in Science Education. 44 (2): 93–121. doi:10.1080/03057260802264081. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help). Removing use of the source again: . Trying to remove more critical sources by claiming all sources have to be peer reviewed: Talk:Biodynamic_agriculture#List_of_non-peer_reviewed_sources_to_remove
• Adding puffery from an otherwise unreliable advocacy source:
• Removing mention of an encyclopedia of pseudoscience as "promotional":
• Canvassing specific editors: after removing mainstream criticism from a professor of pharmacology: . Asking one of said editors to tag team: . More canvassing issues:

Hgilbert is a case of long term (very long term), and slow dedicated POV pushing across all Steiner topics. It's not something that can be easily shown with diffs. It's an accumulation of incidents like the above, and small things like making a point that being listed in an encyclopedia of pseudoscience isn't the same as being listed as pseudoscience in an encyclopedia Talk:Biodynamic_agriculture#Pseudoscience. Arguing via original research to not have biodynamic agriculture be described as being characterized as pseudoscience : Talk:Biodynamic_agriculture#Agricultural_technique_vs._science, arguing that there is a lack of sources Talk:Biodynamic_agriculture#Lead while having been present in a discussion where multiple sources were presented: Talk:List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience/Archive_14#Biodynamics. These small niggly things all add up over the years though, leading to white washed articles. IRWolfie- (talk) 01:31, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• On point 4 raised by Binksternet. used here by Hgilbert, is a copy and paste of History of Waldorf schools. That Hgilbert didn't spot that the source he was citing, which was probably his very own words since he wrote the initial Waldort history article, was copied off wikipedia should speak volumes about Hgilbert's use of sourcing, IRWolfie- (talk) 01:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Alexbrn

More diffs showing long-term POV pushing. Hgilbert's edits are a constant lapping tide, continually eroding the article's neutrality:

• diff removing text that bears on the crucial question of whether Waldorf education is religious (crucial, from a COI perspective, because American state funding relies on it not being). When challenged Hgilbert stated this had been an error and reinstated this text.
• diff inserting into the lead a claim of universal fact, that research has found Waldorf education to "to foster a high degree of social competency", ignoring the express caveats and limitations of the sources (discussion here).
• diff making another claim of fact about the "conclusion" of a research report, ignoring the tentative and caveated nature of the original's (inconclusive) text (discussion here).
• diff removing a {{rs}} tag from a data analysis claim sourced to the Waldorf Today web site on the grounds that it is a "well-established news outlet".
• diff inserting (in 2006!) a claim that UNESCO had praised a Waldorf organization as being "of tremendous consequence in the conquest of apartheid", and sourcing it to a UNESCO document and to a polemical piece in a non-RS publication. The problem: the quotation appears to have been completely fabricated by the non-RS source - it's not in the UNESCO document.
• diff inserting (in 2007!) a claim of fact that Australian Waldorf students have been found to outperform all others at University (Hgilbert also recently re-inserted this content). On investigation it turns out this brave claim is sourced to an interview with a Masters student on an Australian local radio station who "sounded as if was about to publish his thesis".

Alexbrn 05:51, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Nil Einne

This is mostly an aside to the case and I pointed it out at WP:ANI but it seems it's not getting across so I'll mention it again. Our COI policy does not forbid people with a COI from making controversial edits. Rather it strongly discourages people with a COI from making edits (for a number of reasons), particularly those who can be regarded as paid avocates, but says making uncontroversial edits may be okay. This was basically what the arbcom case said as well. When we say 'strongly discourage' we mean it, we strongly discourage it but we don't forbid it. This isn't like a political case where someone says 'strongly discourage/encourage' but what they actual mean is 'do or don't do this or else'. This is an important distinction because as I also remarked in the ANI, the thing to concentrate on why the edits were bad or controversial, not whether or not the editor has a COI. Concentrating on the COI misses the point because someone is not going to be blocked simply because they were editing when they had a COI, even if the edits were controversial and many question whether the COI should even come in to the block (perhaps the length of the block only). As Hgilbert mentioned, this has been reaffirmed in other cases. Nil Einne (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Jellypear

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that in the approximately two months that I have been following the Waldorf education page, Binksternet has been involved in trying to apply sanctions to hgilbert twice already. I view this as harrassing behavior of an individual when what is really needed is productive discussion and consensus building using wikipedia guidelines and policies as our foundation for conversation. I am not going to go through the long list of diffs Binksternet provided other than to concur with Gatoclass (below) that the edits were generally reasonable because of WP:SYNTHESIS or WP:NPOV issues. It appears to me that the preferred tactic for dealing with User:Hgilbert on the part of some editors is to not discuss his edits in a timely manner and instead collect a list of complaints and see what sticks. There was ample opportunity for other editors to chime in and discuss why the COI tag should not be removed. In fact, I personally solicited it. There were also ample opportunities to discuss various edits and a few of them (ie., the heart image) had been discussed at length previously. You, Binksternet, reverted many attempts to remove the Lemuria and Heart images that Alexbrn inserted which is one of the reasons why the heart image still remained after having been discussed to the point of WP:ICANTHEARYOU.

Discussion is the appropriate means through which one ought to deal with an editor who doesn't share your viewpoint. The image of the heart did violate image pertinence guidelines. And, it is unclear if anyone other than Eugenie Scott (as cited in the Chicago Tribune), PLANS and the BHA hold the opinion that "Waldorf education itself is pseudoscientific." These views alone do not indicate sufficient consensus such that a possibly inflammatory category should be applied to this topic. However, all of these issues can - and should be - discussed without making it about the editors themselves. That is what we have wiki policies for. If editors don't like what they see on this page the answer is to consult the applicable wiki policies, make an edit that applies the policy and then discuss it if there is a conflict. If you are solid in your sourcing and policies, the page will start to read as you want it to. Trying to get other editors sanctioned or banned is the lazy way to make this page reflect your viewpoint (not that this should be your goal anyway). Jellypear (talk) 14:57, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Statement by a13ean

Hgilbert seems like a pretty nice guy, and over the past eight years and (at the time of writing) exactly 10k edits, has made many positive contributions to wikipedia. However, he has also continually and consistently pushed a POV at pages related to the works of Rudolph Steiner, which he almost exclusively edits.

Not all the complaints brought here have merit; the heart and Lemuria images in particular shouldn't have been in the article (although there's other images in the article with even less context). Similarly not everyone here has clean hands with regard to editing in this area, and anyone is of course welcome to investigate my conduct in this area. However, Hgilbert in particular has continued to inappropriately push a POV despite repeated warnings. I previously laid out my concerns here and include my selection of diffs below for reference. HGilbert's response at that time can be seen here.

Of particular concern to me is misrepresentation and cherry-picking of positive material from sources, especially foreign-language and difficult to access academic sources; compare for example the article in Die Welt linked above to what it was used to source. Removing tags, misleading edit summaries, and canvassing ( ) are also a continued concern as noted above and by others. I am sure he could contribute positively to wikipedia in other areas, but I feel that his edits to these controversial areas have not, in net, helped build a better encyclopedia.

Statement by other editor

Result concerning Hgilbert

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

I haven't yet made my way through all the evidence, but I might make a couple of initial observations. Firstly, topics concerning pseudoscience are problematic IMO not only because there are advocates on one side of the fence who try to promote their favoured theories, but also because there are sceptics on the other side who actively try to use Misplaced Pages as a vehicle for discrediting the same. Both approaches violate core policy and are potentially sanctionable, and a preliminary look at the evidence suggests a degree of problematic editing on both sides in this particular article, though I am yet to form an opinion as to whether any of it is sufficiently serious to warrant sanctions.

Secondly, while Hgilbert was found to have a COI at the original case, there is a difference between COI and paid advocacy, and no-one has accused Hgilbert of the latter. AFAIK there is no compunction on editors with a mere COI to discuss changes to articles prior to making them, so Binksternet's calls for sanctions based on that criterion alone don't appear to be actionable.

I expect to have more to say about the particular diffs a little later. Gatoclass (talk) 06:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I have finished a preliminary review of the evidence. Some of the diffs are very old and not actionable. A lot of others involve discussions about reliability of sources which would be difficult to resolve here in a timely manner, if at all, and with regard to most of these diffs no evidence of edit warring has been presented. That leaves a relatively small number of diffs to take a closer look at.

Firstly, this diff where Hgilbert removes a COI tag from the Waldorf education article. I can't think of any good reason why a user found by ARBCOM to have a COI in a given topic area should be taking it upon himself to remove such tags from an article in that topic area on which the user in question is or has been active. That alone I would consider to be a sanctionable offence. Secondly, this diff where Hgilbert adds content from a source which labels that very content with a "citation needed" tag. Hgilbert was cited for use of questionable sources in the original case, though that occurred a long time ago, and he needs to ensure that content is properly cited per WP:RS. Since Hgilbert has not previously been blocked or banned for inappropriate editing in the six years since the original case, I think a warning would probably suffice here. For removing the COI tag, I would suggest a one month topic ban for a first offence, with a warning that escalating sanctions may apply for future offences.

One further comment: while some of Hgilbert's edits may indeed be problematic, so too IMO is some of the content he has been removing, for example, an image of a human heart and an image of the "mythical continent of Lemuria". Misuse of images, quoteboxes etc. to highlight prejudicial content as a method of circumventing WP:UNDUE is a typical tactic of POV-pushers, and these images also strike me as violations of WP:SYNTH as their immediate relevance to the article topic is questionable. Some of the other diffs also indicate similar problems. I don't know who added these images or when they were added, but warnings might also be appropriate here. Anyway that pretty much summarizes my initial response to this request; I invite further commentary from my colleagues. Gatoclass (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

@Hgilbert: You would have to point me to the case in which "an arbitration" found your COI was not relevant before I could reconsider the above recommendation. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 11:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

After checking only whether the formal requirements for arbitration enforcement are met, it appears that all edits submitted as evidence were made prior to the warning of 11 March 2013 by Binksternet that is cited in the request. In my view, this rules out imposing sanctions based on these edits. Additionally, the diff of that warning does not meet the requirements of WP:AC/DS#Warnings, because it does not contain a link to the decision authorizing sanctions. (Yes, Hgilbert was a party to the original case, but the wording of WP:AC/DS does not make an exception to the requirement for a warning for such editors.) Accordingly, it seems that, based on the situation as described in the request, the most that we are authorized to do is issue correct warnings to all who may need them. (I also note that the request is 739 words long and needs to be shortened.)  Sandstein  18:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• Regarding the date of any proper warning of the DS to Hgilbert: I would nominate this post by an Arbcom clerk to Hgilbert, notifying him of the motion just passed. This edit happened on 30 January 2013. EdJohnston (talk) 19:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)